Embracing Control: Lessons on Power, Humility, and Finding Balance
with Miles Welch
What is your relationship to control? Have you been told you are a control freak and that it's a bad thing? Are you afraid of losing control? What happens when you're out of control? What happens when you are in control? And what does your life look like in all of the above situations?
Today, we are exploring the topic of control with leadership expert, former megachurch pastor, and marine, Miles Welch.
Key Takeaways
Fear of losing control and being called a control freak
Questioning what happens when one is out of control and in control
Understanding the importance of humility and learning from failures
Acknowledging personal potential and not shying away from it
Understanding how to focus on what you can do to stay motivated and in movement
About Miles Welch
Founder of Miles Welch Coaching, Miles is a global leadership expert with a passion for helping hungry leaders unlock their personal and team performance.
He has impacted thousands of executives, entrepreneurs, and business owners through his speaking and coaching as well as the industry-leading developmental programming he has designed.
His varied leadership assignments include being a Platoon Sergeant in the Marines, pastoring one of the largest churches in the United States, serving as the Executive Director of the John Maxwell Leadership Center and launching 2 successful businesses.
He and his family live in the Atlanta area.
Connect with Miles Welch
https://www.mileswelch.coach/
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About Aleya Harris
Aleya Harris, CPCE is the spark for your spark (TM). She is a powerhouse StoryBrand Certified Guide, BioEnergetic Business Consultant, empire-building CEO of The Evolution Collective Inc., host of the Radical Rebirth Retreat, LLC, host of the award-winning Flourishing Entrepreneur Podcast, and international award-winning speaker. She’s committed to helping entrepreneurs, executives, leadership teams, and thought leaders differentiate themselves through radically authentic strategy, coaching, and training.
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Links Mentioned on this Podcast
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Aleya Harris [00:00:00]:
What is your relationship to control? Have you been told you are a control freak and that it's a bad thing? Are you afraid of losing control? What happens when you're out of control? What happens when you are in control? And what does your life look like in all of the above situations today, that is what we are talking about. And I get to talk about it with a new friend, miles welch, who knows a thing or two about being in and out of control. From being in the marines, to being the pastor of a megachurch, to being divorced and living in someone's basement as a grown adult, being in and out of control and navigating the ups and downs of it. It's kind of miles of specialty now. And in this episode, we get to learn some really great tangible tips on how to change and embrace our relationship with control. All right, let's go.
Yuliya Patsay [00:01:12]:
Welcome to the flourishing entrepreneur podcast with aleya harris. If you're looking for actionable ways to stand out from the crowd, by standing in your power, you've come to the right place. Each week, we help you and your fellow empire building entrepreneurs become radically authentic and tap into your unique story to attract your ideal clients, listen in and learn how to use energy alignment techniques and tried and true marketing strategies to transform from a leader to a legend. And now, your host powerhouse story brand certified guide, award winning marketer bioenergetic business coach, and japanese whiskey lover, aleya harris.
Aleya Harris [00:02:06]:
Miles welch is the founder of miles welch consulting and a global leadership expert with a passion for helping hungry leaders unlock their personal and team performance. He has impacted thousands of executives, entrepreneurs and business owners through his speaking and coaching as well as the industry leading developmental programming he has designed. Miles is pretty cool. He does this for a living. He is awesome. His varied leadership assignments include being a platoon sergeant in the marines, pastoring one of the largest churches in the united states, and serving as the executive director of the john maxwell leadership center and obtws launching two successful businesses. I am so excited to talk with miles welch. Hey there, miles.
Aleya Harris [00:03:10]:
Thank you so much for joining us here on the flourishing entrepreneur podcast. How you doing today?
Miles Welch [00:03:14]:
Dude? I'm doing awesome, aleya. I am pumped to be here.
Aleya Harris [00:03:18]:
I am pumped to have you here because you are kind of like I mean, like, all my guests are cool cats and kittens, but you are a particularly cool one. You have a very interesting past and a very interesting story. So very briefly, we've already read your bio, but tell us a little bit about you and how you ended up where you are today.
Miles Welch [00:03:43]:
Yeah, so, god, I grew up in california and kind of escaped my family by going into the marine corps and really did like I'm a lot okay, whatever I do, I do a lot of it. So I wanted to join the military, got into the Marines, became a platoon sergeant, which was a lot of fun, a lot of leadership stuff. That's kind of where the leadership thing started for me. Became a Christian in there somewhere and went into like again, I just go all in. I became a pastor, and I was very fortunate, honestly. I failed a little. I think I needed some humility maybe, and maybe there's a chance I needed some humility. And I thought I had a lot of potential and I wasn't shy about it.
Miles Welch [00:04:32]:
There were some humbling moments along the way. Eventually, I landed in Atlanta at a church that was just a rocket ship. It grew to like, 20,000 people, and I was very fortunate to be there. Was in a lot of great rooms with a lot of great people and ended up being the co lead pastor and lead pastor of that church. And I was the executive director of the John Maxwell Leadership Center, which meant so people asked me how I got into consulting. And honestly, my phone started ringing and people started asking me questions and that kind of started it. And so people just started asking me what I thought and it just became a business.
Aleya Harris [00:05:11]:
Well, that's how it's supposed to work. A lot of the times people are like, I have this passion and then there's no demand. Like, I don't care if you want to paint watercolor kittens for the rest of your life. If watercolor kittens are not the rage, it's probably not going to be a lucrative business.
Miles Welch [00:05:25]:
Pull that out. Watercolor kittens. You've said that before.
Aleya Harris [00:05:30]:
I don't know.
Miles Welch [00:05:34]:
I've had people ask me, like, hey, I want to be a consultant. How do you be a consultant? And I'm like, get really good at something. And then your phone rings.
Aleya Harris [00:05:43]:
Yeah.
Miles Welch [00:05:44]:
And don't skip step one because you'll have no foundation. You have no foundation for step two. You got to get good at something.
Aleya Harris [00:05:54]:
And I'm so glad that you said that, especially because during the pandemic, it was like everyone decided to be a coach and they sullied the good name of coaches.
Miles Welch [00:06:04]:
Yes.
Aleya Harris [00:06:04]:
And they didn't actually have anything to coach. They went and took somebody else's coaching course. And now they are a coach because that coach said, everybody has something to give.
Miles Welch [00:06:13]:
There's, like, year old life coaches on your podcast that are so sad right now.
Aleya Harris [00:06:18]:
I'm so sorry, but if they've been hanging out with me long enough, they know that I would not sugarcoat it because it's much better to get the truth. Here's the truth. The truth is, if you're a 22 year old, you should not be a life coach.
Miles Welch [00:06:31]:
Probably there's not a lot of 15 year olds paying for life coaches. No, you're not going to eat.
Aleya Harris [00:06:39]:
You should be coaching and consulting things that you've experienced or have a track record of results in doing. But with that said, I do think that if you are a coach and consultant, a lot of times people, you're really good at saying, I've done this, I've done this, I've done that, and this is why I can help you. A lot of coaches and consultants try to compartmentalize themselves and say, well, I did do that in my private and my previous life, but I only want to focus on this one thing. And I feel like they robbed themselves and their audience of all of the muck that they had to get through, which is why they're so good at what they did, all of the things that threw them off course, all of the things that made them. Like you said, you had a period of humbling. That period is probably why you're so good at what you do.
Miles Welch [00:07:33]:
Yeah. And humbling doesn't stop, does it?
Aleya Harris [00:07:37]:
No, it doesn't.
Miles Welch [00:07:40]:
Part of my journey. And we can climb into this if you want. Gosh right. At the Pandemic started, I went through a divorce. So I went from a side hustle coach to a professional coach because the church doesn't love pastors. With divorces, I kind of was thrust in to like, pandemic is a perfect time to start a coaching business. And that was a little bit of a nightmare. But I figured it out.
Miles Welch [00:08:06]:
I feel pretty good. I was successful at launching a coaching business while my whole world was falling apart.
Aleya Harris [00:08:11]:
You should feel really good about that.
Miles Welch [00:08:13]:
Yeah. Heck yeah.
Aleya Harris [00:08:15]:
On my desk I have a and I'm going to show it to you. But if you're listening, you can't see it, which is probably why you should look at this on YouTube. Just saying. I have a win button on my desk. It's like an easy button, but it's gold. And so every time I have a win in life, I press it and something like that happens because I recorded my own voice on it. Of course, I probably need some more of those Humbling experiences. And I'm pressing that for you.
Aleya Harris [00:08:43]:
Pressing it for you, Miles, because that is a win to be able to do all of that during the Pandemic while the world is falling down. I also started a business during the Pandemic and it was hard, but it also, I feel like, made businesses a lot stronger because we had to work and do a whole lot more with a whole lot less, but right. Question for you.
Miles Welch [00:09:05]:
Okay.
Aleya Harris [00:09:05]:
How did you know in all of your Humbling experiences during your divorce when you were leaving being in the church, how did you know when you were on and off path? Because in order to get on a new path, you had to know you were off the wrong one. And what do you do when that happens? When you are feeling disconnected or overwhelmed or stressed? What are you doing to be this grand success?
Miles Welch [00:09:30]:
First of all, let's not get carried away. I'm doing pretty good, but grand success. Feels like I'm still headed there.
Aleya Harris [00:09:40]:
Well, we could debate that. That's a whole nother podcast episode of One time.
Miles Welch [00:09:46]:
I don't know why, but I've never really questioned whether I don't have a lot of self doubt or at least it doesn't mess me up. I have my moments. I'll tell you one of the things, and this is like on the other side of divorce, I'm a little more in touch with my feels. I'm very aware when that's not true. I'm much more capable of being aware when I'm growing numb, which is usually like pressure and stress or heavy emotions are hitting me. So my first indicator that I'm off the path is I'm getting numb on the inside if I miss.
Aleya Harris [00:10:29]:
Interesting. Is that numbness because you're just like, shutting down. Like, too much does not compute.
Miles Welch [00:10:36]:
Don't you have a little black box inside of you? When something is like, bad, you're like, I'm just going to put in there, shut it, and that didn't happen.
Aleya Harris [00:10:42]:
You know, it's funny. I don't so everyone deals with this. It's funny. I ask this question to lots of people and everyone deals with this question so differently. I don't have the black box. Mine is just out everywhere. It's on the walls, it's on the everything. It's the opposite.
Aleya Harris [00:10:57]:
Interesting.
Miles Welch [00:10:59]:
I'm so detached sometimes, but I have other symptoms. I'll start to eat too much or drink too much or scroll. If I don't catch that I got numb, I'll catch that I'm distracting myself. And then I'm like, wait, I'm not feeling what I'm I'm avoiding an emotion and I need to feel what I'm feeling. That's my statement. I say to them, I need to feel what I'm feeling.
Aleya Harris [00:11:27]:
So how do you feel? Is bringing awareness to it enough to let you feel what you're feeling?
Miles Welch [00:11:33]:
No. I check in with myself now multiple times, and that's what I call I check in with myself and I do it in transition moments. Getting into the car, out of the car, going from room to room, and I'll ask myself, what am I feeling right now? What are my emotions? That's what I do. And I have to discipline myself to do it or I won't. And I have to discipline myself to feel what I'm feeling. So if I'm feeling an emotion that's heavy, I know that I'm tempted to stuff and distract. Things that help me are a walk, exercise, journaling, laughing friends. I kind of think of it like this.
Miles Welch [00:12:19]:
When you have a heavy emotion, there's a tunnel that it needs to go through to get out. And if I push it down, it stays in me. And I just need to feel it. I need to feel what I'm feeling. So I need to get like for me, going for a run, if I have a feeling that's heavy that I need to deal with, put on my running shoes, I got a little nature path not far. That's the best for me.
Aleya Harris [00:12:42]:
I love how you are connecting your feeling check ins to a behavior that you're already doing, which is huge for habit building. And if you read Atomic Habits, that's one of the ways that they mentioned of building a good new habit. And then I also love that when you're getting connected with yourself, you're not divorcing yourself from your body. A lot of times people disassociate themselves from their bodies and you're like, I start running. I check in. How am I feeling emotionally? How am I feeling physically? I think that's wonderful. But what is the thing that usually has thrown you off? Is there a common culprit?
Miles Welch [00:13:22]:
Yeah, I mean, it's just running a business, there's a lot of variables that are outside of your control, aren't they? And those things I always feel like, I think I could be rich next year. I think I could be ten figures. Also, I could be homeless. It could go either way. It could go either way.
Aleya Harris [00:13:42]:
Welcome to entrepreneurship.
Miles Welch [00:13:45]:
It's like, it could go either way. The bills keep coming, the outcomes don't. And so there are just times. Twice this year I had moments, and these are just knucklehead learning moments. One of them was I had somebody write a tweet for Matt. I paid somebody, a social media guy, he sent it out there. I would have never done this tweet. And it cost me a couple of clients, and it was just a little bit of a flex, and like, I make this much.
Miles Welch [00:14:14]:
It was just like, it's not how I do it. And so I was like, shoot, that was like a spiraling moment for me. Another one was again, this was like, I did a trip. Bless you. I did a trip. She sneezed by the you.
Aleya Harris [00:14:30]:
If you couldn't see, I sneezed on mute, so you're welcome for you not hearing the sneeze, but thank you, Miles.
Miles Welch [00:14:37]:
For sure. So I went on a trip, and I didn't manage really well my calendar of clients, and I made a few feel underappreciated, and so that cost me. Those are both learning experiences for me that are like, okay, dang it. But those were sky's falling moments. I'll tell you what, I've done this. I used to work at a church of 200 people, and I wasn't always in charge of everything. And I created a journal about 20 years ago that I've called the Achilles Heal Journal. That's what I called it.
Miles Welch [00:15:15]:
And whenever I felt internally dismantled by some event, I would get onto that journal and write about what was the experience, what are the emotions, and then I would play it out. And things that trigger me, like other people are making decisions that affect my life. I'm walking by the room, they're in there making decisions. I know they're knuckleheads I work with these people and they're going to do something that's going to blow up my life. That's one of my triggers, because I like being in the room and I want to be in control and I want to make the decisions.
Aleya Harris [00:15:50]:
So we're dealing with a control freak type. You're in good company.
Miles Welch [00:15:55]:
In good company, yeah. I have a little bit of that in me. A lot of it over 20 years, though, I've gotten to look at those situations play out. One of the benefits of being older is you get to see things play out, and I'm watching it play out over and over and over again. The same trigger, the same internal falling apart. And then the outcome was never as bad as I thought or whatever. Like, literally for 20 years, it never went where I thought it was the thing that was following me. And so I have this backlog now of like, oh yeah, those are my Achilles heels, and this is what actually happens.
Miles Welch [00:16:41]:
And even these are some statements I can say to myself to remind myself that I'm going to be just fine.
Aleya Harris [00:16:48]:
Okay, I love this. I'm loving the Achilles heel situation. So in the Achilles Heel journal, you have the situation was so something actually happened. It's not like you're imagining it happening. Something actually happened. How you felt about it, and then what were the other pieces?
Miles Welch [00:17:02]:
How I felt about it. So then, now I have 20 years of I have about five different things that, by the way, my Achilles Heel journal is very password protected, because if someone else got it, they own me. They could me over and over and over again. What's funny is, I've been talking about this. Everyone has their triggers. Everyone has their Achilles heels. For me, one of them is other people making decisions that affect my life. When I want to be in the room, I want my voice to be heard, right? This is the situation.
Miles Welch [00:17:45]:
I have 20 years of examples of how that situation played out so that I can remind myself that it's not as bad as I'm spiraling, and it's not as bad as what my mind is telling myself. And I have some statements, I call them anchors that hold me in place.
Aleya Harris [00:18:05]:
So that now you have your Achilles Heel and your anchors and your own wisdom, wealth of experience over the years to help you realize maybe it's not as bad as we're all making.
Miles Welch [00:18:18]:
Right. Every time I go visit a client for the first time, or get on a teaching or anything, all of us have some impostor syndrome, right? I think I'll jump on I used to teach 10,000 people, I'm not unconfident, but when I'm going to visit a new environment, I'll be on the plane thinking, I suck. This is terrible. They're going to smell it right away. I'm in my sports coat, and it feels like I'm wearing my dad's sports coat. And I'm eleven years old, and I have things where I can just tell myself, no, I can always add value. You know what? It may not be what I think, it may not be how, but I've got 20 years of feeling that feeling. And the reality is I've added value in every room that has invited me in.
Aleya Harris [00:19:11]:
I like the repurposing of the feeling and the reframing of the feeling to saying no when I feel this. This is the trigger to remind myself that I always can add value. I think that's super important, not staying in the impostor syndrome, but a way to get out of impostor syndrome by reframing to the truth. Because the truth is, if you weren't able to add value, you wouldn't be on the plane in the first place. They wouldn't have wanted you to go and speak.
Miles Welch [00:19:40]:
And I've done it again. One of the benefits of having a lot of experience is now sometimes it's like if something goes wrong, I can assume it's probably you, not you, but it's probably whoever, he didn't mean me.
Aleya Harris [00:19:55]:
I didn't do it. It wasn't me.
Miles Welch [00:20:00]:
Now, if every client goes weird, okay, that's me. Like, if you ever meet a family with five kids and they have one weird kid and four normal kids, that's a weird kid. But if four of the kids are weird parents, that's the parent.
Aleya Harris [00:20:13]:
Absolutely. This is why I'm only having one child, so you'll never know if it's her or if it's us, really.
Miles Welch [00:20:23]:
One and done.
Aleya Harris [00:20:26]:
One and done. One and done. I'm the only child. I've had a fabulous life.
Miles Welch [00:20:32]:
I have two daughters.
Aleya Harris [00:20:33]:
You have two daughters, and I'm sure you love them both, and they're wonderful and adorable. I will get her a puppy, something. So it sounds like to me, though, miles, one of your biggest strengths is to be your own best coach, using the power of writing past experience, reframing mindset to be able to coach yourself into an even better version of yourself. But I'm sure that along in your journey, you've also received bad advice from other people. Tell me about business strategy or advice that you wish you had just never followed.
Miles Welch [00:21:18]:
Yeah, like I said, I've gotten to be in some really cool rooms. I got to sit in a room at Chickfila headquarters with, like, executives and all these really smart people. And one of the mistakes that I think a lot of us make is if somebody says something confident, we believe it more because they're so confident. Like, we dive in. Okay. And what he said, and it sounds so smart he said, marketing is the price tag for having a bad product. Right.
Aleya Harris [00:21:56]:
I sort of get like, if it's so good, it gets viral on its own, but then it doesn't just happen, and marketing is so much more nuanced. I'm going to go back on mute.
Miles Welch [00:22:10]:
Finish your another way of saying is if you build it, they will come. And you're like, if you build it, they are not going to know. Yeah, it took me about a year to be like, you know, when you're Chick fil A, that's actually true because they're already viral, they're already Chick fil A.
Aleya Harris [00:22:32]:
But when it was whoever in their home kitchen making chicken, I don't know.
Miles Welch [00:22:37]:
So I'm like building my product and I'm like, if I just freaking make this awesome enough, I believe that it sounded right. It's like, I'm not going to invest in that. And then a little bit later I'm like, you know, I'm going to starve if I don't let people know what I'm doing here. And maybe my product sucks, but other people need to know about it because I need to eat. I just remember that and I remember thinking, god, I'm at Chickfila headquarters. They've done pretty good, right? Chickfila's done all right. And he's saying this. So I absolutely believed it and changed how I thought about it and went, okay, I'm going to go after it.
Miles Welch [00:23:16]:
And eventually I had to discard that not good advice.
Aleya Harris [00:23:20]:
I'm so glad you discarded that advice. One of the things so I went to Montessori School, which is a way of teaching preschool through 8th grade. And one of my biggest, just pieces of gratitude for that type of learning is they teach you how to think. My husband teases me for it all the time because he says he asks me things and my answer is never yes or no. It's always, well, and I'm going to challenge it and root it around first before I'm like yes or no. But then when it's a yes, it's a yes, and when it's a no, it's a no. However, I think I would have been in the same situation you were, especially as an entrepreneur, right. Or as a leader.
Aleya Harris [00:24:05]:
If they seem like they know it, then you follow it. And I've done that before.
Miles Welch [00:24:10]:
Right.
Aleya Harris [00:24:11]:
I think the lesson is that just because someone says it with their big boy pants on doesn't make it true. Just to be able to follow your own gut.
Miles Welch [00:24:22]:
Well, I think there are different rules for different stages.
Aleya Harris [00:24:31]:
No, in this case, no, this man was wrong. Even for this stage. Chickfila markets.
Miles Welch [00:24:38]:
Yeah, they market. They actually market.
Aleya Harris [00:24:41]:
Now, if it were maybe like In N Out, who doesn't do a lot of marketing, maybe I might listen to you a little bit more. But they're also not as big as Chick fil A, so maybe they should start marketing.
Miles Welch [00:24:52]:
Yeah, I don't know. I just remember hearing it and going, man, he's so smart. He's so right. And then I'm like, I'm just going to build a product and if I build it, they will come. And then it's like, no, that's not actually, they're not coming.
Aleya Harris [00:25:04]:
They're not coming. They're not going to come. In fact, you have to say it many times before people even realize that it's there and it's not the best product that wins it's the clearest product that wins. So if product is everywhere and people can understand it, people don't know that it's better or worse than the other thing because they didn't even pay attention to that other thing that they didn't understand.
Miles Welch [00:25:28]:
I'm going to write that down as soon as we're done. It's not the best product, it's the clearest product. That's so good.
Aleya Harris [00:25:34]:
You can thank Donald Miller for that quote. That was not me. I have many quotable moments, that one was not one of them. I'm sorry.
Miles Welch [00:25:42]:
That's great.
Aleya Harris [00:25:43]:
So I know that you've gone through quite a bit in your life from being a Marine and a pastor of a megachurch going through a divorce but if you had to think about the most pivotal moment in your life, a moment of rebirth, what was that moment? How did you manage that transition? What did you learn? How are you better on the other side?
Miles Welch [00:26:06]:
Yeah, we're going to go to a really dark space in my life because that divorce was brutal. I was married 25 years, I'm older than I look.
Aleya Harris [00:26:15]:
I think you look great and married 25 years. Again, if you're listening and not watching on YouTube, you would see a very handsome dapper man who looks like you.
Miles Welch [00:26:26]:
Get out of here. Please stop. I was on top of my game. I was a pastor of one of the largest churches in the country, and it fell apart with my marriage. And I literally went from owning two pretty nice homes to living in somebody's basement for a year and having a career, to having no career and having a community where I was very well respected to being kind of on the out of that. Those were hard. Thank god for the people in my life who did move towards me who are my best friends. Now first 2nd I'll tell you what the very next morning so I'm waking up in a mentor of mine's basement.
Miles Welch [00:27:22]:
It's a nice basement but I went know owning homes to living in a basement. And he has a whiteboard down there and I write on the whiteboard do what you can do. And I underline can. And the reason I did that Aleya is my options felt very small. COVID was landing, COVID was descending on like this happened in March of 2020. This was as COVID started.
Aleya Harris [00:27:55]:
So your divorce, it's also very isolating your world's falling apart. There's a lot happening, there not a.
Miles Welch [00:28:01]:
Lot of people looking to invest in a business. I wrote do what you can do like the next morning and I thought what can I do? And I thought I can hurt and that's where I am and I need to hurt and I can heal.
Aleya Harris [00:28:20]:
Right, that was great.
Miles Welch [00:28:22]:
And I can process, I can sit here and obsess over all the things that I can't do and that's just going to make me powerless or I can just do the things I can read. I have people in my life that I can call. I can process. All that's happened to me, and I just started I was living with a very gracious man and his wife, who he was a Fortune 500 CEO who was a mentor in my life. So I can sit with him and process and talk. And eventually doing what I can do became bigger and bigger and bigger, which I think is the lesson that if you focus on what you can do, what you can do grows. If you focus on what you can't do, what you can't do grows.
Aleya Harris [00:29:15]:
Now, that, my friend, was a quotable moment. That was beautiful.
Miles Welch [00:29:19]:
Yeah, thanks. It's true. And that's what I learned. And so eventually, I was talking to a friend, and he said, Let me get some guys on a zoom. And so I started talking to them. They became my first coaching clients, a lot of them, and I just started building. Everyone started telling me, you already do it. You might as well do it for money.
Miles Welch [00:29:39]:
And again I was like, process. I can process emotionally what's happening in me. I can reach out to my daughters and rebuild and go after them, which I'm still doing. We've way turned the corner. Things are really awesome, but I'm still kind of just doing what I can do, and it's just what I can do is getting bigger and bigger and bigger as I just keep doubling down on what I can do.
Aleya Harris [00:30:09]:
I really appreciate that because it makes it feel doable. I've been in dark places as well, not having any money. Very severe postpartum depression, physical ailments, debilitating. And when I didn't think that way, it made everything worse. I don't even know if I was thinking about the things I can't do, maybe, but I wasn't even thinking about doing I just couldn't even get out of just feeling just the pain, and I couldn't move away from it. So even just saying the phrase, do what you can do, and to put yourself into some type of movement, even if the movement is mourning, it's now intentional mourning, you know that you are actually doing something right.
Miles Welch [00:30:54]:
Maybe it's the theme of the podcast. I had to take control.
Aleya Harris [00:30:58]:
So thank God you were a control freak, Miles. Thank God.
Miles Welch [00:31:02]:
Well, and what I did was I wrote it on the very first day I woke up in that basement. I wrote it on the whiteboard, and on the very last day, I erased it. And it stayed up there the whole time, and it guided me and it helped me, and it just became something in me that what I find amazing is being stuck is a mentality, it's not a reality. I guess you could invent some scenario for some exception, but for most of us, stuck is in our heads. And for me, that just became a really helpful, like, no, I'm just going to focus. On what I can do and right now I can hurt and okay, well, that's what I'm going to do. Like you said. Yeah.
Miles Welch [00:31:45]:
Intentional.
Aleya Harris [00:31:46]:
That's amazing. Well, it sounds like God has thrown you for a loop and answered some prayers and then caused you to have the reason to pray in the first place all at the same time. Right. But if you could ask the universe, God's spirit, for one thing right now, be 100% sure you would get it, what would you ask for?
Miles Welch [00:32:11]:
I'm just going to go personal. My youngest daughter is getting married in November and she's the sweetest, sweetest.
Aleya Harris [00:32:19]:
Congratulations.
Miles Welch [00:32:23]:
She's so sweet. She graduated college and started working at a homeless shelter and she's just the sweetest kid. She's so much nicer than me.
Aleya Harris [00:32:35]:
She's nicer than me too.
Miles Welch [00:32:37]:
Yeah. I think she's marrying a guy that I think is really nice and really great. If I could ask anything of the universe, it would be to be good to them in their first couple of years of marriage because I think that's just really important for them and she's the best and I think she deserves the best and I hope she has the best.
Aleya Harris [00:33:00]:
That is amazing. As a wife who is married to a girl dad, that just warns my heart. There's something about dads being excited about the lives of their daughters. It's wonderful.
Miles Welch [00:33:11]:
I told her, I said, honey, you know I'm going to cry when I walk you down the aisle. And she's like, dad, I know. She's like, I know.
Aleya Harris [00:33:19]:
I'll have tissues in my gown for you.
Miles Welch [00:33:24]:
It's going to be a lot.
Aleya Harris [00:33:25]:
Well, Miles, I've really enjoyed this conversation, especially around the power of control. And I think that often we think we call ourselves control free because I'm a self proclaimed one. But I can see now through this conversation how that is bad and good also could be your saving grace, right. When you're just like, no, what can I control? And you begin to seek being a control freak and how that puts you into movement. I love that. I love that. But we've talked all about the things and the coaching and the things, but what would you say is your biggest differentiator why should I choose you to be my coach over anybody else?
Miles Welch [00:34:05]:
I'll tell you, I've thought about that, my background in the Marines, my background in pastoring and now in business building. I just think I come at it from a unique perspective. I think it's funny. A lot of my clients, they're my friends. Like when I get married again, they're coming. I'm very personal with who I coach. I love the people that are like, I coach. I'm honestly really good at it.
Miles Welch [00:34:34]:
I'm really helpful at getting them where they need to go. And so that's what I would say. I could talk about all the fancy things I do and I think I'm very unique and specialized and I've built nationally recognized leadership programs and that's great. But honestly, I love who I work with and they feel the love, they attest to it and they stay with me. I've had people that I coach that became clients that I've been coaching, frankly, for ten years.
Aleya Harris [00:35:04]:
I love that. I love that. Well, it has been a joy, an eye opening experience getting I love love when guests get my brains and my wheels and my gears going. And then it becomes like a little bit of a coaching session for me because I'm seriously thinking like, oh, my gosh, what can I do? What can I do?
Miles Welch [00:35:25]:
Thank you.
Aleya Harris [00:35:27]:
So, miles, where can people find you when they want to get in contact with you?
Miles Welch [00:35:32]:
Oh, my god, I'm so glad you asked. Yeah. I want them to jump on my newsletter. You can go to mileswelch coach and sign up for my newsletter. You'll find out all about me. I'm starting I don't know exactly when this podcast is coming out, but I'm starting a master class.
Aleya Harris [00:35:44]:
Me neither.
Miles Welch [00:35:46]:
Well, it might be relevant. Like everything I do will end up on the newsletter sooner or later. But I do master classes. I do coaching. I help businesses essentially build their leadership bench so that they don't have to hire from the outside. They can hire from within and hire up. That's what I actually do along with the coaching. So if that's interesting, jump on mileswelch coach.
Miles Welch [00:36:09]:
Love to talk about it.
Aleya Harris [00:36:10]:
Awesome. And I'm definitely going to put the mileswelch coach in the show notes. Miles, thank you again for this wonderful discussion and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day.
Miles Welch [00:36:20]:
Thanks, you too.
Aleya Harris [00:36:35]:
Wow, what a great conversation with miles. Am I right? I mean, it was everything that I didn't know it was going to be around all of my control issues. And you know what? Maybe I'm not going to call them control issues anymore. Maybe I'm going to call them control gems or control tools. Because sometimes being out of control is where I need to be, and sometimes being a control freak by nature is exactly the tools I need to stay in movement towards my solution. So I really thank miles for those lessons from this episode. If you like this episode or any other episodes you've heard, make sure that you like and subscribe. Leave a review, hopefully a five star one, not to influence you or anything.
Aleya Harris [00:37:27]:
And I invite you to come back and join us here on the flourishing entrepreneur podcast. Until next time, my name is aleya harris viz is the flourishing entrepreneur podcast, and I wish you lots and lots of love, light and abundance. Bye for now.
Yuliya Patsay [00:37:45]:
Thank you for listening to this episode of the flourishing entrepreneur podcast with aleya harris. Vibing with what you hear, leave a five star review, spread the love and be sure to click subscribe. We wish you love, light and abundance. See you next time.
