Episode 30 / Shannon Miles
The Risk No One Talks About: How Shannon Miles Built Her Empire by Knowing When to Step Back
This episode is for you if you’ve ever wondered:
The importance of taking risks and stepping out of comfort zones for personal and professional growth.
How to view imposter syndrome as a muscle to be exercised for overcoming challenges.
The value of mentorship and intentionally seeking out mentors in one's professional life.
The significance of intentional periods of rest and stepping back from business for innovation and trust in the team.
Strategies for creating a business that benefits others and outlives the involvement of its founders.
About Shannon
Shannon Miles is a passionate and adventurous leader, wife, mother, successful entrepreneur, mentor, and writer. She goes after her dreams, including her dream of working remotely to enjoy a thriving marriage and a connected relationship with her children, and she built that life with her husband, Bryan.
As the co-founder of BELAY, a premium virtual staffing service, Shannon and Bryan created their dream life by starting the company during the height of the Great Recession with their own funding. In June of 2021, Bryan and Shannon sold a majority interest to Tenex Capital Management while remaining shareholders. Outside of BELAY, Bryan & Shannon also owns a successful craft brewing & distilling company in North Atlanta (NoFo Brew Co), and they also invest in companies through their holding company, Miles AG. Additionally, Shannon serves as the Chair of the Untold US Board of Directors.
“The truth is, and you know this, we take risks all the time, and sometimes that risk is staying where you are.”
SHANNON MILES
-
Lindsey Epperly [00:00:02]:
All right, listeners, today you are in for a real treat, because we have someone who, I mean, I don't say this lightly, literally changed the trajectory of my entire life. And I could actually probably just start bawling talking about this. But Shannon Miles is a personal friend and mentor who stepped into my life at a pivotal moment when I did not know if I could keep going in business, when I didn't know what I was meant to do, what was my purpose? You know, season three is all about purpose. So I could not complete this season without having Shannon on to talk about how she poured into me as a mentor, how she actually decided to intentionally become a mentor and just some of the tangible takeaways that I have had over getting to know her over the years. So, without further ado, hi, Shannon. Thanks for being on.
SHANNON MILES [00:00:49]:
Hi, Lindsay. It is so good to see you. And let me just say, I am so proud of you and what you've created. Thank you. We're going to dive into it all. But, like, I just had to start by saying, like, having known you for eight years and seeing just the, like you said, the trajectory of your life and where you're heading, I'm just so incredibly proud. So thank you so much for allowing me to, like, participate in this part of your many adventures.
Lindsey Epperly [00:01:16]:
Well, I mean, Shannon, you've been kind of a part in every single one of my adventures since I've known you. I have basically. I feel like a little lost puppy that you discovered, and you adopted me whether you meant to or not. And I'm always like, hey, come be a part of this book that I'm writing. Hey, come be a part of this podcast that I'm doing. Hey, can you advise me on business? And you have always shown up with this amazing. Yes. Energy, and you have chosen to believe in me as a human.
Lindsey Epperly [00:01:39]:
So hearing you say you're proud, I mean, thank you. It means a lot.
SHANNON MILES [00:01:45]:
Well, and now Mila also calls me her mom, which is.
Lindsey Epperly [00:01:51]:
This is so funny. Brian and Shannon. So Shannon's husband, Brian, they came down. Guess it's been about a year now to visit. And you had met Mila when she was a baby, but she was, you know, three at the time. And for whatever reason, after you guys left that night, she started saying, when will I get to see my new parents again? And she's still. Shannon, actually meant to tell you this. After I saw you last week, I said, you remember Aunt Shannon? And you saw.
Lindsey Epperly [00:02:12]:
I saw Shannon. Oh, yeah. My new parents. I was like, what? Where did you get that? From.
SHANNON MILES [00:02:18]:
Oh, my gosh, that's amazing. We'll figure out a way to leverage that as she grows up. You know, if you have to be the good cop, I can be the bad cop. However that works when you end up parenting. Yeah. I mean, can you ever have enough parenting? I don't know.
Lindsey Epperly [00:02:31]:
Thank you for that. You know, to be honest, I have learned a lot from you as a parent because I learned a lot from you in all facets of life. And so, listeners, I've kind of touched on this whole conversation of, like, Shannon changed the trajectory of my life because she intentionally set out to become a mentor. And so, Shannon, I kind of wanna talk about that. Like, you created a mentorship group for women in business, and it was a very specific crossover women of a certain age at a certain stage of business that you felt like you could pour into. I mean, tell us more about, like, what even made you go do that.
SHANNON MILES [00:03:05]:
I have always sought out mentors in my life. Whether it was somebody older, at church when I was younger, or in business when I was getting started and trying to find my way in a big corporation. I always looked for people who were a season ahead of me that I admired, that I looked up to, and had, like, a lot of qualities that I wanted to emulate. So I very much believed in mentorship, you know, and then I stopped being the youngest person in the room. You know, I started, you know, entering into my forties, and I had a really beautiful example of what mentoring could look like through Reggie Campbell, who is a giant in the mentoring community, especially in the southeast. And he created an organization and a structure called radical mentoring, which my husband participated in in 2007. So I had a really up close and personal look at the, like, formal mentoring versus the ad hoc mentoring that I had always looked for and just the absolute power and transformation that can happen in somebody's life when they approach a relationship like that, open handed and just saying, I want to learn. And so having, you know, had that mindset myself, having seen a model for doing it, I felt like in 2015, I had learned enough that I felt like I had something to give.
SHANNON MILES [00:04:37]:
Certainly not that I had it all figured out. But the truth is, there's never a perfect time to mentor. But if you feel the call on your heart or the pull or the tug, whatever, I think you have to answer it at some point. And so in 2015, I felt like I was at that place. So I decided that I was going to create a group called Balance Mentoring, which ran the calendar year of 2016.
Lindsey Epperly [00:05:02]:
Yeah. And I was fortunate enough to be in the right time and the right place to participate in that group. And I remember you saying, actually, when you were so intentional, every single meeting, you would essentially set the table right, invite us in and tell us, this is what we're going to get out of this today. And I remember you actually bringing up that you felt like you wanted to give back in some way, shape, or form, and you could have very easily gone to a charity, you could have gone to a soup kitchen. You could have given financially. You could have done a number of different things that were typically set out before us to be able to give back. But you decided, I want to take it a level deeper because I feel like I have this unique ability and this unique gifting, which is, I have the experience in business. And that was such a.
Lindsey Epperly [00:05:44]:
I mean, that was a powerful statement now, eight years ago because you used those unique gifts to pour into people. I'm curious because I feel like it goes so much further beyond mentoring for you. Right. Like, do you have kind of a specific why or a north star that you follow?
SHANNON MILES [00:05:59]:
I feel like my purpose is to inspire other people, and that has taken different shapes over the years. But in 2010, I became a business owner, and I started to realize the unique challenges that that presented, especially as a woman. And there are just not a lot of environments where business owners can show up as their whole selves. Right. And I wanted to create a space that allowed for that. And I think through those spaces, you really can inspire. And it's never about, like, having all the answers, and it's never about, like, look at me and how amazing I've done it. Do it this, just like that.
SHANNON MILES [00:06:47]:
You know, like, it's just like, no, people just need a space to show up and be real and talk about the wholeness of who you are. And I just always loved business. I've always loved leadership. I have always felt like that's a unique, almost a value proposition that I bring is just being so passionate about business and knowing that it's a vehicle that can really create a lot of good in the world. And so when creating balance, I wanted it to be for a very specific woman who loves her family but loves her business and wants to have a successful organization that they're leading and make an impact on the world in that way. And so I think that sort of just, like, aligned with a lot of things that I was really passionate about, but that that inspiration has always been a really big part of what I consider to be my purpose. Yeah.
Lindsey Epperly [00:07:43]:
Yeah. I mean, it's so interesting even just hearing that answer. You use words and phrases that I don't hear in the common culture vernacular when it comes to using a business as a vehicle and using that to create impact. And you would just infuse the conversations we would have with that. And so I'm hoping, listeners, you pick up on this, because the way you look at your business defines the way that you're going to grow and scale and treat your business. And I think that was one of the biggest things that you changed for me in my trajectory, is I had been looking at my business for so long as I don't even know how to describe what I was looking at it beforehand, right. Like it was a means to an end and ends to mean, what is that phrase? But, like, it was this level of not having intentionality. It was, I saw an opportunity.
Lindsey Epperly [00:08:27]:
I created something based on that opportunity. And I just kind of 1ft in front of the other, kept trying, trying, which works to a certain degree, but that business very much owned me at the time. And so then you come in and teach me, you know, I think rich dad boredad was something you had us all read at one point, right? Like, you teach me, let's start looking at what you've created as exactly that. Something you've created. It is not your identity. It does not own you. You own it. Let's make it work for you.
Lindsey Epperly [00:08:52]:
And so that mindset shift alone was huge in transforming my business.
SHANNON MILES [00:08:57]:
Well, you were very much in the hustler stage when we met, right? You had worked in the travel business for a while. You knew that you wanted to have your own agency, but you had to take this initial step of branching out from the one that you were with to kind of build the profile that you wanted. Like, you, you were very much one in the same with upper Lee travel, right? And you had to be. Right. You. You were the one creating it. And so you were very much in the hustler stage. And that works for a while for a business owner.
SHANNON MILES [00:09:31]:
I think you kind of have to go through that to say, like, do I even have something here? Like, I have this great idea or this thing that I'm passionate about, but is, is the market, you know, open for it? Is this something I'm going to actually be able to make money doing? And then when you realize, you know, and we go through a program like this together in 2016, like, oh, okay, this can. This can and should be a separate thing from who I am as a person. And that's part of the evolution of going into the phase of being an entrepreneur. And that's when you realize, okay, I can't build this thing in such a way that everything rises and falls on me. Like, if I want this business to. To be something that I do for a long time, something that doesn't burn me out, something that augments my life and doesn't deplete it, then I have to change my mindset and become an entrepreneur and start to grow it in a different way. And that's the transformation that we worked through together that year. Yes.
Lindsey Epperly [00:10:29]:
Well, and you actually, I completely forgot about this, how you outlined specific phases of entrepreneurship and the. Will you tell the listeners each of those phases and kind of what, like a quick little snippet of what each of those looks like?
SHANNON MILES [00:10:42]:
Yeah, sure. So, hustlers, a lot of what we talked about, right. You got a great idea, you're passionate about it. Maybe it's a side hustle for a while.
Lindsey Epperly [00:10:50]:
And that's phase one. Right. This is like, this is the beginning of entrepreneurship hustle.
SHANNON MILES [00:10:54]:
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. In the beginning, you're rolling up your sleeves, you're wearing all the hats, and that's fun until you realize this is not sustainable. And I have to decide if I'm going to evolve and become an entrepreneur or somebody who starts to become a leader, starts to replace themselves in the business, starts to trust other people, which. Oh, that's hard, right?
Lindsey Epperly [00:11:22]:
Yes.
SHANNON MILES [00:11:22]:
Talk about entrepreneurs.
Lindsey Epperly [00:11:23]:
So entrepreneur is stage two. Like, this is like the evolution of, I'm no longer the one doing all the things. I'm now deciding to rise up and start to delegate, which is extremely hard, to your point.
SHANNON MILES [00:11:35]:
Yeah. Nothing will make you question who you are as a person more than just somebody and delegating this thing that you're passionate about.
Lindsey Epperly [00:11:43]:
Yeah, control freaks Anonymous meets here daily.
SHANNON MILES [00:11:49]:
But that's the thing that makes you successful. Right. But you have to evolve past that. So the entrepreneur is phase two. And then eventually you're realizing, okay, the market's responding to this, it's starting to scale. Um, you're starting to hit some financial markers in your business. You've probably broken a million in revenue. Um, and then you start to realize, okay, I actually need to become a CEO.
SHANNON MILES [00:12:18]:
Meaning I have a leadership team underneath me. I have people who own different disciplines of this business that are reporting to me. They're the ones building the budget. They're the ones reporting on the KPI's and defining objectives. And I'm leading this organization at a different way. And by this point, you've probably also defined your owner's intent, which is, am I going to keep this business forever and it's going to go away when I go away, is it something that I'm building to sell? Is it something that I'm building to pass on to my employees? Or is it something I see as being just a lifestyle business that just pays my bills and it can just kind of fizzle out? And that kind of really aligns with the first option that I listed. So that's when you really start to think, like, ultimately long term, where do I see this business going? Yeah. And then the final, in each of these, you know, phases, you're jumping a chasm.
SHANNON MILES [00:13:17]:
You're jumping a chasm from being a hustler to an entrepreneur and an entrepreneur to a CEO. And the last chasm, which I think is the hardest one to jump, is. Is to be an owner. And I wasn't even in that, you know, category back when we first met. I'm definitely there now. But that's where you have relinquished the majority of control of the business. You've appointed a CEO or a president to replace you. You might even have a seat on the board.
SHANNON MILES [00:13:47]:
You might have, you know, even entered the sales process if you. If that was your intention to sell like that. Ownership requires an absolute break in your identity from your identity in the business. And that's why that chasm is a really, really hard one to jump. But, yeah, those are. Those are the four phases of business.
Lindsey Epperly [00:14:13]:
Thanks for outlining those. Gosh, it's been years since we talked about those phases. And it's so interesting to see the lifestyle, life cycle of a business and the life cycle of the founder and how you can get stuck in one of those phases very easily because you might not know what it takes to jump that chasm. And you've even called those, I think, re up moments where you start identifying, okay, this can stay the same forever and become complacent, or I can recognize that we have more potential on the other side of this chasm, but it's going to make me break some things and start over, like, every time we get up against that tension of re upping. Um, and I want to talk a little bit about you and your story, because you just outlined the life cycle of a business and a business owner, and it's one that you have walked every single phase of that now multiple times over. But let's talk a lot about. About belay. And I, um, I've told the listeners a little bit about what you and Brian, your husband, had created with Belayden.
Lindsey Epperly [00:15:09]:
But one of the things that's so striking is part of your story is that the two of you quit your jobs on the same day, cashed in your 401 ks with two young kids at home. Both Rainey and Harper were around at that point, right?
SHANNON MILES [00:15:20]:
They were, yeah.
Lindsey Epperly [00:15:21]:
And it was also the great recession. So timing.
SHANNON MILES [00:15:23]:
Yeah, there was that, too, was pretty.
Lindsey Epperly [00:15:25]:
Interesting on that decision. What gave you the confidence to do that? Right? I mean, for the outside looking in, that would be the worst possible time to do such a crazy big decision. But you guys took that risk and you bet on yourselves. Like, what? What did that look like for you? And how did you get that confidence?
SHANNON MILES [00:15:42]:
God, I'm walking down memory lane here. Yeah. So this was 2010. I was working for McKesson, which was at that time, I don't know, Fortune 15 something company, big corporation. I loved it. I was like, this place is awesome. I can climb this corporate ladder, and I'll retire from here. And Brian was working for a church construction company.
SHANNON MILES [00:16:07]:
It's a totally different industry. But he was on the road all the time, just not the lifestyle that we wanted. And then for the first time in my, my career there, I just sort of hit a wall where there was no next right move for me. And that hadn't happened in all the positions that I had had there. And so I was like, huh, okay, maybe there's a bigger change that needs to take place here. And at the same time, Brian was feeling like, okay, I've kind of capped out at my growth potential at this job. We'd always wanted to have something, you know, on our own. But, yeah, you're right.
SHANNON MILES [00:16:40]:
It was. It was 2010. Like, we're still in the recession. Uh, Rainey was five, harbor was two. Um, we had great jobs with benefits. And all the stability that I grew up learning was, like, the thing that you, you aim for, right? You. You work a stable job, you get your benefits, and you get your retirement, and you've won. But we were just restless and really felt like if we were ever going to take a risk and make the leap, like, this was the time to do it, because we were still pretty young.
SHANNON MILES [00:17:17]:
We were in our thirties, and we thought, well, we're going to cash in our 401 ks to fund this because we didn't want to borrow from anybody because we weren't sure if this was going to work. And kind of, you know, jump on the grenade, you know, if it explodes and you don't hurt anybody else. And we thought, well, okay, so if it doesn't work, we'll leave our jobs well, and we can go back, hopefully, you know, and if we deplete our 401 ks, we're young enough to build that retirement back up. But it was a huge risk. It really was. But the truth is, and you know this, we take risks all the time, and sometimes that risk is staying where you are, Wolf. Yeah, right. Sometimes that risk is knowing that you need to do something to make a change, but just not having all the answers to feel confident in making it.
SHANNON MILES [00:18:08]:
And you're. You're taking a risk by staying where you are.
Lindsey Epperly [00:18:11]:
God, that is so interesting. You know, it makes me think, too. I mean, now, in retrospect, we can say the risk for belay paid off well beyond your wildest dreams, which is incredible. So, Shannon and Brian sold the majority interest in belay in 2021. And it's so interesting to see. You and I were talking the other day about how most entrepreneurs don't pursue their dreams not because of access to resources or access to time or the things that they need, the tools that they need. What stops them from pursuing their dreams is actually that they get in their own way, they get in their own head, that there's that inner critic that honestly sounds a lot like imposter syndrome, like we talk all the time about. And so I want to camp out on that.
Lindsey Epperly [00:18:56]:
Like, what has your experience been with that? And, you know, how has that. How have you leveled with it? To be able to keep looking it in the face and saying, nope, the risk would be staying where I am. I have to move forward, or I'm not going to listen to that today, because I know I have to re up and level up. Like, what does that look like for you?
SHANNON MILES [00:19:12]:
Over the years, it has definitely been a muscle that I've had to exercise inherently. I I don't think I'm a risk taker, necessarily. So when I felt so convicted, called compelled, whatever, to start belay, like, to leave my job and start belay with Brian, it just didn't feel like such a big risk. Like, it felt. It just. And it didn't feel like my idea in a lot of ways, too. Like, this is what you're supposed to. Okay, I'll go do it.
SHANNON MILES [00:19:48]:
Right. And so there's a huge faith and trust element that added to my confidence in doing that. But I don't even know that it was confidence like that this thing was going to work, but it was a confidence that I had to try. Yeah, if that makes sense. And I know, we talk about imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is something that I have forced myself almost to have throughout my whole life because I've always put myself in situations where I, I wasn't prepared or I didn't have all of the resources or I hadn't done the thing before. And you do it anyway.
Lindsey Epperly [00:20:26]:
Yeah.
SHANNON MILES [00:20:26]:
And it's, you know, then you kind of build that confidence, and that's the muscle that I've had to exercise. Like, I think way back to when I was a kid growing up, like, we didn't have much money at all. My stepdad was in the military. My mom worked at Walmart. Like, we lived very right around the poverty line. But I was like, I'm going to go to college and I went to a private school, and I never once felt like, oh, gosh, I shouldn't be doing this, or I'm not good enough to do this. It's like I just, I want to try. And even if it doesn't work out, at least I tried.
Lindsey Epperly [00:21:11]:
Yeah.
SHANNON MILES [00:21:11]:
And I think in that way, we can, we can work through imposter syndrome, because there's no, there's no way you're going to become the person that you want to be ultimately someday, if you don't put yourself out there and take a role that you've never had before or apply for a job that you're completely unqualified for. Right. Like, I was always, like, I was managing people, like, in my early twenties who were in their fifties. I had no business, absolutely no business managing these professionals. But for whatever reason, I was just in that role. And you have to decide in those re up moments, like, no, I'm not necessarily equipped going into this, but you bet I'm going to figure out how to be the best manager, the best business owner, the best mentor that I can be, because this is the responsibility that's been given to me. So it's my job to respond to it.
Lindsey Epperly [00:22:14]:
I love that take on it, Shannon. I feel like those types of things are seen in our culture as such a negative, right? Like, oh, no, you've got the Gremlins in your head or the inner critic or the imposter syndrome. But actually, what you've just defined is you've got a challenge in your way, and you're the type of person that meets that challenge eye to eye and says, I will overcome this. To me, it's actually a gift that, that is showing up in those moments because it's kind of like your body's alert system of, like, hey, you got something new. And it's up to you to decide if you want to try this out or if you want to kind of back away. And, and I think that's one thing when it comes to our confidence. I think it's another thing when we're assessing our businesses and we're assessing where we're at with things and we're deciding do we re up right? Like, that looks a little bit different. And I mean, I'll never forget.
Lindsey Epperly [00:23:01]:
So everyone, when Shannon ran the mentorship program, she assigned us a book every month and we read twelve business slash personal books that were absolutely life changing. And one of those is this teeny, tiny little book called the Dip. And you had us read the dip, which was by Seth Godin. And it's all about do I keep going? I'm in the dip. I'm in this moment where I can't tell if I want to move forward or not. Do I keep going or do I, you know, fold up my cards and try something new? And I remember when we read this book just to give you guys an idea of what eight years ago looked like at Jet Set, which was then epperly travel, I had, I guess we turned ten this year. So it was a two year old business and I was sitting there going, should I charge for my services? I don't know. It's a really big decision to charge for your services in this industry.
Lindsey Epperly [00:23:46]:
That's not the common thing to do. I don't know. It's been really worrying me. And should I keep my team? I've built this kind of team of individuals that I was mentoring professionally, but they're taking a lot out of me and I'm not making a lot of money off of it yet. I can make a lot more money if I just focused on being the only salesperson, the chief salesperson. But then I couldn't grow and scale. And I just remember trying to make those decisions and reading the dip and deciding, okay, actually I'm going to re up on this decision to charge for services. I'm going to re up on this decision to keep that team.
Lindsey Epperly [00:24:13]:
And those are literally the reason that jetset is the company that it is today. Right? Like those decisions to stay in it at the moment where I could have just as easily walked away from even pieces of the business. So I'm just curious to talk to you about those re up moments. If anyone's listening right now and is like, oh, man, I'm in that dip. I'm in that valley. Do I walk away from either the whole business itself or at least pieces of it that I've created, or do I stay? What's the litmus test? How do we decide that?
SHANNON MILES [00:24:40]:
What an awesome question. I'm just thinking about re up moments that I've had, too, throughout my career, and it is so hard to know with certainty which direction you should go. It's a sliding doors moment. You could envision a universe where you. You stay the size that you are and you keep it small and manageable and safe. That feels like the safe thing to do. But the truth is, in business, very rarely can you just ride a stagnant line. You're either going to grow or decline.
SHANNON MILES [00:25:23]:
So in that scenario, one where you're thinking, okay, if I keep it small and I, and I don't charge for the services, and I let go of this team and I start to make a profit, which is thing that we should all strive for in business, there's different ways to get there. Then you're taking that scenario and saying, this feels like the safe bet. And I would question whether or not it really is a safe bet because very rarely do businesses stay stagnant. Yeah, you'll probably start to see a decline. So that's one universe you can choose to live in. The other universe is the opposite effect of that re up moment where you say, okay, leadership is hard. It's making me challenge everything that I believe about myself and other people. But the only way to grow and scale this business and to have the impact that I want to have in this world is through leadership.
SHANNON MILES [00:26:24]:
And it's through growth, and it's through charging for my services, because I know there's value in what our organization brings to the world. And. And I'm making these bets on myself and I'm making these bets on the team. And, yes, it's uncomfortable, but yes, I'll figure it out. I have before, and I'll do it again. Yeah. And just knowing you and making an assumption about the people who are listening to this and that the people that are learning from you and the guests that you're bringing on, I think that mindset and that mentality, that universe of the sliding doors moment is the attractive one. That's the one that feels like we're living in integrity and we are betting on ourselves.
SHANNON MILES [00:27:10]:
And that's the one that if it doesn't work out, well, heck, at least I tried. I would have. I would take that risk any day over the regret not trying it.
Lindsey Epperly [00:27:21]:
Absolutely. Preach. I think so much of this makes a difference, too, given your why and given the reasons behind making that decision of the sliding doors moment. And it leads me to think about you and Brian very much live by. Do you call it the law of expansion or the principle of. What is your exact title?
SHANNON MILES [00:27:40]:
Principle.
Lindsey Epperly [00:27:40]:
Yeah, principle of expansion. Okay, so, guys, I should know this. Please don't tell Brian that I failed that test.
SHANNON MILES [00:27:45]:
All feels very definitive. And I just know I don't have anything figured out, so I don't want to be that.
Lindsey Epperly [00:27:51]:
No, it's good enough to make it on a sticky note that I plan on taking a picture of so that all the listeners can see what you drew me last weekend when I came to learn more about this from you, because you've taught me over the years and I needed to see it visually again. So listeners who are listening to this right now, I apologize that you can't actually see this, but if you subscribe to my substack, I'm going to post it on that, on Lindsaypperly dot substack.com because I want you to see Shannon's exact drawing. Sorry, Shannon, I'm putting your art out there for the public. Proceeds will go to you and you'll get some royalties. But really, let's talk about this, because you guys live by this idea that what we are creating in business or in art or in any sort of creative role is not just for ourselves, but it is for the purpose of expansion. And so you've even got kind of like tenants to this, to wherever. If we swing bigger, we can expand bigger. And that means we can give bigger and we can live bigger.
Lindsey Epperly [00:28:46]:
And so I just want to camp out on that for a little bit. Can you talk to me about the principle of expansion?
SHANNON MILES [00:28:51]:
Yes, I would love to. And also you just articulated it perfectly. So, okay, yeah. In business, in life, with our influence, our relationships, we expand, right? If you have a growth mindset and you are a constant learner, there's expansion happening all the time. And I experienced that very much with belay. Like you mentioned, the bet paid off, the risk paid off. Right. We sold the company and it was a huge success for our family, personally, for the organization.
SHANNON MILES [00:29:23]:
As it continues to grow. We found a great private equity firm to partner with. So the expansion was very obvious and very tangible through belaydeh. And with that expansion, I was able to gain power. And we all do. Like when you expand your inherently as a leader, as a business owner, you're going to gain power. And it's a scary thing sometimes that power can be a challenge. To accept it can be something that we've seen other people make a mess of and ruin relationships over and do some really shady stuff.
SHANNON MILES [00:30:11]:
So power can be a really negative thing, but it can also be an amazing force for good. And so when we expand, then we gain power, and then we have to decide, what are we going to do with that power? Are we going to consume it? Are we going to eat, drink and be Merry and Yolo? Or are we going to give it away for the sake of others? And it's that recognition that the power can be used for the benefit of other people. And you're still retaining it. Right. You're not completely depleting yourself, but you're recognizing, I've been given this influence and this opportunity. How can I use it for good? And so for us, that looks right now like starting a nonprofit to serve business owners, which I'm sure we can talk about, but, like, that's what giving it away for the sake of others looks like for us right now. For you, it was when you started the program with Jet set where you're investing in the agent, in the, in the travel industry overall, there's an altruism. I think that that power affords us the opportunity to exercise.
SHANNON MILES [00:31:28]:
And so then the final step of that cycle is to repeat it because we don't stay stagnant. Stagnant. Right. We want to keep growing. We want to live in that growth mindset. And so you're going through this principle of expansion. You're repeating it, and then with each cycle, it's kind of getting bigger. And like I said, that can be.
SHANNON MILES [00:31:50]:
That can be really scary, or that can be something that, as Amy, who you had on the podcast, told me, no, you just need to step into your power. And when you do that, it can be a really beautiful litmus test to kind of run things through in your life. You know, this isn't just for business. This is, this was in our family manifesto before we applied it to, to our organizations and to those that we mentor and support. So I think it, the principle of expansion has been something that we've just inherently known and done for a long time. And now we're just kind of starting to put some, some structure around it.
Lindsey Epperly [00:32:32]:
It's so cool because it is something that we should note is not just specific to business, and it's not just specific to milestone moments. It doesn't have to come with some sort of exit or some sort of change or some sort. It's truly our day to day decisions and how we can figure out a, you know, it's the businesses that are working toward more sustainable practices. It's the ones who are donating to charities. It's the ones who are making decisions in their every single day business activities that are moving toward the good of others and expanding for the sake of others. And I think boiling it down to a word, that's impact. And that's exactly why we create a business or why many of us do. And I think it's just really neat to have that as a north star to work toward and to know this principle of expansion exists.
Lindsey Epperly [00:33:16]:
I mean, I think a lot of us have it inherently, but we, we don't realize it until we see it laid out, just like you laid it out, that it actually can be just this beautiful, reciprocal, circular motion, that when you get the hang of it, it really becomes natural.
SHANNON MILES [00:33:30]:
Yeah. And I'll be honest with you, I, you know, after selling belay, I just wanted to hang out in the, in the gain power, you know, part of the cycle for, for a long time, because I was scared. I was afraid of what people would say. I was afraid of being completely unrelatable. I was afraid of resentment, jealousy, animosity. I don't know from who. Like, I don't know. Like we were talking about the other day, like, I don't know who's saying these things, but I was saying them to myself in my mind.
SHANNON MILES [00:34:13]:
And I thought, well, I'm just gonna. I'm gonna lay low. And I did. And I got off social media, and it was great and or significantly limited it. And it's just I had to retreat within myself and figure out who I wanted to be in that season and what I wanted to put out into the world and how I. How I could align my integrity with this newfound power that I didn't really have before. Wow.
Lindsey Epperly [00:34:44]:
Well, I mean, you said it really well the other day. And granted, this was in the context specifically of faith and listeners. Shannon and I both share a christian faith background, which has been one of the really the coolest parts of our mentorship, is that it's so multifaceted, so oftentimes you're teaching me from a place of that faith background. But you said the other day, our culture is so focused on action and how often we need to be moving and doing and hustling and grinding. But rest is an action, too. And so there is a level of knowing when it's okay to give ourselves permission to say, all right, I have this vision. I have this dream. I want to go for it wholeheartedly.
Lindsey Epperly [00:35:20]:
But I also want to take care of myself. I also need to know when rest exists. And I think actually, it's funny you mentioned Amy Porterfield, who. Thank you again. You were the wonderful connection who allowed me to have a conversation with her for our very first episode of who made you the boss? I'll link to that, you guys, because she talks a lot about her seasons that she has really intentionally crafted in her business to make sure that a quarter every year is a season of rest. Like, she knows it's going to be scaled back when it comes to how much she's doing. And that's why she works really, really hard the rest of the year. And I think that that's really great because sometimes we're hustling for our dreams so much that.
Lindsey Epperly [00:35:59]:
That we don't take that time to rest. Right. Like, I actually was just writing about it this morning. I took the sabbatical ish over the summer, and I set the goal of taking that sabbatical eight years ago like that. Actually, I guess it was around the time that you and I started working together. But I also read the book clockwork at that time, which helped me outline it. And I just interviewed Mike Michalowicz. But that's eight years ago.
Lindsey Epperly [00:36:20]:
And so I didn't really carve out a lot of intentional rest time in between then and now because I was working toward this sabbatical. Right. So, yes, maternity helped a lot, but if we don't carve out that time in our kind of like, daily cadence, weekly cadence, monthly cadence, then it sometimes feels like, oh, I've got to just get to the end of this thing and sell it, and then. And I can breathe out like that. That's not how we have to live. So I do think it's really important to note that sometimes you have those moments of retreat, sometimes even within the business ecosystem, you have to kind of just take a pause, take a rest, and. And you come back refreshed. I think that's really important.
Lindsey Epperly [00:36:56]:
You guys did the same thing with the sabbatical yourselves, I believe.
SHANNON MILES [00:36:58]:
Yeah, we took a sabbatical in 2019, and that, for us, looked like three months out of the CEO role of the business. Brian and I shared that role for the last few years of it. We appointed an interim CEO and had some very defined metrics of what that sabbatical would look like. And then when we came back, we spent the last half of the year fully transitioning that rollover to Tricia, and she assumed the CEO position in January. Of 2020.
Lindsey Epperly [00:37:28]:
Cool.
SHANNON MILES [00:37:29]:
But you talked earlier about, you know, deciding your re up moments, like January 2020. Right? Like, nobody, like, that was going to be, like, the best year ever. Everybody was planning for, like, the best year ever, and then we all know what happened, and it would have been really tempting to come back in and, like, second guess that decision and say, oh, gosh, we need to get back in this business and try to recover on some of the loss, which, fortunately, we were a virtual services organization. We did just fine. But, like, at the end of the day, that's when you have to, like, double down on that decision of. Right. Like, was this the right call? Yes. I'm just gonna.
SHANNON MILES [00:38:07]:
I'm gonna stick with that. And. And it was absolutely the right decision to keep her in that role, and she completely slayed it, and it was, it galvanized the team. So, you know, there are some really tangible benefits of sabbatical and stepping away from the business, first of all, to. For you to know that the business can continue without your day to day involvement, that's huge for a business owner. It also proves to people in your organization that you trust them like, you really trust them, and it gives them an opportunity to absolutely thrive. So whether you bank at all and then have this big sabbatical at once, I would recommend incrementally getting there along the way as the years go on. Um, but I think there is a huge value in finding rhythms in your business where it's less intense, where you're able to step away for a week, two weeks, three weeks, a month, whatever that looks like.
SHANNON MILES [00:39:15]:
And when you do that, I don't know if you. Well, I do know that you experienced this, but we talked about this. I don't know if you talked about it on the podcast or not, but, like, there are some magical things that happen in your business when you step away from it and really trust that it doesn't have to rely on you every single day. That's when you open up space and you create this vacuum for these supernatural opportunities to have or these revelations to occur, or these opportunities, maybe, that you've been working on, that just a happen to come to fruition in that. In that space. I've seen it time and time again in our business. I've seen it with you, and I've seen it with other people. So that would be an encouragement that I would give to the listener.
SHANNON MILES [00:40:04]:
It's like, if you. If you really think that the business has to have you in it completely every day, you're probably missing out on some freedom that you could be experiencing in your business and creating some space for some magic.
Lindsey Epperly [00:40:22]:
That's so good. And, you know, just this kind of, in summation, taking it back to the original conversation, which is that of mentorship, this is an opportunity, especially if you. If you're in the C suite position and you've got a team that's working with you to actually allow them to step up as leaders. That was one of the amazing byproducts that I saw. I mean, granted, we were very intentional, laying the groundwork before we took our summer abroad, but giving individuals the autonomy to actually do their jobs without us looking over their shoulders. Right. And you kind of introduced me to that John Maxwell concept of a level five leader is actually creating other leaders.
SHANNON MILES [00:40:59]:
I think it's Jim Collins. I think it's Jim Collins.
Lindsey Epperly [00:41:01]:
Okay, good.
SHANNON MILES [00:41:02]:
But, yeah.
Lindsey Epperly [00:41:03]:
Oh, yeah.
SHANNON MILES [00:41:05]:
Because, I mean, at the end of the day, I mean, we want an organization that's going to survive beyond us, probably, right? Like, wouldn't it be great if we created something that. That lived on even after we're involved? Like, what a beautiful thing to leave as part of your legacy. And so in order to do that, you have to engage other people and trust them and lead leaders and become that humble level five leader that allows for a thoughtful transition to take place, you know, to somebody else or some other organization that will continue on the work that you started.
Lindsey Epperly [00:41:42]:
Yeah. This is a beautiful conversation. I could talk to you all day as I try my best to anytime we're together. But for the listeners, we'll wrap it up. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. My last question, I always like to ask guests, and you know this because you've been around my dinner table with Mila in particular, who loves to ask the question of what made you smile today? So, Shannon, what made you smile today?
SHANNON MILES [00:42:04]:
Oh, my goodness. I just got to spend the weekend with. With my daughter, who is a freshman in college. She came home unexpectedly for the weekend, and it was just so life giving. I got to see that she's okay. I got to see that I'm okay. And all the things that I had built up in my head as the big, scary things about her going to school just. Just weren't there when she got to come home.
SHANNON MILES [00:42:36]:
And we got to go shopping together, and we bought matching jeans. And I have my jeans on today, so that's making me bask in the glory of this weekend. And I look pretty cute in these jeans, too.
Lindsey Epperly [00:42:52]:
I love everything about this. Shout out to Rainey. Thank you for going shopping with your mom. And for your mom being cool enough for you guys to wear the same jeans, that is just another level of epic. Shannon, you're the best. Thank you so, so much for this conversation today.
SHANNON MILES [00:43:06]:
Thank you. I love you so much.
Lindsey Epperly [00:43:08]:
Love you, too.
SHANNON MILES [00:43:09]:
Bye.