TSLP Season 4- Champions Don’t Panic

🎙️ New Episode Alert: Champions Don’t Panic with Cameron Magee
In this powerful episode of the Transformation Station Leadership Podcast, I sit down with Cameron Magee to discuss what separates champions from everyone else when pressure rises, uncertainty hits, and challenges intensify. #LeadershipDevelopment #GrowthMindset

Champions are not fearless, they are trained to stay grounded, disciplined, and intentional when others panic. #Resilience #MentalStrength

Learn more about Cameron:
Website: https://avad3.com
LinkedIn:   / c-magee 

👉 Comment with a question you’d love answered in the episode. Because great leadership deserves clear, confident visibility.

Leadership Principle:
Champions are not defined by the absence of pressure, but by their ability to remain focused within it.
#LeadershipPodcast  #TransformationStationLeadership

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Transcript

0:01

Pressure doesn't break great leaders. No, it reveals them. And the question is not whether pressure will come, but whether you've trained to lead through it without panicking. Come on, let's go ahead and get this conversation started. We're talking about pressure. That's right. High expectations, fast decisions, and moments where everything feels urgent. This can either create panic or it can build champions. Well, I'm super excited for you to meet our guest today. I can't wait to tell you about Cameron and then for you to meet him. But before you do, I want to remind you to make sure that you join us here on Transformation Station every Monday and Wednesday. Because on Monday and Wednesdays, we meet great leaders, gurus in the industry who give us practical tips and wisdom. And you know what? You don't want to miss one episode, not one. Matter of fact, I want to remind you that coming up soon, we have Kathy Eastwood who is going to join us, and we're going to be talking about leadership isn't complicated. That's right. So you want to join us for this conversation. And for those who want to go deeper, like you want to continue to engage with mobilizing with impact, I'm going to invite you to go to our community group, mobilizingwithimpact.com. You want to join us there, we get a chance to meet and engage and talk and dive deeper. We have once a month leadership seminars. If you're not a part of this community, you know what? You're missing out. So go to mobilizingwithimpact.com right now. Go right now and join us. And I can't wait to see you there. Well, let me tell you a little bit about our guest today. Today, I had the honor of having Cameron McGee with us, and he is the founder and CEO of AVAD3, a national production company trusted to deliver flawless and high-stakes events and conferences for more than 20 years. He has been behind the scenes of some of the most visible gatherings in the country, producing summits and galas and conferences for Walmart and the White House and major associations. And you know what? What sets Cameron apart is not just the productions that he leads, but it's his passion, which you're going to see when we talk. His passion for teaching planners how to navigate budgets and rehearsals and technology with confidence. You know what? I'm done talking because it's time for us to meet Cameron. Cameron, welcome to Transformation Station Leadership Podcast. We're so thrilled to have you with us today. It's an honor to be here. What a great lead in. I love your energy. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. Well, listen, we're talking about pressure. And you know, Cameron, we as leaders talk about many things, but I have to admit that pressure really isn't one that we spend a whole lot of time. We feel it, we sense it, we see it through how we engage, but we don't really talk about it. So I'm looking forward to this conversation today. And and I want to start off by by uh highlighting this and then asking you this question. When I think of how to thrive under pressure, I know for a long time I thought that I had to eliminate my stress in order to thrive. But now, as I've been in leadership for almost three decades, I realized that a lot of it has to do with strengthening my ability to keep myself focused, to stay centered, to stay grounded in the midst of the pressure. So, pressure, every leader faces it. Not all of us handle it well. Um, so let me ask you this what separates those who thrive under pressure from those who freeze or burn out? I love it. It's a great question. I can't wait to talk about this, Adrian. Events are a lot of pressure. Um, we do over 150 events a year all over the country. So they're they're just another day for us and our folks. But for most event planners that we're working with, they do, you know, one or three events a year. And so it's always a high-stakes moment. You know, um, different events that are business summits or something, maybe they only do one a year and it's their moment in front of their, all of their stakeholders to get it right. Nonprofits doing a gala or something. It's like this is our night, one night a year to make budget for the coming year. It's a lot of pressure. Um, I love your question there of, you know, in leadership. You can't always make it go away. Um, in my personal life, I'm a I'm a pilot. I fly just little planes, little Cessna planes. I run them out of our local airport, and it's a lot of fun. But my my best friend in high school, uh, a lot smarter than me, a lot more gifted than I am, he he went to the Naval Academy and he flies F-35s for the military, which is a huge honor. And when I talk to Nick, the training that he has to go through, they go through all this G-force training and this pressure training. And you he has videos where his face is sucked back in the chair, and it just makes you appreciate what these men and women do for our freedom. Um, but that's not a pressure that I'm ready for as a pilot. I like the Cessna pressure. And so for me, I think you have to know your aptitude. And just because I'm not ready for that today doesn't mean in 10 years I may not be ready for it. The president of the United States was 36 once. You know, they, you know, they may not have been ready for that pressure at that time, but it's about getting yourself ready for that pressure, not running from it, embracing it, but also knowing your limits and maybe not becoming an enterprise Fortune 500 CEO at age 16 or something like that. There's a reasonable amount of pressure at the difference between being challenged and being overwhelmed, perhaps. So that's some first thoughts on that topic. I love that question. Yeah, I love that. And you know, here at Transformation Station, we invite those who are listening and watching to stop, pause, and really hone in on what is being discussed. And so, to all of our leaders, I want to ask you right now, as Cameron has started this conversation, what's resonating when you with you when we talk about pressure? Even when you look at this question, what separates those who thrive from and those who freeze or burn out? What would you say? Go ahead and tell us in the chat. We want to hear from you today. And, you know, as you were talking, Cameron, I was thinking about like how do we move forward, right? As we wrestle with the tension or freezing of freezing or burning out. And I was thinking about this best practice that we could posit to our listens and viewers, you know, just develop consistent routines that will strengthen focus and clarity before the high pressure situations arise. So many times, Cameron, we just focus on what do I do in the moment? But man, there's some prevention work that we can do, right? Like be aware. I know that there was a season where I had to stop and say, you know what, Adrian, like what are your triggers? What are those daily practices? What are those habits? You know, if every time a tasker is due, you find yourself in the midnight hour burning the candle at the last minute and feeling stressed out, there's a problem. And the problem is not the tasker. That's right. The problem is the habits that you set up prior to, right? I love that. I love that. We had a we had a situation on an event just last week that it just brings up this story of what you just talked about. You know, when it's when the time to perform has arrived, the time to prepare has passed. That's a lot of alliteration. But I love that quote from a mentor years ago just saying that to me. And we had a situation last week where uh we actually prepared for the situation five years ago. And um, we had an event five years ago where a microphone died on stage. It's a freak accident. We we sell flawless event production. Like we're very passionate about if you hire us, there will be no flaws. But one of my favorite clients of all time said, you know, Cameron, it's not about striving for perfection that's unattainable. It's about how your team responds in those moments, is what I love about working with y'all. And so five years ago, we had a crazy situation where all the wireless technology in a whole building got zapped. I don't know if there was some like electronic pulse neighbor. I don't know what happened, but all wireless went down in a building. And so on that day we learned our lesson, we started hiding one wired microphone, an old school, like nobody uses these anymore, but just a tried and true wired microphone on the corner of the stage. That if anything were to happen, we know we can grab that. It's got a hundred-foot cable and we the show can go on. And we have put that same wired mic on the corner of every stage, 150 events a year, five years, 750 events not needed at one time. But last week we had a similar situation where crazy thing, a mic died. And because of our teams being prepared 750 times, we didn't panic in that moment. But had we not done that, I think everybody would have just panicked. But we were calm under pressure because we had prepared. That's just a quick story, but I just love this topic. I need you to go back and you started off with a phrase that I need to write down as a quote. You said the time to, I think the time to prepare. Yeah, I don't get credit for this one, but the mentor taught me, I was a very young man at the time. He said, When the time to perform has arrived, the time to prepare has passed. And that's that's worded in a haunting way that if you're at the time to perform and you have not prepared, that that time is in the past. But it's a it's a haunting, it's a healthy anxiety to say, okay, I need to prepare before the time to perform. I prepared for this podcast, you prepared for this podcast, I can tell. And so we're both here ready to go. But had we arrived ready to perform for the audience at this moment and we're not ready, it's that opportunity is passed and it's go time. Like I'm I'm I'm stuck on this quote right here. I just I like I have to marinate in it. When the time to perform has arrived, the time to prepare has passed. I'm passing that on to my staff because there's lots of wisdom in that. Thank you so much for sharing that. Let me ask you this question, right? So, in moments of stress or chaos, mindset becomes everything. How do you personally reset or ground yourself when the pressure starts to build? Yeah, everybody's everybody's different there. I I am a kind of an engineer type by nature. And so I'm I'm a very just if this, then that. I'm a kind of a pragmatic systems nerd, so to speak. And so in moments in my career, whether it's been in a live event where something goes wrong and I need to make sure that I can still lead through it and recenter, or a lot of the hardest parts of leadership in my job as a small business owner are more the HR things. It's more the the team situations or when something, you know, scary happens that's that's not necessarily a show, but it's it's important to our our culture and our people. And in those moments, again, because I'm an engineer and a nerd, I typically start running through more of a systems checklist. Um, just like again, I won't use too many pilot references. I'm a I love that's my hobby. I love flying, but there's a checklist for everything. If the engine goes out, you turn over this piece of paper and you run through the checklist. And that gives me assurance. We train for that when I was a student pilot. We trained for that of, okay, the engine just went out. And my flight instructor would do it in a mean way all the time. He'd just like, oh, the engine's out. Now what are you gonna do? And it, but it was meant to um remind you that you can't control the variable, but you can control how you respond to it. And as you said, the mindset's everything. And so staying calm in those moments, I think is important. I also know my weakness. I'm not great at optics or PR. I'm not great, you know, in that moment, I'm gonna objectively fix the issue. You know, maybe the microphone's gonna work all of a sudden, or if it's a team thing, it's okay, we've stopped the leak, the building's not gonna leak now or something. But I'm not great at thinking, like, well, how do what's the communication plan of this, or what's the role? I'm just like black and white, you know, one and zero, it's done, it's fixed, we're good. I'm still growing and being transformed in a leader on the PR of that and the press release of that to the team and communicating it's fixed, we're good. I'm so quick to move on. But that's a way that I'm growing and transforming at the moment, you know. I love that. You know, as you were talking, I was thinking to myself, man, it's it's almost like clarity comes from the intentional pauses. Clarity comes from the intentionality. And um, leaders, again, we want to hear from you. Share with us right now, DM, or put it in the comments as you're watching this on the replay or live. I want you to go ahead and put it in the comments. What's resonating with you? We want to hear your gems, and I promise I will share it on a future episode. So, Cameron, many people think calm equals confidence. But it's not always natural, right? So, what practices help leaders to train that ability to stay composed when things get intense? Yeah, so we we coach a lot of presenters. You know, I've worked with a lot of executives, executives for Fortune 500 companies, Fortune 1 companies. I'm honored to have that moment in my career, moments in my career. We've worked with the White House and really important people, um, not just executives or leaders, but musicians and performers and all sorts of folks. And really, there is no substitute for reps. Just I'm not a I'm not good at working out, but repetition, you know, reps in the gym, of there is no substitute for it. And we can have the most smoothest, charismatic leader in the whole world. But if we don't have a brief rehearsal to talk about, hey, what if this happens or what if that happens? Um, there's no there's no substitute. And so again, all my metaphors and everything I talk about and everything is always about live events because it's just where I've spent my entire life is preparing these people to look and sound their best on stage and things. But um, for me, what if I was working with another leader, it's that it's even if we can't get you on the stage, if we can't get you to the arena the week before, let's mock it in your in your conference room. I'm in a conference room right now. I've flipped a lot of these rooms where we get the table out of there, we set up the the confidence monitors, we'll put small lights really bright and kind of simulate, okay, this is this. And oh, the lights went out, you know. And similar to my uh student pilot years of just pulling the power, you have to have reps of getting your heart rate up, but then realizing it's gonna be fine. You got to do that 10 times where you're like, oh, it's it's this again. I know this feeling. And so as a small business owner, maybe that feeling is hey, we're low on cash in the bank account. In the early years, I wasn't as good at managing cash flow. And so I had a lot of reps of what it's like to be out of cash and have a problem that week. And now cash doesn't scare me as much because I've seen that, I've had that elevated heart rate and been fine. And so I'm assured, you know, it's kind of this cycle of alert and now what? And we did that and we're fine. And then that rep of repetition around situation. But I'm a little bit of a jerk in these rehearsals with the executives, not not trying to be mean, but you know, we'll we'll pause the prompter for a second and kind of see how they respond. Do they lash out at the prompter operator? Do they start calling them by name? You know, if this fails, do they assume it's them? Are they kind of more of a humble leader that it's like it's probably me? And that way we know how to kind of respond. If something were to go wrong, we can kind of read how does this person work? Um, but I do it for their own good. And I hope that they know that as a coach. Obviously, I'm just I'm pushing them for their own good, but it is, it's important to get the reps. Hopefully that's not too long-winded of an answer there, Adrian. That's a perfect answer. Wonderful answer, you know. Cause I was thinking to myself, just, you know, as we as leaders, as we look at how do we lead our teams with appropriate balance and making sure that our motives are in check, you know, there are some times where we can guide our teams into situations, circumstances that are not ideal to be able to. It's almost like I think about the phrase building muscle memory, building that muscle memory of how we want to conduct business, how we want, you know, I think about customer service, right? And it's so important. Sometimes you're gonna get a customer that comes in, they're upset, furious about something. What helps to de-escalate is when you're able to stay calm. When you don't match that fire with fire, right? But you just you just stay calm because then the person has to figure out am I still gonna be angry and upset and like they hear themselves, they notice that you're not matching that same intensity. And many times they tend to just they they still they're still firm, they're not happy, but they they tend to dial it down, right? And so, you know, a best practice that I thought about was practice leaders maintaining composure in every challenge and everyday challenges to build resilience for high pressure moments. It's important for us as leaders to practice having composure, not being perfect, because our people know we're not perfect, right? Not being perfect, but being progressive, practice having composure. Um, because I don't know about you, Cameron, but I've found that our teams they model what we put out. We set the temperature for sure. We're the thermostat for sure. So yeah, and just the same thing with kids, you know, you're setting the tone, they're gonna mirror off of that. But you can you can tell when someone you know blows their top or loses their cool that they haven't been in that situation before. And you can tell when people have that there was a moment a year or two ago, I think, I think it was Carrie Underwood, maybe at inauguration or something, but like her track didn't start. But she just paused for a minute, took a deep breath, and just sang the song a cappella because she's been doing this for 20 years. She's a pro and she actually got more credit for like that was cool. Um, but you can tell when somebody goes up and it doesn't go just right, whether it's a performer or a leader or a customer service moment, you can tell the calm confidence of I've prepared for this. Even if you haven't seen that exact situation, you're you're ready for it. So it's a good talk, it's a good discussion. I love it. So, you know, we often think of pressure as negative, like I was starting to say at the beginning, right? Uh, but it can also bring out greatness. How can we reframe pressure as an opportunity instead of as a threat? Yeah, I think that's so good. You know, it's it's 2026 when we're recording this. And I think in a in a way we've become so sensitive to being uncomfortable. But really, you know, discomfort is what leads to growth. You can't, again, I'm no athlete, it feels silly using a gym metaphor, but you have to tear a muscle for it to grow. You know, it's it's all of our journeys as leaders are all about stretching ourselves. And um, you know, when I was just starting out, and it was just me and a couple of folks as a small business, I could have stayed there. We've grown over the years. I'm really grateful to SOB and super blessed. We're a lot bigger and more, it's a it's a larger thing now. But I'm prepared for today because we went through the highs and lows of those reps through that season. Um, I think, you know, most organizations, myself included, really are limited by the leader more than anything. I think we could be as large as our company, as our team of odd three wants to be, it really comes down to how large of an organization am I capable and equipped to lead? And you see that sometimes in leaders. Maybe uh, you know, a replacement leader comes in or it gets handed to a, you know, someone's uh son or daughter or something like that. And and you can tell when maybe they've had a very comfortable life and they haven't had those adversities. But I think it's it's timeless wisdom. I think it's it's it's biblical wisdom to say make it make it difficult on a young man, on a young woman in their youth. Yoke them with a little bit of extra weight early so they're ready for it. You know, a good baseball player puts weight on the bat when they're warming up and then they drop that weight and go hit a grand slam. It's our job to have a little bit of pressure on us as leaders. And then the hard thing, what's really hard as a parent and as a coach and as a leader, is being willing to put that pressure on the individuals for their own good. That's something I confessed to somebody on my team literally yesterday and already this morning, it were just a few hours into the day was hey, I see this, I want to coach you through this. I think you need this, but I hesitate to say this right now because I can tell you're struggling. It's hard for me when you're struggling to say, here's some more weight on the bat, here's some more weight on the bar. But I think if you don't go through this moment now, you're not going to be prepared for where we're going. And so I'm always dancing with that. It's an awkward subjective dance of how much pressure is good for me and good for them. You again, you don't want someone to be overwhelmed and crack and break, but championship teams and Olympians are not formed from spending just spa days. I mean, you you have to get uncomfortable to be ready for the championship and the tournament. So, yeah, there's there's all sorts of good stuff there. I love this talk. Absolutely. So, so when pressure hits, right, emotions can take over many times. We're talking about emotions like um frustration, like fear, like doubt. Let's let's talk about emotions taking over for a few minutes. I am a firm believer that emotions are natural. But the but is just um they don't have to dictate every decision that I make or how I handle it. What are your thoughts? Yeah, I'm I'm grateful for emotions. I think emotions are a great indicator. I don't know what emotions animals have. I think my dog gets sad, I think my dog gets happy. You know, I can tell his tail's wagging, but I think that emotions. Are a gift to us as humans. And I think they're a great indicator. They're almost like a gauge on the dashboard in your car or something like that. This is a helpful input. An hour before we were on the air, I was in our shop, you know, next door. We're loading up. This is our busiest two weeks of the year right now. It's a big sprint. And one of our production managers flagged me over and said, Hey, this truck's about to load. I was looking over this piece of gear and I'm anxious about it. I'm nervous. Do we have enough spares of this gear? Because this show's on the road. It's going to be out of town. And she was like, I'm I'm anxious about this. And I loved responding and saying, Hey, I think that's a really good emotion in a healthy way. I think it's a healthy identification for you to say, I'm a little anxious about this. Perfect. Let's pay attention to that. Because that's what made you flag me over. Let's look at it. I'm not going to calm you down just to make you feel better. Let's objectively look and see this is how many you need, this is how many spares you have. Is that within a reasonable tolerance? Because we've had other shows where that anxiety fuels, they send double everything. Well, now we're sending double trucks. I mean, that's not efficient or effective for the client's budget. And so it's healthy to listen to emotion of I've got a little bit of anxiety about this. Okay. But I think you have to channel that into action to just stay anxious, to just stay scared, to just stay, even a good emotion, like confident. I've got swagger. I'm confident. Let's go. I'm going to go get this thing. Uh, check that and be like, you know, is that actually backed up by like facts and like you should be confident because you've been here before, or is it just arrogance? Right. Uh, but I think it's I think the emotions are a helpful indicator and should be used and channeled into action. Anxiety channeled into preparation, maybe confidence channeled into like research. Um, but they're not irrelevant. But I think that again, in in the modern day, I think we're we're over-emphasizing our emotions too much of oh, I feel this way. And so that must be true. Emotions are not true. We've all had a moment where we felt happy, but it actually wasn't, or we felt sad, but we just misunderstood our friend and what they said. And so I think if we treat emotions as a gospel, as a black and white, we all know better that emotions can trick us. You know, every cartoon has like an angel on their shoulder and a devil on their shoulder, and they're both talking to you. You can listen to either voice. I think it's important to not give the enemy a seat at your table. Um, and the emotion can be the enemy if you're not paying attention to really the truth of being grounded and what do I know is true here. Um, but yeah, I think emotions are a gift and they're an indicator, but they are not gospel, they are not factual, they are subjective and treat them like that, you know. 1000%. There are sometimes in our organization where as a staff we have a conversation, especially like when we're in a challenging season, and we'll have a conversation about fact over feelings. Let's put feelings to the side right now. What is true? What is real? What must happen when this conversation is over? Then we can bring in now, now how do you feel about what happened? But we can't start off with feelings as our foundation because it's so fickle, right? It changes, right? So, you know, I want to with that being said, facts like what strategies, what strategies help you? What strategies do you recommend to leaders to help us to regulate emotions so that our emotions don't derail our focus, or here's the big one, our decision making. Yeah. I love what you said about, you know, let's come back to the emotions, but first let's stay in this moment and protecting that moment. Yes. Um, I think what I would say, one of my favorite um mentors has been with me since the dorm room, like since founding the company. And I've I've got a monthly call on Zoom with this mentor. So we've been together for over a decade. And I just had my call to him last week, and I love I love staying in touch with him. He's older and wiser, and I gleaned so much from him. One of the first things he taught me early was the phrase, math has no emotion. And he caught me as a young man. Uh, and we're, yeah, I don't know if it's universal, but certainly as when I was a young man, I was more fueled by my emotions. I don't know if that's a sign from being a teenager or I don't know if I don't know what that is, but I was certainly more emotional then than I am now. Now I have children, and I it's my job to kind of stay grounded and help them with their emotions. But at the time, I think he noticed I was making a lot of decisions off of emotion. And he reminded me of something that has helped him, which is math has no emotion. And that's like, was that math has no emotion? Four words. And those four words kind of echo in my mind pretty quickly when I start to make a decision. We were making a leadership decision first thing this morning about how we're gonna spend this. We've got a pocket of time this summer. We have limited time. We can get some summer special projects done in our low season. Summer's our slowest time in events, believe it or not. Um, and so that's our moment. And we were looking at, we've got 10 good ideas, which ones are great ideas, because we can't do all 10. And that phrase came back up of, well, math has no emotion. Which one of which one of these projects helps our math? Which one of these projects helps our profitability? Which one of these projects moves the needle to set our team up to succeed for the fall? Not just which one of these do we feel good about or are we happy about or excited about? Those are all good feelings, but I think math has no emotion. So that that's kind of what I have to say about that. I love that. 1000%. So as we turn the corner on this conversation, which has been amazing, I want to ask you this final question. For the leader, the leaders that right now are listening, they're watching, who right now they feel overwhelmed. What's one or maybe two? What's what's one powerful shift that this leader can make today to move from panic to purpose and to perform with clarity and calm? Yeah, two things. I I'm incapable of getting out of that alone. And maybe I'm weaker than you as a audience member listening to this, whatever, and you say, Oh, I'm stronger than this guy, but I know that I'm too weak to get out of panic alone. And so for me, I've got three very important people in my life. I've got my wife, I've got my executive assistant, and I've got our lead integrator, our general manager over our business. And I can talk to any of those three at any time about, hey, I'm stuck here, or I'm uh in a panic here, or I'm worried here. And they can objectively help me talk that out. I don't think I'm alone in that. You know, a lot of children and things are like that too. You you have to, you have to talk it out because you have to go from subjective to objective on when you're stuck. And so the first thing I would say is don't isolate yourself. I try to be so self-resilient and self-reliant, and it's easy for me to try to be the rugged individual and say, I'll put it on my shoulders and I'll just go figure it out. Let me just go for a long walk or just pull them all night or never works. It never works. I a few minutes talking it out with someone, a qualified someone. So if it's something personal, absolutely my spouse. If it's something that's really just about me, it's like I'm stuck here, my executive assistant. If it's something in the business, our integrator, you know. So that's the first thing. Second thing, more than just talking it out, I have to stay grounded in the things that I do know are true. And so the big things important to me, my faith, my family, my relationships, how I'm using my time, my purpose, as you said, to go from panic to purpose. Those three can't, they can't find purpose for me. I have to find that within myself of what I'm gonna pledge my allegiance to and who I'm gonna be as an individual and what matters to me, which is grounded in scripture in the Bible, in my relationship with Jesus. Those things are so timeless and important to me that I can run filters through that to find purpose. So I think that's where the purpose is, is being reminded of these big things. I want to be a great husband, I want to be a great father, I want to be a great son. You know, these are the important things to me in my life, but I know I can't sort that out alone. And so not isolating myself and finding someone. But that's I think that's how I do it. I hope that's helpful for your listener out there. It is. You know what? I'm gonna put you on the spot one more time, and I'm gonna ask you to talk directly to a leader that is overwhelmed right now and just speak into that that leaders, speak into their their life. Yeah, yeah, I've been there. First of all, you're not crazy. Um it's normal what you're feeling. Um, you can't, as a leader, you can't do the things that you do without taking risks. You're not someone who's phoning it in, taking it easy. You didn't stay in your first job. You're you're pursuing and climbing something of a higher purpose. And when you stick your neck out like there, you're you're gonna get banged and bruised. And I've got bruises and scars and scrapes and stuff as well. I think it's worth it. Um, I could stay where I was, but I've been there. I've been in that spot. I I want to push myself to grow to be transformed. If you're still up for that, let's do it together. Um, I want you to, I want you to continue on that journey, but I can't promise you that this is the last scar, that this is the last bruise and bang. And so what I've made to myself is a commitment that the journey's worth it. And I think it's a moment for you to say, is this journey worth it? And there's no, there's no shame in quitting. There's no there, you're not a coward if you say I've actually had enough. We all find the limits. I I've led a company that was too big for really what I needed to be doing. And I've transformed that company to actually be smaller on purpose because I didn't like it. I don't consider myself a quitter for retooling and changing us and getting us to the right size of where I want us to be. It's not wrong to want what you want. But if you're down and you're dejected, you have a choice to make to continue journeying forward or stay where you are. Um, but the one constant that I've learned in life is change. And so if you want to stay where you are, I think just you don't have to make a commitment to growth at all costs and growth forever. But if you're if you're wanting to stay where you are, maybe make a commitment to yourself to give that a time limit. I'm gonna stay here for six months. I'm gonna stay here for three years, I'm gonna pause here. There's nothing wrong with with resting, sprinting and resting and resting before the sprint, but just don't make a commitment to stay there forever because um if you're still waiting for email to catch on, it's 1980 and you're like, I don't know if this is gonna work, like it has caught on. Like you can't stay where you were and where you are forever, but you can rest and take care of yourself so that you can then persevere. Hopefully that message resonated with somebody listening out there. Yes, no, thank you so much. And to every leader and listening that's uh leader that's listening and watching right now, Cameron has just spoken to you. He has encouraged and inspired. And Cameron, for everyone that wants to be able to reach out to engage with you a little bit further, what's the best way to do that? Well, you you can certainly go to our company's website, it's Avad3.com if if you need A V and event production. That's really the business case for me being on podcasts and why I'm pushed to do more of these is so that we're helping spread awareness about what our company does. So if you have a thousand-person national conference and you need an AV team, great, go to Avod3.com, say hello. We'd love to talk with you. We love to look at your old quotes and look at what you've been spending and just help you kind of steward that. And a lot of times we're not a great fit if it's not right, but that's what you can do professionally. Um, personally, this this podcast episode has been a lot about, you know, me as a leader and the the lessons that I've learned and the scars and things from my past. And so I would encourage you to connect with me on LinkedIn. Um, I I I love doing these. I get I'll get a lot of energy. You're a great host. I love I love doing these and just feeding off your energy. And so on a more individual level, I hope people connect with me on LinkedIn. It's Cameron McGee. My last name is spelled M-A-G-E-E. Um, but yeah, go follow me or connect with me on LinkedIn. Say hello. Say you listened to this and loved it or listened to it and had some feedback for me. I'm all ears. Um, but yeah, let's connect on LinkedIn so that so that this isn't goodbye. You know, this is hello. Absolutely. Well, listen, this is not goodbye, Cameron, because we're gonna have you back again. This has been a wonderful masterclass that I really feel like we just barely scratched the surface. And so there has to be a part two in the future, if you would have us. Um but thank you so much for joining us. It's been phenomenal. We look forward to seeing you again. And so all of our listeners and viewers, you know how what we do here, we like to support our guests. So I'm gonna invite you. The link is in the description box. Click on it, and or like Cameron said, find him on LinkedIn and engage, talk because we know the community that learns together, grows together, and we want to continue to keep growing. Cameron, thank you again. It's been wonderful to have you with us today. Thank you for having me. Best of luck with the show. Thank you. All right, well, listen, that was amazing. Today's conversation reminded me that pressure is not something to avoid, it was a reminder that it's actually something to prepare for. What are your takeaways? I'm inviting you right now to go ahead and put it in the chat. And uh also, I know that there are two leaders in your network that you can engage in this conversation with. So, what are you gonna do? Right now, go ahead and click share. That's right. Hit the button and share this episode with a minimum of two leaders in your network, and then don't just send it and let it go. Have a conversation with them because pressure is something that we all deal with. And be sure to subscribe to Transformation Station Leadership Podcast. And until next time, stay grounded, stay focused, and keep leading with confidence and purpose.