Transcript
Luisa Hogan: Most leaders spend decades chasing success without ever asking what happens after you reach it.
mark l vincent: Thank you.
Luisa Hogan: Eventually there comes a quieter season where achievement no longer answers the deeper questions and many leaders realize they've built a career without preparing for who they'll become beyond that career.
Luisa Hogan: yeah Welcome to the Second Voice Podcast where we uncover the conversations that leaders don't have out loud. I'm your host Louisa Hogan and today we're exploring what my guest Mark Vincent calls the third turn of leadership and it's the stage where success and identity, legacy and succession collide and where many accomplished leaders quietly face the hardest transition of their lives. Mark is a pioneer in multiple fields and I can't wait to explore that with him. And he partners with accomplished third-term leaders committed to committed to developing the current and next generation of effective leadership. He is a strategic advisor in valuation of firms, a certified executive process consultant and a practitioner scholar of organizations and leadership.
Luisa Hogan: He has created and shepherds the Sage Group Collective, which is an emergency board meeting panel for executives and business owners addressing a significant opportunity or challenge.
Luisa Hogan: And his most recent book, because he can add author to that amazing list of accomplishments, is The Maestro Effect, Future Value Succession and Legacy in Business. Thank you so much much, Mark, for joining me and for finding a time to meet with me.
Luisa Hogan: I know we live on opposite sides of the world, but I'm so glad you joined me today.
mark l vincent: that's that's not My morning and your night, and I'm really glad to be here.
Luisa Hogan: Thank you.
Luisa Hogan: Fantastic. Well, I've read out your bio, but what does that all mean? Tell us more about you and the work that you do and what brought you to here, to this podcast today.
mark l vincent: Well, sure. i won't go through ah bio when you've had a few birthdays, you collect experiences and where do you start and where do you stop? But the thing that really got me going was loving um the the the need or loving the ability to provide for the need.
mark l vincent: when you've got difficult process, when you've got a tough decision to make. So i did some graduate work in that area at a time when social science was catching up and starting to say, wow, instead of just somebody dominating everybody, what if we really did work in teams?
Luisa Hogan: Mm-hmm.
mark l vincent: What if there really was was good governance and good collegiality in a workplace environment? And because I was studying it it was just landing in the public space. A career was born that I didn't intend. I just got asked, will you come help us? I was right place, right time. The methods work. and My career just kept going. And as it went more and more, I got involved in what we might call the most difficult process. of those decision-making times. And that's when there is business continuity and succession in play.
mark l vincent: And to make all of that short and truncated to right now, I have sold off the my shares in the company that I helped to found and run. So I've lived through first, second, third turn, and my practice has got deeper and deeper and deeper into that space. And so I spend most of my time now with people who are moving toward divesting and putting their leadership in the hands of others, and they intend to be fairly planful and deliberate about slingshotting those successors into the future. So they're committed to removing obstacles and paving a path. They know they can't make the successors succeed, but they know they could make it possible for them to fail. So they are removing those kinds of things. That means I'm not talking to people so much who are saying, I've decided I'm retiring in six months. Can you help me?
mark l vincent: I'm primarily with a person who's saying, you know, as a visionary, five, six years out from now, I'm going to be done. And I'm having an oh my God moment, like what? What's going to replace this?
mark l vincent: How are we going to keep this going?
Luisa Hogan: Thank you.
mark l vincent: I have all the major customers in my portfolio or all the donors if it's a nonprofit and I don't have a success or any number of things. And one of those big things is I don't have a life to go to. I can't let go unless I'm grabbing onto something else.
mark l vincent: I won't know who I am or something along that line. So we have this whole person, the internal part of them, the external part of them, the connection to the organization. All of that's in play as we start to architect their very unique journey because they've had a unique career by then into what comes next so that those successors can be slingshotted and they're looking forward to the life that they're going to.
Luisa Hogan: it's It's such important work. And ah what I find amazing about that is how many people don't think about this sort of thing, right?
mark l vincent: Right. Yeah. Right.
Luisa Hogan: So, ah you know, and I think part of the problem may be, you know, it's really hard to imagine yourself in the future leaving the thing that you absolutely love doing that you're really good at.
Luisa Hogan: You know, it's a very difficult thing to imagine. So people avoid thinking about it. So how, how is it that you are able to find people, A, who, who think about this or ah B, like how can we encourage people to think about this?
Luisa Hogan: Because I think it's important work and we, you know, people don't think about it.
mark l vincent: right
Luisa Hogan: Hmm.
mark l vincent: Well, let's just start with your first question there. the um The percentage of people who are natural entrepreneurs, natural visionaries, that's a small percentage to begin with.
Luisa Hogan: Mm-hmm.
mark l vincent: And three-fourths, four-fifths almost of the people who enter the workforce aren't going to be in that kind of a position. They're going to be frontline workers. they're going to be very content if they're well-paid, if they've got a good working environment, good work culture, to be the customer service reps, to be the salesperson, to be the technician.
mark l vincent: Among them are a group of people who always say there's something more here or I can fix this or what if we tried it that way and they can't get settled until they're in a spot where they give that a try. And they're they're more content to take a risk than they are to keep things as they are. And it's among that group of people that you find ah those who will actually have that kind of a conversation or who are more open to it.
mark l vincent: However, Louisa, I want to touch on one thing you said that most people don't think about it. I agree. and And what I'm going to say next will sound like I disagree.
mark l vincent: People have a thought about it. And the thought is, I will think about this later.
Luisa Hogan: yeah
mark l vincent: So that's their thought. I'll think about this later. I'll deal with this later when I can. when it But the the key transition is to see this as not a luxury, not a perk, not something you get to do if you succeed. It is a key ingredient to success to keep that long term in front of you, to keep the stewardship notionality in the center of your thinking that I will hand this to someone.
mark l vincent: That my success is tied to being able to hand it it to someone or the value that I'm putting in it, I will not be able to get out. So that is a key aspect just to keep in mind is that the first thought is to banish the thinking.
mark l vincent: And so to get it into the present really matters for the success we want to build now.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah. do Do you find leaders struggle to, to, not only think about succession, because I think they do, but, you know, to to see and to be able to picture somebody else taking over from them.
mark l vincent: Oh, yeah.
Luisa Hogan: Like, do do they struggle with that? What what is that? why Why do they struggle with that so much?
mark l vincent: Well, one thing is organizations, no matter how mature they are, no matter how sophisticated their operations are, how long they've existed, they're all houses of cards. They easily collapse.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
mark l vincent: It just takes an event and boom, oh, wow, what we had is gone. Poof. So ah it's not helpful as a leader to go around saying the sky is falling. The sky is falling. They have to exude confidence. They have to have certainty. They have to have um a competence to lead. They have to have multiple scenarios that they could pursue with if-then kinds of environments that So um to think about who else could do this when you have staved off so many episodes that could have brought failure, that's difficult to do. You learn to trust your judgment because you're constantly surrounded by people whose judgment doesn't rise
mark l vincent: to what would have helped you succeed. They're not seeing the whole thing, but they still tell you what to do. They don't think about what their desire will bring as far as impacts on other people or on the whole of the organization. They just want what they want, but you can see that. So you stop really being able to see other people as something other than helpful but threatening at the same time. So who around you is gaining that full view or who do you think could that you're now going to invest in? And the best, the best at this, that have the best practices actually cultivate many people knowing they might actually bless their competitors with leaders and
mark l vincent: But in doing so, they're going to get the leaders they need and they will make their field better.
Luisa Hogan: Hmm. Hmm.
mark l vincent: And they'll kind of salt and season the rest of their marketplace with leaders that they could hire back at a certain point. But if they're threatened, you will actually push away the possibility of successors. And that's the big fear. You're going to ruin what I've done. Why? Because that's a track record. you keep ruin Everybody around me ruins it. So now I'm the omnicompetent, omniscient, omnipresent leader who can never let go.
mark l vincent: So we have to be ready for the mistakes, for the bruises, for the bumps, for the disappointments on the way to finding the successor.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah. And that's why you got to start early, but what complex self-talk is in there, right? Because it's, there's fear in there.
mark l vincent: wo Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: There's, there's fear that nobody can do it as well as me. Then there's the mistakes that happen along the way. And then that proves the fear is correct.
mark l vincent: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: You know, there's so much, there's complex thinking in there designed to keep you safe. But in the end, it's just going to hold you and your organization or your business back, right?
mark l vincent: Yeah, you just nailed it.
Luisa Hogan: So it's something that needs to be overcome.
mark l vincent: You just nailed it because you are pointing to reactive types of thinking, stuff that's stuck in our amygdala.
Luisa Hogan: Yes.
mark l vincent: you know Is this a lion? Is it going to eat me? And so we're reactive.
Luisa Hogan: Yes.
mark l vincent: So we're given to anger or we're given to anxiety. We're given to pushing in, getting aggressive, assertive. you know, staving the dangers off in some way.
mark l vincent: And so our reflective thinking, our long-term ability to analyze and decide, that tends to flee from us if we're given to that reactive form of leadership. And we could add some of the other kind of internal self-talk that's going on, like, I should have known this Or I'm responsible for this. This one is on me.
mark l vincent: Well, as a leader, we have to take responsibility, but we also have to know where the responsibility rests inside the organization. And if we're the only one that's responsible,
Luisa Hogan: Mm-hmm.
mark l vincent: then we should just set up a solo shop, you know, a little Quonset hut or whatever, where people can come stand in line while we serve them. If we're going to have employees, if we're going to have others working with us, we have to somehow create a culture of trust.
mark l vincent: a way to evaluate, a way to problem solve together where there is both clarity but also safety so that people will tell you what they're observing and so you can problem solve together. But that internal self-talk has to match that.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah, a hundred percent. Otherwise it's going to continue to be reactive and you're just going to be facing the same problem again.
mark l vincent: Yes.
Luisa Hogan: Right.
mark l vincent: Again, and maybe maybe with more money involved or more people involved, we'll just circle back and face it again.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
mark l vincent: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah. yeah And what do you find? Have you found people who've left it too long and that, you know, is it, is it ever too late to plan for this?
mark l vincent: um There have been a couple of clients where I would have said, you you let it go too long ah because now what they're doing is playing cleanup and the toxicity often within their family is so high.
Luisa Hogan: Mm-hmm.
mark l vincent: It would take about as long to get trust back as they spent destroying it ah because they wouldn't trust in the first place or would circumvent other leaders or or insulted their family, made their family sacrifice for things that they were wanting to do. Like, I want you in the business, but i'm going to underpay you because you're a family member, you know, and that kind of thing.
mark l vincent: So yeah I've seen that. I've had a couple now where I've sat down with them and as we got, we started to put their architecture together to be able to say something like this. i'm I'm creating a composite here of several clients, but this is probably your less best chance to do it.
Luisa Hogan: Mm-hmm.
mark l vincent: There's still enough trust that outweighs the anger that everybody has.
Luisa Hogan: Mm-hmm.
mark l vincent: So if we do it now, we're going to get through it. But you can't postpone it one more time and assume you'll get to it someday. yeah It's going to break the trust. um So there have been those moments. for the most part, I would say to anyone who asked me,
mark l vincent: If you haven't started, then today's your day to start and it's the best time to get started. um So that, you know, it doesn't mean you have to have a very concrete, specific plan. you don't have to have answers for everything, but you can start to create a map that leads to your next conversation.
mark l vincent: You can start to schedule the time within your calendar for higher order executive thinking. And that's what we do with our Meister level leader cohorts. Those folks might not be thinking about it at any other time.
Luisa Hogan: Mm-hmm.
mark l vincent: But once a month for three hours with seven or so other people who are on that same kind of a journey, they're working at this kind of planning in front of each other with confidentiality.
mark l vincent: But it just creates a thrumming in their life to keep pushing on that. And usually about three years in, a plan has emerged that they can act on.
mark l vincent: And it often because they're touching it so often, it often brings that future nearer the present because they've made decisions in light of what they can see out there, as opposed to that, I can't think about it now, which postpones the start.
Luisa Hogan: Definitely. Does it take a big identity shift internally, you know, for people to start thinking about this or, you know, ah of course there's an identity shift when you leave and somebody takes over from you, but, you know, do you have to begin that identity shift from when you start planning?
mark l vincent: I think for most people, it does require an identity shift. I have met some really precious people who enter into it from a sort of steward leader perspective, very, very servant hearted.
mark l vincent: What I've been given is a trust. I'm going to be giving it to somebody else. I have to think about that at all times. And they, they work that in. Those are like old souls. There are a few for most of us.
Luisa Hogan: Mm-hmm.
mark l vincent: We have been trained. repeatedly in family and in the academy to perform so that we're noticed and called upon and promoted and given more opportunities so that we can succeed. So this drives a deep neural pathway and response that I have to show up strong, well, competent, and even fake it until I make it, which leads to being over-promoted sometimes where you don't have the skills
mark l vincent: that match, it leads to us calling upon our past experiences, which literally breaks our ability to be competent. Because if we're calling on our past experience, we're shutting down our learning posture.
mark l vincent: where We're not allowing ourselves to say, I don't know, can you teach me?
Luisa Hogan: Hmm. Hmm.
mark l vincent: That that sounds like failure. So we I know this, or I can do this, or i'm I'm supposed to figure it out. So to move into the learning posture that's required, to live into continuity and succession planning when you've never done it before, ah requires a shift. And then you're also realizing the deeper you get into it when this is done. And even as we're moving through this, I'm giving up power.
mark l vincent: I'm giving up control. And if I don't, no one's ever going to be able to pick it up. And I'm going to be in a spot where my voice won't matter as much, where people aren't going to bow down to me, quote unquote, because I signed their paycheck.
Luisa Hogan: Mm-hmm.
mark l vincent: You know, um and I who am I in those environments? So when I'm working with someone, I'm often asking them. If they're if they don't have it in their life, like, where are you the follower?
mark l vincent: ah That's a skill set and good followership has many qualities that are very similar to great leadership. So where are you not in control? Where are you taking direction in your life? How can we start building some of that out, even in your workplace, so that it's not so unfamiliar, so strange, so terrifying. and you can actually look at that and say, I'm getting good at this. I'm getting more skilled at this than I have been.
Luisa Hogan: It's so amazing because it's ah to me, it's it's like so much more more complex than identity shift, right? It's identity shift, but it's also our understanding of what vulnerability means and what true resilience means.
mark l vincent: Yes.
Luisa Hogan: It's not that performative strength. It's not pretending that you know everything and that everything's okay.
mark l vincent: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: And a lot of that is, you know, beyond identity too. And I work with founders and I work with executive leaders. I do resilience, especially through change and transformation. And it ah amazes me how much, you know, they cling to they They have nothing else in their life but working 12 to 15 hour days and everything else takes a backseat and they they don't have anything but this identity of their leadership or their their business or anything like that.
mark l vincent: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: But then also that whole, like i said, that that definition of what it means to be to to have other things in my life and what it means to be resilient and what it means to be vulnerable. It's fascinating.
mark l vincent: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: I find leadership fascinating in that way and what it creates in people and the culture out there, you know.
mark l vincent: Yeah.
mark l vincent: It strikes me that your clients are very fortunate to have you because of that perspective and your ability to describe it. You've just put definition on a metaphor I often use, which is the embrace of the mission or the embrace of the enterprise that you made when you took that seat to be the president, CEO, executive director.
Luisa Hogan: Mm-hmm.
mark l vincent: That embrace becomes a chokehold over time.
Luisa Hogan: who So true.
mark l vincent: The ability to embrace it is not the same as the ability to release it.
Luisa Hogan: Mm-hmm.
mark l vincent: And the ability to release it so that there's space for someone else to enter into that embrace. Without it becoming a chokehold. Like that's the way we want to develop people.
mark l vincent: We want to develop and them into a leadership perspective that already includes the servant heartedness, steward leader perspective I'm describing.
Luisa Hogan: Mm-hmm.
mark l vincent: But that that's a whole different skill set than just showing up and being competent.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah, for sure. For sure. And it's, uh, Yeah, I mean, I'd say people are very lucky to have you working with them because I don't, I honestly don't think a lot of people get to this point where they actually think about this and then they are thinking about retirement.
Luisa Hogan: And it's okay. I think also I want to say it's okay to love your work so much that you don't think about it, right?
mark l vincent: Yes. Right.
Luisa Hogan: But the reality is something's going to happen or you are going to get to a point where it's just not going to be tenable anymore, you know?
mark l vincent: Yes. And there are things about the work that you love so much that you can carry forward with you into the life to go to. um It might not mean that you get to control all the agenda of the executive leadership team meetings anymore.
Luisa Hogan: Mm-hmm.
mark l vincent: You can't just gather your family and your children and say, OK, I'm in charge here and now we're going to have a meeting. that you don't get to do that. But there are things that you enjoy, whether it's camaraderie or generativity and creativity or the ability to see a metric met or some kind of project basis or whatever. There there are things that you can incorporate in that life to come. There has to be a strong belief that life is abundant.
mark l vincent: So if you had a vision that you were passing that along in your company and you weren't just being performative,
Luisa Hogan: Mm-hmm.
mark l vincent: Well, then how do you carry that forward? that There's an abundance for me, for those I love to come. Even in a time when maybe my skills diminish and my physicality isn't what it was or whatever else, there are other things that are growing.
mark l vincent: There's more of a full flower or a maturing or a wisdom I get to carry forward into something new. Let's let's have that conversation. That's so much more fun than I'm so sad about my losses.
Luisa Hogan: whom
mark l vincent: I don't know who I am anymore, you know.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah, for sure. as finding It's finding meaning, right?
mark l vincent: Yeah, exactly.
Luisa Hogan: And I think it's about finding meaning, throughout your career, not just at the end. I think, you know, there's work to be done in that, right?
mark l vincent: Great. Yes.
Luisa Hogan: um um I love that you also talk about something called brain athletes. You say executives are brain athletes and they, you know, they do that under high pressure.
mark l vincent: Yes.
Luisa Hogan: Do you think people can be brain athletes, you know, in other areas of their life and they can, you know, doesn't have to be just with their work life or what do you mean by brain athletes?
mark l vincent: Oh, yeah, I'm so glad you asked that. Today is a special day because we're actually celebrating the launch of this book, The Maestro Effect.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
mark l vincent: And we've I can't believe it, really. I've never had this experience before, but the Zoom license gives us so many seats. for this virtual event. it's They're all claimed. So we've got a global group of people that are coming just to say, woohoo, we did it. You know, this book is out there now. And and that's that's a lot of fun. um And in that process, I've been asked, because I'm not running the event, we the director for Meister Level Leaders, Sarah Harstad is going to, you know, MC it and number of things. But I've got five minutes to make some comments. And I want to talk about exactly this.
mark l vincent: ah When I started in my career, we were still pretty much in a labor economy. And voices like Peter Drucker were saying, we're shifting in this digital age that's coming now that laptops are starting to land on everybody's heads.
Luisa Hogan: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
mark l vincent: We're shifting to a knowledge economy. So you will know things, brain and body, that you will take to wherever you are employed.
mark l vincent: Well, that has shifted since then to an information economy. And we're quickly capitalizing on that with AI and everything where you don't get to take your knowledge, whatever knowledge you take, the company is capturing.
Luisa Hogan: e
mark l vincent: It's in the cloud. It's going to live beyond you where it has been deposited. And now even that's leaking and anybody has access to these things. So we're really moving into a time where we're going to go to what you might call, I haven't decided yet, but we call it like a relational economy, a networked economy, or I'm starting to go more to, I think it's more of a wisdom economy.
Luisa Hogan: Mm-hmm.
mark l vincent: And that is how you, again, with your brain, are able to move across domains, see connections, and create something that doesn't exist yet, that is not yet in the cloud, is not yet in the space, because of the connections you have with other people, as well as technology.
mark l vincent: That requires a brain athleticism that people aren't being trained for. So that means people who have been jacks of all trades, people who have some self-made entrepreneurial kinds of vision, people who get cross-trained, who have varied experiences, they're going to be, I think, the people who are in high demand as problem solvers and as leaders in years to come because they aren't going to have this response.
mark l vincent: I've never done it before or I wasn't trained for that or that's not the software that I run.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
mark l vincent: That response shows I'm in a single domain as opposed to h what if what if we connected this to that?
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
mark l vincent: What do you think could happen? People who think like that have ah an elasticity going in their brain. And they've been trained to look across disciplines. We can self-train for some of that. We can also create opportunity for some of that. I think that's where it's going.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah, for sure. I agree. i mean, a lot of the work that I do as well as getting leaders to have more systems thinking. So not just you can't.
mark l vincent: Right.
Luisa Hogan: You can't work in your little silo anymore. You can't you know just be specializing in your area and never talk to anybody else in your whole business or your whole organization. Everybody needs to be thinking of the whole system all the time.
mark l vincent: Yeah, right.
Luisa Hogan: And i think, especially as you say, in the age of AI, that's gonna just become more and more of a need. You just, yeah so glad you say You can't just specialize anymore because it's just not gonna work.
mark l vincent: No.
Luisa Hogan: it' so It's just not gonna work.
mark l vincent: And that's disheartening.
Luisa Hogan: And the speed of change too.
mark l vincent: if if you're If you were trained as a specialist, that's disheartening.
Luisa Hogan: Mmm.
mark l vincent: If you're out there as a subject matter expert, oh my. You know, and so there's this as ah as a young person, people who worked in the automobile industry were having to be retooled because a lot of things that they were doing was becoming mechanized.
mark l vincent: It wasn't specialized to just them doing repetitive labor. So they had to get retrained, figure out new jobs. And now you have people who train specifically in tech, specifically as subject matter experts, who's specialized knowledge is now so commodified and so cheap, they're going to be not needed.
mark l vincent: And so their retraining, their redevelopment is going to be important. It's going to be interesting to see what academies, what trade schools, what companies gear up to be able to help people take this ability to learn, but to apply it in new in new ways.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah, for sure. It just goes to show how important your work is even there, right? Because I think ah applying what you do, it's going to need to be applied on ah on a grander, greater level across across a lot more people, right?
mark l vincent: Yes.
mark l vincent: Well said. Well said.
Luisa Hogan: So to people listening, you know, who might be thinking about, ah you know, i've I've achieved lots or I'm thinking about my achievements, I have goals to achieve, i have, ah you know,
Luisa Hogan: ah ah I want to achieve lots of things, but now listening to this conversation, they're thinking about, okay, I need to build legacy. What do they need to be thinking about in order to shift their thinking from building achievement to building legacy? Yeah.
mark l vincent: Yeah, well, let's start with the definition of legacy, because for a great number of people, I find they think that means I have to think about my fame, um my reputation, my PR mojo.
Luisa Hogan: Mm-hmm.
mark l vincent: And that's not what is meant here. We can't even control that. We can do things about it, but we can't control that. um People will have their own perceptions of us and they will pass that along. um And regardless of what we are. So legacy has to do with kind of like the ripples that go out from us and influence things that we might not see the results. but You know, I just saw this video and I passed it along in a letter that I write to all of my clients every week.
mark l vincent: ah of I'm not going to remember her name. She was the premier violinist in South Korea, taught many, many students, and she retired in 2014. She died a couple of years ago. But there's this little video out there of her retirement where they come they call her up She's the first woman to ever be the concertmaster, you know, the first violinist. So you give her flowers and she turns to face the audience and the orchestra kicks into I did it my way.
mark l vincent: And she doesn't know that that's happening. Right. So she's surprised. She turns around. and They're playing this and she's in tears. But when it gets into the chorus, the curtain behind orchestra pulls back.
mark l vincent: And there are three rows in this balcony. It might be a choral work or whatever, but three rows of her students playing along.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
mark l vincent: I mean, chills. Few of us get to see our legacy while we're alive.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
mark l vincent: Someone took the effort to pull all of that in, not just so she could witness it, but so the world could witness it.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
mark l vincent: But if that didn't happen, there would be things happening. And those folks are now teaching others who are teaching others. And it just Keep spreading up. That's legacy. And along with it will be people who say, well, I don't think she was a great teacher or she didn't.
Luisa Hogan: yep
Luisa Hogan: course.
mark l vincent: Yeah. I mean, we will collect both of those. All we can do in our life, all we have choice over is to help create conditions that lets those ripples flow.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah. my you You remind me so much of something my husband says and I love it. He says, we we have to plant the seeds of the trees today that we'll never sit in the shade of, you know, and
mark l vincent: Right. And my colleague, Kristen Evenson, who helped me with Maestro Level Year says, and then we get to see the fruit growing on other people's trees.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that that's right.
mark l vincent: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: And that that tree will make other trees and other fruit, right. But you'll never see it. And that's what legacy is, right?
mark l vincent: Right. Yes.
Luisa Hogan: That's that's true legacy. Somebody will sit under the shade of your tree one day, and they'll make their own tree and grow some fruit there.
mark l vincent: Yes.
mark l vincent: Right.
Luisa Hogan: It's it's a wonderful thought.
mark l vincent: Beautiful expression.
Luisa Hogan: I get chills thinking about it, right? Because, you know, for me, my own business, it's 10 years old and I've been thinking, weirdly, I've been thinking about what's next and how I want to grow it and who I want to pass it on to because there are a lot of entrepreneur entrepreneurs out there who are like, my business dies with me.
mark l vincent: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: I'm not interested in passing it on and that's fine.
mark l vincent: Yes, right.
Luisa Hogan: But for me, I'm like, well, actually, no, I'd love this work to continue one day and I'd love somebody else to find passion in it and I'd love to continue to see people you know, and know that it's, you know, it's the ones for me, it's always the ones. If I help one person today and that one person helps one other person, then my job here is done.
mark l vincent: yes
Luisa Hogan: Right.
mark l vincent: right
Luisa Hogan: uh, I'd like to see that passed on. So it's interesting how different people think of, you know, succession and passing their businesses on. It's not all the same.
mark l vincent: it It really is. It is a unique recipe. And, you know, Louisa, I'd say that puts you in the herd of unicorns because it's ah you know it's a rare thing to arrive at this place to even have the opportunity to pass it along.
Luisa Hogan: Hmm.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: yeah
mark l vincent: And then if you're going to, you are taking a unique recipe, a unique model, your lessons, your operations, whatever. And then you're you're crafting it so it can go in someone else's hands.
mark l vincent: That's a journey where others of us who've been through it can watch you do it. We might be able to have empathy and sympathy and be in conversation with you as you do it But in the end, They're your decisions.
mark l vincent: It's your journey. There isn't one other person's journey that exactly matches the one that you're on.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah. And for you personally, what's what's your thoughts on your legacy and what you are doing now? You know, what what are what are your internal thoughts about all of this for you?
mark l vincent: Yeah.
mark l vincent: Yeah. There's probably two things to say there. I have a standard response that I mean with all sincerity. You have to ask those who I've worked with and that I love, you know, what what what they've taken. they're They're the witnesses to that. They're the ones who will do the next thing.
mark l vincent: um And I think that's just an accurate description, right? um But what i say for myself is that with all the life circumstances that I've had and the choices I've made, I arrived at this place where now my sense of mission is that I love leaders who love leaders.
mark l vincent: So I get, in this case, now that I'm just meeting you, I get to love you as one who is investing in other founders and other leaders, wanting to see them have their best life and to pass that along to others.
Luisa Hogan: Mm-hmm.
mark l vincent: I get to love that And to bring that to the room so that I can look at the person, perceive them, respond to them, learn how they learn, speak to them inside their learning environment. And if I get it wrong, to be teachable so I can be better as an accompaniment to their life as they do that. And as they invest in others who succeed, like who who can actually get launched,
mark l vincent: then you can see that that's the fruit. And when you see that person getting launched where they're thinking, who will come after me? We're not gonna get this wrong next time either.
mark l vincent: And that's front and center for them. Then you say, well, this legacy is actually happening, but it's not my legacy. It's all of ours collectively. I didn't appoint their leader, their their successor.
mark l vincent: And I'm not in the conversation necessarily with that successor about who will follow them. But to see those ripples go is the fruit. And there are stories like that, that I can, I can smile over and feel warm about, which helps to offset the ones where I like, oh my, why did they do that?
mark l vincent: Oh my gosh. You know, so you go for the success stories to keep your batteries full for sure.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: For sure. Well, I think you're doing incredible work and I'm so glad you joined me today to share that and to share with the world what what you are doing because I think it is very important work and I love that you love leaders who love leaders because ah i think that's what the world needs, right?
mark l vincent: yes
Luisa Hogan: We need leaders who love leaders and who want to bring leaders up with them because that's what it's all about, right? It's it's not about being on your throne and nobody ever comes up to join you.
mark l vincent: Right. And cutting the throats of those who might, you know, figuratively or literally.
Luisa Hogan: So, yeah. Yeah.
mark l vincent: No, it's it's not about that.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
mark l vincent: Right.
Luisa Hogan: It's not about that. Well, thank you so much for joining me Where can people find you? If people want to connect with you, if they want to work with you, want to buy your book, you say it's launching today.
mark l vincent: Yeah. Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: By the time this comes out, it would have been well launched, but tell us where we can find it.
mark l vincent: Yeah. MarkelVincent.com is the place to go.
Luisa Hogan: Excellent.
mark l vincent: It's kind of a gateway to some of my writing. You can access the book from there. We can correspond. So ah just the simplest way.
Luisa Hogan: Excellent. Well, I'm sure people will find their way to you from this podcast. So thank you again for joining us. To everyone listening, what I took from today is that the third turn of leadership isn't about holding on to your relevance. It isn't about holding on to your identity that you've grown over many years of leadership, but it's about becoming the kind of leader whose impact continues long after you've stepped out of the spotlight. And I think that is an incredibly important idea to have in your in your mind as you progress through your leadership and to not be threatened by that. So until next time, thank you for joining the Second Voice podcast. Take care.
