The Economy of the Heart: How Love and Leadership Build Profitable Cultures | Hanna Bauer

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What's up, my good people? Welcome to the CJ Moneyway Show, powered by Believe Network, where we explore real stories of purpose, resilience, and transformation. I'm your host, CJ Moneyway, and today we're diving into the connection between love, leadership, and lasting success. Our guest today, Hannah, is the CEO and founder of Hardnomics, a leadership strategist and certified trainer with the— check this out— John Maxwell team, DiSC, and Ziglar legacy programs. Through her unique economy of the heart philosophy, she's helped organizations turn burnout into balance, conflict into connection, and profits Into Purpose. This episode is about leading with passion, building teams that strive, and understanding how heart-centered leadership drives sustainable growth. Hey, welcome to the show today, my girl Hannah from Atlanta. What's up?

Oh, I'm doing awesome. It's awesome. And join the groovy music too.

Yeah, you know, I'm trying something new this year, trying to do something different. You know how it is. Hey, so, uh, Hannah, Again, thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to come join the CJ Moneyway Show. So let me ask you, origins and grit. Your journey from corporate to coaching began with serious health challenges. How did that moment shape your leadership philosophy?

Well, desperation will make you do a lot of things, right? So it's pain either way. So for me, it was even in the learning through the pain. That I went through in my body, going through a terminal diagnosis as a kid, didn't quite understand it. Again, growing up, it's not something that you expect. Oh, how am I going to manage this? I basically was fighting for every breath. And fast forward later on in life, as I went through my leadership journey as an entrepreneur and going out there and actually doing something right, I started experiencing the same things I did as a kid. Which is what brought me back. It brought me back to like, well, how did I go through a really hopeless situation, a place where I was not having oxygen, breath, and still made it through? And the pivotal moment came actually when they— well, you can see I'm here. So I'm the result of actually pioneering a surgery. And I didn't know the implication until 20 years later here in Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, the hospital, they did like a reunion and where they put me back with my doctor, the surgeon, the nurse, the person that took me in, and they took me in the back room, like what this new surgery rooms look like. And that was the moment that I heard my doctor say that they were trying to keep me alive long enough for technology to catch up. And that's when it clicked. Everything clicked for me, realizing that it was the excellence that I had seen through the failures of all of these procedures and drugs and even my own life overall as a kid, even growing up to that moment and later on. But also what he said, keeping me alive long enough. And I thought, well, what kept me alive long enough? And that was the love, that was the hope, that was the community, that was the support. So for me, that was the point where it's like these— both of these worlds converged, and I understood that not only that there's Really progress and failure, that's how we progress. But really the sustainability that we talk about is really love.

I like it. That's where the birth of Hardnomics came from, huh? So let me ask you, Nana, how old were you when you were dealing with these issues? You said as a child, how old were you actually?

I was diagnosed at 4. And it went through until I was about 14.

So as a child growing up with these disabilities, just the mindset and the trauma, how did you over, you know what I'm saying, You said that 20 years later when you had the reunion, you really found out what the real aspect of it was, whatnot. But just, you know, say that at that young age, just give us a brief take. How is it when a young kid go through something like that and pull through and come up on the other side like you have done?

Oh my goodness. Well, thank you for asking that. Actually, I don't get to talk about this much, but this is— Well, as a kid, I get to look back at a lot of things. Like basically, I have 5 children. And I'm able to experience a lot of their childhood through them. And as I'm experiencing that, I'm also experiencing things like I didn't have when I was a kid. I mean, I literally had to be tied to the bed because my heart would go suddenly from resting heart rate in the 60s to over 200 beats per minute. And it would be unexpected. There wasn't something that we knew, okay, this is what causes it or this is a trigger. We didn't know how long it would last.. It could be like a few— I don't know if you've ever gone through like a palpitation where suddenly like your heart just kind of flutters a bit, or if you get scared, you know, like you feel it in the movies, you're going like that, or if you're exercising, you know, like that, that feeling that just like just drains you and then they coming back, right? When your heart's starting to stabilize again. Well, I would go through those episodes without my body even moving, without there being anything really outside stimulus, something that was causing it. So as a kid, it was very hard for me to even understand the environment that was outside, to even understand how that environment affected me on the inside, or even how I was feeling on the inside, how I was experiencing on the outside. I experienced two heart attacks by the age of 10. Painful. And it wasn't just that, it was the knowing at 10 years old very much that This is it. This could be the last day. I mean, I didn't understand everything, but I did understand death. You know, like, that's it. That's the end. You know, like, that's it. I had seen people that were no longer in my life. So like, okay, that could be for me. It was always a sad moment in a movie, you know, when somebody died as a kid. So we went through quite a bit of surgeries. I mean, that's actually what brought me to the United States. Parents decided to leave everything behind in Venezuela after my second heart attack. I was given less than 6 months to live, and we came here to the US and from the moment that we arrived, it was consistent ER, CCU, for cardiac care unit, which is the equivalent of ICU. And I basically grew up in Eggleston and Scottish Rite for months, holidays, I can't tell you, like birthdays. I was such a liability, I wasn't allowed to go to school because of the risk of the heart attack. So I knew that. I knew obviously I was not living a normal life because friends would go to school. I wanted to get up and there were things in my mind I wanted to do that I couldn't do. So it was in that time as a child that I started thinking, if I do get to live, which is what everybody's fighting for, it's obviously what I want, it's what my parents want, what am I going to do? You know, because I'm in this bed and that's where my BEAT program came from. That's what the program that I teach people. On today. That's my stabilizing inside. And I'm really not having some— an anchor to be able to still hope and take action, even in a time where it didn't seem much opportunity for action. I don't know if you've ever been in a hospital or not, or been with people that have been in a hospital. The goals that come in that room become goals that some people will usually take it for granted, like, you know, just getting up. Getting a— staying sitting up for 30 seconds or standing up on your own unassisted. Maybe the first step is stand up assisted. Next step is stand up unassisted. Next one is take one step. You know, next one, take 5 steps. You know, go around the floor one time. You know, things like that, that, you know, small little steps, small little bite size. And that's really what started really giving me a framework for everything that I did, understanding that, you know what, sometimes the win for today is going to be just breathing. And sometimes the win for today is going out there and helping 500 people speaking on stage with a keynote that's going to help them out. It's going to look different. It's going to look different.

So I know, you know, just looking back over your life now at that point then and to see yourself now, like you just said, going Being a keynote speaker, couldn't imagine that. But man, the things that he had planned for us down the road that we don't even know, and the things that we have to endure just because what he's taken us through is for our testimony, like you said, speaking to others to help them. But one thing I like what you said, you said you missed out on a lot of things when you were a kid from 4 to 14, that's a long time. You say, but you got 5 kids, so you live things through them. So I know when you at Disney World or Disneyland, you the first one in line. On the rides, you had Chuck E. Cheese, fine Chuck E. Cheese for the kids.

From the morning, I'll be like the one like, we're taking it all in, like everything. You can't be tired. Let me tell you what tired means. They're so tired. Like, my kids are like, you can't use that with me. You can't tell me any of that. Poor things. You don't understand tired. Let me tell you what tired is.

I love it. I love it. But thank God, you know, by his grace and mercy, that you're able to enjoy those moments now that you missed out on. So So let me ask you, Hannah, you've been trained by icons like John Maxwell and Zig Ziglar. I heard of the name, never really— I thought that was a musician or something. Okay, Zig Ziglar, I'll let you tell me who he really is. What key lesson did you take away about resilience and people?

Oh my goodness. Okay, there's so much. But I would say from Zig, Zig Ziglar is like the one that if you used to talk about motivation, like a lot of people are now motivational speakers, and because he was like the forefront runner in motivation who touched so many millions of people. But one of the lessons that I got from him is that you can have everything you want if you help enough other people have what they want. And that really talked about helping people with their dreams. And as we help, as we serve others, that we really can accomplish and become that person that we envision that can not only do better, be better, but really a fulfilled individual. So that was from Zig and overall goal setting, but really what you become in achieving those goals in helping others. And from John Maxwell, well, not only in what he talks about with leadership where he, you know, he tells us things like, you know, leadership is influence, nothing more, nothing less, that everything rises and falls on leadership. But also to be able to go walk hand in hand with him as we've done country transformation trips, things that seem almost like really crazy. And it does take a little bit of crazy. I mean, Steve Jobs said that, you know, those that are crazy enough to think that they can change the world are the ones that actually do. John Maxwell is one of those, and we're all right there with them. So one of his visions is to see transformation for an entire country. You know, we talk about transformation of self, we talk about transformation in organizations. In communities, but like to see an entire country be transformed with values-based leadership is something that I've been able to not only take a part of, but really actually see what happens when we honestly, we just sit around the table and not only have a seat at the table, but have a voice at the table, give, make a space for people to have a voice at the table in the solutions, the collaborations that come from that. It has just been impactful. It's impactful to watch, it's impactful to be a part of it, and it's impactful obviously to the people that go through it and seeing the years later, you know, how those countries are still moving, making progress. And again, progress looks different for everybody. And I think that's one of the things that learning with both of them is it's just going to look a bit different. It's going to look not only from person to person, from community to community and country to country. So it's been an amazing ride.

You know what, Hannah, I will say this. With John Maxwell, you're probably like the fourth or fifth people that I've had on the show that actually has a connection with him. Matter of fact, one lady I interviewed, Diane, her last name started with a K, I can't pronounce it, it's another name, but he actually wrote the foreword for her book. He wrote the foreword for her book. And so I would say this, I've never met John Maxwell and I've never sat at the round table with him, but I feel privileged to have those who have sat there to come on the CJ Moneyway Show and share their experience of being with the great John Maxwell. And so let me ask you this, Hannah. You explained it to us earlier, but tell us in your words, what does Heartonomics actually mean to you?

For me, well, when I had the name, heart obviously has been a big part of it, right? As a kid, not only the physical part, but you know when people say things like take heart, you know, for be strong, right? Or, you know, put your heart into it. And I remember as a kid, like, well, my heart's not well, you know, can I really do that? You know, just as a kid thinking of it, you know, I started confusing my physical heart or even my limitations to what I really— the value that I had. So for me, heart really became a journey of not only understanding the value that I had as a human being, but that I can also add value to people., and value. And the way I do that is also by valuing them. So for the heart aspect is the human side. It's just even acknowledging our humanity, being human and being excited about everything that comes with it. Being human-centric, being human first in what we do. And the nomics part, when I was thinking about it again, I liked positivity. Of course, I like being hopeful, but I also realized that hope in itself is not a strategy. You know, you can be very hopeful and not have the tools and the systems and the processes. You know, you can be hopeful, but how do you even transfer that? How do you grow in that? And that became my— a big part of what I learned through my certifications, through Six Sigma, which is continuous improvement, through Baldridge, which is the systematic view. And I realized that there is an economy in the sense of the processes, the systems, and that work for humans, right? I mean, so that's what Hardnomics is, is the economy, the excellence the systems, the processes, the failures, all of this part that becomes more strategic, more structural, really does go along with the people, the heart, the humanness that we have. But in order for me to be able to do those, both of those well, grow, work with great people, and work with great processes and systems, it was going to require me to take my leadership up. So Harnomics, is that it's the leadership aspect where I'm taking both the human-centric and the standards of excellence that come in the processes and the systems that are led by my leadership and the leadership systems that I'm able to put into place. That's where it came from, is from both. I've seen many leaders that have been charismatic, been very likable, awesome, passionate, full of service, but don't have the structure or don't have the tools for people to be able to— for them to be able to sustain the ideas and the dreams that they have, right, where people can plug in. And I've seen it the other way too, where I've seen it like very structured, rigid places, but they don't have the love or the connection, you know, like that goes with it. So very rigid, clinical in a sense, not like, you know, not in a good way clinical where we're talking about healing I love. We're talking like very clean, but there's no oomph to it, you know, like there's no soul to it. I did it in both. And for us, and I believe that in this time of change of AI and technology and all of these things, the massive amount of information we have, it's gonna take both. It's gonna take a way, a process, a way to do things, and it's gonna take the love, the humanity where we're serving humans and humans first, that all come together. And it's going to take the leaders making those decisions and having the vision to be able to make them both work together for a positive change.

Yeah. You know, I like the whole thing. Like you said, the human side of it, the empathy. You know, sometimes you can do things, you can be a great leader, like you say, charismatic and everything, but it ain't got that pop because they don't have a foundation behind it. You know, so you've laid a foundation because of what you endured and where you've been and the people. I know the Bible says this, it say your gifts and your talents will put you in front of great men. And so Hannah, I'm here to say your gifts and talents have put you in front of men like John Maxwell, Zig Ziglar, and I'm pretty sure many more and many more to come. Like you say, stages that you haven't even been on yet, you know what I'm saying? Places you haven't even speak yet, sky's the limit. Let me ask you this, Hannah. Leadership, culture, and transformation. You've worked with leaders to improve productivity through connection. Why do so many organizations still struggle with empathy at the top?

Oh, you want to get into that? Okay. Why do they struggle? Again, one is, well, we people call it a soft skill, but really it's love, right? I mean, the big part is love, but also the purpose. We, many times in businesses, you know, and I understand, you know, some people say money talks. So where do they go? They follow the money. But in following the money a little bit and a little bit and a little bit, they end up over here to where their mission was over here. And the empathy comes in and the empathy and realizing like, hey, this mission, this vision is worth pursuing. And we being empathetic to the people that both were receiving our services and the ones that yet are to receive our services. And it requires that, it requires a humbleness of realizing, hey, I can serve in embracing the entire way that I serve. And it requires that a certain love, right? And you talk about empathy, it's even more beyond love than myself. It's not just like, hey, I'm going to take care of me. It's like, hey, I'm going to think about how you are and I'm going to position not only myself, but what I do in a way that's going to serve you first. And that's what we talk about, servant leadership. In transformation, one of the things and with connection, well, for example, I mentioned to you, I was not even allowed to go to school many times. One is the physical aspect. I couldn't. I mean, if I'm fighting to breathe, there really is no point in going to school, right? And very well-meaning people actually, I mean, doctors and nurses and anybody say, hey, don't worry about that. You know, just relax, just breathe. You know what we tell people, you know, that are going through a hard time, it's okay, you know, which is perfectly fine. The thing for me, those, like, that was years. That was like my formative years. That was when everybody's going to middle schools, going to elementary school, and I'm like, okay, you know, what am I gonna do? But this isn't— when we're talking about— yes, I definitely believe 100% God and faith and divine appointment there, because you're talking from a girl who wasn't able to go to school for many periods of time to once everything's okay And this is the— and I say this because of the power of transformation. One of my biggest struggles was oxygen to the brain. We know what happens with problems with oxygen in the brain. Can't learn. There's a lot of things a lot of people say, right? You really were going to have trouble learning. There's a lot of pathways, there's damage that can happen. Yet I was able to take AP classes. I graduated from high school. I said very well. Went to college. Won full paid scholarship. But later on, I was leading out of all the businesses I could have led was an educational business, K through 12. And later on in 2016 in Washington, D.C., I was elected chair over the entire industry for education, K through 12. So I went from a kid that couldn't go into the classroom to now being responsible and leading content for every single classroom, K through 12 in the United States. And I say that as a power of transformation. And what was that? What was the magic? Like, if you're going to say like the magic sauce, I didn't have it. Except that I wanted to serve. I understood pain because I went through it. And I understood the pain of the kids that were wanting to do something with their school and couldn't because they didn't have the resources. Or the teachers couldn't— were confused with all the standards that were coming in and they wanted to help their kids and they didn't have the right tools. And that took empathy to be able to think outside the box. So how can we do that? And that's what I found, me as a person, being able to accomplish what I did. But beyond that, what we were able to do as a business and what I'm able to help leaders, when you really put yourself as serving first, When you're empathetic, when you feel the pain of your customers, of your clients, of the people on the other side, you want to do better. You want to be better. Sometimes you're not doing better because you need to be better. There's another level you need to reach. Company, another level you need to reach with your team so you can serve other people better. And that's what we had to do. It wasn't like thinking like, hey, I want to do better. We had to train, we had to do things differently, we had to take risks, we have to take, you know, like, hey, what can we do? We have to spend a lot of time preparing, like the same way we do it because we want to serve better. And that is a big part of empathy because empathy will make you want to do that because you want to do it better for them.

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Music style.

Music style.

Man, going through the fire to pull somebody else through. You know, as you were talking about that, Hannah, I was just thinking, as you said, you know, laying down and you couldn't get up, you wanted to go to school, you fighting to go to school. And you know, I know being that young, sometimes you just don't understand and we get discouraged. Like, you know, I can't do this and everybody else doing that. But man, the sit-down, just the things that he was putting inside of you at that moment so that the time when you did rise up, when you did rise up, there was going to be no stopping you because all this time, like you said, when we kids, you don't know what's being built in you. You don't know what was placed in you or why you went through this or why you went through that or why am I going through this and this and that, but everything is worked out for our good, you know what I'm saying? What the enemy thought that he had is that God works it out for our good. And so I'm just listening to you, so it's an amazing story as you was talking about the one that speaks, you know, and he get up there and say something. But you can be talking from a point of view where your father may have been successful, now you taking over, you know what I'm saying, his business, and now you're running this and talking from that standpoint. But you're not talking from a standpoint where you had to start from nothing, where you had to start from the bottom, build something brick by brick, had to go through some things to get where you are. It wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth. There's a difference. You know what I'm saying? There's a difference. And it's a different way that you present yourself when you come to people because I can have that empathy towards this person because I've been through some stuff too. You know what I'm saying? And that's just the bottom line. I love it. I love it. I'm trying to keep up with y'all. I'm trying to keep up with the heart nomics. Hey, so let me ask you this, Adam. What's the biggest misconception about leadership development that you see in corporate training today?

Oh, the soft skills. People think it's a nice to have. It's almost like if we have time for that, then we'll do it. As if communication was a nice afterthought, you know, communication very much is part of leadership and honestly is a consistent problem that I see. I mean, a lot of times people don't say, oh, I have a problem with my leadership system. Not at all. Nobody will say that. Like, everybody's a leader, right? Everybody was up here and everybody's a leader. No, we can be. We can. Everybody definitely has the DNA to be a leader and a great one. But it is developed. I mean, even like we talk about the same way with athletes, right? I mean, you can have the great DNA genetic material, but if it's talent without being developed, targeted, prepared, it's not going to accomplish what it can do. And it's the same leadership. We think, oh, it's just leadership. It's just going to organically grow. It's not. It's the same way. Because what is leadership? It's not soft. It's not just a position. I mean, we have a lot of positional leaders that because, hey, because it's my title, it's what we're going to do now. Or suddenly when you get the position and title, there's like, oh, next day, you know exactly what to do. We don't. I have the manager thing. It comes with all this extra knowledge and all this stuff. I mean, I see a lot of great subject matter experts. And I've seen this a lot in technology where they do amazing things. And then they're put in a position of leadership without the leadership training. And they're not able to accomplish with the team, it affects their productivity, it affects the team morale, it affects the team's productivity, it affects the entire business. A great subject matter expert, a great technician in professional in what they do, put in a place without the training to be able to take the team all together. It's many times what I see is like this assumptions that because you're put in a position, it comes with all the same thing with salespeople. You have salesperson, what happens? Oh, we're going to promote you. So now instead of you just being the only salesperson, now you have a team of salespeople without the sales leadership training, without the training that it requires to listen, that it requires to have empathy, that requires to be able to make decisions, prioritize, conflict resolution, energy. It takes a lot of energy. It takes intentionality. It's having relationships with people. It takes energy. We're complex beings. We're beautiful human beings, but we're very complex. And that's where the beauty comes in. It takes work to create those relationships, to build those relationships. And it can be exhausting. So a lot of times I think, well, when I think, I see that the leaders I put into all of this, you know, you're going to do your task plus all of this in the same amount of time or less. So the other myth is that this is endless amount of energy in that we're not teaching our leaders how to be able to maintain that, to prevent that burnout. I can tell you going through heart disease, I was exhausted after days of where my heart would not stop. I mean, like, they would just be the tachycardia going super, super fast. The amount of time it would take me to recover from that, it was way more than me just taking a walk and a stroll down the street. And I see that with our leaders all the time. They're operating in dysfunctional organizations, trying to keep up with everything. It's like having those episodes, just like the tachycardia. They're just keeping up with this, like, really super, super fast rhythms and not taking the time to break or to recharge or restore. And it's causing what we're seeing a lot today. It's causing not only productivity to go down, it's causing people leaving their jobs that they love, their careers that they work so hard for and prepare for. It's costing families, it's costing health. And we're seeing that great, amazing, talented leaders that, and it's every day because it comes to be too much. So the after fact of like, oh, leadership development is just nice. It's not just a nice thing. It is essential for the health of the person, the company.

Yeah. I mean, I get it. You know, when you were saying that, I'm just going to say this one thing, because a lot of times people want to get in leadership roles just to say that they got power. Power so they could tell you to do something, you know, but not really wanting to be a leader. Like you say, communication is key, you know. And one thing that I stand on, Hannah, and I put it like this, I don't forget where I come from, you know. So when I deal with people, you know, whether you're a manager or whatever, when you deal with people, don't, you know, like, hey, I'm the boss now, just do as I say. Now remember, you used to be in that spot too, you know what I'm saying? So you know what it is. When you in that spot, so now that you over somebody, if you trained and learned the position, help somebody else grow. Show them what you know so that you can have a cover. What people forget is the frontline people, people that's on the frontline make you look better. So if I train you up the right way, you make me look good in front of Mr. John Maxwell. And so that's what it's all about. What they say? Paying forward. So let me ask you this, and I only got a couple more questions before I really enjoy— before I go down, where can we find all things Hannah? Where can we find your company, your programs, everything? Where can we find you at on social media and abroad?

Oh, well, best place is my website, which is www.hartnomics.com. H-E-A-R-T-N-O-M-I-C-S.com. You can also find me on LinkedIn. You'll see me there on LinkedIn, on Facebook. Just go under Hannah Bauer, and you'll find me there as well. I have an assessment there for you that is a complimentary one, and it can help you see where you're at, you know, with dealing with your heart, the heart of your own leadership as an individual, but also the organization. So that's there for you as well.

Mm. Hey, head over to Hannah's website so you can go ahead and take that assessment yourself, which I know many of you probably scared to do because you want to stay where you are because you perfect. Just as you is. Hey, so Heather, let me ask you this. Overcoming adversity and building legacy. In your work with nonprofits and entrepreneurs, what moment stands out where you saw real transformation happen?

As well, I deal with a lot of nonprofits are dealt— are led a lot by founders. And even you see that with small businesses when they're going to the next level, the next line of leadership. And that's when I see the transformation is when they're open to always developing that next level of leadership. When they delegate, when they have put in enough of the trust deposits in people and people are in that trust environment that they can actually carry and do because that's what the culture says. Those that have built sustainable cultures, not just sustainable needs, those that have actually built sustainable leadership lines, not just a sustainable position, or that have just made it to their ones. But where do I see the transformation? It's in those founders, those leaders, the next one that they really— everything they develop is to develop the next lineup. That's not only happened because I just trust and believe, which is definitely part of it. But also there is a way, there is a pathway, there is a process, there is a system where they're building not just a concept, but they're building also the stairs that go along with that concept. That's where I see the transformation. A lot of times I go and help small businesses and or even the nonprofits where the founder is wanting to step away or they're going to go, you know, they have another opportunity to be able to do something else. And unfortunately they cannot find a successor because people are either intimidated, "Oh, I could never do what they do." You know, it's like too much. "Oh, I could never." Like all the people that greatly admire them because they've done amazing things, but nobody feels like they can do what that person does. And that's fine. They're not supposed to. But there should be a pathway to be able to continue the work because the work is good.

So got to train them up. Got to train somebody up. That one person behind, like I know in sports, I just use a sports analogy. You got the GM, general manager, and then you got the assistant general manager, and then they all got teams. And so you train up the assistant general manager so if something happened to you, then the assistant general manager can replace you and take your spot. Come on, man, let's play as a team. It's a team sport. Hey.

No, that's not even like in the bench, right? Because you think about it, the pitchers already have the warming up. I mean, they already have a bench. You have a group of people, and I think that's exactly the same thing. Great leaders are constantly building that bench, and they're working so they can come and, again, step to the plate. But you got the bench is just as important as the ones that are out there doing the pitches.

All right, so I'm going to tell y'all this. I didn't know this at first because me and Hannah didn't get into this. We did get into the, you know, what she don't do because she got a hardonomics. But I see now. Hannah is an Atlanta Braves fan. I know she hated when old Freddie left over there, went to the Dodgers and won his second straight championship. She said, don't talk about it, don't talk about it. 'Cause Hannah say, she even, for y'all that listening to it on audio and this, can't see it on video, she even went into the pitcher's stands like she know how to throw a fastball. She threw her first pitch out at the Atlanta Braves game. Go ahead, girl. If it haven't happened, speak those things that haven't happened and speak those things that's not as if they were. Hannah gonna be pitching at the Atlanta Braves game. Ain't that something? So, uh, so, Hannah, let me ask you my last question. For someone listening who's leading a team through chaos, what's the first hard-driven move they should make?

Well, the first hard-driven one is I would test alignment. That's the first thing, because chaos, there has to be, what are we doing? The reason why we have chaos is because we are maybe even doing too much and not really know what we're doing at the end of the day. So the number one thing is you gotta say, what are we here for? What are we doing? When you're able to bring clarity to that, and I would have to go there to pull out, read out the vision, read out the mission. Remember, many times we just have to go back to basics. We don't need the newest fad on something. We need to go back and get back in touch with what is it that we're doing What are we doing it for and who are we doing it with? It's the first step. For me, when I was going through, again, a lot of chaos with not having any hope really on I was going to get better or didn't know when these episodes would stop, one of the key things and strategies that I had was basically holding my breath and just standing in that moment in hopes that the next beat will be normal. And one thing I found is even in using that in my leadership, when everything's chaotic, you got to break through that noise. That means pause. You're going to have to take the moment to pause and it's going to hurt. I tell you, even with me and my body, when I took that pause, it would hurt. But the payoff would be an immediate relief on the next beat or the second beat. And again, hoping that we get better in working through that. But I will say the same thing I have found in leadership. Get in touch with why are you doing it? Who are you doing it with? What are you doing it for? And it is that pause. It is that hard pause. And it may hurt initially, but it provide that relief.

Mm.

And you step out and do things for him. Him, he'll open up a multitude for you. He say that if you could turn one from the error of their ways, a multitude of sins would be covered for you. So keep doing what you're doing. Hannah, let me ask you this real quick. Why now? You know what I'm saying? Like, what made you now want to start coming out, you know, doing podcasts? Thank you for coming on your boy, the CJ Moneyway Show. So what made you, you know, say now I want to come out and start sharing your story?

Well, there are a couple of things. I've been sharing it in different ways, but one of the main things is that I don't want to be the, what do you call it, you know, just when you've been entrusted with something, with a message, the best way to honor to those who honors do is by also bringing out to the story. I am very thankful for the work that my doctors did, for the work that my family did, for where I'm at. And the best way to honor them is to be able to do it through honor and post the story. I see a lot of fear right now because I'm hearing the same things I was going through at that time. Uncertainty, disruption, I don't know what's next, I don't have an anchor. Like all of these things, I can't even catch a breath. Literally the word breath and things I think that we took for granted maybe a decade ago, even 5 years ago, that we thought would never change, have changed.

Oh, changed that, oh, big time. And we ain't going to go there, but we know, you know what I'm saying?

Yeah, yeah.

Hardonomics.

A lot of hard change. And I believe, hey, I know this is true. I know that this works. And I believe that the time is now because of the uncertainty, because of the need to breathe. And I lived a lot of years fighting to breathe. So I want to be able to give that respite to people, especially to my leaders, because I really believe— just seeing from the country transformations— the leaders are in a position to make decisions. You can see how many people have been hurt by a leader, and it can be— the ripple effects are immense. But also think about those people that have been impacted by one leader, by one word, or what somebody did and the amazing things they can do. I believe in humanity. I think right now our humanity is being questioned with a lot of tools, a lot of things. We tend to call the phones smartphones. We even call water smart. But when we call our kids smart, our friends smart, you know, we compliment our employees, hey, you're smart, all the time. We call all these things that are not human smart, and it's taking away our confidence. It's taking away our humanity. And I believe that, hey, we are made in the image of the divine. We created these tools. Our greatest time hasn't passed us. Our greatest time is ahead. I believe that getting in touch with humanity, honoring humans, and being able to do the great things that we do, we're really not going to be able to get through this time of uncertainty but really come on top. And it is— I believe in humanity.

I like that. Hannah, I really want to appreciate you coming on the show and sharing these things with us today. And if I had to entitle this, this conversation, this podcast episode today, I would entitle it Leaders Start Stepping Up. Yeah, because you are the head and not the tail, above and not beneath. Hey, Hannah, Hannah reminded us that leadership isn't about authority, it's about being authentic. When love and excellence meet, people profit, profits rise together. If this episode inspired you, share with a leader who's ready to build culture with and subscribe to the CJ Moneyway Show for more brick-by-brick stories of growth and impact like my girl Hannah did today. From Atlanta, John Maxwell, Zig Ziglar, until the next time, we outta here.

Peace. You been listening to the CJ Moneyway Show. Woo! With real stories, real lessons, yeah, and real perspective come together. Remember, move with patience, move with purpose.

That is the mindset of a Panther.

Until next time, keep building your legacy brick by brick by brick by brick. Music style.