From Airwaves to Impact: Rob Wentz on Turning Trauma into Transformation & Building Leaders Who Last

Hello everybody and welcome to another episode here on the Pope Replaced podcast show. I'm your host, Paul H. Flowers Jr., and this is the Everyday Entrepreneur where we bring about emerging and established entrepreneurs all across the globe to share with our audience and listeners how they've gotten, where they've gotten, and where they're going, going forward. Today we've got none other than Mr. Rob Wentz himself, a dynamic leader. Again, this gentleman has more experience and knowledge in his pinky, I should say, uh, than most, just because of his travels throughout his entrepreneurship journey. So first and foremost, Rob, how are you, my friend?

Paul, I'm doing great. It's great to see you. It's awesome to be here. Thank you for having me on the show. Just excited to, if I can share some value and some wisdom today, that's awesome. So I just appreciate the opportunity.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And I'm, I'm kind of excited because I get to see this background you have. And for our Audible listeners here, this is a video podcast as well. So please hop on over to the YouTube so you can see he's got this really cool on the air sign in the background, and that might have something to do with a little history in radio, as I'm sure we'll uncover. So, uh, Rob, if you would, just go ahead and let's get started with taking us back down memory lane a bit, but where you are now, kind of how you got to this point, and what's on the horizon for you.

Yeah, man. So, you know, I— as far as what's going on with me right now, so where I, I've been, I spent most of my life, 20 years in radio broadcasting, right? So a lot of, a lot of my years were spent doing many different kinds of shows, mostly a morning show, but running a radio station the ins and outs of that. Uh, I left that job back in 2017, started a digital marketing company, and that led me up until a little bit after the pandemic. And I got into coaching and really found my groove in life coaching and then leadership coaching, transitioned into business coaching, helping teams, helping organizations grow, uh, and helping them improve their communication also. Uh, you know, I, I really believe that All leadership comes down to how well we communicate. And I think that everything in our life is based on the level of our communication. Uh, and for me personally, that's been my journey. The more, the better I can communicate, the better things go, the better of a leader I become personally and professionally. So I speak about leadership, not in the sense of like just in the business side of things, because everything that's professional is personal, right? So if we aren't growing professionally, we're probably not growing personally. And that's led me to where I am now doing coaching. Uh, but it's been a really interesting journey of, like I said, 20 years in radio. So for most of my life, I was standing behind a microphone, putting on a show, entertaining people. And, uh, for lack of better words, I was very self-absorbed. It was all about me. It's all about how I was doing, all about was I being successful? Did people like me? Was I doing a good job? That, that sort of thing. Uh, and you know, maybe about a little over a decade ago, I really started to understand the value of being of service to people and getting out of my own way. And the more I can serve people, the more successful I'll be. The, the win-wins of life and business and that's gradually changed me in a very dramatic way. Uh, but really it hasn't been that long of a period of time where I've seen like rapid transformation, although technically it's been a decade, but it seems like it's all happened very fast to me. And I just, I look at today, you know, we've, we live in a society where people shy away from leadership. I shied away from leadership. A lot of people don't know how to communicate or don't want to communicate effectively. Maybe they choose not to, or they just don't know how to. And so I really want to be somebody who made my mess my message. I was not a good leader. I was not a good communicator. And I feel like I'm a great communicator, and I feel like I'm a very good leader, getting better at those things every day. And I want to just help other people achieve those things for themselves in their life. Like I said, personally and professionally.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Now, you mentioned transformation. And you've built a brand, really, around transformational leadership. But take us back to, you know, maybe some of the first moments when you realize that leadership wasn't necessarily about controlling things, or just making sure that Rob was known as the great one. But really, it was about influence. So if you would kind of take us back to that pivotal moment in your transition.

Yeah, you know, I think because everything— there's always like a million little things that add up to some sort of big transformation. If I could point to something that really started to have a major impact on me is when I knew that I was going to have a son, uh, like I said, about a decade ago. He's 10 and a half now, so probably about 11, uh, 11 years and 9 months ago or something along those lines. Trying to put the piece of the puzzle.

Precise. I like that.

I was like, okay, I'm gonna be a dad. Um, and something inside me just told me I couldn't be the person that I was at the time, right? I had drug addiction issues, uh, like I said, very self-absorbed. And in order for me to care about other people, I, I couldn't— I couldn't get past me. I couldn't get out of my own way, right? And since I hadn't learned how to get past me, I had trouble, uh, I would, I would define it as like a lack of compassion. Not that I was compassionless, but I was just, it was always concerned about me because I was, I struggled with things. And so when I struggled with things, I didn't have that space or that clarity to think about anybody else around me. Uh, and that caused a lot of problems in my life. I think I had some great success in business, but as far as personally, I had not grown nearly as much as I needed to. And so having that realization, and I didn't realize it then, you know, at all, but it planted this seed of leadership. It planted this seed of there's now somebody coming into the world that I need to take care of, that I need to lead, that I need to guide. And I didn't know how to do that. And I was kind of like scared to death that that was something that I was going to have to do. And I know a lot of dads go through this. It's not an, uncommon situation, but really it was for me like this, this switch flipped. And when that switch flipped, I couldn't stop thinking about it. I couldn't stop going on this personal development journey because I had to be a better human being for him, which in turn impacted everything else in my life. Now I can't turn that switch off. Now it's like I turned that on I love leadership. I love communication. I love growing. Lifelong learner. I didn't read books 10 years ago. I thought that sounded like a horrible thing to do, read a book.

Crazy.

Right now I've got a wall of books behind me. So it's really cool, man. That would say that was my beginning. That was the beginning of my leadership journey. And that was probably about 10 and a half years ago or maybe about 11 years ago. That really was the The key. I can remember I listened to Tony Robbins. I was listening to Tony Robbins. He's one of the first guys that I came across when I started on this journey. And he said, you have to be of service to be successful in business. You have to be of service to other people. And I was dumbfounded. I'm like, why would I have to serve other people to have a successful business? That's how I, I point to that cuz that is how far off my mentality was. I didn't understand that concept. He said that, it sounded like a different language. Like, why would I need to serve people to make money? And so that is how far off I was, uh, 10 and a half, 11 years ago to where I've come now.

Well, you know what, uh, hey, I appreciate the vulnerability dealing with things like drug issues, you know. And the time of the recording, for our listeners out there, this is the month of May, and 5/5/2025 is the date. Oh, I just realized that Cinco de Mayo. Yeah. May is also Mental Health Awareness Month. So we know that those types of, you know, substances and things can have an impact on us. And you were actually able to not just get past it in a little way, right? You're, you're huge at this point. You know, you had a really successful career, uh, transitioning into radio. If you would, and again, if you remember, and as much as you'd like to share, and in terms of being vulnerable, share with listeners what it was like to kind of break free from the old stuff that you used to do and so much of being able to lay that foundation for the new you we see today?

Yeah, it was, uh, there was a lot of struggle involved, a lot of, a lot of struggle and, uh, all of it good. All of it's been used for my advantage and for other people's advantage now. Um, but there's a lot of suffering and during that process, I found God during that process, right? I became a Christian and I really put a lot of my, a lot of my energy there, which brought a lot of really good people into my life and started to really transform who I was as a person and what I believed in. And what I noticed was I used to suffer without God, and that was hard. So we're all, I think we all have to go through life and there's, there's suffering involved. I think every, every time we grow, anytime we get to a new level, there's a level of suffering, a level of pruning, of trimming things off of us to take us to a new level in life. And glory to glory is what they, they say in the Bible, right? Um, and but with God by my side, it's been much easier to go on that journey. It's been much easier to have a foundation, firm foundation to, to stand on. But going through that, you know, if I had to, let's see, 10 years ago, 11 years ago, this journey started and it was probably, I left my radio job in 2017. And especially at that point, I did not realize this then either, but anybody who started their own business knows if the business is gonna be successful, it only can be as successful as you are as a person. Mm-hmm. The business can only grow as much as you can grow as a human being. And I think sometimes people do have major success in business without growing personally and things fall apart from that place, right? It's very hard to not grow personally and have professional growth and have it match, uh, have it be sustainable, have it be something that is fulfilling. And that's something for me, uh, I never felt fulfilled. I never felt worthy. I had low self-esteem, low self-confidence, uh, And I think over the years I found this mentor. He's probably been my mentor now for about 6 years. His name's Ray, Ray Overdorf. Ray's in his late 80s. He has been a business coach as long as I've been alive. Just an incredible, incredible guy. And he is all about integrity and being integrous. And I never thought about integrity. I mean, I— if you have drug addiction issues, You're probably not thinking about integrity. You're thinking about getting drugs, right? So it was like, uh, this switch as things started to change was like, okay, why, why do I kind of hate myself? Why do I not want responsibility? Why do I avoid all these things that it seems like he's so founded on and based on? It was because I was constantly lying to myself. It's because I, I constantly had a voice in my head that was telling me what I needed to do, and I was constantly ignoring that voice. I was always breaking promises to myself. I remember he explained it to me one time. He said, you know, if you had a friend who constantly lied to you and constantly broke promises to you, would you be that person's friend? And I'd be like, well, no, I would get away from them. He said, well, that's what you're doing to yourself, but you can't get away from yourself. You're stuck with you. So if you're always breaking your own promises and and lying to yourself, and you just end up hating yourself because it's like a roommate that you can't move out from and you're stuck there. And so that made sense. And so I've learned over the years, right, if I'm, I gotta keep my promises to me. I know what I need to do. I know what the right thing is. Just morals, values, those things are naturally built into us. So as I follow those more closely and stay true to me, things just change. Things rapidly change. Another thing he said to me, which was super powerful, was that there's a blessing in everything depending on how you look at it. And that did not make sense. He told me that and I was like, I don't know what that means, but it doesn't make any sense, Ray. And he's like, he's like, it's all right, you'll get it. Like, you'll get it one of these days. And, uh, there was— there's been multiple situations now where I'm like, oh, okay. I see. I had a scenario in my life with my, uh, my stepmom and, um, we never saw eye to eye. And he said, look for the blessings. And I was like, what the heck are the blessings here? So, uh, I started just showing up for her in a different way, right? I started showing up and just listening to her. Um, actually paying attention to her. Cause I always tried to like end our conversations or get out of our conversations cuz she drove, kind of drove me crazy. But as I started to listen to her, I started noticing the more I listened, the less reactive she was, the less tense our relationship was. And it was like this lesson of, right, Dale Carnegie, right? How to Win Friends and Influence People. It's listening. Actively listening to people, being genuinely interested in other people. And as I became more interested in her, our whole entire relationship and dynamic changed. And so that's just a small example. And I forget what your question was, to be honest with you. But there's been, So many different things that have changed my life. Um, but I would say the two biggest things were looking for blessings in situations where it seems like there's nothing good coming out of this. And along that path, you know, and looking for blessings is such an important part of the journey. It's such an important part of the path. I, I don't know how we can look at our life. Uh, if you look at your life so negatively when bad things happen, then what's the point of bad things happening? We when you look at your life and the idea of, wow, everything is a blessing if I look at it that way and I use it correctly, it'll change the way that you— it'll change the way that you move all throughout the day, personally and professionally, you know.

And I think you absolutely did answer the question, and was again just regarding this being Mental Health Awareness Month and breaking free from addiction and that kind of establishing who you are today. And when you talk about the outlook basically at how we can look at things. We can shift our perspective, aka our paradigm, and view things in a different way. And I've heard it several times, and I'll probably bastardize the saying now, but when you change the way you look at things, the way you look at things changes. Something to that effect. And you've done that. You've made those changes, and now it seems like you're seeing things clearly, right? So I'd like to know, of course, with that history in radio and that transition into the entrepreneurship space now, uh, how did that time— how did that journey, being able to sit on one side of the microphone and, and investigate and listen and learn, right, with storytelling and all that, uh, how did that time in radio and your approach to, uh, listening and storytelling, connecting with people— how did, how did radio shape your ability to really be with people on a deeper level?

Yeah, great question. I when I, I didn't know what I was doing when I was in radio. I just, I didn't, and my mom said when I was 15 years old, she said, what do you want to do with your life? And I said, I want to be a radio DJ and I want to be a professional wrestler. And she, she was like, okay, uh, you're like 5'9". I don't know if the pro wrestler thing's gonna work, but the, she helped me get a job in radio when I was 15. I've been doing a pretend radio show in my bedroom since I was 10. I don't know why I loved radio so much. I just, I know that like if I was if I was 15 now, I'd be doing YouTube and podcasts, right? Cause that wasn't a thing back in 1996 or whatever year that was. And for me, what I learned along the journey, and I didn't, I didn't figure any of this out until a few years ago. Like as I started getting trained in coaching, I started to figure out, like I was in radio for all those years because I didn't know how to communicate. I didn't know how to talk to people. I, I had, It's like I had a version of me inside of me that I didn't know how to get out. And so inadvertently I just went into radio because I could, I could be somebody else. I could like put on a character or like I wasn't judged for being me, you know, in day-to-day life. I felt like I wasn't allowed to be me. Go on the radio. I felt like I was allowed to be this like character of myself or whatever you'd want to say. But over the years, I can recall at one point in time, my ex-wife, uh, she said to me, she said, you know how when you answer the phone calls on, on the radio and you talk to people? And I'm like, yeah, yeah. And she's like, and how that always goes really well and you're really good at that. She said, why don't you do that just when you're talking on the radio? Because like, I would do like this whole character. I'd like, like a radio character, kind of phony. Okay. And she said, when you talk to people, you just, you're just being you. You should just do that. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. And so from there on out, I also remember things changing dramatically as far as my approach and my skill to being on the air and how I connected with people. I just let myself be more of myself. It's almost like I needed permission to be me. And so that years later, looking back, like radio taught me how to communicate effectively. It taught me how to command a room or lead a room even though nobody was there. It was just me in the room just talking to people. People. Uh, but I, I learned so much from that. But I, I learned how important communication is and how often— because the entire time I was in radio, I was communicating for me to feel gratified, to feel okay.

Right.

Now I communicate to hear other people and to serve them and to make sure I can help them in some sort of way. But I'm still doing the same thing I was doing on the radio back then because I The thing I would always hear was that I was very relatable and I wasn't trying to be. I think it was just kind of who I was.

Right.

And I just use that now and turn it around so that I can connect with people because there's so many people out there, and I'm sure that you know this, Paul, there's so many people who feel like nobody hears them. There's so many people out there who feel misunderstood. There's so many people out there who don't even understand themselves. So helping them, teaching them, Guiding them to come outta their shell, like by, by asking great questions, by listening, is such a powerful tool that we can misuse to manipulate people. And I've had that done to me. When we use it properly to help people come to their own conclusions, people find massive, massive breakthrough in their life. They get unstuck. That's why I started my platform, the podcast, The Unstuck Movement. I've gotten unstuck from so many different things. I'm sure you have also. I'm sure you've been stuck and you found breakthrough.

Absolutely.

Once we find breakthrough, the only reason I can see why we would go through anything difficult is to make the mess the message, right? So I took a thing that was a mess, I've gotten through it, why shouldn't I use it as a message to help other people, to help impact their lives? And so when I can go into a business or an organization, I can help them teach each other how to communicate better and become better leaders. Now they're growing. Now they're finding breakthrough, and they're going to help other people to do that also. And it's, it's cool to look back, 20/20 hindsight on all those years of broadcasting, because they all were for something. I'm using all of those years today for something good that I, I never could have envisioned back then. And that's something I love to, to leave people with, is you might be going through something really, really hard right now, or you might not know why you're in a certain place right now, and it might seem totally pointless and worthless that you're there, but when you look back, there's going to be something major that you learn from that, that you're going to use to help other people. Look for those things in your past. And also, when you're going through something hard right now, try to remember this is going to be something you're going to use in the future. There's value in what you're going through, uh, and, and use that to your advantage because that's going to help you get through those really hard times.

Excellent, excellent stuff, man. There's so many things that I just want to unpack there. And you said you're going to leave the audience with that, but he's not leaving us yet, ladies and gentlemen. We're going to hang on to him for a little bit longer here, if that's okay.

Yeah, I didn't mean leaving. I just— I want to make sure I, I left— I leave that message with you guys just because I feel like that's really important. And so many times we're going through stuff, we just think it's for nothing, and you got to look at it in a different way.

So, so let's talk about that, the Unstuck Movement. And I'm going to kind of parallel this with a pivotal point in your life. You'd mentioned that your ex-wife had provided that bit of insight to you. If you'd share with us how moving from that relationship, a divorce if you will, let's just put the D word out there, uh, how that transition impacted you in terms of how you're able to get unstuck even from that relationship and move forward and still grow from that in a positive way today.

Yeah, that was, it was like a, that was like a 3-year journey of my life that was, it was really, really hard. Really, people say, you know, the two hardest things you go through, uh, divorce and losing a child, right? There's, those are, I've heard somebody said that, I don't know who said it, but praise God I've never lost a child. Um, but divorce is really hard. It's really, especially we had a We have a kid together, he's 10 now. I've talked about him multiple times, his name's Max. And I have an 8-month-old now, almost 9-month-old, Alex, with my new wife. Uh, but during that process, we were separated for a couple of years and then went through a divorce process. And it like, it broke me as far as I was lost. That's when I really had to lean on God and I had to lean on my faith. That there was something more coming through all of this. Something great was going to come out of this, and, and God was going to restore all the things that were broken through this process. And if I had to say there's a blessing in the whole thing, it was I learned you can't change people. And this goes on both ends, but I couldn't change my ex-wife, she couldn't change me. Fascinating though, I can recall many years ago, her telling me I needed to change. And I said I couldn't change. I, I said to her, I, I, I can't change. I have to deal with me. You also have to deal with me. Cause that was my mindset, like that I was not able to change. I didn't know how to, I didn't know that was possible that people could actually change. Yeah. And as I, and I was determined, I was determined. It's really interesting, man. I was really determined. I was really determined to change. Because I knew I had to. I knew that's what she wanted. So I started to change over the years. Things started to evolve, and I, I started to grow, but I didn't change the way she expected me to. I didn't. It's, it's really funny, like, we— when you want somebody to change and they start changing, you might not like how they're changing because you have an idea in your head of like, well, that's going to be like this, right? And it's not like that. It's however It is, is how it is. So things started to grow and change and, uh, and that eventually it ended the relationship. I'm not gonna go into all the details. There's a lot of details there, a lot of pain. But coming out of that, one of the major things that happened from it, it brought me and my families back together. I had been estranged from my, my parents were divorced. I have two families. It brought me and those two families closer than we had ever been. It gave me a period of my life where I was just single for a pretty long stretch there and choosing to not date or anything. I was just, I was just healing me. I just, I needed to heal. I needed to grow. I needed to be with my son. And God was working on me that entire time. And during that process, one of the biggest things that I noticed was I learned how to be okay just with myself.

Mm-hmm.

And I don't think I was ever okay just being with myself. And I, so many people struggle with this. So many people struggle. They're always looking for approval from others, not being able to lean on themselves for, for confidence, to be assured, to be built up. Uh, my, you know, my love language is affirmations. Praise, people tell me how great I'm doing. I really do well when there's somebody in my life telling me how great I'm doing. And I didn't have that. And so I had to learn how to be that advocate for myself. And that was so helpful. And I'd say of all of the blessings, I could name so many of them coming through that. My, my second wife now, I mean, just an absolute— it's just my life turned around in an incredible way. I could never have even dreamed how well it turned around. But I'd say the biggest thing through that was learning how to be okay by myself and, and standing on my own two feet and going on a journey that went from, uh, a digital marketing company that I was running into starting this coaching business. The woman that I met for— who trained me in coaching, she actually helped me through the divorce while she was training me. It's like she was using the divorce and the journey I was going through to train me in being a coach, which was just magical in the timing of how it all worked out and the breakthroughs that I had from that.

That, you know, timing is everything. And again, you, you deliver so much in those couple of moments of sharing that it's tough for me to figure out which angle to, to take on. Um, so we've got your, your training and your coach, and you'd mentioned before the service to others. You mentioned before how you also found your faith in service to others. And again, for our Audible-only listeners, please slide over to YouTube so you can see he's got this big, big pendant. It looks like in the background it says leadership and technology on one side of them, and then on the other side there's a cross. And that tends to intersect one another when it comes to leadership, faith, and, and service to other people. So I'm curious to know, Rob, from your perspective In terms of leadership, as we know, again, it, it takes service to actually actively lead people effectively. So for you, what are one of those leadership principles that, um, you know, that you teach now but you actually got wrong yourself?

Uh, to go back, uh, you know, to be of service to people. I mean, that's the biggest thing. I, I use a model called the VITALS system that I created that, that helped me. V-I-T-A-L-S. So these are like the vitals of leadership. The V is for the vision. So I never had a vision for my life. I didn't know how to have a vision. So that's one of the biggest things I didn't understand. I was, I was kind of just like letting life happen to, happen to me instead of me happening to life, causing my life to go in a certain direction. So that was one. I is the impact. Uh, I think we all should desire to make an impact in people's lives. And I, I love to think of it this way. You think of somebody's name, uh, you think of somebody's name and something pops up with that name. Something pops up that is a piece of the puzzle. So I, I think of, I'll just throw out like a, a name like John Maxwell, right? Automatically I think of leadership. Absolutely. And, and everybody, we really should strive to want to have impact in people's lives to where our name is synonymous with something positive. That just makes sense to me. The T is for technology, right? We all have to use technology. So many times, uh, we let technology use us. We, it rules our lives. It's, it controls us. Uh, but we should really flip that around. How can we use technology to our advantage? Right now, what are we doing on this podcast? We're on Zoom. Uh, we're using all this technology for our advantage and for other people's advantage. The A is for action. So you have to take action. I mean, it's the most important component of leadership. The most important, important component of anything that you're going to do well in life is you're gonna take action on that thing to actually execute. So many people talk about it, not many people actually do it and follow through with it. The L is for leadership and the S is for service. Uh, I think vision and service are the two most important pieces of the puzzle. Without a vision, you can go chopping through the woods in the wrong direction, uh, for 100 years and go the wrong way. And I, I don't ever want to again go the wrong way unknowingly. So having a vision for what I'm doing, and how do you know you're going the right way? Well, if you're being of service to people, your path will present itself. I believe like as you serve people, you'll find your gifts. I had a conversation with a guy— short story— but I had a conversation with a guy on my podcast a while ago, and he was going to commit suicide. It was Thanksgiving night, and he was in his apartment, and he decided he was going to end his life. And somehow a local church called— or I forget the story how it went— but like a church called and said, hey, we're doing this Thanksgiving dinner, we need volunteers, we're short people, would you come down and volunteer? And he's like, all right, I'll wait to end my life until after I go help volunteer. So he goes down to this church and he's just like welcoming people in the door, getting in their seat, getting them their food, you know, just making small talk. And as the night came to a close, he realized how like he forgot all about him wanting to kill himself. He was in such a good mood. He felt so fulfilled. And he actually found some of his gifts, his gifts of connecting to people, of listening to people, of the compassion he had for people. And it changed his whole life around. He didn't kill himself that night, and he, he's still alive today to tell the story because he went out and was of service to people. And when you're serving people, you don't have time to worry about you, right? So that's why the best leaders are servant leaders. They're not worried about themselves. They're not hyper— they're not hyper-focused on themselves. It's okay to be concerned about yourself, but the hyper-focus on you is— it's toxic. It's a toxic trait. And service is the way around that, which seems counterintuitive, right? We live in a self-help world right now where it's like, I gotta help myself, I need to fix myself, and it's all about focusing on you. And I fell into that for a long time, and it, it didn't really get me to where I knew I needed to be. So when I flipped that around, was like, okay, if I just serve people, I'm gonna get better. That really does truly make a difference. And you don't know it until you try it. If you don't do it, it sounds— at least to me, I didn't do it, so it sounded ridiculous. I started doing it, I'm like, oh wow, this feels so good. There's no better feeling than helping someone get through some— something difficult, or just helping someone, like that guy said, greeting them, getting them their food, taking them to their seat. There's something about connecting with people that just helps you to grow.

Absolutely. And it's with that connection that we're able to make change, whether it be personally through connecting with someone to whom can pour into us, or whether we're the one doing the pouring and can pour into another person. It takes that connection which again, I'm glad that we're connected here today. Now, you'd mentioned something about service. And of course, I'd like to touch back on the coaching part, because again, that is a part of what you do at this point. And, you know, correct me if I'm wrong, it seems like it might have been a calling, so to speak, to put you and your stories and your history, as well as your experience, you know, again, a wall of books behind you. And that expertise, you you're now able to take that and put that into other people, therefore pouring into them, helping them to transform. So my question is, if you could describe kind of the difference in being, uh, called to coach, right? Like a, like a pulling type of thing where you're actually being called, uh, versus somebody that's, you know, maybe just qualified to coach. You know, hey, I spend $50, I get a certificate, and and then I'm out here doing the thing?

That's a, that's a great question. I've never really thought about it like that. I, I guess the reason I, I know that I'm, I'm called to coach is I, I— it was never even a thought in my mind until somebody presented it to me. I was like, I didn't even know coaching was a thing, and that was not even where my head was at. I was not even thinking about it. But one of the biggest lessons I've had is paying attention to what other people tell you, because other people will drop clues on the direction you're supposed to go in, or the things that you're really good at, or what your gifts are. So I've heard from enough people, hey, you're really good at communicating, you, you're really easy to talk to, things of that nature. And this— the lady who trained me in coaching, I had, I had her on my podcast years ago, and she said to me, she said, you know, I I feel like you'd be really good at this. If you ever want to try coaching, give it a shot. Um, give me a call, I'd love to train you. And a year went by, I was like, coaching, like, why would I do that? That doesn't make any sense. And, um, I— man, she— her name popped in my head one day when I was like, I was just lost. I was really, really lost. And I called her up and I was like, I think I want to give this thing a shot. And so Somebody who's qualified to coach, I think that's a good question, Paul. I'm trying to think of how to, how to necessarily answer that, because I think people who are qualified to coach, they can be called to do that. Your heart's got to be in the right place, um, because I'm sure there's great business, former business owners out there who become business coaches who can help a company inside and out. I think the place that I find a unique strength is that I connect with people. I, I listen really well, and I genuinely want to help people. So when I see a business, I don't just see like a, a bunch of numbers and revenue goals. I see like there's people in that business who need to grow, who need to find breakthrough. And the reason they're not performing well at their job is because they're not performing well in their personal life. The reason they're not performing well in their personal life is because they probably have these limiting beliefs. People haven't encouraged them. People don't— haven't believed in them. They don't believe in themselves. And when you can turn those people around, they, they don't have to get fired. They might actually excel in that position that they're at, but they haven't excelled because of their, their past experiences, because they— the way they treat themselves. So it's, it's counterintuitive in, in some sort of way, um, being a business coach. And I look at the individuals because a company is made up of people, and those people all have their own individual stories. If I can help those people I can grow and I can build relationship with them so they trust me, uh, to build a connection with them, to make an impact in their life so that they have a better life, they're going to become a better employee. And I guess that's where my calling comes from. But I do know, I know coaches who, I don't know if they're called or not. I know they're more on the technical side of things and they do really well, but I do know for sure that I have a unique approach. That's centered around, number one, getting people to be accountable to themselves. One of the biggest things I think in business we see is bosses, managers, leaders telling everybody what to do. How do we empower people to tell the boss what they're going to do? How do I empower an employee to tell the boss, hey, here's what I'm doing next quarter, here are my goals, instead of the boss feeding those things to me because if I give myself a plan, that plan's much more likely to succeed than somebody else giving me the plan and I have to go carry it out. Um, I don't know if I answered your question or not. That's a, that's a really good question. I'm gonna continue to think about that.

That was great. And again, that, that's the whole goal here is to give a little something and any response, again, that's thoughtful, which has been every response that you've provided thus far, Rob, is the right response. And again, God doesn't make mistakes. So it's on your heart to speak. Thank you for speaking it just as it comes to you. And we're going to start landing the plane, so to speak. We are getting to the top of the hour. And there are a few things that are pointed questions that I'd definitely like to ask, as well as give you time to let the audience know where to find you. But as we begin to kind of bring it on down, Rob, what's, what's next for you? What's the next mountain you're climbing? And how can our audience really support you in that journey?

Yeah, the next thing in line for me, I'm just continuing to grow the coaching business. I just landed my biggest client last week, so that's— I feel like in that regard I'm just getting started. Thank you, sir. I feel like I'm just getting started. Uh, it's fun, it's exciting, and it's, it's all still very new to me. Uh, so it's just wonderful, wonderful to be doing it and to find that calling. But on the other end, there's the Unstuck Movement, right? So that's my podcast, my my movement, my platform. And I just want to help people find breakthrough. I want to help people find breakthrough and have a real testimony of that breakthrough in their life. And if you're somebody who has that story of breakthrough, you're somebody who has gone through very difficult things and you've made that mess the message, and you want to share that message with the world, I'd love to have a conversation with you. And I'd love to encourage people, like, no matter what you're going through, you've got to turn that thing around. You've got to get unstuck. You've, you've, you've— why? I love the expression, if you're going through hell, why would you stay there? Keep going through it. You're going to find the breakthrough if you keep pushing, you keep moving. Perseverance plus patience, those two things together will get you, uh, everywhere you want to go in life. And so I just, I, yeah, I would love people to check out my podcast. It's on all social media platforms, all podcasting platforms. The Unstuck Movement, True Testimonies of Breakthrough. Check out those stories. And if you have a story you'd want to have the feature on there, I would love to have you on. I'd love to tell your story because we need— the reason I started the podcast was I needed, and I know other people need examples. They need a model of like, it's possible for me to get out of this really difficult position. Because here are stories of other people who have found their way through. And, uh, I would just encourage people to check that platform out.

Excellent. Well, uh, Rob, I've got a pretty canned question that I love to ask, and it seems like you literally queued it up with, again, how your name is displayed here in Zoom. Uh, so Rob, I love the fact that typically you don't necessarily have people that, that share their middle name. It's not usually plastered up on the social media platforms, things of that nature. But I like to ask that question so that the audience can get to know a little bit more about our guests that they don't typically share. So Rob, if you would, what's your middle name?

Well, here's a bit of a swerve, Paul. My middle name is Paul. So how ironic is that?

Um, Cause I'm looking at a Z here and I'm, but, but okay, so tell me the story.

When I was in radio, uh, my, the last letter of my last name is Z. Wentz ends in a Z. And we had this boss who wanted to have a radio station and the DJs would be called the Alphabet Posse. So every name would have an alphabetical letter at the end. It's a really corny, bad idea. But in that, he gave me Rob Z and I just The name stuck and that was my radio name. So the name just stuck and I'm, at least I'm from Central Pennsylvania. I'm well known in my area and the other areas that I broadcasted in for my radio career. And so I kept it cause I'm like, that's recognizable. People know me from that. I don't wanna lose the Z, but I wanna bring my last name into it. So it's Rob Z. Wentz here, but actually my middle name's Paul. So we got that in common, Paul.

I love it.

I love it. And that's my, my grandfather's name. My grandfather's name was Paul.

Okay, that was the next question, is where did it actually come from? So Rob Z is actually Rob P. That P stands for Paul H. Flowers Jr., which was grandfather's first name. Is that right? Yeah.

And Rob P doesn't sound as cool as Rob Z, so this is true. This is true.

We, we like Rob Z. All right, so tell us, Rob, how can— and it looks like again, when I said you queued it up, the, the audio audible listeners aren't looking at what I'm looking at. But I'm seeing a website here right after your name. What's the best way for our listeners to actually support you, find you, locate you, sign up with you? All of the above.

Yeah. For all my leadership coaching and communication coaching, go to the website leadimpacttransform.com. I would say just, just go there. You can fill out a discovery call form, set up a call with me. You can see all of the things that I do and why I do what I do and how I do what I do there. Uh, but yeah, check out leadimpacttransform.com. And if you wanna find me on social media, just look up Rob Z. Wentz. You'll find me.

Excellent. I appreciate that, Rob. And last but not least, I want to just turn it over to you this last minute. I want to be yours. Just speak to the audience, Rob, whatever's on your heart, whatever message you wanna provide to them. Uh, turn it over to you for this next minute to just talk to our listeners. Hmm.

Thank you for that. Yeah, I'd like to leave a message of freedom. I think we all should be searching for freedom in our life. And what does that mean? Not necessarily like we— if we live in America, we live in a free country, right? But we are all trapped by our own limiting beliefs. We're all trapped and held back by things in our mind where we tell ourselves that we can't do certain things. And you may have something in your life that you know you're supposed to do. You've known you were supposed to do it since you were a kid and you haven't done it. And you've let the world convince you otherwise, that it's not your thing to do. It's for somebody else to do. Uh, it might be because It seems too big to step into. It might be because you might feel weird or feel like you look weird to people you know if you started to change. And one of the most dangerous things we can do in life is worry about what other people are going to think. I'm a recovering people pleaser. I still fall into it, but definitely major people pleasing tendencies in my life. And I challenge anybody watching or listening right now. To challenge that belief in themselves, challenge the belief like that you, you were called to do incredible things. You were called to do something amazing, and you have unique gifts that God gave you. Those are gifts that nobody else has, that you have a unique way of giving them and showing them and, and, and showing up for people. So I, I would just encourage you just to go after whatever that thing is. I don't know what it is for you. It could be— it's something different for most people, but I encourage you to go after it in some small way, in some tiny way today. Break open that seal, start to step towards your calling in life, because I would hate to come to my— the end of my life and be like, man, I never did that thing I always wanted to do. And you're not gonna— and what's cool, Paul H. Flowers Jr., and I know, I know you know this, what's cool is that As you begin on that journey, the journey constantly changes and the goalpost gets further away, but that's a good thing. It's like, I'm never going to get to where I'm supposed to be because I'm going to keep evolving and growing. Exactly. And it's going to keep changing and getting bigger and better. And I love that concept. And for somebody to never start on that journey, that's sad to me because I could have been that person. I have a lot of friends, um, people I grew up with who never went on that journey. And it's, it's sad to me because we have something special inside of all of us and we should all be striving to bring that thing out. So I just encourage everybody, ignore what people say, ignore what even you might think about yourself, and just take small steps towards going after whatever that thing is for you in your life.

Excellent. Rob Z, a.k.a. Rob P, thank you very much for being a guest here. Uh, listeners, this has been another amazing episode at the Pope of Replace podcast show. The Everyday Entrepreneur, Mr. Rob Z. Wentz, again his radio name, has dropped some amazing nuggets. Founder of the Unstuck Movement, again decades of experience, and now utilizing those times to actually pour into people on across the globe. We'll say so again, congratulations on your most recent landing of the client. Thank you again for being a guest here. And again, we look forward to our next endeavors. Listeners, thanks so much for listening in. Bye for now.