Introducing Season 5 of ‘Crossing the Line’

[00:00:00] Hey everybody, this is Larry Little. And you're listing the Crossing the Line, a podcast

[00:00:14] where we talk about leading with your head and leading with your heart and leading

[00:00:19] with your head. And it has been an awesome ride for, well, this is the fifth year. It's

[00:00:24] amazing. I just can't hardly believe it. But you know, in last season we did something

[00:00:29] a bit different. We sent out a survey. We wanted to hear you. We wanted to listen.

[00:00:33] What is it that you need from this podcast? Well, you responded incredible feedback.

[00:00:39] We listened so therefore are you ready for this? And season five, we're going to shake things

[00:00:45] up. We're going to do things entirely different. We're going to focus on you. You said in

[00:00:51] your surveys to us, you said, Hey guys, we need some help. We want to talk about relationships.

[00:00:56] We want to talk about people. We want to talk about the people in our life who are important

[00:01:01] and we thought about that. Got with Robin, our producer over here who you've heard me

[00:01:05] talk about who's the most incredible person in the world that keeps this thing going. I

[00:01:09] said, What can we do? It was kind of obvious. And as we brainstormed, we decided let's bring

[00:01:16] on somebody who can help you to talk about relationships. Somebody that you've known

[00:01:20] for over 30 years, somebody that is your partner in the business world who has worked

[00:01:27] with people on the counseling level for relationships who works with people on the professional

[00:01:32] level in relationships. Well, Robin, we could call her the relationship guru maybe. And

[00:01:39] she is here today in the studio her name Melissa Jackson and incredible woman who has led

[00:01:46] for years. And well, maybe not so many years, but has led a long time at least certainly

[00:01:53] enough to have expertise and credibility. Melissa, I am so glad you're going to be joining

[00:01:58] me for this season and you're going to be a co-host on Crossing the Line. Welcome.

[00:02:02] Thank you, Larry. I'm really looking forward to this. I'll take any positive comments from

[00:02:07] you. Thank you for that. This is going to be an exciting time because relationships

[00:02:13] are so important and we all need help with relationships. And so, you know, we need

[00:02:17] to do this together so that we can really help those that have a desire to learn about

[00:02:23] relationships at the next level. So I'm really looking forward to it. And you are the

[00:02:27] guru. Here we go. Listen, we've had a lot of fun together 30 years in long time. It's

[00:02:32] a long, long time. You know, a lot of memories, a lot of history, a lot of learning, learning

[00:02:38] about relationships and so this is a good time to kind of capitalize on that and help us

[00:02:43] all in our relationships. Well, we're going to walk down the road with you guys. We're

[00:02:47] going to explore some things specifically. We're going to tell some stories. We're going

[00:02:51] to give you some few statistics, but hopefully we're going to give you some really good

[00:02:55] content around understanding yourself and understanding others. Yeah, let's talk about

[00:03:01] this first because you know, that desire is so important. And I think about you and

[00:03:07] I think about you writing these concepts, you putting pen to paper and making it a reality

[00:03:14] and really growing opportunity for all of us to learn how to deal with different people.

[00:03:21] So I want to hear from you talk about how long, how long ago did you have that desire?

[00:03:27] When did it form? What did it look like? How did you gain the skill to be able to understand

[00:03:32] relationships? Well, now you know, Melissa, I'm just a young man.

[00:03:36] Very young. Very, very young. This is going to sound weird, but when I was like 12 years

[00:03:45] old, I had this dream because I saw relationships that were difficult. I saw you know, people

[00:03:54] just trying to do the best they could. I saw my family just doing the best we could

[00:04:00] do our friends, but not really understanding at 12. And I had this dream at 12 or so.

[00:04:07] I was like, if I could write a book to help people, I didn't have it contextualized. I

[00:04:13] didn't have it. But 12 years old. Yeah, I remember it vividly. I mean, I was thinking, you

[00:04:18] know, if I could write a book that would help people, wouldn't that be cool? That they

[00:04:23] could just read and it would it would help them in their lives. That's about as far as

[00:04:27] I got, but then as I got older and became a young man, I'd never lost that dream. And

[00:04:33] I would read different books and think about what if I wrote a book to help people?

[00:04:41] And then and then ways we kind of kind of walked through that journey. It became a reality

[00:04:48] when it really started with this tool that I developed because I saw families hurting. I

[00:04:57] saw relationships hurting. I saw people not understand how to communicate, how to talk

[00:05:03] in it and they were very different. So then I began a process.

[00:05:08] How many years ago? Well, let me think about that. Yeah, that's the key.

[00:05:12] That's the book. Exactly. Let's see, the piece from the book was probably in, was it late?

[00:05:19] Was maybe early 90s, maybe something like that where I began to do research around it.

[00:05:24] And I knew I wanted to do something. I started playing with it, started kind of looking

[00:05:29] at that. And then I got serious with it and through some of the work through the

[00:05:34] dissertation that I did for the doctorate before that. I had the concepts. I've been

[00:05:41] working on them for years. But then I then I really kind of got serious about it and

[00:05:45] did research. And I looked at from from way back to Col Young's work all the way up through

[00:05:53] the different psychologists and try to put some of that work together to see what had

[00:05:58] been done in the area of temperaments. You know, in the area of who are we and what makes

[00:06:03] us different? And I discovered that you know, there's a lot of material out there. The

[00:06:11] problem was not that there wasn't a plethora of understanding. In other words, I didn't

[00:06:15] have to go back and reinvent the wheel. What the problem was is that when we want to dive

[00:06:21] into that, there's so much of it and it's so complicated people couldn't use it.

[00:06:25] You know, that's something about you that I've seen over the years. It's a pattern of

[00:06:30] wanting to make things very practical for people, wanting people to understand things

[00:06:34] at the next level. So they can they can put it in a practice immediately. They can apply

[00:06:39] it. They can use it to strengthen their relationships. And I've always seen that this does that.

[00:06:45] It makes it easier to understand and apply. That's something you're very good at.

[00:06:50] Well, it's something I want to be good at. I think my, you know, my whole deal is to be

[00:06:55] able to take as a communicator, as someone who has a desire to help others. If I could

[00:07:00] take some things that are a bit complex, I could get kind of, you know, twisted and

[00:07:05] spilling up in our head or what if I could take some of that and just bring it down so

[00:07:09] we could I call it practical application. We could practically apply it. I think that's

[00:07:14] where I think that's where the river meets road, right? I know I like to have it simple

[00:07:19] so I can use it and I can understand it. And so I thought let's do this research. Let's

[00:07:24] find out, you know, what it is that the psychologists have said throughout the years about

[00:07:31] temperaments about personalities. But let's take that and then let's put it into a system

[00:07:37] that people could use. That's where the tool started and that's on the tool. I'll always

[00:07:43] say that we've written, it's called the Make a Difference Profile. And we're going to

[00:07:48] be talking about that because it deals with, you know, monkeys and camels and turtles

[00:07:55] and lions and those kind of things. And the reason I did that was to put it into a word

[00:08:00] picture to make it simple so that we can get it. We're going to be talking about that,

[00:08:04] but that's not new. I didn't invent that. That was, you know, man, that was founded and

[00:08:09] research told a long time ago about these brilliant men and women. I took their work

[00:08:14] and I created a tool that was practically applicable. And I think, you know, that we've

[00:08:20] been able to use will talk about that a bit later. But back to your question, my journey

[00:08:27] began when I saw, you know, the real need for people to understand differences in others

[00:08:34] and understand themselves. So you had a desire there and that desire really grew into a concept.

[00:08:41] And then you took the concept and you researched it and you gave it to people, right? You studied

[00:08:49] people, you studied how they understood it and what they did with it and how it helped them

[00:08:56] over the years and then turned it into the profile in the book. Yeah, that's exactly right. We

[00:09:03] wrote that profile. Then we tweaked on it and we changed it and we redeveloped it and kind of

[00:09:08] looked at, you know, what grade level did we want to write it at and thought, okay, if we can

[00:09:16] can write this so everybody can understand, you know, the language is a wording of it. So it was

[00:09:21] it was, you know, a few years of changing this, changing that kind of. But then we launched it and,

[00:09:28] you know, now we're here at, I don't know what 30 years later maybe. And it's been kind of

[00:09:35] amazing to see how many people have used that thing. How many things? Well, we did a little

[00:09:41] research on that recently and our research in Tech Guru Robin helped us to find a number of that.

[00:09:50] And just over the past 25 years, we think that over a million people have taken

[00:09:57] what's taking that profile. It's kind of overwhelming to think about actually.

[00:10:03] So the impact of helping a million people plus their relationships is quite a, quite a lazy

[00:10:11] which ties into kind of what motivates you in drives you. What are your core values?

[00:10:17] So my core values are growth and wisdom. And if you kind of put that into context, I really want

[00:10:25] to facilitate personal growth and shared wisdom, personal growth growing and shared wisdom in order

[00:10:33] to help others to make a difference in their lives. And that's been so fortunate, so blessed

[00:10:39] if you will, to be able to walk with others, to learn from them, to facilitate personal growth,

[00:10:44] to grow myself, to continue to grow to this day. But to see others grow in order to make a

[00:10:50] difference. And I've seen that. I've seen their lives really change because they use the concepts of

[00:10:55] our make a difference tool or make a difference book. You know, I'm less out of, never will forget,

[00:10:59] I was speaking about this and in a seminar format. And this little couple came up and I said,

[00:11:08] you know, we've been married 65 years. And if we only known this early, we never knew this. But

[00:11:17] from this day forward is going to help us and they were so sweet. And I thought wow, 65 years in

[00:11:23] marriage and they're willing to grow and learn and grasp on these concepts, which is the secret,

[00:11:29] by the way, the secret to the test is not some type of scientific analytical validity, although it

[00:11:38] is valid. But it's really, it's valid because it's only as true as the person is taking it as they

[00:11:44] are honest. And it's been a fun ride. It's been amazing to see. It's free, by the way, it's a free

[00:11:52] test. We'll talk about how to take it and where to go later. But to see that many people take

[00:11:58] that little test is pretty cool. They really is. So tell us, you know, how have you used it every

[00:12:06] years at work at home? How have you made it just a part of your life and used it to make your

[00:12:13] relationships better? Well, yeah, that's a great question because one thing to go write something

[00:12:18] and to go do is that's another thing to use it. And say, the greatest validation is, can you

[00:12:24] practically apply it? Can you practically use it? And it's really interesting. If you go back

[00:12:29] in my family, my wife who is a camel, and for those of you that don't know what that is, that's

[00:12:35] why you're going to hang out with us. We're going to show you what a detailed oriented camel

[00:12:39] lion looks like, a very below the line in our vernacular task driven person who married at that time

[00:12:45] when we married almost 40 years ago, married a little monkey turtle who was just easy going and

[00:12:53] loved everybody and thought for sure everybody loved him. And what a what a awakening we had to learn how

[00:13:03] to speak their tongue in a totally different language. I was above the line. She was below the line.

[00:13:09] We had to figure out how am I going to speak a language that doesn't resonate with me?

[00:13:15] It doesn't, yeah, I don't understand it. So the word that comes from my mind is you have to be

[00:13:19] intentional. So we have to be intentional. I'm still 40 years. I'm still working on it. I'm

[00:13:24] still wanting to be intentional. I'm still trying to figure out how to best communicate to her.

[00:13:30] And that's a choice. It's really what it's about. Do you want to choose to learn to grow?

[00:13:35] And if I were going to go speak Spanish, I would have to choose to go take the classes to be

[00:13:40] intentional. Well, this is the same. It's a lifelong process of choosing to learn to grow.

[00:13:46] Then we had our children and our daughter, old turtle monkey came in to being and raising her as a

[00:13:55] child and raising her as a teenager. And that was a learning experience, but that handlebar,

[00:14:02] those handlebars of, hey, this is what speaks to her. This is how to speak her language.

[00:14:08] I can't tell you how valuable it is. How do you build influence with her? Yeah, yeah. Exactly.

[00:14:13] But I had a son, two years younger who's very different. So he had some camel things going on

[00:14:20] with him and some lion things and little turtle mixed in there too. And so I had to really figure out

[00:14:25] what do me? The language I spoke with my daughter Lauren is very different than the one you can't

[00:14:31] use it with land. And he's a different person. So those handlebars have helped me throughout

[00:14:36] years to build a relationship, to build influence with them and effectively communicate with them.

[00:14:44] But that's kind of my journey. That's kind of how we got here. And here you are.

[00:14:50] Here you are with them. I mean, we're here. We've been together for a long time.

[00:14:53] But tell us a little bit about how did you get involved in this thing? How did you get involved

[00:14:58] in what we're doing? You know, I wasn't 12, but, um, but, you know, I looked around and saw

[00:15:06] kind of similar. I saw relationships. I was a monkey growing up and valued relationships,

[00:15:15] and those were so important to me. I wanted to have friends. I wanted to please. And so I had this

[00:15:22] this ability to see struggles and other people see what was, you know, what went well in their

[00:15:29] relationships with adults, with kids. And so, you know, I had this desire to really

[00:15:36] to watch that and observe that. And growing, growing up, you know, I could pick out and see how

[00:15:46] people were different and also see how a lot of times opposites would attract. And then every

[00:15:52] time they would repel. And, you know, what that started to look like and play out in families.

[00:15:59] And into my 20s, I'm a really started figure now. You know what? I want to do something with that.

[00:16:05] That I want to be able to have meaningful relationships. I want to learn from people that

[00:16:12] that have those that appeared. They have some kind of insight on that.

[00:16:16] I want to figure out how to create a legacy of relationships. My core values are legacy growth.

[00:16:24] I love to grow. I love to see other people grow. I love to see them, you know, work on something and

[00:16:30] whether it's something tangible tactical or if it's something internal. And they work on that and

[00:16:35] they transform it into something and it becomes better for the moment. So that really drives me

[00:16:42] to want to put some things together. Seeing divorce, seeing struggles with parents having with

[00:16:51] children in my own family experiencing that and seeing that my own family growing up.

[00:16:58] I knew there could be something different. I saw it and other people and so, you know, it created

[00:17:05] kind of a controversy internal to figure out how do we help people? How do we help them?

[00:17:13] Is this so difficult that you can't reach it or is it as simple as learning and being open

[00:17:21] and being hungry and curious about other people and getting yourself in that vein so that you can

[00:17:27] really learn from them but also help them, help them learn about others. And so it pushed me,

[00:17:33] it pushed me. And we connected early on in my Twinies and you know, you had had some

[00:17:43] you know, path forward with what you were doing and it clicked and with others it clicked on our team

[00:17:51] and then things started taking off and we grew this company and this organization of people with

[00:17:57] like Madanissa had that same, the same kind of desires to go help people and help help them in

[00:18:03] their life. So it's been a fun ride. It's been a really fun ride. It has been fun ride and you know,

[00:18:09] go back think about what you just said, the legacy of relationships. And when we began this

[00:18:15] journey, your drive, you had that passion, you had that desire to create a legacy of relationships

[00:18:22] and teach others how to do that. And I think the you know, the ideas that we had, the constructs

[00:18:28] that we had, we worked hard. We tried to figure out how to grow this thing, how to make this thing

[00:18:34] happen. And now, you know, 25 years later here we are doing this but let me ask you this,

[00:18:41] you said, you know, I experienced some of this. I wanted relationships that were different. I knew

[00:18:46] things could be different. So you went to work and you've worked at it. You've truly invested

[00:18:52] in. But is this really for everybody? Who is this for? Who is this make a difference thing we're

[00:18:59] going to be talking about? Who's it? Who needs it? That's a great question because I don't think you

[00:19:05] always know the how, the how to get get someplace, how you how you have to get to what you want it

[00:19:13] to look like. You've got a vision for something. We don't always know how to get there. And so,

[00:19:18] that's we're learning from others. It really comes into play but I think the person that this is for

[00:19:25] is that person that has a desire for something different, different in their relationships.

[00:19:30] Something that they feel like, you know, there's something about me that, you know, I need to learn

[00:19:40] from somebody else. And that person that has an interest in having a better relationship,

[00:19:47] that person that has an interest and maybe doing away with something that has contributed to,

[00:19:53] you know, relationship that hadn't worked as well as they wanted to. That desire, there's got

[00:19:58] to be in my opinion, there has to be a desire there that is going to make them curious for something

[00:20:05] they don't have. It's going to make them curious for something that maybe they do have it at works

[00:20:10] with some people in that dynamic. But it's a desire, it's an interest,

[00:20:16] bottom on it's an interest. You know, it's an interest and I think we have to understand that

[00:20:22] relationships are fluid. So things change us from time to time. I, you know, in one season of life

[00:20:29] even or one environment, you may experience this, you go back to my situation. My, you know,

[00:20:35] my wife married this monkey turtle and I'm not that personality type doesn't,

[00:20:42] those aren't the primary personality types that I represent these days. Things have changed a bit.

[00:20:46] I've become maybe a little bit more of a lion maybe still but even in that, I still have some of

[00:20:52] that that muckiness that light heart. So what do you do with that? It's important to become a lifelong

[00:20:58] learner of relationships. That love your phrase was a legacy of relationship. So I mean, that means,

[00:21:03] you know, continuing to invest creating that legacy that goes on and on and on because relationships

[00:21:09] that are healthy, they're fluid. They change. They grow. And if they don't grow then they're stagnant,

[00:21:15] right? That's right. So I'm excited about this. We're going to help folks to think about their

[00:21:19] relationships professionally, personally. We're going to help them to even maybe understand

[00:21:23] themselves a little bit better so that they can have a life that's fulfilling and that's,

[00:21:29] and that's brings joy not only to them, but to others that they can live on purpose.

[00:21:34] Find that purpose. The only question is how much do you truly value those in your circle of

[00:21:41] influence? How much do you truly value their relationships here? If you value them, then they're

[00:21:45] worth working on. And we're going to give that to the content but we're going to talk about it

[00:21:51] in everyday format. We're going to talk about it in just practical application. And we're excited

[00:21:57] about where that's headed. We're excited about this season five. I'm going to give you a chance

[00:22:02] to say one more thing to our folks. Welcome to this podcast. I'm so pumped that you are here with me.

[00:22:08] Man, it's just going to be so much better with you sitting here as this co-host. So I am excited.

[00:22:15] What do you want to say to our audience before we get off of this? Our time has gone. We get off

[00:22:19] this podcast. First of all, thank you and thank you for those that are going to listen and we really

[00:22:24] just want to be able to bring everyday life issues to the forefront, life relationship, struggles.

[00:22:32] And really just talk three of those and figure out how do you use these concepts to adjust some

[00:22:38] things in your life and make it easy, make it practical, make it where you could do it every day.

[00:22:43] And that will be a joy to be able to do that together. All right, Melissa, we're doing things

[00:22:48] different. We're checking things up, right? So we're going to check it up. So we're going to end

[00:22:52] every part of my favorite part. I'm so pumped about this. We're going to end every podcast with a

[00:22:59] dad joke with a dad joke. I love it. We're going back to the waiting and monkey days.

[00:23:03] I'm going back there. Are you ready? That's a nice little book. I got a ready that come from

[00:23:08] your bed. I'm ready, right? My daughter actually gave me this dad joke because I love the tail.

[00:23:12] Sweet daughter. I know. I love the tail jokes. Okay. Are you ready? I'm ready. All right. Did you hear

[00:23:18] about the narcissistic astronomer? No, I did not. She thought she was the center of the universe.

[00:23:29] That's for another day. Hey, thank you for joining us on Crossing the Line. We are super excited

[00:23:36] that you have chosen to be with us. Hey, just reach up and click that follow button and

[00:23:41] you'd be a part of our journey this season. We would certainly be honored to have you along as

[00:23:46] we talk about relationships, legacy building of relationships as we talk about how to make a

[00:23:51] difference in the lives of those you love, live with and lead. We'll see you next time.