65. Growing Forward with Paul Casey featuring Ken Gosney

Tri-Cities Influencer Podcast with Paul Casey

Paul Casey:

A good rule of thumb is before you speak, ask yourself, "Is what I'm about to say true, necessary, and kind?" T-N-K.

Speaker 2:

Raising the water level of leadership in the Tri-Cities of Eastern Washington, it's the Tri-Cities Influencer Podcast. Welcome to the TCI Podcast, where local leadership and self-leadership expert, Paul Casey, interviews local CEOs, entrepreneurs, and non-profit executives, to hear how they lead themselves and their teams so we can all benefit from their wisdom and experience. Here's your host, Paul Casey, of Growing Forward Services, coaching and equipping individuals and teams to spark breakthrough success.

Paul Casey:

It's a great day to Grow Forward. Thanks for joining me for today's episode with Ken Gosney. Ken is the Executive Director of Goodwill of the Columbia. And a fun fact about Ken is he really tries to be hip at home, but his family's like, "Not so much." So Ken, tell us a little bit about that.

Ken Gosney:

Well, I try to keep it cool with the kids, and the other day my wife told a story, and after she was done, I said, "Cool story, bro." I thought it was quite funny, and my kids just ripped on me and told me that was three years old and nobody says that anymore. It was a strong effort, but another failure.

Paul Casey:

Thanks for trying to be relevant.

Ken Gosney:

Yeah, keeping it real.

Paul Casey:

Well, we'll dive in after checking in with our Tri-Cities Influencer sponsor.

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Speaker 4:

Thank you for your support of leadership development in the tri-cities. Well, welcome Ken. I was privileged to meet you, we're thinking it's about nine years ago. My son was a freshman at Hanford High, you were the principal there, and of course I always want to get to know my kid's principal because I was a principal many years before that. I remember being in a parent-teacher meeting where we were talking about the regulations of the upcoming dance. And I realized I don't want to be in these meetings.

Ken Gosney:

Yeah, those were interesting meetings, what's appropriate at a school dance.

Paul Casey:

Yikes. So that our Tri-City Influencers can get to know you, take us through a couple of career highlights that led you to your current position.

Ken Gosney:

Well, when I first entered education, I was an English teacher out of Prosser High School.

Paul Casey:

Yeah, English.

Ken Gosney:

Yes.

Paul Casey:

That's my minor.

Ken Gosney:

There you go. Loved it, was teaching, and then coaching basketball and golf after school. My principal convinced me that administration might be a good thing to do, a good career. I was in the middle of getting my master's degree at that point, so I took a few extra classes, got my credentials. Low and behold, the athletic director/assistant principal blew a hole in his esophagus when he was eating Cheerios, he choked.

Paul Casey:

No.

Ken Gosney:

And so, immediately I was pulled out of the classroom, and for the next four months was an administrator at the high school, and loved it. So then took the next step of applying for jobs and was hired at Hanford High School, was there for 12 years. I then made the natural transition to Goodwill.

Paul Casey:

There was a little sarcasm in natural transition, right.

Ken Gosney:

Yeah. No, so I knew actually the former executive director at Goodwill, so when he left, the job came open, and I thought that that seems like a great opportunity and still kind of satisfied my desire to have a job where I can look in the mirror and say I'm trying to give back to the community, I'm trying to make a difference. So went for it, and yeah, the board selected me. It's been five-and-a-half years now.

Paul Casey:

Okay, and why do you love what you do?

Ken Gosney:

Well, when I was a principal, I worked heavily in the special education department and loved it. I loved working with that population of kids. You'll never meet better human beings than those kids. I still see those kids still now because Goodwill of course works with a lot of employees with disabilities or other barriers. It's great to see them still progressing, getting to see how they're doing. And I really just valued a mission that Goodwill has of changing lives through the power of work. We're able to, really on a daily basis, impact people's lives, and the lives of their family, and get out of that cycle of not having a job, and poverty, and helping people achieve some goals. It's really cool. Yeah, I can't ask for a better job, I love what I do.

Paul Casey:

What a great mission. I love the thrift stores too. We're thrifters, my wife and I, and my mom. I think these jeans probably were purchased at Goodwill.

Ken Gosney:

I hope you got a good deal on them.

Paul Casey:

Always, always. There was probably that moment of that decision to switch from being a principal to executive director, what was going through your mind during that? Did you do pros and cons?

Ken Gosney:

Absolutely. Yeah, actually I would take a lot of walks at night, I'd take the dog out, and walk for miles just going through my mind if I really wanted to leave a job I loved. I loved being the principal at Hanford High School. The high school was really humming along. I had been there long enough that I had hired the administrative team, the leadership team, and a lot of the teachers. Things were going really well, I loved it, so making that kind of a change was pretty dramatic. I had a lot of pros and cons lists I guess going in my head, a lot of talks with my wife about what we thought would be the best for the family. Really, I mean, not to get dark here, but when my youngest was six, he had a brain tumor. We were really lucky it was in a good location, the surgery was successful, but it was really scary.

Ken Gosney:

We were in pediatric ICU for two weeks with him. So at that point, I really kind of analyzed where I was as a parent, and I saw other people's kids more than I saw my own kids. At that point, I started looking around, but I still wanted to make sure it was a job that fulfilled my need of wanting to be a positive impact in the community. So when this job came open, I was like, "That's the one," but still it took a lot of thought to get there. But it allowed me to spend more time with my family than a high school principal position, which is just crazy hours. I mean it really is.

Paul Casey:

Yeah, yeah. So work-life balance was a huge, almost number one...

Ken Gosney:

Right, yeah. Absolutely.

Paul Casey:

... on the list for that decision. Just for our listeners who might have a critical decision to make in their life, what do you tell people who are that crossroads of decision making. It could be career or it could just be another big decision in their life. What advice would you give?

Ken Gosney:

Well, I think you really need to analyze why you're considering the change. I could throw out the old cliché, which I truly believe, you follow your heart. But really make sure you understand why you're wanting to make that change and if it truly is right for you. I mean, money is a factor, there's no question. There's lifestyle, what are the hours? Are you working weekends? Is it straight 9:00 to 5:00? I think all those things come into play, and also where you are in your life. If you have kids, a wife, all those decisions of course have a direct impact on your family. But I think at the end of the day you do make that pros and cons list and try to make the best decision you can make with all those factors being included.

Ken Gosney:

Sometimes jobs I think look really attractive on the outside, and then when you really start to dive in, is this the best move? Maybe it's not. I would just say put a lot of thought into it and why you want to go into that position, what are you hoping to gain or accomplish by making that move.

Paul Casey:

What's the most rewarding part of being a leader for you? And then how do you stay focused on that and not the hassles, the disappointments, and the other junk of being a leader? You probably had to do that as a principal and also now.

Ken Gosney:

Yeah. It's really easy to get dragged down into the muck of it. And sometimes I have to remind myself I'm not perfect at it. I have to remind myself that looking at all the positive things is really important. It is important to acknowledge what you're doing well as a leader, as an organization. Not to rest on your laurels with it, but to acknowledge that there are things we're doing really well and there are things we need to improve on. But sometimes you get really lost in the negative, whether it's employee situations, you name it, right? Just like the lockdown when we were shut down for three-and-a-half months, we had to make some really difficult decisions in there and it was very frustrating because of the limited control we had on the situation.

Ken Gosney:

Yeah, I just think it's important to acknowledge what is going well, not to dwell on it too much, but to remember, yeah we got these significant challenges or frustrations right now, but we're doing some things that are going really well too, and we're having some really positive impacts. But again, I have to remind myself to do that because I think human nature sometimes it to just focus on. And sometimes like that five percent of the job that really exhausts you mentally, physically, whatever, it's easy to overlook the other 95% that's going fairly well because you're just focused on that 5%. And so I think sometimes it's just good to take a break and step back and say, "Okay, we're doing this and we're going to be able to handle this challenge." But and also I think surrounding yourself with people that embrace challenges and are positive themselves, you have people that are energy givers and you have people that are energy suckers and who you surround yourself with, I think is really important.

Paul Casey:

How do you intentionally try to celebrate those wins? Do you do it in staff meetings? Do you do it in one to ones? Is there retreats, where do you try to capture those wins and those stories?

Ken Gosney:

I think all of the above, I mean, we have like with our store managers, we have weekly meetings and in those meetings, there's an agenda and some of those are things we have to work on or things that aren't going well, that we have to make adjustments. We always talk about things that people are doing really well. And sometimes we actually single out a manager and said, "Hey, this manager was able to accomplish this." And acknowledge the things that our people are doing really well.

Ken Gosney:

And with my direct leadership team, I have five direct reports. I was acknowledged with my board. I have a board of 14, so I have 14 bosses. And they're great. They're all volunteers in the position. They really value what we do, but I always make sure to acknowledge the work that my team has done, whether individually or as a group because it's a collaborative process. And so it's easy sometimes for a leader to sometimes say, well, this is what I've done. And I try to never say that, I would say, this is what we've done, or this is what Paul did to make things work better for us. And I think that's really important that people that are working hard and being part of your team, understand that you value what they bring to the team and there's ways to acknowledge that. But I think one of the most important things is to collaborate and say, Paul, what do you think about this situation?

Paul Casey:

Yeah.

Ken Gosney:

Now at the end of the day, I have the final say, but you should be able to foster an environment of just, "Hey, let's, let's get after it here. And let's disagree." I don't want, yes men. I guess I should say yes people, but I want people to disagree with me and that's a hard environment to foster sometimes because as a leader, you're making yourself vulnerable to, "Hey, my idea, wasn't the best idea." But it also helps you come up with the best solutions.

Paul Casey:

Yeah. Good stuff. When I teach positive culture, I talk about acknowledging people, getting their input and communication and you hit two or three of those just right there. What makes people feel valued?

Ken Gosney:

Yeah. Also gives opportunities, I think for growth. I was really proud of when I was at Hanford High School, three or four of the assistant principals, I had went on to take their own buildings as lead principals. And in order to do that they have to have experience and it's a different gig going from assistant principal to a lead principal just like any leadership, right. When you take that step up and suddenly you're in charge of all of it. It's a different gig. And so providing them opportunities to learn, to grow, to fail and fail safely but learn from it. I think it's really important.

Paul Casey:

How are you growing these days? You mentioned growth and how have you matured as a leader just in recent years?

Ken Gosney:

Well, maturity is not typically a word that people use with me. But how have I grown as a leader? I think it's really important that you are always as a leader open-minded and I think that's where the most growth comes from. And I think it's important to read books on leadership and all that type of stuff. When it comes down to actually executing it, that collaborative environment allows you as a leader to really get the best information from the best people. If you hire great people and you need to let them be a part of your team and really collaborate in that environment, you learn from each other all the time. And you learn to function as a team in a high level team and that's work, doing that as a work because people have to trust each other that when they throw out an idea, even if it's disagreed with, but it's going to be done respectfully and not in a personal attack type mode. And that takes work to get there. And I think our team is there right now. We're really happy with where we are. But it took some time to get there.

Paul Casey:

Yeah, so one-liner on a job description of staying open-minded or creating psychological safety collaboration, but it could take, it does take a lot of work to get that. Well, you probably have a lot on your to-do list, like all leaders do, and it's probably greater than the time you have to do it. So how do you triage your tasks? How do you know what to delegate? How do you know what to focus on all that?

Ken Gosney:

So I'll go back to when I was a principal. I was horrible at delegating and I mean, horrible at delegating my first, probably two or three years as a lead principal. Because I was so, anxiety ridden about making sure everything was done in my world of right, right. So when my kid had that tumor and of course I was out for a month with him, I really had to let go and let my assistants and my leadership team run the show and you know what happened?

Paul Casey:

Nothing fell apart.

Ken Gosney:

Nothing fell apart. As a matter of fact, it went really smoothly and it opened my highest, a little bit of, okay, have I been, what have I been shouldering too much and too, have I not been giving opportunities to people to grow and show and develop their skillset.

Paul Casey:

Yeah.

Ken Gosney:

And so that was really an eye-opener for me that, okay, you know what, I need to trust my team to do their job and understand that they can do it and they can do it really well. And in fact, sometimes better than me. And so that was a real eye-opener and that really changed I think my perspective of how to work with my team,

Paul Casey:

Any delegation tips that you'd pass on to our listeners?

Ken Gosney:

I would say, whatever you... you know first off, if you hire, like in my current position, I have a director of finance. I'm not going to handle finance stuff. I'm going to delegate finance stuff to her, one because that's her job and two that's her training. I should not. I'm an English teacher by trade. I shouldn't be handling finances. So I delegate, if it's within their realm, I think they should be handling it. And so it's easy for me to say, "Okay, I'm going to really control this budget." But really she's part of my team and that's her expertise. So she's going to be right there with me and the rest of the team saying, "Here's where we are. This is what we can do. This is what we can't do." So I would say one of the important things with delegating is to let people do their job. If I have an athletic director as a principal, I should let the athletic director handle athletics and all the issues that can come with that. If I have one that's in charge of discipline, I should let them handle discipline. Yeah, that doesn't mean I'm not involved, but I think you let people do their jobs.

Paul Casey:

Yeah. Don't pull the rope back.

Ken Gosney:

Yeah.

Paul Casey:

Give them authority and responsibility. Right?

Ken Gosney:

Yeah.

Paul Casey:

Good stuff. Well, before we head into our next question on relationship building, a shout out to our sponsor.

Speaker 4:

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Speaker 4:

So can you probably believe, like I do that leadership is relationships. Talk about what relationships are key to your success and how do you intentionally develop those?

Speaker 4:

Well, I would say the relationship with my, especially my direct leadership team is very important. Like you can't really overstate the importance of that relationships and the way I develop it now, of course, this is the world, according to God's name and I'm sure there's many ways to do this. I just try to make time to talk. And so one thing we frequently do we haven't released since the pandemic because that's kind of screwed up all of our scheduled regular scheduled meetings, but we would start out every meeting our weekly meeting with how was your weekend and we'd go around the table and everybody would take five, 10 minutes and talk about their weekend.

Paul Casey:

Right now.

Ken Gosney:

So you think about that, well, that's an hour to an hour and a half of our meeting. By the time you have five or six people reporting. Right?

Paul Casey:

Yeah.

Ken Gosney:

And of course it leads to questions from the other, in an engaging conversation. And you get to learn about people, you get to learn about their families, what their interests are. And so that helps to break down walls because all of a sudden now I'm viewing Paul, not just as a work colleague, but kind of a friend and somebody I trust. And so now we can have conversations that maybe a month ago we couldn't have, because I wasn't willing to trust that you were going to be okay with my ideas, whether you liked them or not. And so yeah, I think time is the biggest factor.

Ken Gosney:

And it's really difficult sometimes because trust me, there are days I come in and it's like, okay, I got a full list of things to do and somebody walks in my office and they want to chat. And I have to, I really have to just push that aside and focus on them because that's important. That relationship is really, really important. And it's important for them to get my attention at that moment because they've come in looking for it. And for me to shut it down and say, I don't have time would not be healthy and any way, shape or form. So yeah, it takes a lot of time. But I don't know that you could do anything more important than develop those relationships, if you really want to have a collaborative environment,

Paul Casey:

You said everything changed in COVID. Do you, do not check in via zoom or whatever you're doing now, or just less of it?

Ken Gosney:

So we still have weekly meetings, but we've changed from, now we have about 10 or 11 people in there and we're all spread out through the conference room. And we brought in people, extra people because of safety, we've got a safety person, who's making sure we're following all the safety protocols. And then, so it's almost become too big of a, "Hey, let's take 10 minutes because now we're going to be here for three hours." And really people is we've been really busy. And so now it's trying to find that balance between talking and honoring their time. And so yeah, it's become a little bit bigger, but I think we've been able to handle it well because we've already had those established relationships. And so it hasn't been as big of a deal, but we do miss it, but there, you know, I just was talking to my HR director, which I haven't seen in a couple of weeks because I have been out and she's went out. And so we took 20, 25 minutes and taught and just shooting the breeze. And so those pockets of time are still happening as they can, but it's been difficult to find the time to just say, "Hey, this is, we're going to work as a team and build relationships at this moment." So.

Paul Casey:

Okay. Well, self-care, essential to mental health to top performance, especially now when you made a career altering decision because of self-care and family work-life balance. So what recharges your batteries?

Ken Gosney:

Well, I think really at this point in this environment I enjoy my family and really enjoy going to work, especially after three and a half months where we really couldn't go to work or it was very limited in what we could do and who we could see and all that. I really came to value more than ever what we do. So I worked, does recharge my batteries. I know that's a, maybe not something you hear every day, but I do love going to work and I miss it when I'm not there. I've missed the routine of being there every day with people. But really at this point my wife and I are kind of getting two of our three kids are gone to college and then we got a sophomore.

Ken Gosney:

And so a lot of times it's just, my wife and I we're sitting there watching TV and we've settled into this, watching Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy and-

Paul Casey:

No, you haven't gone there.

Ken Gosney:

And then we have our cream corn and go to bed. We enjoy each other's company and it's been good just to at night, we're not running kids all over the place anymore. And I know sometimes that's scary when couples hit that phase, but Michael, we haven't been able to run him anywhere because all of the stuff has been canceled. And so really we've been able to just enjoy each other's company. And so that's been good at night be able to sit there and relax and just talk or watch TV together or whatever. A lot of Netflix documentaries.

Paul Casey:

Yes. Well, you brought up your finance director earlier when we talk about finances are really, one of those big things that you have to do as an executive director to sort of keep just an overall perspective on that your board probably of course would appreciate that you're doing that. So what does that evaluation look like in your position?

Ken Gosney:

The evaluation of finances?

Paul Casey:

Yeah. Budget commences, all that kinds of stuff.

Ken Gosney:

So, like I said, we have 14 board members and they come from a variety of walks of life. Some of them heavily with finance background or banking, business banking. And so we meet monthly and we have to report our finances to the board on a monthly basis. And Goodwill as a nonprofit is an interesting setup, in that we have our mission side of the house and we also have our retail side of the house. And so what's interesting is we have to run the retail side like any business would run. We have all the same bills, all the same problems that any business would have. And how well we run that business is how well we can take care of our mission side of the house. Because the more money we make on the retail side, the more money we have to spend on mission.

Ken Gosney:

So it's really important, but it's this weird balance between we're, going to be really business savvy and we're going to be really mission savvy and compassionate savvy. And sometimes that's almost like it doesn't go together. So, it's like a compassionate way to run a business, which sometimes, I think some people would say that doesn't work. It does, but we really have to do well on the retail side for our mission side to do well. And so we have to report the finances and the finances, if they're not looking good or they're not sustainable, we would go bankrupt like any other business.

Ken Gosney:

So my board, yeah, they hold us accountable to making sure the finances are looking good. And if there are issues, we better have an answer for the board as to why something's happening within the finances or expenses and what our plan is to move forward with that. Now the board has been very supportive. Like I said, they're great people, they're very passionate about our mission. But they also understand that mission is funded by our retail. But they hold our feet to the fire and like I said, they know their stuff. And so there's no trying to pull the wool over the eyes of that group. They're too sharp for it. Not that we would try it anyway, but anyway, as a nonprofit, I think, especially if it's a well-run non-profit their finances are in order. If their finances aren't in order, that may spell trouble down the road for them.

Paul Casey:

Did you have to make any big changes when you came in? I noticed that you had some storefronts and then no longer have as many storefronts for receiving donations. I don't know if that was just an observation I made. Did you have to do some changes of what works, what doesn't work?

Ken Gosney:

We did collapse two stores in Kennewick into one. We built a brand new one. And we have moved or eliminated some of the donation centers where they're this standalone trailers. And so what's really interesting about that is we use the same process that Walmart would use when placing a store. So Walmart doesn't just come in and buy any old place land. They do research on demographics and what store is going to perform the best and where. We do the same thing. And because it's the business side of the house, we have to make sure that our expenses are under control and we're able to maximize our profits out of there. So yeah, sometimes we were in the wrong spot or needed to make some efficiency changes, and that's what we came up with. So that was a steep learning curve for me, by the way.

Ken Gosney:

Because a budget as a high school principal, I mean, basically the district gives you, "Here's some money, make sure you don't spend more than you have." You're not in charge of generating revenue. And so now being in charge of generating revenue and so minimum wage went from $9.47 when I first started and now it's $13.69. We pay $14 an hour, is our minimum. So that's a dramatic, huge, especially when you're talking about hundreds of employees, we have about 300 employees. That's a huge impact on your budget. And it's a good thing. I'm not complaining about it, but we had to make some adjustments to make sure we could handle that increase in wages. Which we've done. But if we're not looking to the future and trying to be more efficient and always on, I guess cutting edge with what we're doing, those expenses will overtake you.

Paul Casey:

Yeah. Well, let me just follow that rabbit trail. So strategic planning, what does that look like then say, you're always looking forward.

Ken Gosney:

So yeah, our strategic plan, we're looking at, how do we handle expenses, including wages benefits. We have an excellent benefits package for our employees. It's very reasonably priced and that's very important to us that they can be covered and not break the bank while doing it. Which means we cover a huge portion of that. So all those things were taken to account. Capital projects. So for instance, the Kennewick store that we built a year ago, year and a half ago, that was simply, we were leasing two facilities and it became, lease are expensive. And then when you have to fix a 25,000 HVAC unit, you're actually fixing somebody else's HVAC unit. You're putting in a brand new one and you're just paying for all of it and you don't really, it's not yours.

Ken Gosney:

So we started looking at building and building turned out to be cheaper substantially than leasing the two buildings. And at the end of the day, once we have it paid for, it's ours. And then it frees up all that extra money to go into mission. So yeah, I mean, we're talking five, 10, 15 years down the road is how we're looking at things. Your infrastructure has got to be healthy. I mean, we had trucks that weren't running when I first got there. So we looked at ways to get new trucks for our guys to drive. The battery start. So yeah, it's strategic planning involves our board, it involves employees, our leadership team. And we do that, it's typically a three or four year document, but it also is subject to change if COVID happens or some other situation comes up.

Paul Casey:

So you've got the building, the new buildings on Columbia Center Boulevard.

Ken Gosney:

It is. Next to Fred's Appliance.

Paul Casey:

And then the other building in Pasco?

Ken Gosney:

Yeah. The old K-mart for those that have been around for awhile.

Paul Casey:

Yes, Kmart.

Ken Gosney:

Remember that Kmart there?

Paul Casey:

Great. Just want to give that info. Where everybody needs to go and-

Ken Gosney:

And then next to Fred Meyer and Richland.

Paul Casey:

Next to Fred Meyer. There we go. Those are the three. Well, finally, Ken, what advice would you give to new leaders or anyone who wants to keep growing and gaining more influence?

Ken Gosney:

Well, I would just say don't, don't be afraid to fail. Because you're going to. And you're going to make mistakes and it's okay to say, "I made a mistake." And I go back to when I was first made a principal, the lead principal, my very first staff meeting, it was in this summer, summer was just ending and school was about to start. And one of my assistant principals was in charge, I think it had to do with lockers. I can't really remember. But he was up presenting and something had happened and we had a blow up with some of the staff. They were furious and I totally got it. And as they were talking about it, I was like, "Oh no, we missed that. We didn't catch that. That was going to be a problem." And it was too late.

Ken Gosney:

And so I had a to make right then and there, because I was off to the side and my assistant was up presenting this part. And so I just stepped up and said, "Hey this is my mistake. I did not consider that and I apologize." And I was ready for this backlash to now come towards me, and I really wanted it to come towards me and off the... Because really I'm the guy in charge. And what happened was the exact opposite. The anger left that room in like three seconds and it turned almost towards compassion where they're like, "We can handle that." And it was never brought up again. It was like, "Okay, we can fix this semester. This is what we'll do to handle it now." And that was a real lesson for me to learn that, you know what? You can't get up and say, "I screwed up," every day, but when you do make a mistake, I think it's important to acknowledge it. I don't think people expect leaders to be perfect.

Paul Casey:

That's right, yeah.

Ken Gosney:

And if they do, you're never going to make them happy anyway. But I think most people just want an authentic leader. And I think my advice to any leader, new, young, old whatever is to be yourself. You can steal ideas from other people, but don't try to be other people, because people will see through that. Be authentic, be who you are always lead with integrity, and I think you'll be okay.

Paul Casey:

Yeah. And apologies build trust. That's a good lesson. That's a good lesson. How can our listeners best connect with you?

Ken Gosney:

Well, through the Goodwill Industries of the Columbia website. We have email addresses listed on there for all the leadership team. And of course, we live in a great community and we've been super happy with people kept their donations for those three and a half months. And so when we were allowed to reopen, we've always appreciated the support of the community. And we've been here for over 50 years and just really looking forward to many years of being here. It's been awesome.

Paul Casey:

Yeah. It's still, there's a lot of great thrift stores in town, but I think the common phrase is people like, "Yeah, I'm just going to donate that to Goodwill." That's a great thing to say.

Ken Gosney:

And if I could just plug real quick. In 2019, we don't have the 2020 numbers yet, but in 2019 donations helped us serve over 5,000 people locally and place 900 people into jobs locally.

Paul Casey:

That's incredible.

Ken Gosney:

So those donations make a huge difference. And so again, we've really always appreciated the support, but just know that it does make a huge difference.

Paul Casey:

Awesome. Well, thanks for all you do to make Tri-Cities a great place, and keep leading well.

Ken Gosney:

All right, well, thanks for having me.

Paul Casey:

Let me wrap up our podcast today with a leadership resource to recommend. If you're looking for something to motivate your employees, and you're probably working remotely, I want to put you on to a YouTube site. Well, I found it on YouTube. It's from snacknation.com. It's 11 insanely powerful and motivational videos for employees. So they've just taken some of these best motivational talks by Brendon Burchard, Daniel Pink, Les Brown, Shawn ACOR, and they've put them in these little bite-sized nuggets that you could play at the beginning of a staff meeting.

Paul Casey:

So again, it's snacknation.com, 11 insanely powerful and motivational videos for your employees. Again, this is Paul Casey. I want to thank my guest, Ken Gosney from Goodwill of the Columbia for being here today on the Tri-Cities Influencer Podcast. And we want to thank our TCI sponsor and invite you to support them. We appreciate you making this possible so we can collaborate to inspire leaders in our community. Finally, one more leadership tidbit for the road to help you make a difference in your circle of influence. As a leader, you are a stage procurer, not a perfumer. Until next time, TGF! Keep Growing Forward.

Announcer:

Thank you to our listeners for tuning in to today's show. Paul Casey is on a mission to add value to leaders by providing practical and strategies that reduce stress in their lives and on their teams, so that they can enjoy life and leadership and experience their key desired results. If you'd like more help from Paul and your leadership development, connect with him at [e-mail], for a consultation that can help you move past your current challenges and create a strategy for growing your life or your team forward.

Announcer:

Paul would also like to help you restore your sanity to your crazy schedule and getting your priorities done every day by offering you his free control-my-calendar checklist. Go to www.takebackmycalendar.com for that productivity tool or open a text message to 72000, and type the word Grown.

Paul Casey:

Tri-Cities Influencer Podcast was recorded at Fuse SPC by Bill Wagner of Safe Strategies.