Unlock the Secrets of Leadership and Legacy with Jonathan Milligan

Ever found yourself standing at the crossroads of your career, the wind of uncertainty howling around you? That's where Jonathan Milligan once stood before he charted a path to becoming a beacon for those journeying through the realm of personal development and online entrepreneurship. In our enriching conversation, Jonathan peels back the layers of his evolution, from a high school teacher wrestling with direction to an acclaimed author and coach. His story, marked by a parking lot epiphany and the courage to seize his entrepreneurial destiny, echoes the universal quest for purpose—a tale that promises to resonate with every listener who's ever dared to dream of more.

Settle in as we unravel the intricate dance of leadership and legacy building with the man who once bore the title 'Mr. Practical'—a moniker he transformed from a bland label into a testament to his unique gift for simplifying the complex. Through Jonathan's insights, we explore the steadfast nature of purpose amid life’s ever-changing roles and the profound significance of hope and meaningful projects in shaping our lives. This episode isn't just an interview; it's a masterclass in cultivating influence and identity, serving as a torch for both emerging leaders and seasoned mentors alike on their quest to leave an indelible mark on the world.

Grab a free copy of Jonathan's book, Your Message Matters:
Unlock the keys to entrepreneurship with Jonathan Milligan's empowering book, 'Your Message Matters.' Visit yourmessagemattersbook.com to grab your free copy and turn your passion into a thriving business today!

I want to invite you to check out the Committed Mastermind, a community I help lead along with world-class leaders like JC and Karen Hite, Vinnie Fisher, and Jonathan Mast, plus incredible mentors like Dr. Gary Chapman, author of The 5 Love Languages, and many others.

This is for entrepreneurs who want to build a thriving business without sacrificing their faith, their family, or their health.

Check out the Committed Mastermind at https://committedmastermind.com/

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Transcript

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Intro 1:24

Welcome to Catalytic Leadership , the podcast designed to help leaders intentionally grow and thrive . Here is your host author and leadership and executive coach , dr William Attaway .

Dr. William Attaway 1:41

I'm so excited today to have Jonathan Milligan on the podcast . Jonathan is an author , a blogger , a speaker and an online business coach . He has spent the last decade guiding and directing creative professionals on how to pursue meaningful work . Since 2009 , jonathan has run his own portable lifestyle business online and today he teaches others how to build a business with their passion , their story or their message . The author of several books , including the recently released Launch your Platform he recently released Discover your Message Before that and your Message Matters Before that we are so excited that he is here today . Jonathan , thank you for being on the show .

Jonathan Milligan 2:25

Thanks for having me , William . I am honored to be here with you , my friend . We've known each other for a few years now .

Dr. William Attaway 2:32

We have , and I want to start with that because you have been my coach now for about two and a half years and it added so much value to what I do and in helping me to get my message out , and I'm so grateful to you for that and that you would be willing to share your time today .

Jonathan Milligan 2:50

I appreciate that and I'm happy to be here .

Dr. William Attaway 2:53

I would love for you to share a little bit of your story with our listeners , Jonathan , particularly how you started your journey , your development as a leader . I gave a nutshell there . I'd love for you to expand on that just a little bit .

Navigating Career Crossroads

Jonathan Milligan 3:05

So , coming out of college , I was looking for like what is it that I'm going to do with my life and a career , like most do . And I wanted to do something . But I just didn't know what it was . And I remember wrestling with like , should I be a coach , meaning like in sports , and be a teacher ? That's what both of my parents were . They were in the education space . Maybe that's what I should do .

Jonathan Milligan 3:29

But then I always had this creative drive and very young I was getting into reading lots of books . And this was beyond school and most kids in college don't want to read books on top of what they have to do for their schoolwork . And I found myself grabbing books off the shelf and reading books and just having that fascination . And inwardly there was this like , maybe I'll end up writing a book one day . I don't know . I don't know if I'm a writer , if I'm not , and so just wrestling with what are my gifts ? Where does my potential lie ? What is my uniqueness ? I don't know . And I knew I wanted to influence others in some way and I wanted to make meaningful impact . But I didn't know what that was . And so I just decided after I graduated from college that my journey began as a high school teacher and basketball coach , but after a couple of years I just felt like I wanted to do something outside of just the four walls of that classroom and I also wanted to have more creative freedom , and that's all I could kind of describe it was , and I didn't know what that was . So I had to go on the journey .

Jonathan Milligan 4:40

I talk about this a lot in the beginning of my book , but basically , to make a long story really short , after I stopped my teaching job and I took a call center job at night because I wanted to do something entrepreneurial during the day , and after about nine months I had taken zero action and I was so frustrated with myself because I had my days free . I had taken the night job to just replace the teaching income , thinking well , that'll , let me do whatever I want during the day . I can still pay the bills . I was married at the time and we had our daughter , but then my son was on his way next , and so there was just this tension between am I selfish , pursuing something that I'm passionate about , or is this a calling that I need to walk towards ? And maybe this journey leads somewhere ? I don't know where that is . But it was difficult , william , because my wife was still teaching . So I married a teacher and our daughter was in daycare . They would get home at three o'clock , three 30 ish . I would spend about an hour with them and I had to head out the door at 430 to be at my night job at five o'clock .

Jonathan Milligan 5:59

Well , there was this one moment that was pivotal in my journey , and I remember having a conversation with a coworker after the night shift . It was 1030 at night . We're in this parking lot getting ready to head home . He knew that I wanted to do something entrepreneurial and I just kind of blurted out the words I'm just ready to go fail at something . And it was in that moment that I just realized what I've verbalized . It was almost if , at that moment , the pain of not going after my dreams was greater than actually going and failing at something . And it didn't turn things around overnight , but it was the beginning of a process of me leaning into my own self-leadership to decide to step up and take some actions , even if I felt like I wasn't ready . And that began the journey to where I am today , with a few more details filled in .

Dr. William Attaway 7:04

You know , I love that . You are the hardest person that you will ever have to lead until by . And so is everyone listening . And I love that moment of awareness , that catalytic moment when you realized , wow , nothing's going to change until something changes . I think every one of us has to come to that point in our journey . And so now , these few years later , here you are an author , a speaker , a coach , a business owner . Could you have seen that back then ? Like , if you were able to go back and talk to yourself and say , hey , this is what's ahead , you think you would have believed it .

Jonathan Milligan 7:45

I think there was the dream that was in there , but how to get there was I had no idea . You know , it's like Nehemiah and captivity , where he just like he had a dream , but it was so far from being able to go and build the walls of Jerusalem for his people or help that process , and Didn't know what to do with this dream . That was in his heart and I think that's where I was , but I still had some growing to do , had lessons to learn along the way , but it got me to where I want to be today . So I'm thankful for where I am today .

Dr. William Attaway 8:21

No , reading your message matters . I was struck by how much of it is just born out of your own experience . You know you talked about coming to that , that pivotal moment , that catalytic moment . How did you take the first step ? What was the first thing you did when you realized something has to change ?

Embracing Entrepreneurship

Jonathan Milligan 8:38

I think the first step for me was to take an action , whether it was the right One or not , because I just had to learn to get it directionally right and it would kind of unfold . So sometimes in our discovery of trying to figure out what our unique strengths are , we have to kind of discover what's not and that's not the fun part .

Jonathan Milligan 9:02

That's good , and so the first thing I did was I put a down payment on a property to fix it up . I found a property to fix up and Spent my days running the Home Depot way too many times To fix up this property , and I did end up selling it about six months later and made a $12,000 profit . But what I learned out of that was I didn't want to be in the real estate business , even though I was successful . Like there was no Desire to go do that again . It just wasn't in my natural talents and abilities . But , william , this is a cool part Right about that time , an opportunity came up where I could join a new executive search startup and it was only one guy who had who .

Jonathan Milligan 9:52

It was the founder and he was giving me the opportunity to join , but he could not provide a salary , but he provided an amazing commission rate for any place . Once I made and I said , well , I've got $12,000 from the successful real estate sale at the time because my wife was working I said this would give me about 90 days . Do you think I could make my first deal in 90 days ? And he said , absolutely .

Jonathan Milligan 10:17

Well , luckily , I was able to get something in the first 30 days and I ended up staying in that position for seven years and what was so interesting about that was that I wasn't the entrepreneur , but I was playing the role of an entrepreneur because I was on a hundred percent commission and while I was there , we went from two people to 15 people in about two years and even though the the , the organization was a very flat , was basically the owner and then all of us recruiters , I started to see where my influence was making an impact on the other people that were there and I think that's an important leadership lesson that you don't have to have a title to create leadership or influence . So that was a very important lesson of learning how to be an entrepreneur inside of a Startup organization .

Dr. William Attaway 11:14

Hmm , that's good , you know . You talk about finding your purpose as in through your journey and and , like I say , you have to try the things . Sometimes it don't work by process of elimination . What is the difference between finding your purpose and uncovering it ?

Jonathan Milligan 11:34

So I think what at least this is where I was in the beginning is I thought , well , I'm gonna find my calling in a title yeah , a company , a thing , yeah , and that that was what I was supposed to do the rest of my life . And I would look around other people who seem to like know they're calling , early on and be like what's wrong with me ? Like I can't figure out how to find it . I'm in the search for it . But then that's when I realized , wait a minute , it's not in a title , it's not in a thing . In fact , you know , to put your identity into something that can change is not very smart at all , because I think that's where a lot of people Go wrong in their careers is that they place their identity in their title in their Company that they worked for and then , when it changed , they lost their identity along the way . Well , the only way to Really get through that is to put your hope in something that's changed a loss .

Jonathan Milligan 12:32

And for me , as a believer , there's only two things one that's put my identity in God , because he doesn't change , and second of all , if I believe that he created me . He created me with unique gifts , talents and abilities and we're all unique in that way , and so part of Uncovering that , that purpose , is to figure out what's changeless about me . And once I uncover what that is , the truth is , you could throw me into any Environment and I'm probably going to gravitate towards my natural strengths . Whether I'm in nonprofit , business , teacher , a pastor , it doesn't matter , because Once I get in there , I'm going to start gravitating towards my natural , unique point of views , perspectives , unique strengths and abilities .

Jonathan Milligan 13:26

And I think what happens oftentimes is we don't have the self leadership to spend the time looking inward To find out what that is . Instead , we often look at other leaders and we try to emulate them and we think , if I can just be them , I'll be more charismatic , I'll be more funny , I'll be a better speaker , I'll be a better leader if I just emulate what I , what I have seen modeled for me . And the truth is , you know , we don't need a bad version of somebody else . We need you to be you and lean into your unique strengths . And when you lean into those it's a lot more comfortable , it feels right and you can just have the comfort and knowing I can just be me and I could still influence and make an impact on others .

Dr. William Attaway 14:16

I Love that you know , once you , once you uncover that purpose , right once you , once you've discovered this , then what I mean , then then it's about defining what it is you want to say . Right , it's about defining your message . How do you do that ? Because for so many people , I think that's a struggle point . They're like okay , I think , I think I'm here to do this . You know , like you said , I'm created on purpose , for a purpose . I think I know that . But what do I say ? What's my message to ?

Jonathan Milligan 14:46

you

Embracing Flexibility in Purpose

Jonathan Milligan 14:46

, yeah , yeah , this is where it can be difficult , because I think another kind of pressure point is this idea of passion that we and you got to find . You know , what is that life's passion ? Yeah , and I struggled with this early on because my original college degree that I graduated with was pastoral theology and I wrestled with whether to go into church ministry or not . And my wife , who has so much wisdom and when I was wrestling with that should I take this teaching job or should I continue to try to see if I want to be a pastor ? I don't know , I don't know what to do she whispered to me that hey , listen , I could see you going in and out of ministry and there's nothing wrong with that . You don't have to follow this predetermined path . They're only choose one thing . And so that began to help me to understand that wait a minute like it's not just about finding that one passion , but what do I feel passionate about for the next two to five years ?

Jonathan Milligan 15:53

That's a problem I can go out there and solve , knowing that in the future , my passions may change , and one of the things I talk about in both your message matters and discover your message is that our passions change , but our purpose remains , and what I mean by that is what we just talked about . What's changeless about you , your unique gifts ? That doesn't change . But the problem you're solving right now may change in five years , and that's okay . It has for me , and so I think that's the important piece .

Jonathan Milligan 16:25

It really comes down to what I call the ignite your message framework , which is the three P's purpose , which we've already been talking about uncovering your natural gifts and abilities . And then it's people . So who do you want to help ? You can't help everyone , and your message is watered down , but pick a lane that you want to help people with . And then passion is really . What problem do you want to solve for the next two to five years ? That relieves us of the pressure . It allows us just to get started , knowing that it may change in the future , and that's okay .

Dr. William Attaway 18:19

I love the permission that you just gave everybody listening for the next two to five years , not from now till forever , right From now until Jesus comes . Like the next two to five years , like we're just going to focus on this period . I think there is a very real perception among so many people myself included early on in my journey that well , if you're going to do X , then you have to do X for the next 40 , 50 years . This is what the journey is going to be , but the idea that you can focus on this area for two to five years and then focus on something else . Your passion can change , can shift as you mature , as you grow shouldn't that be the case that you begin to develop ? I think growth means change .

Jonathan Milligan 19:06

It absolutely does . It absolutely does and like just my journey on the author speaker coach journey . I started as a CPA career coach because my experience was in accounting with executive search and so I started there . But within about two and a half years I realized I'm more passionate about starting to teach people about blogging , because in 2009 , 2011 , in that area , it was like something a lot of people want to know about and so I started doing that and then I started evolving from there , because podcasting started to really blossom , there started to be a lot more , youtube was a little bit more friendly , live streaming was coming on board all these ways we can communicate our message . And that's when , in 2020 , I kind of did even another shift to market your message , which is helping people whether you're a writer , speaker , coach , teacher helping you learn to use the tools that are available to us to make influence and impact .

Dr. William Attaway 20:11

You know marketing , marketing is a little scary for a lot of people . They get I get the message part . I'm all about creating content . I'm all about sharing what's inside of me , but marketing that message , that's intimidating . You talk about this in a little different way and I love the hourglass funnel that you taught me . I love for you to share just a little bit about that .

Jonathan Milligan 20:34

So when I was very early on in the online space trying to figure it out because , like I said , I knew nothing about

The Hourglass Funnel

Jonathan Milligan 20:41

this space I was a teacher and then I was an executive recruiter I knew nothing about marketing , I didn't have a background in marketing , so I did what only I made sense to me at the time , and that was to study thought leaders , to see what are they doing , where are they spending their time and some of it was conversations at conferences , mixing with them , finding out , asking good questions , reading their books , watching and see what they do . And what I realized is that most of them spent 95% of their time in four key areas and I kind of labeled them with a letter C to make it easy to remember which is create , compile , connect and capture . Now the hourglass is just a helpful visual . We think of an old hourglass where you got the grains of sand and picture like the hourglass is actually open at the top . So at the very top is the connect , and the connect is what are you doing to create awareness so people can connect with your message ? You have to do something . You know . Podcast , a blog , youtube channel , there's all kinds of avenues . A book is a great awareness piece . You need to do something to create that awareness . But once they come into your world , that top half of the hourglass funnel is the create habit , and that part is connected to , you know , blog posts , podcasting as well , because they kind of go together .

Jonathan Milligan 22:16

But we don't just create the free content for the sake of creating free content . We are moving people through a journey with us , and so the very skinny part of that hourglass is what I call the capture habit , and for us who are online influencers , that's getting people on an email list . That's still the best way to build a relationship with anyone . You don't wanna rely on social media we all know accounts can be banned and things can be turned off and you don't wanna build an empire on rented land . You wanna have something you own .

Jonathan Milligan 22:53

I had a mentor early on who said Jonathan , there's only two things you can take with you to the grave . It's your reputation , how you treat people , and your email list . That's it , your reputation and your email list . Like somebody you know , a host can take down my website , facebook can get rid of me and I can still communicate with my community by email . That's something I own , all right .

Jonathan Milligan 23:21

And then the last one , the very bottom of it . So again we have connect , create , capture , and then we have compile . Now , compile is where you package your knowledge , your experience , into books , into courses , into memberships , events , speaking , and that's where you make the income . A lot of time is off of the email list of people who are now following you , and once I realized that I started putting all my energy into those four things and I evaluated everything I did to , is this connect back to connect where it's ? Creating awareness Is something I'm working on , creating something new that someone can find me ? Am I doing anything to build my email list and what am I working on that can actually earn some money for this business ? So that's the short run through of the Hourglass funnel .

Dr. William Attaway 24:22

You know , you have the heart of a teacher , jonathan , and I thought that since the first time I read maybe your very first book blogging your passion , you know you make concepts that can seem challenging or intimidating accessible and you do that in such a way that is so powerful and so compelling and I think everybody listening can say , oh , that makes sense . I don't know that I've ever heard marketing described in quite that way , but that's something that every one of us can take , we can draw this out and we can say okay , now how can I begin to implement this today ? How can I begin to execute on these four Cs that's so helpful ?

Jonathan Milligan 25:03

Yeah , I appreciate that and , honestly , it came from the journey of me asking other people what

Discovering the Magic in Practicality

Jonathan Milligan 25:09

my unique strengths were . And there was a particular mastermind we talked about another catalytic leadership moment . I was in a mastermind of just peers . They were speakers , they were bloggers , they were podcasters and we would meet up every couple of months in person . And we met up in Dallas , texas I believe , and it was two days in a conference room , just pouring into each other , helping each other , and before we all left the second day , one of the people in the room said let's go around the room and say what do we find unique and what is their gifting of each person ? And so , man , it was fun , just like seeing everybody in the hot seat in a good way . Here are all these wonderful things that maybe they didn't know , the kind of impact they had and what their abilities were . And then it was my turn to sit in the seat and I was like , okay , I'm ready to learn , like what is helpful , what do I do that people really appreciate ? Like what's my gift ? And they you see them all staring at me and I'm like , okay , somebody say something Right . And then one of them goes , snap their fingers and goes I got it , you're Mr Practical . And then everybody in the room was like yep , that's it , that is it , that is exactly it .

Jonathan Milligan 26:26

And I remember walking away that day William , going practical equals boring Like I was hoping the care is madic . You know , obviously you know a lot of different things , but practical . Well , after I sat with that for a little bit I realized how right they were and how oftentimes I overlooked and thought everybody does this right . Everybody like reads a bunch of stuff , learns everything you can learn about a topic and then breaks it down to where it's bite , size and understandable , like everybody does that right . And then the more I looked around I was like wait a minute , no , that's not true . And that was an important moment in my journey for me to just lean into that , because what my friend Brian Dixon says , what's ordinary for you , is magic to others . And so we discount our own guests because we think other people can do them too .

Dr. William Attaway 27:21

So good you know your business needs you to lead at a different level today than it did five years ago , and five years from now it's gonna need you to lead at yet another level . How do you stay on top of your game , jonathan ? How do you level up with the leadership skills that you and your team are gonna need you to have two , three , five years from now ?

Jonathan Milligan 27:47

It's definitely . You've got to continue to develop yourself . If I had said , well , I think I got this thing , I'm just going to do the blogging thing , I would have missed out on so much . I would have missed out on the years I've done my own podcast . I would have missed out all the amazing relationships I had on podcast . And so we have to constantly be learning and growing . And you're right , leadership changes .

Jonathan Milligan 28:16

I think of a great book I read recently I think it was last year at some point . I think it was Tim Elmore's book on paradoxes of leadership . Yeah , great , and it was just how different leadership is today than it was . But yet there's principles that are always true and we need to know those things . We need to learn those things .

Jonathan Milligan 28:33

There's a major league baseball pitcher that goes to my church . He's no longer in the major leagues but he actually pitched in the World Series a couple of times , won two World Series as a pitcher Wow in the 90s , and he stayed on after he retired as a pitching coach for the major league baseball and today he actually is the pitching coach at just our local high school academy that we have , and like what a privilege they have to have him and I was having a conversation with him and he was talking about just how different this generation is today and how you have to approach influencing them and building a relationship with them . And then it was when he was a pitching coach in even the early 2000s . And I think leadership is evolving . There are certain principles that will never change , but we can't take the 1950s style and just think that that's going to work for us .

Dr. William Attaway 29:34

Mm , that's so good . You know a lot of people listening might look at you and say wow . I mean multi bestselling author , business leader , coach , speaker . I mean your journey has just been up and to the right , hadn't it ? I mean , from that moment , stepping outside the call center it's just been up and to the right Like there've been no challenges .

Jonathan Milligan 29:56

You don't face what I deal with . Yeah , it was all easy . Yeah , no , it wasn't .

Dr. William Attaway 30:02

What would you say to that ? Like , if somebody says this to you like it's just been easy for you , hadn't it , would you beg to differ ?

Jonathan Milligan 30:08

I tell people that if I would have known how difficult it was in the beginning , I probably would not have started , because it's almost like our innocence is important , because you don't need to know all that You're going to grow and I think part of it too is as you grow in your own self leadership and as you grow in leading others , that there's this next level that you're prepared , that you are preparing for to tackle those things . And if you knew you had to tackle those things at the very beginning , it's scary to death but you're growing along the way and you're building that muscle to be able to handle those things . I heard somebody say each level new devil . And it's that concept too of like you know what , you reach a level and then there's another challenge at that next level and there's always going to be obstacles . But I think what's important I was actually just having this conversation today .

Jonathan Milligan 31:10

I do a weekly mindset call with people in my program and today we were talking about how important hope is and I was talking about a book called the Psychology of Hope and in it I kind of I did my thing where I kind of broke it down into three words that I got out of the book and it was talking about the importance of having a project , having something meaningful to work towards right Vision goal . But then you needed number two power , and that's the agency piece of like , believing that you have the ability to do it . Even if you sometimes don't , you have the ability to do it . And then the third part which I loved in the book was called Pathways .

Dr. William Attaway 31:58

There's .

Jonathan Milligan 31:58

Pathways .

Dr. William Attaway 31:59

Love that .

Jonathan Milligan 32:00

And what happens a lot of times is we get married to the vision and the strategy and we become frustrated and want to give up . Right , but we want to be committed to the vision . But we're flexible on the approach , on the strategy , on the way to get there . And if you lived in Atlanta and you want to take your family to Disney World and you got to Jacksonville , where I live , couple hours into it and it had a roadblock , you wouldn't look at the kids in the backseat and say , hey , we're just going to have to go back to Atlanta . Guys , this isn't going to work . You'd find another way . And that's what leaders do . Leaders say what does this make possible ? Leaders say everything's figure-outable . They stay flexible and that encourages the people under them . It gives them a growth mindset instead of a fixed mindset . And so those are the challenges I think that I've had in my journey lessons I've had to learn that have helped me along the way .

Dr. William Attaway 33:03

So good . What do you want your legacy to be ?

Jonathan Milligan 33:10

Man , that's a deep question . It's interesting because

Building a Lasting Legacy

Jonathan Milligan 33:14

I was every year . At the end of every year I pick a couple days just to kind of evaluate where things are , and most of the time it's like how did we do last year , what are we going to work on this year ? For some reason , the idea of legacy came about , even though right now I'm 48 and I hope to have many more years , don't plan to retire . I was just thinking about that .

Jonathan Milligan 33:45

There are very few things that leave a legacy and I still have it on my whiteboard over here . One of them I wrote was writing books . Books can leave a legacy because there's many books that I've been so impacted by from authors who are no longer with us and I didn't know them when they were alive , but they've impacted me greatly and so I think that leaves a legacy . The other thing I wrote down was starting a church can be a legacy because you're starting something goes way beyond you if you're part of a church plan . Leaving an inheritance to your kids is legacy building , creating some type of nonprofit or trust that can continue on after you as a legacy building .

Jonathan Milligan 34:33

And just investing in others is legacy building , because you're equipping others who then make impact . And I remember this was a couple of years ago when I was doing the . We've all probably heard of that exercise , which is about asking why , like seven times , until you get down to the root of the why , and I was doing that with myself and that's kind of legacy building if you really want to push that down . And I got all the way down to I want to influence the influencer , I want to influence the influencer and I can only reach so many people . But if my life can be built in helping a couple of thousand other people go out and influence or have permission to go out and influence and make such a wider impact , I don't even need the accolades . It's just the reward of investing my life into people who went on to influence others and I think that's what I really gets me excited is about just the opportunity to influence influencers .

Dr. William Attaway 35:42

That's really good . You mentioned books that have made a difference in your journey . I'm curious is there a book that just is outsized in its impact on you that you would recommend to every leader listening that they put on their to read list ?

Jonathan Milligan 35:57

It's always hard to pick one , but if I had to pick one , it's the dream giver , bruce Wilkinson .

Grab Your Free Copy of Message Matters

Jonathan Milligan 36:05

That book is so powerful it's it's underrated . A lot of people don't know about the book . Yeah , I know it's been published for quite a few years now and he's no longer with us , but , man , that book continues to make an impact .

Jonathan Milligan 36:23

I bought it for both of my kids . They both loved it and it's to me it's like Pilgrim's progress for today , because it uses a story of a character called ordinary who had this big dream that came up in his heart . He was doing his daily routine . It's funny , it has humor in it . It said he would sit down and stare at the mesmerizing box every night for hours .

Jonathan Milligan 36:51

We know that as TV and one day he had this dream in his heart , but he didn't know what to do with it and he lived in the land of familiar . He went to his ordinary job or his usual job , and , without giving away the story , it's about his journey to going after his big dream and then , in the back of the book , has all these coaching questions and things like that . And so one of the things I'm working on secretly I've been doing it for a couple years is writing a business fiction book that teaches what I have in discovery or message , using the example of a story and a character who goes on a journey to discover what his unique gifts are , and hopefully maybe that'll come out sometime soon . I'm excited about that , but yeah , that would be the book for me . You know also the Bible , but that's you know . For Christians that's pretty obvious , but you know , for me , for books , dream giver is a must read , so good .

Dr. William Attaway 37:54

You know , often people are going to walk away from an episode like this with one big idea . Johnson , If you could define what you want people to walk away with , what their one big idea is , what would you want that to be ?

Jonathan Milligan 38:08

That there's something unique about you that all of us need and that your message matters . And there are people waiting for your help , but you have to have the courage to step in and do those gifts . That would be the message .

Dr. William Attaway 38:31

So powerful and so needed . I believe , in our world today . Jonathan , this has been a gift . Thank you for your time , for the incredible generosity that you have displayed today in sharing what you've learned so far on your journey . I know people are going to want to stay connected with you and continue to learn from you . What's the best way for them to do that ?

Jonathan Milligan 38:52

Absolutely so . Marketyourmessagecom is the main site . Also , we do have a free book for anybody who would like one for the original book your Message Matters , which is kind of the overarching book to get started with , and you can actually get a free copy going to yourmessagemattersbookcom and we can ship you out a free copy . We just ask to pay $4.95 for the shipping and we can get you a book out .

Dr. William Attaway 39:25

And I'll tell you as one who's read it multiple times . I highly recommend it . If you don't have a copy of this , head over to that site right now . Get your copy and dive in , jonathan , thank you .

Jonathan Milligan 39:37

Thanks for having me .

Intro 39:41

Thanks for listening to Catalytic Leadership with Dr William Attaway . Be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss the next episode . Want more ? Go to catalyticaleadershipnet .