We caught up with the brilliant and insightful John Mrazek a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

John, appreciate you joining us today. When you were first starting out, did you join a firm or start your own?

I started my non-profit/ministry coaching service at the strong recommendation of a good friend and to answer the question of a new customer. I was happily serving in a local college helping the students find employment and coaching them about next steps. Then I received a call from the pastor of a church in Parker that was stuck at 500 and suffering from staff burn-out and broken systems and processes that were not scaling up to match their growth. During the process of helping the staff assess business practices and systems and implementing best practices, I found a new career path that leveraged my business experience, education, and desire to finish the last third of my career doing something that was bigger than me. I found the best version of myself helping struggling leaders and staff create cultures and environments where they could find the best versions of themselves.

John, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am a corporate refugee who has an incredibly messy resume and a P.h.D in Leadership and Organizational Development. I started my professional career attending a Diesel Technical school in Laramie Wyoming immediately after graduating from high school. I completed that 6-month long program and immediately returned to Illinois where I fixed Mack trucks for almost 5 years. During that time I met and married my wife and she challenged me to consider a career in computers. With her help, I found a night program at Devry that was 2 years long and taught me IT at a completely unnecessary level I later found out.. During that part of my career, I did everything from bench tech repairing circuit boards to the IT Director of a multi-site national retail company that sold heavy-duty truck parts. My last IT role was as the IT Director of a small college where I fell in love with the world of higher education and the chance to coach students and staff. During my time in IT management, I attended college classes as a 32-year-old adult and earned a Bachelor’s in Business Administration and a Master’s in Management Arts. I used these degrees to lead businesses and gain marketable experience leading staff and completing large projects. I eventually burned out in IT and tried my hand at running my own retail feed store business. I created a business plan that won me a distributorship from Purina, Buckeye, and Kent feeds. I ran my feed store business for 3 years and learned a lot of valuable lessons that I am able to use today as I coach different types of organizations. I returned to school in my late 40s and earned a Ph.D. that I have used in both my leadership and teaching roles. I transitioned from a for-profit world into a non-profit world where I have served as the business administrator for 2 churches and served at my local rescue mission helping recovering addicts find employment, housing, and transportation. My program was 100% successful for 3 years and was operational until the mission ran out of money and I was let go. For the last 6 years, I started and now operate a business coaching service that helps leaders get unstuck and implement best practices. I am now using all of what I learned in my many different roles to care for followers well and help organizations make a profit on purpose instead of by mistake.

Do you have any stories of times when you almost missed payroll or any other near death experiences for your business?

During the time while I led our 2 store feed store businesses, we had several instances where we barely made payroll for our staff. Writing checks for our employees meant that sometimes we had to skip paying ourselves and that was really tough when we had bills piling up at home. One of the things that were hidden from us when I created my business plan was the tendency in the market for the customers to not pay their feed bills ever. We talked about repo-ing the feed. But once it has gone through the horse it is difficult to take back. Eventually, the combination of customers not paying and a fragile economy caused us to close our stores and lose everything in a business and personal bankruptcy. I learned a lot about assessing markets and managing cash flow and that has helped me coach organizations through tough financial situations with compassion and no judgment. I have also become a stickler for knowing where every nit-n-tittle is at when I manage the financials. Before I will help an organization with its finances, I require that they adopt a policy of totally transparent finances. All of this came out of an incredibly painful time when I learned how important it is to understand your customer, and the marketplace, and how important an aggressive cash flow management strategy is to the success of the business.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

One day when my 3 daughters were 6 years old and younger I came home 2 hours early from work. My wife and daughters were excited and were dancing around the kitchen because it meant an early dinner. The only problem was that I was home early because I had been fired from my IT leadership job of 4.5 years. Of course, it was a total surprise to me and nothing in the excellent annual review I had just received had prepared me for this horrible situation. That was Monday. By that Wednesday, I received a call from an old boss who was looking for an IT Director to build the infrastructure for a 181-store, nationwide retail network. By the close of business, 2 days after being fired I had a new job with an unlimited budget, an exciting network to build, and making $20,000.00 more than I had been making in the previous job. It was a dark time between the 2 jobs. But in the end, I was able to advance my career, add to my resume, and feel like a winner despite the opinion of my previous employer.

Contact Info:

• Website: sharedxp.org
• Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/johnmrazeksharedxpexecutivepastorcoach