Redding's Hidden Gems: Uncover Local Secrets with Leah Roadrunner

Transcription*

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Joey: 

Thank you so much for coming. I'm here with Leah:  Roadrunner. I wanna start off by being a little bit silly. Do you know anybody with a last name Coyote?

Leah: : 

No, but I knew of Wiley.

Joey: 

Okay.

Leah: 

And we got married at the same time. I'm like, okay, that's pretty close, Wiley and Roadrunner.

Joey: 

That's a really, I remember the first time I was like, Roadrunner? So can you tell me about that name?

Leah: 

Oh yeah, oh my gosh. My husband is Tarahumara Indian, so it's a tribe out of the middle of Mexico. They're known as the running people, also known as the Rarumari.

So they're running people. They've got these hugely wide feet. We had to order very big shoes for my husband.

And they're known for being able to out of nowhere show up at a marathon in these strapped-on sandals and beat ultra-marathoners and stuff. And so Roadrunner, though, was his dad would run in front of the shaman, build the sweat lodge, take it back down, run in front to the next area, build it. And so translated, the last name was the Roadrunner.

So that's our last name. So my husband's first name is Teporaca, and it means little hatchet.

Joey: 

Wow, but he doesn't go by?

Leah: 

No, so Teporaca, most people just say pork.

Joey: 

I haven't met him, but I've heard wonderful things about him, and you told me the name, and I was like, so when I see him, hey, pork, I'm like, okay.

Leah: 

Yeah, let's call him Teporaca. But yeah, so Roadrunner's fun. I always tease that I married him, so I had a good marketing last name, and it works out.

Joey: 

It's memorable. I'm wondering, the part of Mexico they're from, is it really high elevation?

Leah: 

Really high elevation, yeah. Yeah, and they're still very, I think they were just in National Geographic within the last 10 years. They're still very primitive tribe.

Joey: 

Oh, really?

Leah: 

Yeah.

Joey: 

Well, Mexico City's incredibly high up, and so these really good runners, like when people say the good runners from Africa, they're talking about Nairobi, and Nairobi's at like 6,000 feet, 6,500 feet elevation. Somebody's gonna correct me and say you're wrong.

Leah: 

Interesting. Probably because of their lungs, right?

Joey: 

Yeah, that whole oxygen thing, the high, the fighters will go to Denver to train or go to these high altitude places to train just for that.

Leah: 

No, that makes sense, so I've done two marathons, a few half marathons, like 15 triathlons, and what I've realized is you train in Redding or you do them in Mount Shasta, and you're fine. I didn't know that I was training in higher altitudes, and then we've had people show up for the marathon or different things up here, and they're like, oh, breathing's a little bit of a struggle. Well, this is where I trained.

I trained in my backyard, so yeah.

Joey: 

My sons and I love the UFC MMA, and they're like Salt Lake City, Denver, Mexico City. If people don't get there a month or more before, oh, they're gassed. These guys come in, and they're in phenomenal shape, but they're done because of the oxygen, so that's when you said the middle of Mexico.

Something I've been doing completely going off on various tangents is I watched this guy on Lex Friedman. I can't remember his name, but he's a historian, and I think his expertise is Native Americans throughout the Americas, because that's what he talked about. I've always heard Aztec, Incan, Mayan, but I really didn't know anything about it, and so him talking about it was pretty cool and made me start looking into it and what parts, and then, I'm gonna mess this up, the Mississippians.

So that was like the real big Native American culture in America that we really don't talk about, that they were a pretty advanced culture. They built pyramids in Louisiana and Mississippi. There's pyramids there, yes.

There's pyramids there, and they're completely overgrown, so if you and I are walking around, we don't see their pyramids, and then they zoom out to the sky, and it's like a mountain that's perfectly formed.

Leah: 

That's a whole tangent we'll go on someday, because it's like, how did they do that?

Joey: 

Yeah, we'd go a lot of ways. If you didn't want to be a conspiracy theorist, you could just say it's a really good architectural structure for people with primitive building, you know what I mean? This does not work.

Leah: 

No.

Joey: 

If you're not putting steel girders into the earth, you're not doing that. But this is stable. Right.

It's just a stable shape.

Leah: 

Well, anyways, yeah, my husband's got an interesting story past it, and if you ever want to read about the Tarahumara, there's a book called Born to Run. So this marathoner saw one of these gentlemen come and beat them in a race, and was like, what do they do different? What's their diet?

What's their, and went and lived with them. Anyway, so there is that, but my husband's dad came over, and my husband lived basically in a yurt, and his dad built everything that they lived in, and was very ingenious in the way he did things, and yeah, so he's got a whole story. He's someone you should interview.

His other side is the Abercrombie's. His grandpa started Abercrombie and Fitch, so he's got a very diverse background.

Joey: 

Yeah. But he grew up locally?

Leah: 

Yeah, he grew up here. His mom was born back in, I'm gonna get it, I think Maryland, where the Abercrombie family is from. She grew up in finishing schools, and very wealthy and all of that, going to the Abercrombie mansion for vacations, and you can look it up.

There's a castle. So then she was like, nope, this isn't my lifestyle, through a series of events with an abusive husband, and was like, nope, and totally left that, moved here, became a hippie, met his dad. They lived off the land.

It's like night and day. Crazy story. There's a lot more to it, but yeah.

I'm always getting new stories, and I'm like, what? All the time.

Joey: 

And when you say local, is it local Bernie? Was he from Bernie? Uh-huh, yeah.

Because you used to have a place in Bernie. It's close to the falls.

Leah: 

We did, until just a couple months ago. And how?

Joey: 

Well, unfortunately, you sold it?

Leah: 

Unfortunately.

Joey: 

Yeah. Both.

Leah: 

We had it for like three years, during the height of the mortgage industry. Like, getting away and not having any access to anything, was, you know, was great. And so we ran across this little house, and picked it up, and spent three years renovating it, and loving on the land, and making it more beautiful.

And then one day, we were reading The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry. We were doing 75 Heart together, and reading The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, which doesn't go with 75 Heart, but it did. Somehow.

Joey: 

Hurry up and relax. Yeah, hurry up and relax. Hurry up and relax.

Leah: 

Well, it's really more, to me, at the end, it's really more about the actual discipline of Sabbath. Like the discipline of it, and holding it true. So even if you're hurrying through everything else, you can still have the discipline to have a Sabbath time set aside.

It's the only spiritual discipline there actually is, which is interesting. We're both reading it, and we're talking one day on our walk, and we're like, is this cabin, this getaway, still, three years later, providing us with the rest that we thought it would? Providing us with community the way we thought it would?

And we had two acres up there, and one acre down in town, and we're stretching ourself back and forth, and we're like, I don't think it's doing what we wanted it to do anymore. And so it ended up, it literally, Joey: , it was like, well, if we got this kind of offer, with this kind of credit, and like three days later, literally every single thing was like, oh, this person would like to offer you this, and this, and this, and this. What do you do then?

Okay. It works out. I will say, I miss my quiet, happy place in the woods.

I also have had the opportunity to go on different vacations, go to different places, because you don't feel like, oh, I should go there, right? We have a lot less work we have to do.

Joey: 

What was the book again? The Relentless?

Leah: 

The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry.

Joey: 

And it is about honoring the Sabbath. Go into like, what does that mean to you?

Leah: 

Man, and I think I've listened to it almost three times now.

Joey: 

Your interpretation. You don't have to quote the book.

Leah: 

Yeah, my interpretation, what does that mean? I think our culture, and I was even thinking about like the art of even us having a long conversation right now, right? We've gotten really bad at this.

You know, for me, I was like breathing on the way here, like turn off your phone, and don't think about what's going on in the next two hours so you can actually have a pointed conversation. We've gotten really bad at that. Maybe some of us are better at it than others.

I've gotten bad at it. I think we're in a hurry. We're too accessible.

We're too in a hurry. And so that Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, for me, I think the reason it became so important in the last couple of years is probably in the last six, seven years is when I literally, I can point to like a six month period where I started doing all the different things I do, and there's a list. And in that was my family getting the best of me is what I kept realizing was bothering me was the family getting me first before all these other things that are important and crucial and great.

But that book for me was just the wisdom of slowing down, spending that time and reminding yourself of that and seeing how unhealthy being so accessible all the time is. So my voicemail now says, hey, if it's after six, I'm with my family. I'll talk to you in the morning.

Hey, if it's Sunday, that is completely my family's time. I'll talk to you tomorrow. What's been tremendously interesting about that is the absolutely overwhelming, wonderful response I've gotten about that from many people.

Joey: 

Including like people that your clients, your customers, right?

Leah: 

Including clients, yeah.

Joey: 

Because you're in an industry that's notorious for the opposite of that.

Leah: 

Yes. I mean, lending- 24-7, right now, instant gratification. And if you don't answer, someone else will.

And I think actually in the end of it, what Sabbath comes down to is trusting God, right? He even talks about Chick-fil-A, how it's like Chick-fil-A is gonna close one day of the week and most industries would tell you that's nuts. You're losing out on a day of pay.

But I think trusting God for the fact that you're not losing, that the rest is actually gonna let you gain even more. And the culture that that's probably built and the more positive that's actually come from that is way more beneficial than just being open that one day.

Joey: 

So you took like definite action items from it. You said like, hey, look, I'm gonna have this voicemail that says this. And then do you stick to it?

Leah: 

I'm not perfect at it. So one thing that I realized, the first like few weeks that I was implementing, like turning my phone off on Sunday, is like say you get like halfway through the day, I was like building anxiety. Because Sunday is a big day to go look at houses and people wanna write offers, right?

And so my husband and I sat down and I'm like, okay, the whole theory behind this is to release a little stress, right? And bring more rest. And if I'm getting more anxious as the hours go on, it's not producing fruit.

So we sat down and we go, what if you turn on your phone at noon and go, has anyone looked at anything? Do they need anything from me? If it's a 10 minute or less answer, respond.

And then again at four. And then other than that, leave it off. And so yeah, I've for the most part really been sticking to that.

And it's better. And I think one of the things I learned is like we as a culture, like go, go, go, go, go. And we think of rest as something you like fall into, right?

But the Jewish culture actually teach that Sabbath is supposed to come first. And like, it's supposed to be what you do everything else out of. So you're supposed to rest in order to go into your work.

And I think we have that so backwards. And that's one of the things I wanna get down. Because as we go, go, go, go, go, then I bring it to the next thing I do.

Then I bring it to the next thing I do. When am I actually being with the person I'm in front of if I don't learn how to bring rest with me? So I think the other thing is trying to pause throughout the day and just take five minutes to what am I grateful for?

How am I really feeling? You know, we were talking about having like unhealthy reactions to things. Do you ever notice throughout the day, you'll get a text from your spouse.

You get a text from your kid. They need this, they need that. You're trying to work on a file for a client.

And all of a sudden you're like, why am I so anxious? And so really learning that art of like, how am I feeling right now? Is there anything I can do about anything that's making me feel anxious?

No, I can't control that. I can't control that. I can deal with that later tonight.

Okay, and then moving on. Because if you don't do that, you're bringing that anxiety of that text and that call and this, that into every little thing you do. And then you're reacting out of that.

Joey: 

As you were sitting here saying this, I was visualizing my desktop and I have like 37 tabs open. I like, I don't know if you ever use like Kanban boards or Kanban board software. It's this, I think Toyota developed it.

It's part of this whole Kaizen continuous improvement, but it's this idea of that. I think Toyota would use back in their plants, they would have a wall. And each person that was working, there would be a board for them to go do one thing.

So they would come up and there wouldn't be, yeah, they had a hundred things to do, but there would be one thing for them to do. And they'd take the board and they'd go back to work. And there was a manager up there and they'd put another board and they'd come in and when they were done, they'd place it on the done and there'd be a fresh one for them and they'd go.

And then the manager would look at it and they would either make corrections, put it back.

Leah: 

Saying what you're saying, like that gives me peace, right? So I'd have this one thing to do. Sometimes I put in my earphones and play classical music.

It's like proven to make you smarter when you take math tests, right? So I'll just play classical music and be like, I have to work on this one thing right now. And I need to like, I'll turn off the email, turn off, okay, I need to look at this.

Because in mortgage, it can be pretty complicated. And unfortunately, that skill came from, as I'm thinking about it, a really rough place in time. My husband and I, when we were first married, had a stillborn child in our first year of marriage.

And it put me into panic attacks in arenas that didn't even make sense. It didn't even add up. Why am I having fear?

I think because I felt out of control of things. And so, one of the things I had a panic attack doing was actually just swimming in the lake with my kids. And I'm like, this doesn't even add up.

This has nothing to do with the losing a baby. I don't know what's going on. So that's the first triathlon I ever did.

Because I said, no, I'm not gonna let fear take over my life. I'm going to swim in a lake, and I'm gonna swim as far as I can in a lake, and I'm gonna do a triathlon. So that's what made me start.

I started doing those every year in my son's honor. But that being said, I remember I worked at a really, really busy body shop at that time. I worked at Health Collision Center, largest in northern California.

And I would start to get a panic attack, and I would literally have to go in the back and just breathe through it and go, what's real? What's true? Can I do anything about what's bothering me?

No, I can't. Okay, I'm okay. And go back up to the front desk.

So sometimes, you just have to make things more singular. I'm gonna deal with what I can control right now, right? Which isn't much.

Joey: 

You just said a lot in just a sentence. I mean, there's so many components to that. Things you can control, things you can't control.

But also, just dealing with one thing at a time. It's gonna be so easy for me to make the next couple of statements. But I want you to know that I am almost completely incapable of practicing it.

But this idea, like, look, the list is never, you're never gonna make a dent in the list. The closest thing you can have to some form of success is focusing on one thing. Because the idea of multitasking is a fallacy.

It's just not, your brains don't work that way. I don't wanna get geek out on how computers work and multiprocessors, but this idea of what really happens is everything gets a little piece of you. You know, every process gets a little bit, and a little bit, and a little bit.

Versus if you can focus on one thing and truly give it, I'm not gonna say all of your attention, but like the vast majority, right?

Leah: 

Yeah, did you ever notice though that some people, the first thing you said about the list is never gonna be done? I don't know if that's true for everybody. Do you ever, like?

Joey: 

Some people are like, list?

Leah: 

Yeah, like I often wish, I think it's a personality type thing. And I'm really glad God paired me with someone who isn't the same way, but I have never-ending lists going in my head. Everything, because I want everything done.

I want everything perfect. I want everything, you know, all the time. And oh, and we could do this, we could do that.

One time I remember driving home from the cabin with my husband, and like as we're driving home to Redding, I'm like, okay, I gotta do the grocery shopping and I gotta get ready for tomorrow. I need to see if there's any clients I can, you know, I'm already doing this. And I look at him and I go, what are you thinking about right now?

And he goes, eh, if I hit the trailer on good enough or how it's doing back there. And my husband's an amazing man. I'm not saying anything different.

I'm just saying we're all built different. And I'm like, I would really love to be thinking about one thing right now. I don't know if all of us have a list like that all the time.

Joey: 

Well, he probably has a list, but he's probably really good at, he was focused on one thing right then. He's driving a vehicle, pulling a trailer.

Leah: 

And not me.

Joey: 

And that's, he needs to focus on that.

Leah: 

And he probably ends up getting more done sometimes because he will focus and get that one thing. Like, you can't put that on the air, just kidding. But so he'll focus on the one thing and get it done, right?

And me, I'm like, here's 25 projects we could do.

Joey: 

I'm like you, but I'm trying. I'm, you know, growing. But definitely I get caught up and I think like what you said about anxiety.

And then I also think, you know, you couple it with, we just live in a world that there's just a lot going on. I mean, if we go back 50 years or a hundred years or whatever we wanna do, we go back to when, you know, there was only three, as a kid, there were three, four TV stations. ABC, CBS, NBC, and then PBS, which was always this odd man out.

I mean, now, I mean, you don't even know how many, plus how many YouTube channels, plus how many streams. It's, there's a lot going on.

Leah: 

There's a lot going on. I often look at it as like, there was always a lot going on. We just didn't have to take it in all the time.

Joey: 

Okay, that's okay. Fair enough. That's what I meant.

Leah: 

You didn't have access to it. We didn't have access to it. We didn't need, and we actually don't need to know all the things we think, you know, the bite out of the apple on the back of our phone, so much being like the knowledge of wisdom and evil and taking a bite out of that.

Sometimes I'm like, I don't think we need to take a bite out of all the things we do.

Joey: 

Wow, I didn't even realize that's what that was. Man, yikes.

Leah: 

Like we are putting a lot more in our brains than I think we can handle.

Joey: 

Well, also I think, you know, I've told my kids, there's a couple of superpowers. And I said, one of them is the ability to quickly and accurately assess things you can control from things you cannot control. That's tough.

That's step one. Step two is then fixating on the things you can control and letting go of the things you can't control, giving it to God, right? Okay, so when you think about how much stuff, and that's a technical term, is coming at us in channels and noise and what have you, the vast majority of it's things you can't control.

I mean, overwhelming like things you can't, you can't control what politicians or what's going on on the other side of the planet.

Leah: 

You can't. And I think that's what immobilizes so many people.

Joey: 

Yeah.

Leah: 

So this year I became the vice chair for a leadership writing. And I had a young lady call me who, we had more applicants than we ever have, which I think is great. I think the fact that people are learning what we do and we're 40th year this year.

So been around for a while, but one young lady called me and she's like, I wanna apply and what's your advice? And I'm just full of like spark and energy. And I said, you know, honestly, like I hear all your passion.

I hear that you love where we live. I would just ask you to go through the whole thing and then decide what one thing you wanna start with. Because overwhelmed is so easy to get to and then just you do nothing.

And I think so many people do that. And I think in the last couple of years, because I chose a lot of things. You know, I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna do this and this and this and this.

I've started to slow down and be more singular in deciding what it is I wanna do. But I think there's moments where I get disappointed in people. I get disappointed in myself too.

So, but I get disappointed in people and I have, you know, a seat in the political arena a little. I have a seat in the nonprofit arena. I work in mortgage.

These are all arenas where sometimes I'm really disappointed in people. And you can let it stop you and you can get overwhelmed. But both are true.

Sometimes people are disappointing. Sometimes they're amazing and can be the same person. You know, same with me.

You can't let that overwhelm and all that information stop you because it's all- But it's real easy to. It's real easy to. But if each person did one thing, can you imagine?

And I go back to saying, I didn't for years, but why? Because I was trying to raise amazing people. And that's our number one thing.

And I think people have really lost sight of that. That's your first commitment when you have a child is to raise an amazing person and raise a responsible being that's gonna go into the city and make it better. Yeah, I say choose do something, but like that's first.

If you've become a parent, I think all bets are off. Like create amazing people. And I'm really blessed.

I think my kids are amazing in spite of me.

Joey: 

In spite of you, please.

Leah: 

In spite of me.

Joey: 

Come on, no false humility. Don't do it.

Leah: 

They're just amazing.

Joey: 

Yeah, I know one. I know she's amazing. I get to work with your daughter, Angela.

I'll assume the other four.

Leah: 

One fifth credit.

Joey: 

Yeah, well, I'll assume the pattern I'm seeing so far. I wanna go back because you said a few things in there. Can you tell us a little bit about leadership of writing?

Because I've heard about it a lot. I think I know what it is, but I don't know. Can you tell me a little bit about it?

Leah: 

I don't think they're super personally. I think we haven't been super great at saying what we are. Basically, our mission is to educate people on, to me, what makes up a city.

And so, we're, I think, one of the most robust programs. They're all over the country, but I think we've been told many times we're one of the most robust programs. So, I mean, the basics, nuts and bolts, right?

You apply, you wanna get in, what is this program? First things first, we pick 30 people who we try to make sure they're very diverse. We have police officers, people from fire, from mortgage, from real estate, from the business arenas, from the nonprofit arenas, like, you name it, all different.

And different ways they see how the city should run. Which I think is beautiful. And so, we pick a class of 30, and then they go to camp together.

The camp, I think, is the most leadership portion. So, we have a team project discovery that comes in, and really, their job is to create a table for discussion with 30 people, without giving too much away, because it kinda is, it's activities all weekend for you guys to see each other's differences, but also see each other's similarities. You know what it's kinda like, Joey: ?

I always think of, like, in kindergarten, you just wanted everybody to be your friend. We didn't have these adult things on, well, but are you gonna think things the way I do? It was just like, hey, CZQ, let's be best friends, right?

Everybody in class. The great part about leadership writing is it is. Let's put aside all these thought processes and go, we're all very interested in seeing a great city, a thriving city, and that's why we're here.

Can we put the rest aside? So, the first couple of days is everybody getting to know each other, and then it's nine months of field trips. So, the first one is Heritage Day, so we visit the different tribes.

We look into the history of Redding. It's actually pretty eye-opening for people, even if you've lived here forever. And then the next one is, oh, I've ran it for a couple years, Social Services Day.

So, you're gonna go take tours of lots of different non-profits in town. You're gonna meet people who lead them, and what are their challenges? Where are they gaining traction?

What's going on? Then there's things like Health and Wellness Days. You're gonna meet the heads of our hospitals.

You're gonna have Law Enforcement Day. You're gonna meet all the Chief of Police around here. So, just different days, and what's really cool is because we're still small and accessible, the actual people that hold the seats, Senator Dalley has been there for 12 years.

He comes and he shares with the class. So, the people who actually run the different things in our area show up and they're part of it. And honestly, I was in the class of 2019, and that year changed my life.

That's when I met Mr. and Mrs. Dalley and became close with them and started helping them with their campaigns and different things. That's the year I actually had just started helping create Catalyst Mentoring. It's the year I went into lending.

It's like literally the year where it was just like, okay. But I think the thing about leadership writing that was empowering to me is realizing all these people are just people. They're accessible, and I can help run this city.

I can be a part of that in a lot of different ways.

Joey: 

So, the 30 people go through this, you said it's a year long?

Leah: 

It's a year long.

Joey: 

And then I imagine the alumni are supposed to, the idea is that every year 30 more people are added to, and then, yeah, it's just.

Leah: 

Yeah, we go back. And so now, two years ago, I wanna say, we became our own non-profit. Oh, I'm gonna get it wrong.

We ran under another non-profit for years. So, we just became our own. And so now we're doing our golf tournaments, doing our things, doing our own fundraising.

We've become self-sufficient. But yes, it's all, you can become a steering committee member. It's all alumni ran.

It's all volunteer ran. We have one employee, that's it.

Joey: 

Is there like a stated objective? You know, like a mission statement or something like that?

Leah: 

I'm like, I'm not quoting it right in your head. But it's like to create an informed citizenry. My objective when I tell people, I don't know if I'm supposed to have an objective, but it's to tell people like, now take that and pick one thing.

Don't, you don't have to pick five, you don't have to pick 10, you don't have to pick two, pick one. Do something. What struck a passion through this whole year?

Was it the non-profit side? Was it helping in the schools? We have a lot of issues there, right?

What one thing do you think would make Redding better because you're here and you got involved?

Joey: 

Can you give us like some project or something, like some impact that they've done? So we've got the people, we're, you're connecting all the people and you're kind of showing how the city's really run.

Leah: 

I think, so they're supposed to have a project by the end of the year, but I don't know that those would be as impactful to share. I think what I'll share with you is like the people that were in my class, Kim Johnson, she's started the Children's Legacy Center now. Well, they just rebranded, but like if I sat here and named Brian Berg, you met Brian, he was in my class too.

Joey: 

Great guy.

Leah: 

Great guy and he's gone on to do amazing things in our city. So I think it's more, and not every single person's gonna do it, but it's more if you looked at the list, you'd be amazed at what they're doing in the city, right? I think it just encourages them to go out and do it.

And actually, I will say last year's class is taking on a really robust, really healthy project. They're gonna help do a bunch of fundraisers to get West Camp rebuilt. Oh yeah.

They're taking on a big project.

Joey: 

Because that got shut down.

Leah: 

And actually I'm proud of that because West Camp is the first time ever, West Camp actually came and asked us, could this be your project? I love that. I wish the community to do more of that.

We just actually helped fundraise a nonprofit, had something happen at their nonprofit. And so a bunch of people got together and raised a couple of thousand dollars to help take care of what they were dealing with. So like, I think it's more the community that it creates and these little quiet things they're doing to impact, but just realizing that they can impact.

Joey: 

Yeah, it sounds like, I mean, the people that would be attracted to this, just the thought that goes through my mind is that they're called to do something. They feel like, hey, look, I need to get involved. I need to do something.

Leah: 

Now it's like- I don't know what, maybe.

Joey: 

Yeah, let's connect you with a bunch of people and focus.

Leah: 

Maybe I do. Some of them are already doing amazing things and they're like, how do I get more plugged in? How do I meet people, right?

But a lot of people are kind of paralyzed with where do I start?

Joey: 

You said 30 each year, like how many applicants do you guys usually get? Did you say this was the biggest year you've ever had? How many applied?

Leah: 

It was close to 90.

Joey: 

Oh, okay.

Leah: 

Yeah, so it was one of the biggest years ever. I think usually we get like 40 or 50. So in that, I'm like, hey, keep applying people.

Like, just because you got a no doesn't mean, you know, keep applying. And we really work hard. The application process is something else.

And it's like, we really work hard to, you know, men and women and different idea sets and just different, you know, different people in the class, not all the same people in the class.

Joey: 

So you did this after you helped start Catalyst Mentoring, right?

Leah: 

Yes, I had started to help with that project and then I got into the class. So I was already kind of doing that in the community, which the cool thing about Catalyst is when we originally started, there was a few versions of Catalyst. So when we originally started, what we realized is, hey, if we create a mentoring organization, there's literally 30 to 40 organizations in Redding with mentors.

And so like, what if instead of that, we recruit and train people and then figure out which organization they fit in. Like, why don't we collaborate? Which is one of the things in leadership writing, I'm always telling people like, no, no, no, kind of to your point, don't go start something new.

So I can't say they start, like, don't go start something new because you probably don't need to.

Joey: 

Yeah, the infrastructure is already there. Somebody's doing it.

Leah: 

There's probably 10 people trying to do that right now. And if you guys got together, it'd be better. So that was our thought.

Unfortunately, a year or two in, as we were recruiting and training mentors, we'd try to plug them in and the organizations weren't getting them going, which was a little baffling, if I'm honest. So we were like, well, we just want to get everybody in front of the kids. So we just started getting onto school campuses, made the decision to pivot.

There was a lot of pivots because we went through car fire, we went through COVID, we went through a lot of different things. There was a lot of pivots. I want to say by the time we got ready to merge, though, I'm really proud of the fact that we were on, like, 28 school campuses and mentoring, like, 300 kids and we had in-house mentoring.

Joey: 

That's awesome.

Leah: 

You know, as a mom of five, you do your best to raise your kids. You don't always want to listen to mom and dad. So even in a pretty healthy environment, they're not always going to listen to you.

They need other people to come alongside. We need adults to parent each other's kids. I know you heard about the project they did, the Adventure Academy.

Joey: 

Yes.

Leah: 

That became a family. You know, I look back and, like, us moms were like, hey, after they go to school during the day, they're going to go to each other's house and, you know, do their schoolwork. And so, like, each mom would be there.

And, like, we became other mother hens to our kids. And so, you know, some of us with healthy environments, like, our kids are going to get other mentors and adults that look healthy in their life. But the more and more I'm involved in the things I am, there are so many kids in our city with not even one look at what a healthy adult looks like.

And so it doesn't even have to look monumental. It's just playing a game with them, hanging out, just showing them what a healthy adult looks like.

Joey: 

You know, I think the vast majority of people, when you were talking, it was kind of going through my head, I think the vast majority of people would probably agree on what they would like to see as far as outcomes for, like, I think the vast majority of people, vast majority would say, I'd like to see children be safe and secure. I'd like to see them be fed. I would like to see them get an education that, you know, helps them in life.

I could go through this list. I don't think the vast majority of people would say negative things. I think there are, unfortunately, people that would say negative things.

What's, I think, missing is the strategy behind it. So lots of times when I listen to people who I don't agree with, if we can get back to their original premise, their original desire, we're in total agreement on desire.

Leah: 

Yes.

Joey: 

It's the strategy of how to implement that. Like, how do you make sure children don't go to bed hungry? How do you make sure children receive an education that is of any value to them, right?

That's where all of a sudden it starts to splinter. First off, I mean, you could throw a lot of different things and you could throw in ideologies, but you can also just throw in, sometimes people just, you know, if you catch me on the wrong time, I'm going to be contrarian just to be contrarian. You know what I mean?

I'm going to disagree with you. That's everybody. There's something about size.

And I'm trying to remember, I was listening to somebody talk the other day. I like to listen to a few different podcasts. And one of them was talking about the ideal number of humans that can work together.

Cut to the chase. The number was 250. This person that was talking was somebody who had studied chimpanzees.

And the funny thing about that was, is it brought my memory back to about 30 years ago when I was in college and taking a class on human management. And they were talking about hierarchical structures, business structures. And they were talking, they were comparing some of the structures that were very, very, for lack of a better way, like pyramid based.

You know what I mean? You have the CEO and you have the C group and, you know, middle man, that standard structure that I think we think of of like Ford or Apple or some of these larger companies, right? And then they were comparing that to some of these smaller companies that were a little more flat, you know?

So there was kind of like, which I would say is very similar to a lot of the startups. So a company like Buffer, which is a software company, you know, that have been very vocal about how their infrastructure, a lot of these startups. So you have these two types.

And they were talking about when an entity can get so big that it can become very bureaucratic. Things don't move the way they should. Now, obviously the big dig would probably be governments because it just- That's where my brain went.

Leah: 

But even large corporations- I heard somebody would say once, yeah, there's a reason things don't move fast in government. It's because you need to check it out and make sure it works and this and that. And I'm like, that's really funny because most policies that get passed, I've noticed nobody down here at the ground level even knows how to apply.

Joey: 

Yeah.

Leah: 

Anyways, yeah. So that happens.

Joey: 

So something baked into something like I think a lot of times we want to criticize organizations or we definitely want to criticize individuals, but we want to criticize organizations and give it this like, well, they have the wrong mandate. They don't have a good idea. And I think lots of times what it really is, is the infrastructure is put together in such a way that they're guaranteed to lose.

They're guaranteed to lose their way.

Leah: 

Because we've lost sight of one of the things someone said to me one time about leadership writing, and this does circle back, was why is this called leadership writing? I feel like it should be called followership writing. And I remember like, let me process that.

And here's the way I process it. I think we've lost sight of the fact that servant leadership is more important than any other type of leadership. And how that circles back for me is this.

We get up to these levels of being CEO or this ladder we think we're supposed to climb. We lose touch with the person down here doing the job. And I see it in every single arena that I help in or serve in.

And so from, I mean, from the mortgage industry where they think, oh, this will be a great product for first time homebuyers. Oh, this will be great. And you're like, well, let me tell you what that actually does.

No, that's a whole nother tangent, right? Or even in the political realm, you see someone try to pass a law that they think will be good. And then you get down to the level down here at a citywide and you're like, well, actually that doesn't work for us.

We can't even apply that. And some of that is because urban and rural are so different. You can't apply the same rules, right?

But in our schools, to your point, maybe everybody comes to the plate with the same heart. I sure hope so. No matter what side, no matter whatever, that we would care for children.

But there's so many things that go into caring for children and we're not doing it well. And I think it's because we're not down here doing it. And I watch my daughter, I don't know if you know, one of my daughters is working at one of our highest ACES score school here in Redding.

And that's adverse childhood experience school. And the story she tells me about these kindergartners, it breaks my heart.

Joey: 

Oh yeah.

Leah: 

It breaks my heart.

Joey: 

I want you to know I'm a sympathetic crier. So if you start crying, I'm gonna start crying.

Leah: 

I won't do it. So I'm gonna have to look away. But it breaks my heart.

And it's like, these kids are like tough and rough kids at six. And it's not okay, right? But so there's so many things that go into that though.

And I think we point fingers at educators and it is unfair what we ask our educators to do. They're not educators anymore. They are so much more and it's so unfair.

And when we point fingers at them, it just makes me so sad. But I don't think we're teaching people how to be parents. And that's why I say pick one thing.

Because do I think the kids need mentors and they need to see one good, healthy adult? Absolutely. But do I also think that their parents are probably in a generational problem?

Or maybe not even that. Maybe their parents haven't been able to help them become good parents, right? And so it's like with our compassion, with our desire for kids to have what they need, there's so many angles we need to come at it.

Pointing the fingers doesn't work. Passing new rules doesn't work. For Bella, it was interesting because she worked at the academy where she had a lot of freedom with the kids because it was us parents hiring her to take our kids on adventures.

How much more fun was that? And she had free reign with these kids. Now she's in a more controlled environment and she's like, I don't know what I'm allowed and not allowed to do with these kids.

And we've kind of paralyzed our instructors, right? We've scared them. Because what do parents do?

They come in and point fingers at them. But guess what? They're not supposed to be parenting your child.

They're supposed to be able to take that child and you're supposed to have taught your child how to sit in a seat and be able to listen, right? And then they're supposed to teach them. But that's not what we expect anymore.

That's not what's happening in there anymore. And it's really sad because even hearing about these kindergartners, I'm like, oh, my third and fourth grade, that baby's not gonna be okay.

Joey: 

No.

Leah: 

That baby's not gonna be okay. And so what do we do, right? And you're right.

These are hard, long discussions. But the more rules we put into place, I think the more we tie the hand of the very person down at the bottom trying to do the job. And I see that in so many different arenas.

Joey: 

So believe it or not, I feel like this goes back to what I was saying in that when the infrastructure gets too big.

Leah: 

Yeah, exactly.

Joey: 

You can't, it's like the term of, yeah, it's hard to turn the Titanic. You can't. You know what I mean?

And there's just a size.

Leah: 

We're gonna try to turn the Titanic again with an election in a couple of weeks, right? So we take the United States and we think it's a Titanic and it's a wonder it's having problems.

Joey: 

Something that, to me, this is how my mind works, is that there's a couple of physicists that these guys are at the forefront of astrophysics. Just imagine that brain. And their day job is they are hedge fund managers.

And you would think like physics and mathematicians, if you ever listen to how they look at the stocks, they don't approach it the way you would think, like maybe the traditional Charlie Unger or Warren Buffett, right? Where they look at the P-E ratio and they look at the cash on hand and they decide. They talk about the stock market and they talk about the market the way that you would.

They talk about it at such a high abstract level. They're talking about patterns. So they're saying like, they're not really concerned with this stock or that stock.

They're looking more at it and saying, hey, I can see these giant patterns emerging. And so they're steering. And the reason why I connect the dots on that is when you look at things like our education system and our children, we're down there at the bottom looking at like the individual stock, the individual administrator, the teacher, this, that.

And I feel like the answer is zoom out and going, okay, we have to make changes at a much higher level.

Leah: 

I think the answer is that both. I literally just had this conversation on a different level with the owner of my company this morning. So I work for a smaller mortgage firm that's younger right now and they're growing.

And the owner of our company and I, Bryce is probably one of my favorite people in mortgage I've ever met. Man of his word, great guy. And so this morning we're talking and he's like, my personal projection's gone down a little because he's growing a business, you know?

And I'm like, hey, this is what I see that needs to go better as a loan officer, ways we can fix certain departments. And I love to chat with him and give him feedback. And I go, okay, but at what point are you gonna stop actually doing production and just go be the owner of the business?

But he's like, I like keeping a finger on the pulse. And so for example, he goes, for example, yesterday my docs weren't out on a loan, the realtor was upset. And so for him to keep living it makes him go, how can I fix it from up here?

Because I'm still trying to see it from down here. So I mean, I think the problem is when we get too many up here people at the table or too many people down here at the table, we're not going, how does that go from finish to end? Does that make sense?

So you gotta have both.

Joey: 

I'm of the mind of the people that say we should disband the Department of Education. Department of Education was founded in 1979, federal. And we at that point were almost number one in everything education wise.

And now we are in the thirties and forties on almost every level. And so I would say you need to bring it back down to the school districts, the school board, like you bring it down versus, hey, let's have Senator so-and-so in DC tell us what we should do here in Redding. And it should be exactly like somebody in Mobile, Alabama or Des Moines, Iowa, or Manhattan, New York.

Leah: 

And it will never work. It doesn't equate, it doesn't equate.

Joey: 

That's what I mean is the infrastructure's too big.

Leah: 

Right.

Joey: 

Right? Yeah. And so I would say that that is more of that taking a step back and saying, this system is so big that it doesn't matter with these teachers.

Like we have to fix this and get it back down. And then parents can have conversations with teachers, parents and school boards can have conversations with other parents.

Leah: 

That's why, I mean, that's why I, and I say fell in love. I fell in love with Brian and Megan Dally because that exact thing, right? Is I think, you know, a little bit of their story of like, hey, we're Republicans down here in Sacramento.

We want to get to know everybody. How do we do that? Well, you're from San Francisco, a big old city.

You want to pass this law. It doesn't work for me. Let me show you why.

Come stay up at my, come stay with me for a week. And then I'll come stay with you for a week. And they did that with hundreds of legislators, right?

Because that, you want to pass, you want to have electric buses down here in Sac, have that all day. But we're up there in 110 degree weathers where they won't operate. And we're like hundreds of miles away to go to a football game and they can't go that far.

Doesn't make sense. I mean, just little thing, that's a little thing. But yes.

Joey: 

It's one example.

Leah: 

It's one example, right? And that's, I mean, why can't we have more of that? Like just conversation across the table.

I can't wait for that. Did you watch the vice presidential debate?

Joey: 

No.

Leah: 

I loved it. It was so civil. It was like a civil discourse between two people.

Now, I think one person didn't answer a lot of questions. The other answered more, but they were kind to each other. And I'm like, when did we stop?

I have so many Democrat friends. I have so many Republican friends. When did we stop?

I mean, being civil to each other. Down here, we really maybe didn't.

Joey: 

I saw a little bit of it under Clinton. And it wasn't, I'm not blaming Clinton. I'm saying, I remember that's, maybe because that's when I become an adult.

You know, I'm my first- You start noticing things more. My first presidential election that I was old enough to vote in was Clinton, Bush, Perot. That ticket, which I voted for Perot.

Leah: 

Did I ever tell you that story? That's what got me interested in politics. I was like, I'm a little younger than you then.

Yeah, I wasn't able to vote yet. But I made my parents drive a city over. So I'd go listen to Perot.

Joey: 

Yeah. I'm not gonna do my Ross Perot impersonation. But I have a pretty good one.

It starts, I gotta do this first. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. But that's when I started noticing.

But you know, I've listened to some historians. And they'll read papers from the 1800s of one candidate talking about another candidate. And they were pretty brutal.

They did, they said some really horrific stuff.

Leah: 

I guess when you're running for office, it's what you do.

Joey: 

Yeah, so it's always been there.

Leah: 

Been watching it from the inside. And you know it's so funny, I always tell people in mortgage, I'm running for office all the time. And then I have to do the job.

And it's kind of true, because I gotta win out. And so I think there's a way to say what you're for and not say what you're against all the time. There probably is.

But it's probably hard. Once you're running a race, it probably just comes out. But I wish less and less.

Because the truth is, I mean, that's what I find the beauty of leadership writing, right? It's like 30 people that probably don't agree on a lot of things. But they can agree, let's agree on what we can.

And then move forward and make a beautiful city. Anyways, but I think that's what we need to come down to on a lot of things that we disagree on. It's like, okay, then where do we agree?

Like you said, with kids. What do we agree on?

Joey: 

Yeah, the vast majority. I mean, I would hope like 90 some odd percent would want good things for the kids. I'm not Pollyanna.

So I know that there is always gonna be a percentage that is just predatory in nature. It just is. Just like there's a percentage that is gonna score high on the psychopathy chart, right?

Leah: 

I think when any one party gets too in power for too long, that percentage gets to come in and say more. And that's the problems we see in the world.

Joey: 

Well, there's probably even a precursor to that in like, you know, Thomas Jefferson trying to tell us you don't want a two party system. And he wasn't the only one, but he gets a lot of credit for it. Of just saying like, anytime you have two parties, they're always gonna pit against each other.

Like you want a healthy group of parties. We have Ross Perot was the closest thing he tried to make. I mean, we've had some stuff, but we can't seem to get it.

I can tell you right now that a lot of the things that you and I are talking about, we're not, it's because of the proximity to the election. I mean, I have a client who, he produces a lot of videos. Nothing to do with politics.

And he mentioned the election only in saying like, oh, okay, so after the election, we'll probably see this, that, nothing to do with the election, just use the word election. So needless to say, all of his ads got denied. And then, you know, you go to- Yeah, even if you're just factual.

Leah: 

I went to a business meeting yesterday morning and it was like about tax codes, right? For businesses. And it was like, if this person wins, this is what they're proposing.

If this person wins, this is what they're proposing. Even that would probably not get put on.

Joey: 

So I just, you and I have mentioned it.

Leah: 

Although it was not cited. Maybe. I think politics has, maybe.

I do talk about it a lot. I think it's important. I think it's important too.

I think it's important that the body of Christ talks about it. I think it's important that anything that could divide us, we could disagree on, is touchy. We talk about, my church recently did a pride month Bible study during the month, you know, pride month.

And I was super proud of the conversations in that room. It was probably one of the best Bible studies I've been to in a while. Because if we're not gonna talk about the hard things, like then they're gonna get talked about somewhere else and not in an arena that might be healthy.

Joey: 

I'm trying to remember who, I've seen multiple people say this, but man, I think I need to take like some ginkgo biloba or ginseng or something. Get the brain working again. I remember all the quotes, I just can't remember who said them, but it was somebody very wealthy.

They were talking about, you absolutely talk about money. Telling people not to talk about money was the richest way of keeping the poor poor. And several years ago, I started talking about money with some other people.

And I noticed that all of our income went up. When we were very specific about, this is exactly how much I made. I'm in a, I am a witness to a mastermind group that meets.

I am not part of the mastermind group, but I am a witness to it. And I get to see it. And on that mastermind are some incredibly wealthy, driven, focused people.

And they share pennies and they share dollars. So they, and it is not a brag. It is all about them trying to figure out where the bar is, how to pivot their business.

But I grew up like, never talk about religion, politics, or money.

Leah: 

And I'm like- They never talk about things.

Joey: 

That's like the three of the most important things to talk about.

Leah: 

If I, I mean, you know, my Angela.

Joey: 

Yeah.

Leah: 

If we didn't ever talk about money, she wouldn't be where she is. She's in an incredible spot for a young lady her age.

Joey: 

She is.

Leah: 

Because she did the Dave Ramsey class. Not only because of that, I mean, because of her. But like, talk about money.

Absolutely. And then talk about, hey, do you agree with every single thing Dave Ramsey said? Maybe, maybe not.

There's a few things I'm like, well, I'd probably switch. But have the conversation, get the basis. Right?

Be healthy about it.

Joey: 

And that's a big, that's a big topic in America because our youth has taken on tremendous debt. And so did the generation ahead. That's a big issue in America.

Leah: 

We think, we think it's so interesting in my arena. Like we think we're supposed to start up here. We're supposed to have all this.

Like it's even with our economy doing what it's doing right now. I had someone make a comment to me the other day, like, oh, we're all suffering. Like, and I'm like, am I suffering though?

For most of my kids' life, going out to dinner was a treat. If I had to next week, could I do it every night? Probably.

You know, now it's just cause I'm being lazy that night. Right? Am I suffering?

No. Are things tighter than they've been? Yes.

But so, I don't know. All that to say, like, I think we have it better than we realize. Our kids have it even better than they realize.

And I think the reason we go into debt is because we think everything needs to look a certain way or be a certain way. When honestly we might be happy with a lot less.

Joey: 

The things you own end up owning you type thing.

Leah: 

100%. Yeah. When we got that cabin we were talking about, it was wild, Joey: , because I had a whole nother house.

We took a bunch of stuff up there. And I was like, who has almost enough stuff to fill it? Like, that's kind of weird.

Joey: 

I have a friend who owns a mini storage and he makes a lot of money off of- That grosses me out. It just, and he just, you know, I mean, he's offering a service. It's not his fault.

Leah: 

No, it's not his fault. You won't sell your stuff or get rid of it. one of her daughters has a storage unit right now and she's about to get married.

And my husband and I were like, well, wait a minute. And she's like, well, the stuff in it's new and I want to save it. And I totally get it, right?

She just bought it all. But I'm like, how much was it? Are we talking a couple hundred dollars?

Because as soon as you pay for two months rent, we might as well have sold it and bought it again. If it's going to be six months to a year in the storage unit. We don't think that way.

We feel like we have to hold everything we have, right? And it's like, actually, let's do the math. Like, let's talk about that.

That doesn't make sense. But I think storage units, yeah, that's one of those ones that kind of like, kind of grosses me out. Because I'm like, what are we holding onto so tight?

Joey: 

Him and I were walking this morning and that's probably top of mind. But he was, you know, because he's part of these like organizations where they share information. But he was like, guess what?

I don't want to misquote, but it was something like a 10 by 20 unit in Phoenix. Right now, the guy was getting $400 a month. And I was like, wow.

Leah: 

Yeah, we missed the boat. I just had a client who was qualifying for a house and their parents had started a storage unit in Santa Rosa 30 years ago. And so like, you can even imagine, it might've been 40 years ago, but like every kid gets a dividend check every month.

Those kids are set for life.

Joey: 

So for life. Things we don't need.

Leah: 

For people paying storage fees and stuff they probably don't need because they probably haven't seen it in years.

Joey: 

Yeah.

Leah: 

And it's so incredibly wild. Yeah.

Joey: 

And I'm guilty. I'm super guilty. I have a garage full of stuff and then we built like a back shed thing and it's full of stuff.

Leah: 

I wear my consumerism on my sleeve. I know. It's kind of gross.

Joey: 

And then I'll go shopping and yeah. So us having it hard, it's not. Not if you've traveled the world.

Leah: 

No. I mean, it's- That's Redding too. You know, I've been here 24 years now and the narrative of Redding bothers me often.

Joey: 

What is the narrative?

Leah: 

I think I hear a lot of negative narrative. You know, a lot of narrative about our homeless issues and I'm not a Pollyanna either. I'm not about like, no, we don't have them.

No, absolutely we have them, but not to the extent others do. And there's so much more positive going on here. And I would rather tell that story.

Positives that are going on here? Yeah, yeah.

Joey: 

Because I could give you some negatives, but after that intro, I don't want to be that guy.

Leah: 

I'm not realistic though. I mean, I'm not realistic. Like I have four daughters.

I am like, don't go to Walmart in the dark, unfortunately. So I'm realistic. I'm not saying like, oh no, everything's great here.

But I think we have one of the most, my husband and I, we did travel during the 2020, 2021. You know, Texas and Tennessee and Kentucky and Arkansas. And we looked at a lot of places.

You come home, there is nowhere like it here. Number one, I might be partial. I love the people we have here.

I love the faith communities we have here. I love the entrepreneurism. We have the spirit of entrepreneurism we have in Redding.

We have so many amazing things. You know, the adventure challenge, you talked to him on your podcast. Like that launched out of Redding.

Joey: 

That was pretty cool.

Leah: 

It was pretty amazing.

Joey: 

Yes.

Leah: 

The fly fishing shop. I mean, they are quiet, but multi-million, world famous. We don't even get paid any attention.

We drive by it, right? I mean, we have a world famous sundial bridge, obviously, but our mountains, any direction you want to go, you want to be at the ocean, you can get there too. I happen to like 101 degree weather here and there, but my family would disagree with me.

I like that I can go to Mount Shasta, Mount Las, and I can go all these different places within hours and then be back home. I think we have some of the most amazing people trying to start new things. And I will share.

So like one of the things my husband and I are very excited about right now, I think especially, like you said, you're in a group that you're watching. I've kind of decided in life, like I want to do things with people that I admire what they're doing. I really want to pick those people to partner with.

Joey: 

You're the byproduct of the five people, right?

Leah: 

Yeah.

Joey: 

That whole thing.

Leah: 

Yeah, and so I got a call a few weeks back from Robert Cronick, who has a project downtown where he felt that he should invest in the things he believes in. And he bought a hotel and he is turning it into a transformational place to change people's lives. A place where they can live after they've gotten clean.

They have rules. They're doing it in a manner that I would completely agree with. I think people need rules.

I think they're dying for rules.

Joey: 

Oh, absolutely.

Leah: 

I think that we wish there was more rules. Anyways, I think we don't realize that and we say we don't like them, but they're good for us. So he's running it in a manner that I completely respect.

But I think the biggest draw for me was to actually watch someone walk out that servanthood of like, I'm gonna actually put my money where my mouth is. Because I think a lot of us talk, but we don't do. There's not a lot of doers.

I'm excited to see him do it. And they're doing it. And they're having tremendous experience of like helping people turn their lives around and then actually get into housing and actually get their lives on the road.

And that's a hard thing to do. So I mean, that is a good thing in Redding. Good things get flack.

Good things have pushback. Good things have people who disagree, but there are still good things. Our mission, the Good News Rescue mission, like they are 60 years old this year.

The work they're doing, they just put in 17 new little houses that are getting put in right now. Putting in a day center. They wanna build like a coffee shop so they can have jobs.

Like the things, the vision they have and what they're actually doing is actually tremendous. And that's in that arena. So we've got the business arena blowing up.

We do have more and more entrepreneurs. We have that growing. We have people taking care of that population.

And in our schools, I will say, while we have things that are hard to watch, I think we have more people with big hearts trying to serve in that arena than anywhere else. I think the thing about Redding that's beautiful is how accessible it is to help once you figure it out. And you can make a difference.

We're still small enough.

Joey: 

So obviously, I think Jonathan Anderson, right? I've heard his name, never met him. Wanted to have him on here.

I mean, his name pops up all the time. The Good News Rescue Mission is constantly, I'm hearing good things, you know, and they're never full. They don't turn anybody away.

You know, when you see people that won't do this because they're like, hey, look, you're not gonna come here and do drugs. Like they have rules. Basically what you said.

Leah: 

They do have rules. And they're actually working on those rules. And he just shared this at their dinner a couple nights ago.

And on top of that, just so you know, like if seniors don't have, like if you're a family who, they feed families who don't stay there, who like, let's say it's the end of your month and you're out of money, you can go eat there for free. And seniors use that. There's a lot of people that use it just for the meals.

Joey: 

Yes.

Leah: 

There's a lot of different things they do. But they recently, and yeah, I think it's okay because he shared it at their dinner. They recently looked at their rules and they said, you know, the people that are here are on a good trajectory.

It's the encampments we want to get out more to, right? The people who say they don't want to come here. So they've been doing a lot more outreach, which I think is tremendous.

And then from there, kind of talking through, hey, no, you can't have your drugs, but what if we created a place where you could put them, come in and get all your services? Because they do dental, they do medical, they do all kinds of things there, right? And then you can get them and go back to your camp if that's what you so choose.

What if we create a policy like that? They did. And they've actually seen that a couple of people have come, stayed one night, then stayed two and then said, throw it away.

So it's trying to find a way to serve the community and get them in there.

Joey: 

Let me say something on that. I am a, I work in the space of digital marketing. Before that, my background, I have a varied background, but it's very tech oriented.

And there's a philosophy involved in tech lots of times. And it's been, I mean, Google was huge on it, but to boil it down, it's called A-B testing. And this idea is that a couple of pieces of it, like Marissa Mayer says, is good ideas can come from anywhere.

And rather than us running on instinct, what we would like to do is we would like to take all ideas. You know, you can't run them all at once, but we would like to take ideas. We would like to test them.

We would like to put mechanisms in place to truly test them. And then what happens is the by-product is another thing called being data driven. So they're saying, hey, look, we're going to try everything.

We have to, it's, we have to within constraints and control. And you really have to, you really have to A-B test. But what's going to happen is instead of all ideas must come from this leader or whatever, the data is going to tell us which direction to go.

And, you know, they turn that into several billion dollars. But so I tried to follow that same path in how I work with my clients. So my clients say, hey man, I got this idea.

What do you think? And I'm like, well, let's, I don't have a crystal ball. So let's try it, but let's just make sure we wire it up properly so we could say, yeah, that did do better than the normal control.

And so I would say, you know, I'm kind of vacillate on that. You know, you get some data from Portugal or something, but I would say, okay, let's, let's treat this this. Clearly what we have done in the past has gotten us to where we are now.

And although I agree with you that I think Redding's an awesome place and there's a lot of awesome going on, overwhelmingly the conversations people are fixated on the downside of things. So marrying these two things together, let's try some new ideas and make sure that we can truly measure the outcome in hopes that if these things you don't like, like, hey, we do have a homeless problem. We do have a drug problem.

Okay, well, we tried this path and we're here. So one of those definitions of insanity, right? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

Maybe we try something else.

Leah: 

Which I think was what their point was in the mission. Was like, we're not able to get more of the people in the encampment in here because we're telling them they have to get rid of it. So what if we try this and they're trying it and it's working?

Joey: 

Well, I'm a big believer in the war on drugs and drugs won. We lost the war on drugs, big time. But back to this.

Okay, well, clearly we had a game plan. It didn't work. We're clearly losing.

So now would be a good time maybe for us to try a different game plan and measure.

Leah: 

New approaches.

Joey: 

New approaches. That's what I'm kind of getting at. So I'm kind of open to anything.

I think, you know, homelessness is not a poverty issue. We were all lied to. We were told that in the 80s.

You know, that whole, all those comedy to stop homelessness. It's like, no, homelessness is drugs, alcohol, and mental illness. The mechanisms we have in place for people, like you said, the state, we have programs for housing, for food, for education, for employment.

I mean, there are a ton of programs for this. So if you're not taking advantage of any of those, why aren't you? It's usually, overwhelmingly, drugs, alcohol, or mental illness, or a combination of all three.

So we have to address it differently.

Leah: 

And back to your, it always goes back to everything, right? All these facilities were built all over for, I think it was Ronald Reagan. I'm totally gonna be wrong.

Joey: 

Reagan got rid of them.

Leah: 

So he got rid of them.

Joey: 

Yep.

Leah: 

So then they were built, and then they didn't get used. So back to federal trying to run things for us locally, when what if all that money, and we just totally went over what happened, is there anybody listening? But basically our government built all these facilities, and then the next president was like, no, we're not gonna do it that way.

And then we didn't have all those facilities for mental health and for all those things, right? There's a lot more complicated than that. But I guess what I'm saying is, what if all that money would have been spent locally for people to say, hey, up here in our area, the real problem is really this.

And for people in San Francisco to say, in our area, the homeless problem is more so this. There's a lot of problems with, how many programs do you see where it's like millions were given, and it helped two people? Who was overseeing that?

How does that happen?

Joey: 

You mean maybe $11 billion spent to build 1,300 feet of rail?

Leah: 

Yeah, maybe that too.

Joey: 

And it's same, yeah. No, okay. So I think this is where Eric Weinstein would be proud of me.

So back to what I was saying, that's why anytime you get past a certain size, it falls apart. So the federal government to me should have such a limited budget and a limited, and they're too big, and it should all stay more local so that it's like the city council should decide on affairs for the city.

Leah: 

Do you ever notice the closer to the ground you get, the more we balance our budgets and stuff? Because we have to too.

Joey: 

Yes.

Leah: 

Yeah, interesting.

Joey: 

We could, we're definitely, I tell you what, with the election coming up, this podcast is definitely not gonna get any traction. YouTube's gonna shut us down. I guarantee you, nobody's gonna get to watch this maybe a year from now.

But I digress. I think that I like the idea of leadership Redding. I like the idea of anything that's local-based, bringing people together, increasing communication, getting people to look each other in the eye.

It's very hard when you look, I mean, I just saw the dinner the other day. I can't remember what the name of it is, but it's where all the politicians come together, they have dinner, and they crack jokes, and they're making fun of them. And somebody, who will remain nameless, puts his shoulder on a senator, and these guys, I mean, the names they call each other, and the stuff that they say.

Leah: 

They work together all day.

Joey: 

Oh, and you're watching this video, and I've seen tons of these. I saw them back when President Bush, and even Clinton, and they're laughing. You know, you see them, they're giving talks, and they're calling the other guy Hitler.

You know, they're all, and then you see them, and they're just like, ha, and then this guy, I let him borrow five bucks, and they're telling jokes, like, I thought you guys were supposed to be mortal enemies. I thought, if you saw each other, you know, it's a facade.

Leah: 

There's two different things going on, but you know, the more I've gotten to know some people, like, there's two different things going on. There's the running of the race, which we talked about. Gets to where you have to kind of do that, right?

And then there's the doing the job. And if you want to see something beautiful, it actually brought both my husband and I to tears. Look up the speech to Brian Dally that was given by a Democrat as he was terming out.

One of the most beautiful things you've ever heard in politics, for me. And because it was given by a Democrat saying how much he honors the work he's done in Sacramento. Can we get back there?

My interesting part was like, could you have said that when he was running for governor? No.

Joey: 

Well, I want to rewind something to what you said is, you said in the running of the race, I can't remember how you just said it, but you said something like, it has to go on. And I'm going to say, no, it doesn't. And it's feeding the second piece.

Leah: 

Right, because the truth of the matter is- The insane, ridiculous rhetoric. At the end of the day, now we've ran this race against each other. Now we're sitting in the seats having to work together, which is how it works.

Now we have to get along. How hard would that be? Could you imagine if like colleagues at work, you know, treated each other like a campaign race and then they sat down and had to work together?

How well is that going to go all the time? You know, my industry is a little like that because we're all trying to get the same business, you know, and then we'd sit down and work together.

Joey: 

Well, if you look at like MMA fighters and a lot of them have a true background in martial arts and in martial arts, the term can, you can just think pugilism. You can just think fighting, right? But there's also a part of martial arts that sometimes is, it's built on respect.

And so you have certain fighters that will say anything and they make more money. They've got that whole, you know, Muhammad Ali or the heel, the Chael Sonnen, you know, Conor McGregor is a perfect example of that. Talked so much trash.

And then he gets in the ring with someone like Habib Nurmagomedov, who is a true martial artist. And, you know, says, oh, you know, it's just for talk. He's like, no, it's like, I, it was very personal.

And now it's, now the fight's gonna, and it was, and he, and he, yeah. So it's that same thing of like, it's not just politics. It finds its way into a lot of stuff.

It finds its way into salesmanship. If you get salesmen that are, you know, like car salesman I'm thinking of, but almost realtor, any salesmanship where it's like, hey, look, and you know, your, your income is tied to getting this. If you've got to say something negative.

Leah: 

So our culture has lost a lot of respect.

Joey: 

Yeah.

Leah: 

Yeah.

Joey: 

You're a lender. We've kind of alluded to it and, you know, you know, and how long have you been a lender?

Leah: 

Almost seven years.

Joey: 

And you're, you said you had recently joined a new.

Leah: 

Yes. I'm a mortgage one. The company I was at for a little over a year sold to another company.

Anyways.

Joey: 

They do that.

Leah: 

Yeah. They do a lot of mergers. And right now it's a tumultuous industry.

Joey: 

It is.

Leah: 

With the rates going way down and then way up and all over and, and people are, well, right now it's quiet because the election too back now because of that. But an insurance in our area is hard. And people are like, is it a good time or is it not?

The economy is interesting right now. The way I look at my job, and I just told someone this yesterday, he goes, I'm supposed to shop around. I'm like, absolutely.

You, you do what you need to do. You do, do what you need to do is to know that you feel like you made the biggest purchase of your life the best way you could for you. I feel like my actual job is to bring you peace and bring you wisdom and make sure that you understand what's happening to you during this process.

Cause I've heard from people, I got through it. Not that worked with me, but I got through it and I don't really know what happened. Well, you're buying something really big.

You're taking a big responsibility on. So the way I look at it is that if I can bring peace to the transaction, if I can bring understanding to what you're doing, I've done my job. A lot of us have the same rates.

I always laugh. I say, we're like gas stations. You know, you, you put your price up and then I'll put my price up in it.

It really is. It's a game. This industry is brutal.

And the fact that when we pull your credit, 75 other people are going to call you and go crazy and we can't even make it stop. So yeah, it's a constant, feels like a popularity contest sometimes, but then you have to remember that it's really about what's best for the person. So it's, it's what's best for them and what decision they can make.

So that's my actual job, right? Is to, is to do the best thing I can do for them. But in that kind of like all the other things we've talked about, I'm like, if I'm going to tell you to me that Redding, in spite of some of its problems, is a great place to raise your kids.

Joey: 

Absolutely.

Leah: 

Have them go to school, live your life. Then that's why I'm, not why, but it's part of, it's all part and parcel, right? It's like, that's why I do all the other things I do.

Because I can literally tell you, I serve in this arena. I serve in that arena. I see what's going on over here.

Yeah. Raise your kids here.

Joey: 

No, this is a beautiful place. It's not to say it's perfect, it's not, but I'm fairly traveled. I've been around a little bit.

This is my home.

Leah: 

Yeah.

Joey: 

Right?

Leah: 

You stay here. Go to we.

Joey: 

It's, I agree with you. Well, no, I don't agree. I think I agree with your family members.

It's a tad bit hot for me in the summer. I will say that, man. It, I am.

Leah: 

But we have options. You just go to a lake. You go for a hike.

Joey: 

Yeah, just get a.

Leah: 

Go to the ocean. Yeah, just. Get a swim in pools.

Joey: 

Get in the shade. But, I mean, no place.

Leah: 

We are a little trapped in our homes for a few days. With the AC on. I agree.

Joey: 

Other than that, yeah. No, other than that, I think it's, we have really good infrastructure. We do have fantastic schools, medical.

We have all the amenities. I mean, we don't have the huge art, but you're not far from that.

Leah: 

You're not far from the Bay Area. You wanna go to the opera. I am that, yeah.

If you wanna go see it, go visit it, touch it. Absolutely. We just did a week in Seattle.

You know, we drove. It was, you know, we wanted to have our cars, but it was.

Joey: 

But we have flights. There's direct flight from Redding, Seattle. Yeah, there's direct flights, yeah.

Leah: 

And to Colorado pretty soon. And so go visit it. And I took my kids.

I purposed to take my kids to the San Francisco Nutcracker. I wanted them to see the ballet. You know, so yeah.

And that was what, a three hour drive? You know, so you can go see all those things. It depends what you want more.

I don't know if you know, I went through like a series of like 19 surgeries in like a nine month period one time. And I had to travel down to UC Davis for all of it. For the checkups, the air, like probably.

I put so many miles on my car that year. And somebody was like, don't you just hate that we don't have that up here in Redding? And I literally was able to say, no, it's okay.

It's only two hours away. I've chosen to live here. And I love it here.

And you can't have everything. I think that one of the things, the discussions I'm constantly interested in is how we grow well. Because we're gonna continue to grow.

And some people don't want us to change. And some people do. And you know, you've got the rodeo that wants to keep their grounds, which I'm for.

You've got, you know, the Civic Center. And now we've got a new, the tribe's gonna be building a whole new place for all of that kind of entertainment and stuff too. And like, how do we- I didn't know anything about that.

Joey: 

So you might need to explain that in a minute. But go ahead, keep going.

Leah: 

So yeah. So we've got, you know, all these ways we can grow. But like, what's the best way we can do that?

What's the best use of our river? What's the best use? You know, and some people are like, let's be the next bend.

And some people are like, let's not. And I understand that tension. I helped with a project right before COVID that was called the California Adventure District.

And my friend Ryan had ran from the ocean to Mount Shasta at 330 miles. I don't know if you had heard about that.

Joey: 

Don't try to- Like in five days?

Leah: 

Yeah, a couple of days.

Joey: 

The joke was Aaron Hayes told me about that when we did an episode. And he said, did it in five days. And I go, oh, you broke my record.

Leah: 

Because you were about to go run 330 miles.

Joey: 

I don't run three miles.

Leah: 

Yeah, I can do that.

Joey: 

I run to the store and that's in a car.

Leah: 

In your car. Yeah, so he did that. And so I had actually signed up to be his head volunteer.

So he had sold tickets to many people to come do this race. The long-term goal of that was that that was gonna be a flagship event to bring the Adventure District up here. And it was working with all the counties up here because like billions of outdoor money comes into California.

Only a couple million trickles its way up here. We have the best. We're the best.

We have rock climbing. We have mountains. We have fly fishing.

Like you name it, right? Like that's kind of wild. Here was my constant tension.

Do I wanna bring attention to how gorgeous it is up here? Do we want to bring? Do you want Redding to have a population of 550,000?

Right, and so that's the tension, right? And if so, and if that's gonna happen, how do we do it well? And I think 2020 highlighted that.

I don't know about you, but like right now, Bernie Falls is closed because so many people wanted to get outside and they've worn down the trails.

Joey: 

And we used to go like two, three times a year.

Leah: 

Yeah, you go up to Heart Lake and they've had to reroute the trails. So there is that tension. And I agree that like those discussions need to come from a lot of different angles.

Joey: 

One of my favorite Americans for quotes, Thomas Sowell, there are no solutions, there are only trade-offs. So whatever we do, there's gonna be a repercussion to it and it's not always gonna be perfect. So what do you want?

The balance between a really robust economy and the by-product of that economy, like the fact like, okay, there's gonna be infrastructure, there's gonna be usage.

Leah: 

And the wisdom to see the holes. One of the things about being friends with someone who's in Senate or Assembly is like the morning conversations we'd have. Today I'm gonna deal with this bill on this and this and this, and like such random different things that you're like, how does your brain even move from healthcare to schools to this, to that?

One of the things, the Susanville prison, when it closed in the last couple of years.

Joey: 

I didn't know it closed.

Leah: 

Megan right away was like, oh my gosh, I gotta get money for the schools. And I'm like, what? It didn't even, I'm like, what do you mean?

Well, if you take people out of a town, if you close a prison, you're gonna lose all the jobs, those people are gonna leave the town and because the school doesn't have butts in the seat, that wouldn't have occurred to me. All that to say what you're saying. If we bring all these people up here, do we even know all the trickle down?

Do we have the wisdom to think about all the trickle down? I mean, the amount of information that goes into that, into holding these kind of seats or seeing those kind of things and then talking to the people from the top to the bottom who know, like that's what I'm interested in. Like when can we get along enough to have those conversations again to create a vibrant city, to create a vibrant state, to create, like, you know what I mean?

And get along enough to know that your input and my input are both important. To know that if I get elected to a seat, once I'm in that seat, I don't just represent the people that sound like me. I represent the people who don't sound like me and their kids.

Like that is the conversations we need to have.

Joey: 

I think that when you talk about vibrant, I mean, that's a subjective word, but the thought in my head is that there is some type of equilibrium where there's a balance. And that balance doesn't mean 50-50. It doesn't necessarily mean that.

And that equilibrium is probably gonna shift. There's gonna be a balance that shifts, right? There's gonna be a little bit of play in it.

It's not gonna be in concrete. But if we truly found the space of balance where differing opinions got along at least, built into that is that they have to say, hey, look, I'm not gonna get everything I want. I'm not gonna have, I don't get everything I want.

Leah: 

I have to make room for you and your opinion.

Joey: 

Yeah.

Leah: 

And you have to make room for me and my opinion.

Joey: 

Some level of compromise.

Leah: 

And God's economy, Joey: , doesn't, God's economy, I think a lot of times we think leadership looks like this. Even when we're talking about the CEO and the person down here, me, in my heart, it's actually like this. Cause guess what?

There's no CEO if there's nobody down here. And I think often in God's economy, if I can bring my faith into this, like he doesn't do this. He doesn't line up even to the point of like, he doesn't say this sin is worse than this.

He just says it's all sin, right? But also in leadership, his son came as a baby. He didn't come the way everybody wanted him to.

Come as a king and take us out of this, right? I mean, that's kind of what we're all looking for. Even in a city, in every arena, it applies.

We think we want someone to come along and, you know what, fix this and do it the way I want it. That actually doesn't serve anyone. It doesn't make room for somebody else's opinion.

It doesn't make room for the fact that I think our economy is important. I think we should be working on our kids. You know, during leadership writing this year, I've met people who are like, art is so important.

We need to bring more art and culture into our city. And there's a part of me that goes, oh, okay. But guess what?

It really is.

Joey: 

It is.

Leah: 

It really is. It brings joy. It brings open conversations.

It brings things that everybody wants to go to and they can get. The rodeo, for example. There's some people who want the rodeo to keep their grounds where they are and keep this 30 year lease.

And there's some who are like, what if we could do something better with the property? But the rodeo is something that brings a lot of people together who don't maybe agree on other things. We need things like that.

Until we realize that the economy, how our schools are, artwork, we line them up in row of importance, but I don't think it's like that. I think it's actually more like a level playing field. Importance is subjective.

And we need to be a little more open about that or understanding of that. That it all doesn't need to be like, this is more important.

Joey: 

Yeah, no, I absolutely, I know that we have to compromise. I know that I have a bunch of opinions.

Leah: 

And I also- I didn't know that about you.

Joey: 

Yeah, I didn't know that about you. I also know that I'm very grateful God has not enacted several of my ideas. My wife and I were talking the other day about we're going through this thing called re-engage with a pathway.

And as we're going through this, we're supposed to like start to map out the things that we didn't do right. And we're going through this and she's like, I really don't have a list of things against you. I'm like, I really don't have a list of things against you.

And I was like, I had these eight ideas that you shot down. And when I was thinking about it, I'm like, four of them were really good, but four of them were really bad. And I'm really glad you put your foot down on the four that were bad.

Leah: 

And I'm like- Can you hear Garth Brooks in the back? Some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers.

Joey: 

Yeah.

Leah: 

Yeah, he's like, yeah, you're not doing that.

Joey: 

Yeah, so I'm like, I can't be, I don't feel like I can be mad at you about the four that were good because you used the same spirit.

Leah: 

Or you can, because he's big enough. You can if you want. But I mean, when you realize you really shouldn't be because he kind of knows what's better, it's okay.

I was talking about my wife. I was talking about the eight things she said no to. Oh, gotcha, gotcha.

Joey: 

That's funny. So I was like, I'm really grateful for the four you said no to. I kind of wish I could have got the other four, but that goes in the line of like, remember when I said I should have bought a bunch of Bitcoin and a dollar and you said that's not real money?

Remember that? Don't do it. Don't do it.

It was like, come on, buddy.

Leah: 

And it would have been a better, like, we're not single. When we're married, we're not single. Like, we don't get to be mad about that.

We are now like one person with somebody else. And so- And we chose it.

Joey: 

And that's a dynamic of just two people, right? Now you're talking about a community of 140,000.

Leah: 

I start a lot of my days and I'm like, here's my eggs and my spinach and my egg whites. I got this. I did my workout today, lunchtime.

I got my salad. I'm good. I get home for dinner.

I'm like, yes, I do want the glass of wine and dessert. Damn it. Even Leah:  Roadrunner does things Leah:  Roadrunner didn't set out intending to do, or doesn't agree with, or didn't want to do, or knows it's not gonna get her to the weight loss she's looking for, right?

So I guess what I'm saying is, it's not even just a picture of marriage. It's even just a picture of who we are. And the more I can look at other people and go, both are true about them, or how can I make space for them?

Or how could I compromise for them? And how can I not expect that they're gonna be perfect? The better off my family is, my city is, and I think it all should spread out from there.

Joey: 

I'm totally in agreement with you from an emotional standpoint, right? Like, I agree. The brains disagree.

So, well, no. Well, there's a piece that says, so some bullet points. One is like, hey, Joey: , you're not 100%.

Nobody's 100% right.

Leah: 

Oh, no.

Joey: 

And I almost said, nobody's 100% wrong, but I got a feeling there are some. So, but we'll say nobody's 100% right. Correct.

And so, okay, we'll start there. And then say, okay, so what does that mean? It means that we gotta have some level of compromise.

We've gotta do something where we meet and say, hey, look, we're living in this together. But then there's the second piece of like, yeah, but there have been some compromises made that are catastrophic, right?

Leah: 

Yeah.

Joey: 

So, when certain ideas, because I'm gonna try really hard to not use the word evil. I'm just gonna say bad ideas, okay? So, we don't even have to bring, I got some great ones in my head right now.

And if we looked over the last 100 years of humanity and we said, hey, can you come up with any really bad ideas that were implemented, like really bad ideas, okay? Should we have not compromised and allowed those bad ideas?

Leah: 

And the slope of compromise, right? Like, there's that old saying, like your praying grandmas would say, that's like, if the enemy just can't make you dead sin, like, hey, right now you're gonna go commit this act, he'll just get you to compromise. Just a little bit, a little bit.

Well, now what about the next step? What about the next step? So, you're right, yeah.

Joey: 

It's like this loop I just made that where you can't win.

Leah: 

Right, and I was telling you about an organization that to me that made some compromises that led to where I'm like, yeah, I'm not with you anymore. And I agree. And in hindsight, would I have stopped that?

Yeah, and so you're right. And I think sometimes we're gonna make compromises. I think our heart intention is what matters.

Of like, am I making this compromise with a good heart intention? It doesn't mean it's gonna go perfect. We're not in control of all that.

It's back to what I'm in control of and I'm not controlling. Am I praying about it? Am I doing this?

One time I was looking at three different companies to go to in mortgage and I'm like, which one am I supposed to choose? And I have a spiritual mentor of like 20 something years. I talk to her every Tuesday morning still.

She moved to Montana and I maintain that for my sanity. And I love her to pieces. And she goes, are you gonna serve Jesus at this one?

Are you gonna serve Jesus at this one? Are you gonna serve Jesus at this one? Then you can't make like a wrong choice.

So I guess what I'm saying is like, if we go into a compromise with knowing that like our conscience says nothing's evil about this, I'm doing it with the right heart intent, like then sometimes the outcome, we have to trust to God because we're not in control of everything else.

Joey: 

Remember back to that superpower I told my kids about? That the ability to properly and accurately assess things you can control from things you cannot. And I told my kids, your dad does not have that superpower.

So I'm not telling, I wish I did, right? Along with super strength and the ability to fly. But that superpower, that's where things get tough because you're right when there's clearly stuff, the real obvious things you cannot control.

Okay, there's obvious things. I can give you a list of things that oddly enough would be at the top of almost all of our feeds, right? Then things you can control.

You can control what you put in your mouth. You can control what you read, right? You may not be able to control what you hear, but you have some influence over it, right?

Because somebody can shout, somebody can be like, yeah, I don't watch that channel anymore, why? Because I didn't like something, okay. But you can control how you move your body.

The more you focus over here, believe it or not, the part of life that you can control expands. Because when you are in more control of your life, you attract other people and you influence other people. So now your scope of control is growing because if a bunch of people see you working out and getting healthy and making good financial choices, they will- We're actually attracted to grounded people.

Leah: 

Back to that, we're attracted to rules like more so than we think. I think one of my aunts, which is my favorite, and so she said once, well, you Christians have a lot of rules. And I literally, it was great.

I'm like, let's talk about that. I mean, which ones are we talking about? The 10 commandments, let's start there.

Okay, don't commit adultery. Is there an issue with that? No, okay, don't lie.

Do we have an issue with that? No. Okay, go down the list.

Pretty much anybody you talk to that you wanna be around should be fine with the 10 rules. Right? And actually, I've heard it taught that actually the way it's supposed to be said when you're a believer is I am.

So all 10 are supposed to be I am statements. I am someone who does not lie. I am someone who does not covet my neighbor's wife.

I am someone who, and so, but if you say all 10 of those, actually, how hard are those? So what's funny is you're right. We can control a lot more than we think and most of the rules are actually healthier.

And when you look at all 10 of those, would your life be better if all 10 of those were true about you?

Joey: 

Yeah. You know what's really bad is I don't think I could state the 10 commandments.

Leah: 

No, can we say all 10?

Joey: 

I think I, I know I could state the big ones, right?

Leah: 

Yeah.

Joey: 

But I also couldn't.

Leah: 

And the don't say is name in vain. I'm, yeah, I need to work on that.

Joey: 

Oh, I think that doesn't mean what a lot of people think it means. I think I, yeah, I think that means something else about laying, yeah. Anyway.

But, okay. So things you can control, things you cannot control, but there, there, it seems to be this gap, this overlap, this like Venn diagram where the two circles, right? Because somebody who's very powerful can reach in.

There are people that can reach into my life or they can affect my, my control. Like, for example, our food source is not ideal. I spend a lot of my money and I get made fun of by several of my friends because they're like, you paid what for what organic non-juice, huh?

You're, you fell for that. You know, we spend a lot of our income.

Leah: 

And you're blessed that you can.

Joey: 

Blessed that I can on our intake.

Leah: 

Yeah.

Joey: 

But, but the average person cannot do a lot of the things that I do. So what goes in their mouth is, is affected by, you know what I mean? There's so many like laws and control.

Leah: 

So there's. Yeah. And that, I mean, that's so funny.

Cause when I was saying that there's so many ways we need to attack what's going on with our kids, our food was one that I was thinking of.

Joey: 

Absolutely.

Leah: 

My daughter will tell me, mom, they, they dropped these kids off at school. They'd already probably have ADD and probably have all these issues with the donut.

Joey: 

At a Mountain Dew?

Leah: 

Yeah. And she's like, oh my gosh, I already know coming in the door, they're going to, but does that parent have access to other meat? Like, do they have, I mean, maybe they do.

Maybe they've been taught. Maybe they don't even understand what this doing to their, like food is a, is a great, like if someone came out of leadership Redding or whatever program is like foods where I'm going after, I'd be like, do it. Like it absolutely needs to be changed there.

My son spent two weeks in Japan, plans to move there, but he has massive stomach issues since he was an early teen. No stomach issues for two whole weeks.

Joey: 

I've heard that same thing from people that have gone to Asia and Europe both.

Leah: 

Yeah.

Joey: 

There's, there's something in our food.

Leah: 

Came home within 24 hours. He's like, and we're back. So that's a whole, yeah.

Joey: 

Yeah. So as we get kind of, I'm going to come back full circle. I think it goes back to things like leadership writing.

I don't know anything about it other than what you told me. And I've kind of heard that similar message, but I'm going to say what I mean is it comes back to smaller groups, very local based grassroots that say, Hey, let's, let's make human connections. Let's introduce humans together.

Let's help people that have these ideas. I think sunlight to me is one of the best disinfectants. So when somebody has an idea, they're like, no, we need to shut that idea down and not let anybody.

No, no, no, no, no. Come. Yeah.

No, the center spotlight microphone. Go ahead. Tell us your idea about, you know, so that people go, whoa.

I think that's the best thing not to shame them, but to maybe say, Hey, I don't think that idea, you know, the almost like the marketplace, right. Bring value to the marketplace and the marketplace.

Leah: 

But what if we tweak it or do this or do that? Yeah.

Joey: 

Wise counsel.

Leah: 

So what if we connected you with five other people that are already doing something similar and you can see what they're like, that's the part about leadership writing. That's been beautiful. It's like, people will go, I didn't even know that was happening.

I didn't even know I could serve over there. I didn't even know, you know, and you're like, Oh yeah, times 10. Let's see.

What else can we introduce you to?

Joey: 

So besides leadership and writing versus first off, how does somebody find leadership in writing? Like, is there a website?

Leah: 

Yeah, there's a website, leadership writing. We open applications. I think they're open for the whole month of March.

You apply.

Joey: 

And other than leader, cause you are involved in a lot of local organizations and have been still are, you know, future. What are some other organizations that people say, Hey, you know what? Yeah, I want to do something local.

I want to help out. Who do they reach out? Jonathan Anderson at the Good News Rescue Mission.

Leah: 

The mission's always looking for people at the, I'd love to connect people to come help at the manor. We definitely want to see.

Joey: 

That's Robert Cronic.

Leah: 

Robert Cronic.

Joey: 

And he used to have chronic disaster, right? Chronic construction. And then he sold that and this is his next level, next thing in life.

Leah: 

And his heart is to really activate the church, the people of the church. Yeah, we're going to be doing from remodeling to like serving income, helping the classes that we teach to the people. There's a lot of different ways to serve there.

But I mean, yeah, I mean, help at Haven Humane if it's, if animals is your heart. I have a friend who just on his own probably spends 10 grand a month neutering and spaying cats all over town. Organizations have invited him to do that.

Joey: 

Let me get his number. I've got some, there's some cats in the alley that somebody needs to catch.

Leah: 

I mean, thousands a month and he has decreased populations all over. The list is endless. Yeah.

The list is endless. I think my biggest heart would be, have you ever served in a place you weren't supposed to be serving?

Joey: 

Oh yeah.

Leah: 

And you're like the minute you go by.

Joey: 

I put four years in the Marine Corps.

Leah: 

Okay, well, yeah.

Joey: 

No, just kidding. Love you Marine Corps, love you Commandant.

Leah: 

If you sign up for something just because you're like, oh, they need it and I should, you end up like watching the minutes and you're, yeah.

Joey: 

You're not really, you're not helping.

Leah: 

No, so I think I could list a bazillion things, but the truth is that's like a, that's like a drug rep being like, here's all these drugs I have. I think it's more important to take yourself to the doctor and go, what do I need to do? And like, where's my passion?

And like, what would be the thing I need to do to serve? Because like, even when you talk about food, there's a lot of people trying to teach about healthy, healthy food. Just, just helping kids know like about vegetables.

I mean, anyways. But it's a whole thing.

Joey: 

Fruit roll ups is not fruit.

Leah: 

It's not fruit. Very true. So, but all that to say like, my thing is find what you're passionate about and plug in there.

Like that's where you need to be serving. And if every person took that one thing and plugged in, it would be insane what our community would see happen. And so don't, don't serve.

Somebody sat down with me once and they're like, oh, you're doing leadership writing and you're helping Megan Daly. And you, you know, you're doing catalyst mentoring or you're doing this. Like, where can I plug in?

And it's like, well, what do you want to do? Who are you? What's the thing you're passionate about in this community?

Let's, let's start from there. Doesn't have to even look anything like what I'm doing.

Joey: 

I can see that. And I can also say, you know what? Just get involved and maybe just getting that muscle going of, of active and volunteer.

And it, and then you'll find your way. Cause sometimes, you know, cause there are a lot of organizations and we can't even list all of them now. And there's a lot going on.

But if you just start to get the ball rolling, you know, like if you reached out to Jonathan Anderson, he probably can connect. He probably knows, he has a Rolodex.

Leah: 

And I have to say, like our Rolodex.

Joey: 

Of people that he could connect you to.

Leah: 

Yes. And our community, as I said earlier, is still pretty accessible, right? So it's like kind of amazing, like even in some things that I've seen happen in the last couple of weeks in the nonprofit community, the other nonprofits that will come in and help serve and like have each other's back.

And they talk to each other a lot. They're very collaborative. So yeah, if you, if you're, you know, not, not needed, cause you'll be needed anywhere.

But if this isn't your fit, there might be 10 other places they can introduce you to. So just get out there.

Joey: 

So the point is get out there, be active. It was a very, something very similar when Brian Berg came on. He was just like, you know, get out.

There's a lot of stuff going on. Leah: , thank you so much for coming on. I super appreciate your time.

And I got a feeling we're gonna see you again on All Writing.

Leah: 

Yes.

Joey: 

Thank you.

Leah: 

Thank you.

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