#106: Missy Young: Boldly Go
In today's conversation, we have the distinct privilege of sitting down with speaker, author, and IT guru Missy Young. Missy is on a mission to help you be bold in all areas of your life. We talk about being a woman in the tech field, how to know when the right time to be bold is, and listening to God. She is full of wisdom!
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EP. 106 Missy Young
Tony: Hey everybody. Welcome back to the reclamation podcast, where our goal is to help you reclaim good practices for faith and life. Today's podcast is brought to you by the spirit and truth podcast network to find out more about spirit and truth. Check out their website, spirit in truth.life friends. I'm so excited to bring you episode one Oh six.
With a friend of mine who I've known for a little bit. Now, her name is Missy young and Missy is in an interesting role. She works in the tech world in Las Vegas, Nevada, and God has just been doing some incredible stuff in her life. And she just started a brand new podcast. That I want you to go subscribe to called boldly go.
Now, Missy is all about being bold and faithful in the little things. And she was a shy kid who was kind of born into boldness. I love her story. I love the way she talks about little bold steps. And I also thought, I think she's got a good word for us guys specifically about how to support our women, friends in the workplace and especially in her world and actually my world too, where you know, it's kind of a guy culture a lot of the time and, and I think we can do better and I want to do better for my wife and for my daughter.
And for people like Missy who are out there trying to. Lead and lead well, so I'm super thankful for this conversation. I know you're going to love it. If you do, do me a favor, hit the subscribe button, wherever you listen to podcasts at that way, you don't miss any of our upcoming episodes, leave a rating or review wherever you listen to podcasts, but especially on Apple iTunes, they pay a lot of attention to that sort of thing.
And finally, the best compliment really is to share an episode with a friend. Maybe there's something in here that Missy says that it's like, wow, you need to hear that. Share the episode. It goes a long way to help. You know, spread the word about what God's doing through this platform as always, I'm super thankful for you guys, for the connection, for the opportunity to grow together and see what God does.
So that any further ado, here's my conversation with tech guru leader and podcaster, Missy young, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm excited today to have a friend of mine we've known each other for, I would say it's probably been about six months, right missy?
Missy: Maybe a little longer. Yeah.
Tony: Yeah, maybe a little bit longer at the COVID times makes everything super weird, but I'm here today, forever.
Oh my gosh. It's still 2020, actually. I don't even know what's happening. So I'm here today with my friend, Missy young. Missy, how, how is life in Las Vegas right now?
Missy: Life is absolutely wonderful. The governor just announced, they're lifting the restrictions here for COVID so large gatherings and all of that.
So hopefully Las Vegas will be coming back to life, which will be a huge blessing for all those who have been unemployed for several months due to the pandemic. So and we have gorgeous weather here. I think it's going to be 80 degrees and sunny today. Yeah. I just, I absolutely love living in Las Vegas.
And we actually have more churches per capita than any other city in the U S. Holy smokes. Yeah. Well, we have more sin. So the Lord provides.
Tony: Oh, there you go. Now how did you end up in Las Vegas? It's got, it feels like an interesting place to be. Were you born there?
Missy: I was not. And leaving in Las Vegas was definitely not on my bucket list.
I honestly don't think that it's on anyone. Bucket list.
Tony: I love Vegas.
Missy: Oh, sure. But I don't see you in packing up moving here.
Tony: That's true. "Honey. I'd like to go live in the middle of the desert." I don't think she's going to buy it. I don't think.
Missy: Right. So we, we moved here from Huntington beach, California about 16 years ago, actually almost 17 years ago now.
So my I was I'm in the tech field and I was sent by my company out to Las Vegas to work with a very small company called switch and on a project. And so after working with the very small team, it switched because it was a bit of a startup at that point. It had been operating for a couple of years.
I, I got along really well with everyone on the team. And they said, you know, we think you'd make a great fit. Would you consider moving to Las Vegas? So I went and talked to my husband about it and he said, will you always wonder or regret not having taken this chance? And I said, yeah, I think I will, because I think this company is special.
And so he said, let's do it. So we packed up the kids and moved to Vegas. So it was really about a two minute conversation and I I've actually found that I really love living here. I had a lot of misconceptions about what it would be like to live in LA but it's actually just a bunch of suburbs and, and, you know, normal people clustered around an amusement park.
Like any other city that ha you know, like Disney. Yeah.
Tony: Pretty amazing weather though. Right? Like, I mean, you guys. You guys are usually bringing in. I mean, if you, if you don't mind the heat, you're bringing some, some great weather.
Missy: Here's a nice statistic for you. It's actually 72 degrees or below 70% of the year here in Las Vegas.
It's only hot here during the summer. And even then, for the most part, only in the daytime, we have 20 to 30 degree temperature drops almost every single day. So it could be a hundred degrees in the daytime, 75 at night.
Tony: Have you thought about volunteering for the Las Vegas? You know, tourism?
Missy: Yeah. My company has a ton of infrastructure here in town, so we, we run a large chunk of the internet for the, for the nation here in Las Vegas, because there's also no natural disasters here. There's there are zero recorded, natural disasters that have ever struck Las Vegas.
Tony: Wow, man, this is like, I know my listeners didn't dial into like this kind of facts coming out. I'm hot. I like it.
Missy: Plenty. I got lots of, I know all the history of the town. And so anyway, but yeah, it's, it's a neat place to live. And there are a lot of companies that run their physical infrastructure here with us because it's so safe and so connected.
Tony: Oh, that's amazing. Now I love the part of your story that involves you packing up the kids and moving to Las Vegas. Cause it, it embodies kind of what your mission in life is, is become, which is this bold moves, right? And so you're starting a brand new podcast you've already got as we record this. Now you've already got one Epic episode, dropped the, the, the boldly go podcasts.
So tell me a little bit about how You became so bold yourself. And how do you define that through your faith? Like what does it mean to be a bold Christian and what's that look like?
Missy: Sure. So for me, boldness came about at a pretty early age. My dad was in the military. We traveled around quite a bit and I.
I realized at a young age that I could either be the new kid with no friends, or I could be super outgoing and friendly and make friends everywhere I went. And so even though I was shy, I didn't like the experience of being the shy kid who was left alone because no one knew who she was. So I decided to, you know, go forth the shyness and try to make a bunch of friends because it was more fun to have friends than it was to not have friends.
So that was sort of where it got started. And as I. As I grew up that just served me really well. I've I, I come from a long line of bold and courageous women. So I feel like that's just genetically in me. So we're all Southern women. So we sort of have the tendency to say what's on our mind. Gotten me in trouble a few times.
Yeah. So, and also being a female in a very male dominated industry, I've learned over the years that boldness also serves you well, but you don't have to be a bull in a China shop about it. You know, if you, you can be bold and be graceful at the exact same time. And that's usually what gets the best results.
Tony: Well, okay. So let's, let's drill down on that a little bit, because I think a lot of us, myself included, I identify as an Enneagram eight. Okay. So we're want to China. Yes. Right. But a microphone in front of me and give me a cause let's go.
Missy: Let's do it.
Tony: How do you manage the tension between grace and boldness?
Like what's the first step in that process?
Missy: So I think it's recognizing that and this is an old Southern saying, you catch more flies with honey, right? So, but you can still be bold because, you know, it says in James, you have nothing because you asked for nothing. No. So you get nothing if you don't ask for it.
So for instance, I will, you know, historically I'll walk into a conference room to meet with the company and it will be nine men sitting around this conference room table. And these men already know their pecking order. They know who's the alpha, they know where they all fit in the totem pole of, of, of power and control.
But then when I walk in all of that is now off the table. As a female when I walk into the room as the only female in the room. And so then they're all a little bit confused as to where now, where does she fit in to all of this? And so then I, I just say, okay guys, here's what we're going to do. And you just leave, you just take the reins and you lead and you do it kindly and gracefully and they will let you.
Sure because they're not sure what else to do. That's what I've found. And that's being bold and having courage and taking leadership, but without hitting people over the head as you're doing it, you know, so or I've had you know, you walk into the same conference room with the nine guys and, and the one guy will get up, shake hands and kind of look past me and say, Oh, is it just, you.
Tony: That's gotta feel warm.
Missy: I'll say, yeah, is it just the nine of you? Because now we're evenly matched with a great big smile and they laugh and they, then they kind of realize what they said, you know? So that's another way of being graceful about it. You can be humorous, you know, you can use, you can use humor to soften that.
No, I'm, I'm equal with you and we're going to do some great things together. Regardless of our genders, you know, I mean, it doesn't, that shouldn't matter. And I would say things have gotten much, much, much better than it used to be. You know, my, my second Boston tech I actually got hired first into the technology field by a woman who wanted to give other women a chance to get into the industry.
This was back during the.com days in Los Angeles. And she was, she mentored me for a few months and then she left because she got another job offer and she was replaced by a guy who. Definitely did not think women belonged as women should not be engineers basically. And he definitely tried to create situations that would make me quit.
He would give me just the worst assignments, you know, send me into Compton and Inglewood and Watson, just some of the most gang ridden areas of Los Angeles. So here I am this little white girl driving, a big white van full of millions of dollars of technology equipment. You know, driving around to different buildings, to do technology installs at different small companies and so on.
But I always said, wow, I might get shot, but I'm not going to quit. That guy is not going to run me out of here. Then he started doing things like leaving Playboys on my desk. I mean, just horrible, you know, but then he started giving me assignments that were way above my pay grade, like super complicated networks that I would have to go in and install.
And so I would ask other technicians for help. Hey, how do you do this? Show me how this works and show me, you know, and they all helped me, you know, so I discovered early on, first of all, Mr. Rogers was totally right. Look for the helpers. They're always there. And also for every one person who was some sort of a roadblock or stumbling block to me, there were 10 who wanted to help, you know, I think most people are genuinely good.
Most people want to do the right thing. And so, but again, if you don't ask for the help, you won't get it. You ask you have not because you ask not.
Tony: Well, what, what did you learn about God in the midst of entering? I mean, so like, it, it sounds like part of the story is Hey, I'm going boldly even in the midst of fear.
Right? Because certainly it sounds like those are fearful situations, but also I'm going boldly because this is where I feel called. W what did you learn about God in the midst of, of kind of that season of your life, where it must've felt like persecution for years?
Missy: Yeah, it was, it was you know, I, I think I was gifted with a naturally high self-esteem, so it didn't, you know, it didn't I have a great way of, of saying, well, he's, he's got his own problems.
Like it's not personal to me. And I learned that very early on actually, I, it really was driven home during my first pregnancy, when I found out halfway through that the baby had actually passed away. And so then I had, it was going to have to have surgery to have the, the, the deceased baby removed from me and insult to injury.
So devastating during your first pregnancy, you're so excited and you planning the nursery and you know, all the things that you're doing. And I was, you know, in this, this medical room and the, the, the technician who had done the ultrasounds about halfway through my pregnancy, he said, you know, you can stay in here.
I know you're upset. It's totally fine. Take as much time as you need. And so I called my pastor and his wife and they were coming, they live like right around the corner. So they were coming and. I thought I heard her voice, my pastor's wife out in the hallway. And so I stuck my head out in the hallway and there she wasn't there, but there was a nurse to talking to another nurse with their backs to me.
And she said, well, I don't know what she thinks she's going to do, but I'm not holding that room all day just so they can stage there. GD revival and all the grief and shock and pain. I was feeling all, all concentrated and pinpointed into one little laser that was focused on the back of this nurse's head.
She was in danger and I ha I heard this, I heard this little voice on my, in the right ear and I know it was the Holy spirit. I heard a voice say she doesn't have a problem with you. She has a problem with God. And that just, it deflated all that anger that had, that had instant instantaneously welled up inside of me.
And that's really what I, when I go forward and I make bold choices in my faith. I remember if they have a problem with it, it's not problem with me. They have a problem with God. Yeah, I don't have to take it personally. I just have to do what, what I know God wants me to do. I just have to be faithful in those little things.
And that's really what boldness is. It's saying no, I'm going to choose to make a choice that honors God, rather than, than honor, that honors my fear of what are other people gonna think of me? Because I think that's really one of the major things that holds us back, especially today in the, in the, you know, social media and all of those things.
I mean, when we were kids, Tony, I know, you know this cause you're a gen X-er like me, right? Yeah. Yeah. The worst thing that could happen to us was that you were on the phone with somebody and you didn't know that there was a three-way call happening. And you said that you shouldn't have about this other person.
That was, that was like the worst thing that could happen to you. Now, my dad was secretly on the phone. There you go.
Tony: That too apparently really bad. Yes. Oh man.
Missy: But now, if you, if you make a mistake or do something that you consider embarrassing, you know, it could be potentially shared on social media and broadcast out to everyone that, you know, and that's especially harmful for our teenagers, I think, which is why I don't let my kids get on.
I didn't let my kids get on social media until they were in their late teens. And I've got a plethora of advice for you as a technical person about what you can and can't do with your kids on the internet, but. That's neither here nor there. The key is though, is, is that fear of that public shame or embarrassment has become such a, such a lightning rod for us when it comes to the choices that we make.
And we have to, you know, for those of us who, if your faith is important to you, if God is important to you, you have to say, no, what's more important to me. What other people think of me or what God thinks of me? Because I'm going to end up having to discuss this with God at some point.
Tony: Some point, right?
Like you're not getting out of this alive. No one, no one has yet.
Missy: And every little bold step I've taken for God has been good for me. You know? I mean, it, God sees us when we take those little bold steps, he sees us when we make those choices for faith over fear and he honors that and he's going to reward you for that.
And it's going to embolden you to take that next brave step, whatever that is for you. You know, I had a gal that. That works at another company that we'd been working together on a project for a couple of days. And she said, I noticed that you wear a cross on your neck every day. And then I said, yes. And she said, are you allowed to do that at your company?
And I said, well, are you not allowed to do that at your company? She said, well, I mean, I guess I am, I'm just, you know, worried about the backlash. And I don't want people to think I'm shoving my faith down their throats. And I said, okay, well, That's I, I totally understand that, you know, but if you see someone wearing a Jewish star around their neck, do you think that they're shoving their face down your throat?
She said, no. I said, okay, great. I said, so I don't think people are going to have that same opinion of you. If you wear a cross around your neck, I said, and God is going to see it. If you do something, if you do something for you, that's scary. Do something that honors God, instead of paying, you know, instead of obeying your fear, you will beg God and you do the right thing.
You know, God will reward that. And, and I also told her also, this is America and you have rights. Sure. You absolutely have the right to express your faith. Doesn't mean you can go to work with pamphlets and proselytize and all those things, but can you express what you believe? Absolutely. And we need to, we need to absolutely enjoy those rights and employ those rights on our own behalf for as long as we have them.
Tony: Yeah. So there's a lot there to cover. Obviously. I think one of the questions I wanted to ask you that kind of was brought up as I heard you telling your story a little bit is that I obviously I'm a male in a mostly male dominated field. Very similar to the tech world ministry is probably, you know, as equally male dominated, if not more, if not more.
Right. Speak to us for just a minute on what, what is something that I can do or that other male listeners who are in male dominated fields can do to help. Not make it so difficult for our female counterparts to get a seat at the table. Mm.
Missy: I think there are lots of, that's a great question. First of all, and there's lots of ways that this can happen.
And some of them are as small as not start, like looking at who is on an email that you're about to send, because this is, and I've done it. I'm guilty of this too saying, Hey guys, When not everyone on the email is a guy, right? And this is something that we women have given up over the years. We feel that we we've sort of been, you know, coach that if you're one of the guys you've made it, you're accepted you're you finally have a seat at the table.
But if I sent that same email to a group of mixed company, and I said, hello, ladies, I guarantee you, the guys on that email would not be happy with that.
Tony: You know, it's so funny when you said that. I, I was pretending like I would, if somebody I'm like, man, there, there's almost a condo. There's not almost that, that almost feels condescending.
Right. And that is that man. That's just my own. Bias, right. Like, that's what that is. Right? Like, I mean that's just nothing to do about that. And then, then just repent, right?
Missy:
Like, and do better and do better. I, I know, believe me that when, when people send emails like that, cause I've done it. I go, Hey guys, you know, blah, blah, blah.
Cause you just don't catch it because it's just become such a normal part of our thing. But I, it was called out to me once. When, when a guy I know sent an email to four people on the email and all four were women. And he said, Hey guys, you know, here's the project timeline, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, wait a minute.
No, no, not one person that you're sending this email to is a guy, you know? So you there's so many other things you say, Hey team, hello everyone. Or just, hi, all
Tony: I go, I go, hi friends a lot. That's why I go, hi friends.
Missy: Men have actually given that identity up in order to get a seat at the table, but men didn't have to do that.
Yeah. Ma if I send an email to all men and I say, hello ladies, they're going to be upset.
Tony: I would imagine. Yeah, I would imagine.
Missy: Why would they be upset set to be called guys, but men gets that to be called lady. So it's just, those are just these little, little nuance things that we've all, you know, accepted as normal.
And I think we need to kind of unwind some of those things. And I would say. You know, making sure that when you are having a group meeting, you say, is my group diverse, like look around the room. It's the group diverse, you know, I I've gone. I've actually refused to speak at a couple of conferences because you know, I've, I've spoken at them in the past.
And the audience was like 98% white males. And the, the panelists were 98% white males. And I was saying, okay, I'm not going to be your token female. I'm not doing that. Sure. You know, and taking that stand to say, no, you guys have to do a better job of getting a diverse audience and getting diverse panelists because otherwise we're not having the, we're not having all the voices at the table.
You know, when you have a group meeting or when you look at your staff, you know, you say. Are there minority voices. Are there female voices? Am I actually listening to all of them? You know, it doesn't mean that, that, you know, you have to go on and fire half your staff and replace them with this, but, but how can you diversify that more and make sure there are more voices at the table?
You know, we, we had an interesting situation at my church where there was a. An issue that came up with someone on staff and they said, what do you think we should do? And I said, I would invite some of your congregation who are, who are African-American to come in and tell you what they, what they think about this situation, gather their voices and then make your decision about what you want to do.
Because then you can say you group of white males that in this particularly racially charged situation, you listened to your black community. And you, and you did what they thought was right.
Tony: I love that. Well, and, and more than anything, right? Like it's intentionality, I'm intentionally making space, making room, bringing the voices to the table and pausing enough to listen to that.
So that, that that's, that's genius and, and little stuff goes a long way. Doesn't it?
Missy: Well, also, if you look at, I mean, this is a, just another way in which we we've changed things to be so biased is in schools in high schools, you know, you look at sex education. The majority of the messaging is when a girl says, no, she means no.
Yeah. Right. Well, I have, I have all boys. And so I've told my son, Hey, guess what? Your no also means, no, you also have control over your body because we're so focused on, you know, don't, don't, you know, mishandle the girls and make sure that they're protected. Well, the guys, you know, the boys need that messaging too.
You know, they, they need to be able to decide what happens with their body and they need to be able to feel free to say, no, I don't want to do that. Or no, I'm not ready for that. And you know, so they don't get that education though, in the schools, it's up to us parents to make sure that the boys are getting the same messaging.
Cause they're their bodies. You know, they should have those boundaries too.
Tony: Yeah, I love that. Man, it seems like you've done a great job of diversifying kind of the, the places and spaces that you speak and kind of how, how you bring into the life that you're living, you know, your convictions and also your faith.
I I'm curious in, in a, in a world that is so. Agitated easily. How are you and in the tech world specifically, how do you bring your faith into the conversation? I mean, like, you know, cause all of this is that you're talking about is based off of a set of values that, you know, knowing you the way I do know is based off of your faith.
I know you live it well. Right. And how do you bring your values into the workplace intentionally without being. Without being offensive because I don't think anybody wants to be offensive. Right. But we also want to be true. How do we live in that tension?
Missy: I, I, one of the ways in which I've found to do that is to always give credit to God and faith is important to you then, you know, you know, when God has blessed, you.
I would not be where I am if God had not blessed me with high self-esteem, you know, and you know, the ability to be in any gram eight, you know, in order to, to not be afraid of big projects and to take them on and to work hard and, you know, to do the 60, 70 hour work weeks that it took to get here, you know, in order to build the company and all those things, you know, I, I.
I would not be sitting in this chair without God's blessings upon me. And so to make sure that you have that attitude at work, you know, if someone compliments you on a job well done, you know, Then I can say, you know, they say, Oh man, that was, you did such a great job speaking at that conference. You know, that was such a great message.
I will thank you. God has definitely gifted me with the public speaking, you know, so to just to give that credit, but then I also, I do tend to wear lots of Christian t-shirts. Sure. Because I feel that there's. That's a great way to help people know what you believe.
Tony: Can I put you on the spot? What's your favorite Christian t-shirt company?
Do you know?
Missy: Oh yes. Elly and grace,
Tony: Elly and grace will be in the show notes.
Missy: Yeah. It's E L L Y and grace, Ellie owns grace and they make all kinds of great tea short sleeve, long sleeve rounded v-neck they do sweatshirts. And so I, I, I. You know, could probably fund a small country with the money that I've spent at and grace.
Tony: Okay. So I didn't mean to interrupt, but I'd love to get a plug for this kind of thing.
Missy: So when I speak on stage in the tech world, I typically always wear a blazer t-shirt jeans and sneakers, because I want the guys in the audience to be focused on my message and not on what I'm wearing. You know, you have to be pretty conscious of that as a female speaker in the tech world.
Just, you know, if you dress. Provocatively in any way, shape or form, then you've invalidated your message. Wow, which is certainly not something that the men have to worry about, but but just fine, you know, because I, you know, that's fine. I just want to get the message out there, whatever it is we're talking about, whether it's AI or the fourth industrial revolution or humanity and technology, that kind of thing.
Tony: You just said a whole bunch of things that I really don't know anything about. I know a little bit about AI. I'm kind of interested anyway, but keep going.
Missy: Sorry. I wear a t-shirt. Under my blazer that has some sort of a Christian saying on it or some just something that's fun and interesting. And it usually is in glittered sparkles, you know?
So it's catches your eye, catches the eye, but invariably, after the conference, someone will come up to me and want to, you know, people come up to you after the conference to talk to you. And somebody always asks me, Hey, what does that mean? What does that t-shirt say? And I'll say, Oh, it's be strong and courageous.
It's Joshua one nine. It's my favorite Bible verse, you know, and, and you just have that opportunity to witness. And it's just about creating those, those available moments or those available experiences that might cause somebody to ask you about it. And you know, one of the other things that I think we as believers.
In, you know, in areas really feel the pressure in variably feel the pressure to convert. Right? Oh, I've got somebody interested. I got to bring them in, you know.
Tony: ABC always be closing. Right.
Missy: Always be Christians. Yeah. So always be converting, always be converting. But so it that's actually not the case.
It's actually not our job. It's the Holy Spirit's job. So what we need to do is plant the seed or water, the seed that's already been planted, and maybe you will come up to a moment where somebody is ready to believe and you can walk them through that, that prayer, but. Stop feeling that pressure because it, it, it changes the, the weight of what it is you're doing when you should just be joyful and share what you know about your own faith, you know, just be joyful about what you believe, because it really, and, and, and telling somebody about it.
It's actually the greatest message you could ever share with them. And it's actually the kindest thing you could ever tell them is that Jesus loves them and wants to save them.
Tony: Yeah.
Missy: I love that, but don't, but don't worry. Don't bring all this pressure that like all of a sudden, you've got some heavenly commission on the line, you know that you're going to lose.
If you don't close this, this person to the faith in this moment. No, just plant the seed or water. The seed that's already there.
Tony: Yeah, let's talk for a minute about pressure, right? Cause you're a, you're a high level leader. You've got a lot going on in your life. You're, you're doing all the things. And then all of a sudden you've decided you're going to launch this new passion project.
You know, the, the, the boldly go podcasts which if you haven't subscribed yet, you need to go ahead and hit subscribe on, on the Boulder ghost podcast on iTunes or Spotify. And, and so you've got this new project. How do you. Deal with the pressure of getting it all done. And then I have lots of questions to ask you about the boldly go, I guess, but I'm curious how you as a, a high level leader doing all the things and you're, you know, I follow you on Instagram.
You're super engaged in your family. How do you. How do you make it all work?
Missy: That's such a great question. And it's actually something my mother asks me constantly, how do you deal with all this? Then? I honestly don't look at it as pressure. I just look at it as things that need to get done, but then I also have a very clear awareness of, I cannot do everything and I cannot be everywhere and I cannot be all things to all people, period.
Tony: So do you draw like sharp boundaries on some things?
Missy: I do. You and I I'm I'm okay with saying, Oh gosh, I really wish I could have been there for that, but I can't do it. I already made a commitment. And so, no, not this time but, but trying to fit in the podcast and, and other things that I'm working on outside of work, it's really a God, if you want me to do this, you'll create the space for it.
And if it's not the right time, it's not going to happen. You know, because I, I definitely felt like, okay, you're supposed to have a, a very regular cadence for the podcast. And maybe that'll come at some point, but right now I'm going, no, I'm just going to release podcasts every time I get somebody who agrees to go on it.
And I, and I can't, I can't put this deadline on myself, if it has to happen by these times, says who, who says it has to happen then? Right. So in order to just, just lighten that load on yourself and say, no, you don't have to put these huge schedules on something that nobody, nobody is going to like not eat.
If I don't put a podcast out. You know, that's a very fair statement. So, so to just have that, take that breath and just know that that I'm doing this, because this is something that God inspired me to do. Well, God and Bob Goff, you know, but, you know and just to say, okay, it's going to happen organically as it happens.
And I'm going to go out and, you know, work on making sure I have great people to talk to on the podcast and it's just going to happen when it happens. And I just, I'm going to be okay with that.
Tony: So you mentioned that God and Bob Goff inspired you to do this, which I love. And I know a little bit of your story with with Bob and with God.
And so one of the questions I would love to P here to ask people is how you hear from God. Like how, how did you know. Two things, right? How did you know that God was kind of pushing this way? And then how did you have enough trust to listen to this coach in this case, Bob? Right? Like who's walking you through this because you know, a lot of people tell me things I should do all the time and I don't necessarily feel compelled to do them, but here you are launching a podcast.
How'd, you know, it was God and had, you know, to trust Bob.
Missy: Sure. So so it's, it's it's kind of a long story, but in I'll try to give it a reader's digest.
Tony: We're here for it. I mean, this is a long dialogue format go for it.
Missy: So I started going to, I guess I basically. Started launching myself into the Christian conference circuit as just a conference goer.
Right. So I just started going to all these different conferences and, and just getting just getting filled with the word and, and just really enjoying being around other believers and hearing from all of these great speakers. I love listening to. Good speakers in any field because I can, I, I'm always learning.
I love to learn from other people who are doing things innovatively because I, I can't possibly have all the ideas myself. I mean, you know, and I learned that from working for a brilliant inventor, this guy has, you know, over 600 patents and patent pending claims and he's constantly inventing. I I'm like, I, I can't do I don't, I'm not the inventor.
I'm the implementer. You know, I make things happen when somebody else comes up with the idea, which is great, you know? And so I don't have to write the Bible. God already did that. I just need to get the word out, you know, so I'm totally comfortable with that. So going on all these conferences and one of the things that I signed up to go to after I read Bob's books well, so first of all, Bob actually came to Las Vegas and spoke at my son's school.
Oh, wow. So my son's school, faith Lutheran has a Kenya project with world vision where they're sponsoring children in a village in Africa. And some of the kids from faith lives and have actually gone to Africa to meet the kids. It's just an amazing project. And Bob came to the school on behalf of his, a friend of his at world vision who asked him to do a solid, and I had never heard of Bob Goff before ever.
And I'm like, who is this dude? Like if you don't know Bob Goff, you need to know Bob Goff. You need to look him up and read books and follow him. He's just one of the most joyous people I've ever met. And I bought his books after that and my girlfriend, Cindy and I were there and we were like, okay, who is this guy?
I mean, he was so dynamic on stage and laughing all the time and just so fun. So I got his books and read them. And started following him on social media. And then I found out he was doing this thing called the dream big workshop, which is a place where he it's a, like a three-day conference or it's very small and was like maybe 50 people, 40 people, something like that.
And I went to the one that they held at onsite, which is. Another just completely magical place in Tennessee run by miles. Adcox onsite was just a revelation, but a drain bag is supposed to help you uncover and, and go after your big dreams. But first figure out what's holding you back is really hard to go after your dreams.
If you don't know what your impediments are, what is what's blocking you internally from doing this? You know, and for some of us, it's just fear. And for some of us. Past trauma. You know, some of us have just so much, so many layers of, you know, like you have that inner critic that was that, that has layers upon layers of trauma from things you experienced as a child, you know, and sometimes you need therapy to get past that.
I'm a huge fan of therapy. I think literally everybody should be in therapy. Everybody, everybody should find a therapist. If you do nothing else. After listening to this podcast, get in therapy, we all need it. But especially after the past year, Right. So so I went to the dream big workshop and met Bob and just was so enthused by everything that he taught and went to other, other events in the last one I went to in February, right before COVID was the women's speakers collective held by Daniel Strickland in New York city.
And I was starting to feel like, okay, I really want to start. You know, also speaking in the ministry world, I really want to do this. So I signed up for the women's speakers collective, and I went to it and I'm sitting in this room with maybe 40 other women. And the woman on my right has pastored a church for the past 25 years with her husband and a woman on my left just got back from inoculating orphans in Somalia or wherever it was in Africa.
And like everyone in the room had this massive ministry background. The very first time in my life. I had imposter syndrome. Oh, wow. And I thought, what am I doing here? Who, who am I to think that I can do what these women have done? Who am I to think that I could possibly have anything to share? You know, I don't have a background in ministry.
I don't have a degree in theology. I didn't go to seminary. I've never pastored anything or anybody. I don't know what I'm doing here. And I, I actually, and I actually went home feeling completely discouraged. Wow. Yeah, I really did. Yeah. And that, that took me a few months to get over, you know, it was that feeling of maybe I'm in the wrong phase.
God. And so I, I decided, you know, back to your question about how do you hear from God. I really wanted to hear from God in a way that was, you know, pretty. Clear. So I started doing a Bible study by Priscilla Shirer called hearing the voice of God. Okay, great. You know, very focused on exactly what I want to know.
So I got get into this study by Priscilla Shire and she's absolutely one of my favorite Bible teachers for anybody out there who's looking for a good one. Just pick up literally any by Priscilla Shirer, her Elijah study that she just put out his fire is so good. So anyway, I'm about two weeks into the six week Bible study, hearing the voice of God.
And I lost hearing in my right ear. Stop it. Not kidding. Still hasn't come back. You're kidding. No, no. Literally my hearing, I started feeling like I had water in my ears. So you know, I went to all the doctors trying to figure it out because my hearing in my right ear had actually been replaced with an extremely loud Sonic sound.
No, if you've ever been, if you remember what it's like being around those old TVs, that kind of admit that high pitch Sonic,
Tony: when you turn them on,
Missy: it's like that all the time. And so for about. Five or six weeks, I thought I was going to lose it. I thought it was great because I couldn't get away from it.
And the audiologist said that my hearing my brain will adjust over time because my left ear still works. Great. So that's exactly what happened. So I can't hear any medium to low pitch sounds out of my right ear. So if I was talking to you on the phone and only listening through my right ear, it would sound like you were talking in a, in a tin can, far away.
Okay. So I have to always hold the phone up to my left ear, you know, that kind of thing, but my noise canceling headphones are fantastic to help me get through all this stuff. But yeah, so I, I realized though in going through that, that the enemy doesn't attack what the enemy doesn't fear. The enemy does not want me to hear from God, come on pastor.
Right. So so I, I realized, okay, I must be on the right track because also that was pretty blatant. Satan could try, you know, that was really obvious. You know, normally you're more settled than that, but you know, I'm doing a Bible study on hearing from God and you literally attacked me in the ear.
Got it. So so that was one thing. And then I started to realize, and I can't remember what made me realize this, where if it was just an overtime thing that I actually have more in common with everyone in the audience at church then does everybody who's been in ministry their whole lives, because those people go to church on Sunday and work on Monday.
Do they take church with them? No. I mean, one of the main things you, all you hear fairly consistently at church is, is, Hey church, isn't just for Sunday. You know, your relationship with God throughout the week is what matters. You know, so, so how do we, how do we encourage people who have faith to take what they hear on Sunday?
Into the rest of the day with them the rest of the week, you know, and, and live that out. How do they be Jesus to other people? How do they focus on the things that they learn at church? How do they do Bible studies rather than just waiting for somebody to, to spiritually feed them on the weekend? You know, how do we, how do we, you know, excite people about that?
You know, I was, I went to, so Beth Moore just came to Vegas. For her, her very first public appearance since COVID. Yeah. So this was one of her living proof teachings, and she's also an amazing Bible teacher, just so energetic. But I got there and I went to, there were two days of it. The first day a friend of mine went with me, but the second day I was there by myself and I always type my, my notes and prayers and stuff on my iPad.
And I typed the thing. I go, God, I need to find a group of women who is, who are as focused on studying the Bible as I am. You know, I need to find a group of women that. That can support me in this and that I can support them and that we can do this walk together, you know, help me find a pack to run with spiritually.
And I typed that and I looked up. And across the room. I saw a girlfriend of mine that I have not seen for. I dunno, three or four years, she looked at me, I looked at her and we got up and ran to the middle and hugged. And she said, are you here by yourself? And I said, yeah, she said, well, do you want to come and sit with us?
And I said, sure. So I went and sat with her and her four friends who are starting a Bible study on Galatians, like. God literally answered my prayer instantaneously, like right there in the moment. And I, and I told somebody, I go, yeah, that's never happened before happened to me before. And then I said, wait, maybe it has happened to me before.
I just didn't know. But this time I saw it, you know, this time I saw it happen. So yeah. So, so there are, you know, God talks to us differently all the time, you know, but we, but if we don't have our spiritual eyes and ears attuned, we will miss it. You know, so how so is God talking to us? Yes. He talks to us all the time and he wants us to listen and he wants us to be in conversation with him, but we can't do that with all of these distractions.
You know, I went up to the mountains on Saturday just to have some peace and quiet so that I could write and, and just, you know, decompress and, and have some time by myself. It was about an hour. Of me fighting this internal battle of you don't have any connectivity, what are you gonna do? What if somebody needs to know what's happening on social media?
You know, what if your husband has something, you know, or what's going on with your son and you know, this and that and the other, like for an hour, I fought the urge to go back down the mountain to get to where I was within signal range. Because I thought I can't do this. If I, if I don't at least have the ability to have connectivity and I went, wow, I am addicted to connectivity.
And I knew, you know. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Really know it until it's gone until you feel it.
Tony: Yeah. You feel it like deep at the core, you feel like, ah, gosh, I'm ripping out my insides.
Missy: You know, when I was a kid during summer vacation, my parents would be at work and I would just be gone all day. They just, you know, the wool was be home for dinner.
Tony: Yeah. When the streetlights came on, when the streetlights came on, it was time to go home. Or my dad comes back with Witsell.
Missy: Yes. Yeah, we all. And we all were like dogs and we were attuned to one specific whistle. Like I didn't respond to my friend's parents whistle.
Tony: It's my dad's. Yep. That's my dad. I got to go.
If he whistled twice, I'm in big trouble for that second whistle. You don't want to wait for that, but down whatever it is I was doing. I got to go now what
Missy: we tuned to hear the voice of God like that going, Oh, that's God talking to me right there. You know, because if you do Bible study, you will hear God talking to you through his word.
That's what that is. It's a love letter to us. It's the letter that he wrote to us. And there's never, I mean, you could hear, you might read the same verse 50 times and then something's going on in your life and you read it again and now it takes on a whole new meaning for you. It's why it's the living Bible.
I mean, it is constantly talking and the Bible convicts me. I can sit on an airplane. This is something else. I've, I've actually experimented with this for fun, because this is the type of person I am. I'll take my Bible out, put it on the tray, you know, next to whoever it is, I'm sitting too. And if they're a believer, they love it.
Like they instantly start talking to you. If they're not, they physically recoil. Wow. Like you put a snake out there, they're alive snake. That's going to buy. They're like, Oh, okay. You know, like they just they're like, I can't, what are you doing? You know? But if I put any other religious book out there from any other religion, no one cares.
Wow. Why is that? It's because the Bible is true and the Bible convicts. And if you're not a believer and you feel that conviction tugging on your heart, well, you might not like that.
Tony: Man. I well, and I, I think you're right, right. Like I think that's, it's all, it's all tied together and I love, I love your passion for it.
I love the way that it's working inside you. And I know that my listeners they're praying listeners, right. I got a bunch of people who are working really hard to reclaim good practices for faith and life. And so When they think about the boldly go podcast, which by the way, I love the star Trek nod.
I read about that on your website. I was like, yeah, yeah, she did get it. When they pray about the boldly go podcasts, what should they be praying about? Like w what are we hoping that God does with this brand new platform and the courage and the way that he's designed you and how all this is going to come together beautifully?
W what are we what are we praying about here?
Missy: Thank you for that. I would say that we are praying for this too, you know, for the guests that that I get to have with that, there is some inspiration there and some, you know, the, the, maybe it might cause some inner reflection to go, Hey, am I, you know, if, if my faith is important to me, if I believe in Jesus, am I living that out at work?
You know, have I separated myself from, from church and work? You know, have I put those into two different categories? Well, wait, aren't I believe her every day. Right. You know, should my behavior be different at work? You know, because I'm a believer maybe, you know, maybe the water cooler talk isn't, isn't the healthiest way for you to shine the light of Jesus.
Sure. You know, is your friend in the hospital, have you gone to visit them? You know, are, are we, are we taking an interest in the people that not only that we work with, but if you're a leader, are you being an empathetic leader? Are you working at that? Because I wasn't. And I, I had to learn how to be empathetic because it's not, it's not a natural thing for me, but I learned that.
I can learn to be empathetic, which means other people can too. So are you taking those steps? Are you, are you letting God refine you? Are you letting God shape you into a new person? You know, are you letting Jesus come out in ways in your words and how you treat people? You know, that's what I hope the podcast will do.
That's what I hope these conversations with these amazing humans. Will help inspire people to maybe take the next bold step, because if you can just take one and you'll take another, and then you'll take another and then you'll take another, and then you're gonna find your life changed. And if you're changing for Jesus, you will only experience joy and happiness through those changes.
It doesn't mean you won't have troubles in this life said we absolutely will have troubles, but I would much rather go through the troubles of life with. God them without God. I mean, there's, I can't imagine going through some of the things I've gone through without, without God and his word by my side, cheering me on encouraging me, reassuring me.
And so the, the podcast will hopefully just inspire people to get closer to Jesus and to let him do his work in their lives.
Tony: That's so good. So good. I'm going pass the offering plate. It was so good. Let's go. I'm here for it. Let's get, we need a, we need a word like this. Okay. I know my listeners are also gonna want to connect with you on all the interwebs.
What's the best place to learn more about the boldly go podcast about you. Where are you putting out your writing? How do we connect?
Missy: Thanks. So I met Missy young.com, M I S S Y Y O U N g.com. And I'm also on Instagram, Twitter at at Missy byte. And that's M I S S Y B Y T E. Isn't it? It is. But that came from, you know, back in the day when our company was smaller.
Our CEO hired a comic book artist to draw all of us and to give us all our own avatars and characters with super powers and, and all of that. Cause we're all super into comic books and Spotify. And so my character's name was bytes because my superpower was sarcasm. I have no idea where that came from, but yeah, so, so all of us who, who have been at the company that long, you know, we have our own avatars.
And so we, we, we still use the names and it's my license plate on my car. And, you know, I love it.
Tony: I love it. I love it. Okay. Last question. I always love to ask people and it's an advice question. And I like to take people back to a specific moment in their life. And so and give them, ask you to give yourself one piece of advice.
So I'm going to take you to the, your first day in Las Vegas, Nevada. You just moved your family here. You just took this big, bold move and you can go back in time and you can talk to that younger version of Missy. What's the one piece of advice you're going to give her.
Missy: Learn how to be empathetic because that, that was not something that I took with me into the role and is coming up in a small company, we all wore all the hats.
We all did, all the things we did, all the jobs, you know, you do whatever it takes to make the company go. And then as the company grew, there were. You know, we hired more people and there would be a big job. And, you know, I would say, okay, go get, go get this done. And I found out later that people had feelings, you know, about the way that I said things.
Tony: What I really like was the time to pause. What I learned later is that people had feelings.
Missy: Yeah, it was well, I can pay, you know, I was like, why are you having feelings about this? There's no crying in technology to get the job done, you know, but my CEO, Rob, thankfully, he's, he's a very empathetic human and he would come into my office later and basically hold a mirror up to me and say, do you know how you made that person feel?
Do you have any idea how you just impacted that room when you said this? And I would, I was originally, I would go home. What are you talking about? What do you mean? Why are they having fun? Why are they so sensitive? Right. I always meant put it back on them, but luckily Rob is a mentor to me and he refused to let me just stay there.
So I started learning about empathy and how, you know, through trial and error and not getting it right. You know, learning how to be a more empathetic leader, because at the end of the day, it's really not going to be about. Did we get that job done that we get that deal done? Did we complete that project?
It's how did you make people feel? How did you treat them? That's really? What matters most? How did you treat your employees? How did you treat your customers? How did you treat your friends and your family? And I would say, how do you treat your family is probably the biggest thing we need to pay attention to because that's typically who we treat the worst.
Tony: Yeah, that's so good. Wow. This is so good. I got a whole page full of notes, Missy. I'm so thankful for you. Thank you for being so generous with your time. And I can't wait to see what God does this incredible platform. Thank you for the time today.
Missy: My pleasure, Tony and I got to tell you, thank you so much for your friendship.
It's been an absolute blessing to have you in my life. And I really appreciate the chance to come in here and you know, for me to be a complete windbag on your show. So thank you. Thank you.
Tony: Thanks Tony. I love Mrs. Hart and all of this and this idea about being faithful in the little things is just something that you should keep showing up in my life again and again.
Faithful in the little things, and God will do big things through that. And I think that's a, that's a good word. If you haven't yet follow Missy on the socials, make sure you subscribe to her podcast. Boldly go. I've listened to that conversation with Bob golf. It was so good. Bob said it's a great guy.
One of my bucket list, guests for me. And we're going to keep trying to get him on the podcast and many, many others this summer. We've got a great lineup. Coming your way. I'm super excited for them and for their stories and for the way that it's gonna really help you grow in your walk with Jesus. So again, three things you can do to help the podcast.
You know them. I know them. First one hit the subscribe button. Second one, leave a rating or review on iTunes. Third one, share this episode with a friend. Thankful for you guys. Can't wait to see what God does next. We'll catch up real soon.
