Catalytic Leadership

Tired of the Bottleneck? Leadership for Agency Owners That Actually Works

• Dr. William Attaway • Season 4 • Episode 18

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When you’re leading a fast–growing agency, becoming the bottleneck isn’t a character flaw; it’s a sign your systems, team structure, and internal leadership rhythms need to evolve. In this episode, I sit down with Tom McGehee, Marine, corporate leader, consultant, entrepreneur, and co-CEO of the Halftime Institute, to unpack how seasoned leaders break free from overload and step into Leadership for Agency Owners that actually works.

Tom’s journey through special operations command, global consulting, entrepreneurship, and nonprofit leadership offers a rare window into sustainable growth: humility over ego, clarity over chaos, and mission-type orders instead of micromanagement.

If you’re navigating team handoffs, decision bottlenecks, burnout patterns, or the shift from success to significance, Tom’s insights will help you realign your leadership, empower your team, and build the margin your next season requires.


Books Mentioned

  • Halftime by Bob Buford
  • Resilient by John Eldredge
  • Sacred Pace by Terry Looper


You can connect with Tom directly at tom.mcgehee@halftime.org or through halftime.org. He’s also active on LinkedIn and would welcome connecting with anyone this conversation serves.


Join Dr. William Attaway on the Catalytic Leadership podcast as he shares transformative insights to help high-performance entrepreneurs and agency owners achieve Clear-Minded Focus, Calm Control, and Confidence.

Connect with Dr. William Attaway:

Dr. William Attaway:

I'm so excited today to have Tom McGee on the podcast. A Marine, a corporate leader, a consulting partner, an entrepreneur, and now co-CEO for the Halftime Institute. Tom's journey has been rich and full. He served for 12 years in the U.S. Marines, where he commanded two special operations units. After his service, he was an executive with EDS and a partner with Ernst ⁇ Young LLP. Now at Halftime, Tom helps leaders live out their calling. Tom, I'm so glad you're here. Man, thanks for being on the show. Thank you.

Intro:

It's a pleasure to be with you. 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:

I'd love to start with you sharing a little bit of your story with our listeners, particularly around your journey and your development as a leader. How did you get started?

Tom McGehee:

You know, it's a great question. Somebody asked me this just the other day. And I think a lot of my influence and leadership came from time in the Marine Corps. Two big things that stuck out that I've always kind of patterned around. One is the taking care of the troops idea, right? The first thing they you realize at OCS is if you're the leader, your men eat before you do. It begins to build in you this, you know, that they're more important than you are. And that that led me probably eventually into this whole life I've had primarily around collaborative work and collaborative strategy, realizing in my mind, people support what they help create. So how do I get them involved? The other big thing that's influenced me in leadership is the way the Marines would give orders. They move to a thing they called mission type orders. So instead of it being very command and control, like you do this, and then once you've done that, tell me, and I'll tell you to do this, and I'll tell you to go there, and I'll move things like that. Like managers who can get so much information, they're micromanaging people. The Marine Corps realized a number of years ago, with the chaos on the battlefield today, you can't go at it that way. So a mission type order says you tell a leader, here's the objective and what I want done. Here's the resources you have to do it, here are your boundaries, now you go figure it out. And so I've always kind of led that way, right? How can I, and then what that means for me as a leader is instead of looking at all the details on how they're doing it, I need to just be measuring, did it get done? If it did, what else do we do? And if it didn't, what do we have to do to fix it? That's kind of been my approach since I got in the corporate world and as an entrepreneur and everything else.

Dr. William Attaway:

You know, your journey has been has been an interesting one, you know, after the Marines. I mean, EDS, Ernst ⁇ Young, I mean, you know, definite corporate, right? I mean, you know, corporate leader, uh consulting partner. Why entrepreneurship?

Tom McGehee:

Oh, that's a great, uh, great question. So some would say that the move when I made it to EDS was uh somewhat familiar because it was the last stages of Ross Perot who was hiring a lot of former military people. I got into EDS just as the outsourcing market was not only changing, but EDS was trying to become more value-oriented rather than just deal-oriented where they would take over and outsourcing, right? Technology was moving where people that you were working with, companies that they were engaging with, didn't want somebody just to run their IT cheaper. They wanted them to add additional value. And of course, all the ERP systems were coming online and the MRP said, all that was kind of starting to roll out. I got into Ermston Young because they were hiring five people directly in as partners to start an outsourcing practice, and I was fortunate enough to be one of those. And so went directly in as partner. I knew I was neither hardworking enough or smart enough to ever earn partner if I got there. So if you're gonna give it to me, though, I'm gonna take it. So it was just you know, just a real blessing to jump in like that. When I was at uh Ernst ⁇ Young, they had a collaborative center they called the Accelerated Solutions Environment. And it was a nonlinear workspace where we'd bring a client in, maybe 50-60 from a client in a very complex situation. And in three days, they'd all walk out agreeing to a plan they had developed. And the value proposition was we did months of work in days. And I fell in love with that. I didn't realize facilitation collaborative collaborative work was even the thing you could do. I fell in love with it. I felt called to it. And after Cap Gemini acquired the Ernst Young consulting practice, I thought maybe this is my signal to leave and to start my own business just focusing on the collaborative work, change management, and that kind of thing, right? And uh rather than trying to also add on additional sales of strategy and all those things that a big consultant firm would do. So I felt so called to that work, I said I've got to set up my own way to do it, created my own methodology for leading groups, and uh off I went. Wow.

Dr. William Attaway:

You've helped so many people over the years, but then came Halftime. You know, a lot of our listeners may not be familiar with Halftime. Can you share a little bit about the uh the company, what why they started, what they're about, and what your role there has been.

Tom McGehee:

Yeah, so uh Halftime was originally a book by a guy named Bob Buford. Bob was an entrepreneur, he uh sold his company and made a ton of money. And back then, 25 years ago, coined the phrase he would always say, I spent the first half of my life being successful, I wanted to spend the second half being significant. So he wrote that book. Twenty-five years ago, business leaders saw that, and you had a lot of people who had like started a business and cashed out, and their identity was gone, and they didn't know what they were supposed to do, where to go. And Bob created this movement of people in what he then defined as halftime, halfway through your life, and you're saying, okay, what's my second half gonna look like? What am I gonna do? I wanted, when I started my company, being a man of faith, I wanted to use my process, not just for Fortune 100 companies, but for churches and ministries and nonprofits around the world. And I got introduced, somebody said, Well, if you want to work with churches, you ought to meet Bob. And through a series of events, I did and ended up co-locating my office with him. And we did about 80% of our work for Fortune 100 companies and about 20 cent for primarily ministries and churches around the world, and also nonprofits. So we had sort of a, we felt like we were earning money, right, and doing what we needed to do to grow and provide revenue and the things we wanted to do for us. But we felt like we were having that significant impact so we were having success. We felt like we were having a significant impact also in doing that part of the work as well. So that's how that's how I got introduced to halftime 25 years ago. About six years ago, I'd always stayed close, and about six years ago, uh, the then CEO asked me to help them build a new global strategy. And that got me re-engaged. Jim Stolberg was a guy who was on their board and he was working with me on strategy. He was a former uh Accenture strategy kind of guy, and so we worked really well together. And one day the CEO of Halftime came in and said, I think you two should run Halftime. And uh I kind of said, Well, I will if you will. And we jumped in and as co-CEOs, which I know a lot of books and people would say never do it. It was probably one of the best working experiences of my life for a lot of reasons. But uh so we we have led halftime up until January of this year. We were acquired by a larger ministry called Faith-driven, faith-driven entrepreneurs, faith-driven investors. And so we're co we're still leading halftime a little bit, although I'm about to exit. At the end of the year, I'm gonna be off to a new adventure for whatever that might be, including mostly my grandkids and kids, and then we'll we'll build from there.

Dr. William Attaway:

That's gonna be rewarding, I know. Probably a little tiring too, but very rewarding.

Tom McGehee:

When you have 10 10 grandkids and one on the way, and they all live within 30 minutes of your house, it keeps you busy. What a blessing. It is a blessing. It's great. You know, I grew up the son of an Air Force uh officer, and so we always moved around. So I I had no idea what it was like or the value it was to have my family close, right? It's just a huge blessing. So that's a gift.

Dr. William Attaway:

You know, co-CEO, like you say, a whole lot of people would tell you, be very careful. That's uh that's a an area fraught with landmines. You've navigated that for years. We did. I'm curious, like as you think about that journey, you know, I mean, obviously there's some ingredients in that particular soup that are absolutely non-negotiable. What are some of the things you've learned during that season?

Tom McGehee:

Thank you. It's it's it's been a great thing. I think there there were a couple of things we said. One, it was a bit easier because it was a nonprofit, because I think the first rule of co-leadership is you can't have any ego in the game. Yeah. Right. And if you're if you're uh you know aiming towards something like stock options or a buyout or even big bonuses or whatever, and you feel you're competing with the other guy, you're never going to really have that tightness you have. Well, in a nonprofit, you don't have that, have that worry, right? Don't have that that trap. So one of the things we would say is right off the bat, we had to keep our ego out of it. And one thing I realized is halftime had actually asked me to work with them, not as a leader, but as one of their key executives, maybe 10 years ago. Had I said yes, I realized I would have failed miserably. Because I still had way too much ego in the game. Uh I would have wanted to be the guy on the stage, I would have wanted to pretend I was successful as many of the successful businessmen we work with, because that's our market, uh, it would not have been the right time for me. Now, when this came around, I was at a season of my life where I could let my ego go. In fact, when the board of directors said, Okay, so there are two of you, uh, if you come to disagreement, how are you going to make a decision? Which is a great question.

unknown:

Yeah.

Tom McGehee:

And I immediately said, Jim gets the last word. And that just kind of settled that, right? Now, the truth was we never came to a disagreement because he and I would work things out so much and work together so closely that whatever decision we ended up making, we both felt was the best decision to make. So the first thing that made it work was no ego. The other thing that some might find surprising is we did not have defined roles. You know, a lot of books say, well, if you're going to work together, you need to define what each person's doing. And I would say if you're going to do that, have like a CEO and a president. Because you're you're dividing tasks. What we did is we just said, we will play to our strengths and stay in our lane. So for example, I'm really good on course design, on some strategy, on thinking about things. He's an engineer. So he was really good at looking at the systems and uh he maintained all the budget, all the financial obligations, all those kinds of things. I was I may have been at Ernest and Young, but I was on the consulting side, not the accounting side. You don't want me, you don't want me giving you close. A little too creative for that, right? So we would play to each other's strengths, and what we realized is the most important thing for was us to spend time, this may go back a little bit to the mission type orders, for us to make sure we were absolutely aligned on strategy and direction. So that if he went to a meeting or I went to a meeting, you were hearing the same voice.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Tom McGehee:

Right? So with employees or anybody, you didn't run into the mom and dad syndrome, right? Where they go ask mom something, she says no, so I'll go ask dad. You know, we didn't want that to happen. So the way to prevent that is you're locked in, and it kept us focused again on the high game, you know, and let people, let our team run under us in whatever direction, you know, we were we were kind of heading up. So those those were a couple of the big things that I think made it really work. Uh plus Jim's a great guy, and we just, you know, personally hit it off real well together.

Dr. William Attaway:

You know, I th I I think about this and I think about something that I've talked with with more than one couple about over the years, and that I have taught when I've taught about what it looks like to have a good, healthy marriage as a person of faith. I think the the best counsel that I could possibly give is what Paul wrote to the Ephesians, Ephesians 5.21. He said, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. That mutual submission. And that's the humility you're describing with a co-CEO role, right? Where we're gonna make decisions together. There's never a time when somebody's gonna power up on the other. And just like I think that's hell in a in a good, healthy marriage as a person of faith, I think that's also an absolute non-negotiable in what you're describing, where nobody's gonna say, wait a minute, but I want my way. I can't imagine there weren't times when you were tempted to go down that road.

Tom McGehee:

Well, there were times when I saw when I thought that the way I wanted to do it differently to get it done than the way he wanted to do it. And uh kind of another lesson I just you just reminded me of when I was in Marine Corps, when I when I got out, I used to say, if you tell a Barine what to do, he will get it done. If you tell him that just what needs to be done, he will always, he or she will always do more. And and so what I would find is I would I would go into a meeting thinking, you know, I really we got to do it the way I think. And by the time we walked out, I was like, man, I'm so glad I asked for help. That that I had a good idea, but the people I was working with, Jim in particular, always made it better. And he could probably say vice vice versa. It was good. Peter Drucker, and part of that being in because halftime is a nonprofit in a ministry, the whole focus is helping high capacity leaders find out who they are and what God has for them to do. We need them to be very transparent with us about where they are in their journey, yeah, where they are in their identity, right? Where they are in their personal life, where they are in their spiritual life, what is it they want to go do? We need them to really be honest and transparent with us. And if we want to do that, we've got to be the same to them. And so even the co-leadership thing even forced more of that, right? That he and I had to be transparent with each other and kind of set that culture even on our team, which I think not only leads for a better, certainly nonprofit, but it but it leads for then it has to be that way if that's what you're expecting from your clients. You know, so it just worked out. I mean, it's been a great thing.

Dr. William Attaway:

You know, it's it's so refreshing to see somebody who is such a strong leader who has led in so many different contexts, but does not have the ego that forces them to always be at the point, always be right, and in in choosing to be right, you choose not to make a difference. You know, and what I'm seeing is somebody who has made a difference over time. That humility of spirit.

Tom McGehee:

You would have not seen the same person probably 15 years ago, you know. You know, I mean it is it really has come with some time. I was raised, my father, when I was born, my my sister's 12 years older than I am. And uh by the time I was born, so he married my mom, got her pregnant, went off to World War II, was a B15 pilot. Right? Wow. And you can kind of see the thinking, right? At least I want to leave a legacy if I'll get shot down. I mean, yeah, I thought. And my sister was born, and that was great, but he always wanted a son. And so he got my mom pregnant. Now, by the time she gets pregnant, about almost 40 years old, and he's a general, he was embarrassed to be pregnant because lieutenants' wives are pregnant, not general's wives, right? So when I was born, I was the son my dad always wanted. I mean, he, you know, he I he loved me. I was a bit of an embarrassment to my mom, even as, you know, to have to have that and raise a little kid and do those, do those kind of things. So I've grown up all my life on one end being thought, man, I'm I I can do anything and I'm pretty special, on the other end, I'll never be good enough. And so in any phase of life, but even it comes to the leadership thing, if the voice of you're not good enough wins, you're gonna wanna, you're gonna wanna, you know, even more than ego, you gotta prove something, you gotta be something, you gotta be the person out front. And, you know, it's always a battle I fought between those. Fortunately, kind of the other side of I am loved by God, I'm uniquely created, I'm very capable. I have skills that are mine. I don't have to try to pretend I have skills of somebody else, you know, and and am probably more comfortable in my skin and what I think God has for me to do in the future and what I'm doing now, probably than I ever have been. You know, I'm not chasing something anymore. So good place to be. I love that. I'd love to know we'll get there sooner.

Dr. William Attaway:

Absolutely. Well, and that's and that's so much of what I see in halftime. Yeah, you know. I mean, uh somebody gave me that book not long after I turned 40. And uh, you know, having read that now a decade ago, like how that has influenced my mindset and my thought patterns around, okay, yeah, your first half is is success. Okay, get that. What does significance mean? Yeah. What does that look like? And that's the work that really you've been involved in for these last years.

Tom McGehee:

That's exactly right. And and you know, if I were when the book was written 25 years ago, the idea of success to significance made sense. If I was rewriting that book today, I'd title it significant success. Because I think today a lot of people they don't won't see it linear, right? Like I'm gonna be really successful, then I'll go do something. They they they want to know what to do today matters. That's okay. And I, you know, I think that's fine, but then how do you one of the things that that's really been put on my heart lately as I'm looking at the next season is really around a verse in the Bible that talks about an abundant life. And it talks about an enemy that wants to keep you from it, but it talks about, you know, having an abundant life. And and I'm really starting to do some writing and thinking that begins with how do you define abundance in your life? That's it. You know, I I mean, in halftime and kind of been introduced to people through that, I've met an awful lot of very successful, very rich people who would not describe their life as abundant. And so I think the key to that, whether you're making a lot of money or not, whether you're at the top of the organization or somewhere in it, the key to an abundant life is when you wake up every morning and say, you know, I'm doing what I think I was created to do. Yeah. And that's that's I guess as I think about sort of this next season for me, that's kind of what I'm gonna try to focus on. Help people figure that out, right? Because that's at any age, you know, and I've had the blessing throughout my career. When I was a Marine, I felt I was told to be a Marine. I woke up every morning, boy, I was ready to go. Get passed over for promotion, get out, go in the corporate world. That was the one place that I matter of fact, I can show you one of the things we do at halftime when they go through our courses, the main course, the 12-month course, is uh we have an artist that'll create a little uh image for you based on what you've said. And when I went through the program, this was mine, and it came from a statement I said that when I was at EDS, I was fairly successful, but I was I felt like a guy in an empty suit. I didn't know who I was, I didn't know what I was, you know, it didn't feel like my calling, didn't feel like my passion. I wasn't waking up. I was waking up more in the morning going, man, hope they don't realize what a poser I am, you know. Wow. Then really trying to see. When I went through the program, the friend of mine who painted this said, you know, he painted this for me because that may have been who I was, but he thinks now I will be able to help a lot of men and women who are in the same place. And that's kind of what I'm about, right? So I've been blessed that in the Marines, finding this kind of facilitation work that I love, doing it at Ernst ⁇ Young, doing it on my own, getting to do it through halftime. I mean, that is all stuff that I almost can't not do it. You know, and so it just feels great. So, so between that and my family and everything, the way things are, I would, you know, and and there are a lot of things in family and and in life you can't control it all. That's right. But I would say I've had a pretty abundant life. Uh maybe not have made as much money as anybody else, you know, uh, have certainly made a ton of mistakes. Uh have had our sent our our share of tragedy, right? Our our oldest son was killed about 15 years ago in a motorcycle accident. My goodness. We've been through the ups and downs, but I would still say, like some of those guys in the Bible, that it ends and says, you know, he he led a long, full life. And I gotta, you know, I have and I want to help others do the same now.

Dr. William Attaway:

Well, and I think that that's the mark of what I call a catalytic leader, Tom. Is somebody who's not just gonna be a recipient of the lessons and the the wisdom that comes from going through the years, but somebody who's gonna be a conduit, you know, not gonna be a reservoir just holding it all in, but instead be a conduit so that you become somebody who shares with all of the people around you for their benefit. That's what I see in your story and what I hear today from your journey. You are that conduit. And that is a commitment that you have made based on how God's created you and wired you. There's no such thing as a wasted experience, you know, and you've leveraged those experiences for the benefit of other people.

Tom McGehee:

Well, and I want to do it even more and less selfishly, right? I mean, it's one thing, say, to be a CEO and to know that you've let people run and be their best and do things, but in the back of your mind, you're thinking about every time I meet somebody, for example, oh, could this be the next deal? You know, what's the what's the thing? I'm trying to grow the business, or you know, I'm really glad you're doing well, and don't I look good because you're doing it? You know, rather, and I've certainly met my share of leaders who are purely focused on no, I'm about you doing good. You know, and so more and more that's how I want to be. And I just think I also think from all the halftime exposure, you know, we work with predominantly almost exclusively business leaders. And, you know, you know, the whole business and life kind of spectrum, I mean, it's almost like success and significance, you know, and quote, quote, work-life balance and all those kind of things. I mean, that's a, you know, it's it's a tough thing to figure out. It it's hard to do in any profession. I've met pastors who are just doing all they can and their families falling apart, right?

unknown:

Yeah.

Tom McGehee:

I mean, you know, you put all your time into it, put all your effort into it. I mean, when I was in the Marines, I I made four six-month deployments. I missed the birth of two kids. You know, there were things I had to do, and unfortunately, I have a very strong wife who was who was there for me. But when I got out of the Marines, that attitude didn't really go away, right? Yeah. Either one, you know, I know I got a kid's soccer game, but I really got to go do this thing for my business, especially when you become an entrepreneur and it's all on you, right? I mean, that never never shuts off, you know. The other and even in ministry, I I I will joke that my wife's best ministry is that she doesn't have one. You are her you are her ministry. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's a full-time gig, too, I'll tell you. Talking about a heavy cross to bear. But you know, if she's in the grocery store and strikes up a conversation with a woman, and this woman needs to talk for a while, she can stand and talk. You know, it's real easy for me to go, you know, I'd love to talk to you, but I got to go do ministry, right? I mean, you just get driven on that stuff. And so, so there's no simple answer, there's no cookie-cutter answer. Everybody's different. I think if you know your strengths and you know how to stay in your zone and you are able to delegate what you're not good at to others, you're gonna find you have more time to do the things. I think a lot of times leaders lose that time because one, they're doing things that really are not in their gifting and so not in their strength. It's sucking away their energy, and they're probably only doing it if they do it well, it's taking them more time than it should, and thus they don't have time for other things, right? Uh, you know, that's the call burnout kind of stuff. But if you if you know where your lane is, and one, you can delegate, and two, you can trust it's gonna be done, you know, and it's kind of like the old Reagan, it's trust but verify. That's right. Right? Yeah, you know, but but if you can run that way and not feel like you have to you have to allow them the ability to say, you know, I see how that would work, even if I wouldn't have done it that way. And that lets you stay where you are, which then frees up the most precious asset precious asset we all have, which is time.

Dr. William Attaway:

That's it.

Tom McGehee:

Yeah.

Dr. William Attaway:

You know, Tom, you you you have been on a continual growth curve through your life and through your journey. And that's that's obvious from what you shared today. How do you stay on top of your game? How do you level up with the new leadership skills that your team, your your clients, uh people around you are gonna need you to have in the days ahead?

Tom McGehee:

Wow. Um I try to keep up on reading. Okay. You know, a lot of reading things. I I will tell you that lately my reading has much more moved toward the area of spiritual and personal development and less in the area of quote leadership and leadership books, those kind of things, which I used to read a ton of, right? So there's the continual reading podcasts, looking at things like that to get input, various directions, various things. I uh I'm working on some ideas now around abundance, and as I exit uh the company, I've got a stack of books about that big, and I promise myself I'm not going to start something or even write something until I've kind of looked at all the research that's there, rather than just kind of diving in. That's one. The other is at halftime we talked about having a personal board of advisors.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Tom McGehee:

You know, Peter Drucker used to say, you know, that you need a group where you can think your confusion out loud. Yes. And and, you know, when I'm talking to people, to two two groups, one is sort of personal board of advisors, a number of halftime coaches and friends, it'll help me think through this. The other thing is we're at a church, I'll be 70 this year, and we're at a church and we're in a class where we're not the young ones, but there are a number in their 80s. And and I don't have a whole lot of examples of what that next decade is going to look like, or life in a decade from now, right? And so trying to do both sides, the personal director board's all younger than I am, and they're going to help pull me into what is relevant today, what is real, what's going on in the life of so many people that haven't been, aren't where I am, where I can say, you know, I don't have to work and things are good and I finally got to where I want to be and all that, all that kind of stuff. They're pulling me into the reality of the world as I try to shape a message or work with people. And then those in that class that are 10 or 15 years ahead of me, you know, it's like, wow, okay, that's what it's going to be like, and it's coming pretty quick, you know. And that just helps me say, what do I need to do to get there? So for example, I I started lifting weights this year. I used to do that as a young man, used to do it as a marine all the time and stuff, but it laid off, and and now I'm in the gym three times a day.

unknown:

Wow.

Tom McGehee:

Three times a day. I'm not in the gym at 70, I'm not going to be in the gym at 80. My goodness. So so that kind of thing is uh, you know, it's just uh so so that's probably trying to stay on top of it. One is stay on top of where's the world and how can I be relevant, and the other is stay on top of how do I prepare for kind of my last season as it comes up, you know. So absolutely I do both.

Dr. William Attaway:

So as a reader, is there a a book that you would recommend to the leaders who are listening that, hey, this one's made a big difference in my journey. And if you haven't read it, you really should.

Tom McGehee:

Well, because of where I am, they're gonna be more faith-oriented books. Uh one one I would so a store about two years ago, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer. And so far I had an MRI this week, so the prayers are it's all gonna look good because so far everything looked good. I've been treated holistically. I haven't done any been on supplements, had some blood work infusions kind of thing. Nice um, but I I I found out it's probably cancer, or you know, you kind of take the test, and it was a two-week period before I got the real answer. And just prior to that, a guy had given me a book by an author named John Eldridge. And Eldridge has written a lot of books. He's a yeah, I really like him. He's very focused on uh a person's walk with Christ and how he keeps clothes and those kind of things. But uh he wrote a book years ago called Wild at Heart for Men. That was a great kind of stirring book. But but he wrote one right after COVID called Resilient. And somebody handed it to me about two weeks before I uh was diagnosed with cancer. And reading that book about being resilient helped me get through not only the two weeks, but set me up for this what's now been a two-year journey, right? And so even though it's a very faith-based book, that idea for a leader of resilience is really important. And and resilience doesn't come from, like I said, just making sure you kill the numbers in the fourth quarter, or uh, you know, you're growing the company, you're compounded, whatever you want it to do, or things like that, because it's an internal thing. It's the difference between a long sustained growth personally and a curve that either you skyrocket and drop, or you or you or you hit a wall and burn out, or or anything like that, right? So, right off the top of my head, I'd recommend the book Resilient. There are a couple of others. One that's a little more business oriented by a real man of faith, who's called A Sacred Pace. By Terry Looper. Terry Looper was a business guy, made his first few million bucks and had a literally a nervous breakdown.

Dr. William Attaway:

Oh my goodness.

Tom McGehee:

And and you know, he's kind of on the floor saying, God, if you you save me from this, I'll, you know, I'll fix myself, whatever it is, you know, right?

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Tom McGehee:

And that happened, and he heard the Lord tell him to start a company. And he's like, Did you not see I just had a breakdown? Right? I mean, you know, maybe maybe you didn't get the full picture here, you know. When he started his company, uh, he had two rules when he started it. One was uh no sales quotas, because he said it drives people crazy. And two, even in startup mode, everybody only works 40 hours a week. Now that company became Texon, which is about a $7 billion company, I think. So I mean, that oil and gas. I mean, grew, grew. He just he just sold it off completely. He's a merger and acquisition kind of guru as he as he grew the company. But the book, Sacred Pace, really talks about how do I keep pace, you know, when I'm rather than running and burning out and stuff.

Dr. William Attaway:

So I think those two. I love that. I've never read either of those. So clearly I have a book problem. I need to get this.

Tom McGehee:

Thank you for that.

Dr. William Attaway:

I could talk to you for another hour. I mean, there's so much insight that you have gained over the years, so much wisdom. And I'm so grateful for you sharing so generously today.

Tom McGehee:

Well, thank you. I uh, you know, this is a this is a journey, a career path. I mean, for a guy who did strategy, I never could have planned a career path like this. And and you know, the experiences of the military, of corporate work, of partnership, of entrepreneurship, of ministry. Having done all of that, I've gotten to uh and done a lot of that around the world, not just in the U.S. I've just gotten to see so much. Uh and and to be healthy and strong enough, I'm hoping even you know, in this next season, if I can be of help to anybody and share anything with anybody, I would love to do that, right? Because that's you're right. I'm I'm I'm I've been blessed enough. I'm in a season of giving back, and I really want to try to do that however I can.

Dr. William Attaway:

Well, you've certainly done it today with our audience, and I'm so grateful. I know people are gonna want to stay connected to you and continue to learn more from you and about what you're doing next, whatever that's gonna look like. What's the best way for folks to connect with you, Tom?

Tom McGehee:

So probably I would keep the Tom.mcGee, and it's M-C-G-E-H-E-E, it's like McGeehee, Tom.mcGee at halftime.org. Uh I'm gonna stay connected with Halftime. I'll probably stay on as sort of a coach and where I can help. At least for the next year. So that would be a place you can find you can find it on the halftime website, halftime.org. You can find me. Uh I'll be there for a while uh until they write me off. So yeah, yeah, that'd probably be the best way for now. LinkedIn, I'm on LinkedIn. Perfect.

Dr. William Attaway:

We'll have all those links in the show notes.

Tom McGehee:

Thank you.

Dr. William Attaway:

Tom, thank you. So grateful for your time today. Thanks, man. Enjoyed it.

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Dr. William Attaway

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