Servant Leadership: Building Influence and Resilience Through Strength, Empathy, and Purpose with Isreal Duran

“Leadership isn’t about being the loudest voice in the room. It’s about knowing when to lower your voice, to meet others where they are, and to lead from that place of grounded service.” - Isreal Duran

Discover how servant leadership can build authentic influence through empathy, strength, and vision. In this episode, Israel Duran shares practical strategies—including the Four Laws of Influence and Four Questions of Purpose—that empower leaders to lead with clarity, kindness, and purpose.

What if the true measure of leadership isn't control or charisma—but how clearly, compassionately, and consistently you show up for others?

Key Takeaway Insights and Tools

• The Four Laws of Influence:
  Israel breaks down his leadership framework into four core areas—Strength, Empathy, Kindness, and Vision—that define a leader’s impact.
  
  
• Emotional vs. Cognitive Empathy:
  True leaders balance emotional attunement with objectivity. Israel and Jason discuss how cognitive empathy prevents burnout while still fostering genuine connection.
  
  
• The Four Questions of Purpose:
  A powerful self-reflection tool to uncover your calling: What do you love? What do you hate? What makes you cry? What or who annoys you?
  
  
• Clarity Is Kindness:
  Leadership requires setting firm boundaries and expectations early. Being clear—especially in moments of correction—is an act of respect, not harshness.
  
  
• Voice + Void = Vision:
  Great leaders identify a void, find their unique voice, and use both to inspire and influence others toward a shared vision.
  
  

Bio

Israel Duran is a sought-after speaker, business growth partner, and trainer who empowers purpose-driven leaders to align vision with strategy through meaningful communication and servant leadership. He is the creator of the "Service of Speaking" framework and has trained hundreds of leaders, including over 300 pastors in the past year. Learn more at israelduran.com or connect with him on Instagram by searching @israelduran and messaging the word “blueprint” for a free leadership guide.

Links

• Free Resource:
  DM the word “blueprint” to https://www.instagram.com/israelduranassociates/?hl=en for Israel’s Online Business Blueprint guide.

Enjoyed this episode? Share it with someone navigating leadership with heart—and message Israel @israelduran with the word “blueprint” to receive his free Online Business Blueprint.

Chapters

• 0:00 The Pitfalls of Constantly Striving for Perfection
• 0:41 Embracing Sufficing: Making Tough Trade-offs for Success
• 1:04 The Importance of Self-Awareness and Self-Compassion for Longevity

Transcript

0:04

This is It's an Inside Job, and I'm your host, Jason Lim. This is the show where we explore the stories, strategies, and science behind growing resilience, nurturing well-being, and leading with intent. Because when it comes down to it, it's all an inside job. Well, welcome back to the show. Have you ever been told that being too kind or too empathic will make you a weak leader? In this episode, we unpack why the opposite may be true and how real strength often looks like humility, clarity, and care. And what if leadership wasn't about control or charisma, but about influence grounded in service? So today I'm joined by Israel Duran. He's a speaker, trainer, and business growth partner who helps purpose-driven leaders turn vision into strategy through meaningful communication and servant leadership. His work equips individuals and organizations to grow sustainably by leading with both purpose and empathy. So in this conversation, you're going to learn how to apply the four questions of purpose to uncover your unique voice. Also, the difference between emotional and cognitive empathy and why both matter in leading others without burning out and how to practice kindness without compromising standards or authority. And the most significant insight we discuss, the one that I believe can fundamentally shift how you see leadership, well, that comes right at the end of the episode. So now let's slip into the stream and meet Israel Durand. Israel welcome to the show so much for having me Jason thank you I was wondering could you briefly introduce who you are and what you do, That's a great question. And the way I would introduce myself is I'm just an entrepreneur, investor, servant that's looking to help others win. And the way I help others win is through our framework called the service of speaking. And you and I were chatting before we started. And by teaching people laws and principles that they can actually understand, like, OK, what are the laws that govern business growth, success? Because when you teach people the laws, they can figure it out on their own and they're not independent or codependent, excuse me. They're more independent and they can fend on their own. And that's what I'm all about. Great. Because one of the things that you speak of quite often is servant leadership. And I presume that is intimately interconnected with the laws and principles that you have a passion to share with your audience. 100%. Servant leadership has been the key because servant leadership, like when I see a servant leadership, I probably teach it from a different perspective than when most people hear about it, hear from it. Like most people think servant leadership is like, hey, as a leader, when you have a title or when you're promoted to a role, you need to lead by serving others and, you know, helping others in your sphere of influence and all of that. And I'm like, yeah, that's servant leadership. the way i look at it jason is very different it's it's almost like when like i teach it to men they're like why would i do that but like women they get it quick they get it faster than men typically and it's teaching people empathy and like you gotta show people that you care like i would i could always i could walk into an organization or a business and always tell who the leader is, not based on the title, but based on the influence that they have, based on who's following them. And I tell people this all the time, the measurement of leadership, and especially servant leadership, is influence. Influence in the sense of they are psychosocially, emotionally connected. They can read the room and people, and they could be introverts. They don't have to be extroverts, but regardless of the character traits, they are able to connect to people in the sense that they can communicate and collaborate and cooperate. 100%. There's another law that we teach on a lot. It's called the law of influence. And there's really four core areas to build influence. It works every single time. That can help you increase your leadership like this is a great tool for people that want to take two three minutes to just go over that this would be really cool for them to do it's to do this, influence assessment it's looking at four areas so number one it's looking at like when like we follow people we follow people for these one of these four areas number one their strength, like strength is is is a key word there right because we've all been through things like i i like for example with me right uh when i was about well back in 1993 my dad who his name is domingo dudan he was having a bunch of chest pains one day jason all over his left side, and you know he was complaining to my mom hey like hey this is what's going on so my mom told him to go to the er to go get himself checked out he went to the er because my mother who immigrated over from the dominican republic who was a doctor in the dominican republic but she She wasn't able to transfer her license here because of the English barrier. You know, she knew like what could it could have been something serious. So my mom told him to go and he listened. He went to the ER. He waited about three and a half hours at the ER. And unfortunately, for whatever reason, they didn't attend him. They, you know, maybe he got impatient. Nobody really knows. But he went back home. And when he went back home, he had what the medical community call, he had a STEMI. He had a massive heart attack. And my dad died alone. My mom comes back, finds him in that condition. Very traumatic experience for my mom. She doesn't bring it up much. I don't ask her much about it. But Israel David Duran, I was only about three months when my dad passed. So growing up, I went through a lot of difficult moments. I went through a lot of moments where I questioned myself, my identity. I didn't have any purpose, didn't have any vision, didn't have a plan. I mean, I was confused. I went through a lot of a lot of stuff. But what it also did, because there's two sides to every story, two sides to everything. What it also did, Jason, it allowed me to have a perspective. And I call it a superpower to grow strength at a young age where most people my age would never would never grow. Right. So like today, like most of the people that work with me, they can literally be my father. Like I work with people that are like twice my age, sometimes even, you know, 2.5 times my age. And it's crazy because I wanted that as a child, but I had to become the man because I didn't have it. So strength is very important. And strength is made in weakness. When you go through moments of a high stress, and as long as you can keep your mindset, and you can go through that, and you can be resilient, kind of like we spoke offline, which is what you have an amazing gift and you've been amazing track record with what you've been doing with the inside job. You know, I love the fact that you build this platform because most people, they can't afford your services because it's up there. But you wanted to pay it forward. You wanted to create a platform where you can now teach people the mindset, the resilience, you know, empower them with tools so they can go and grow, which is a beautiful thing. That's why you and I are going to be connected for a long time. But, you know, strength is so important. And that's number one. We could talk all day on strength, but we'd love to hear from you. But it's one of my. I love talking about it because it's, it's, we all need strength. There's everyone will go through moments where we're going to be dealt, where we're going to need to pull strength where we don't think we have strength. And that's where resilience comes in. And strength in the sense is you're, you're talking sort of the mental fortitude, the tenacity to find that inner resources. Is that what I, just to make sure we're both on the same page here. A hundred percent. Most like, this is just a side note, but it goes to what you're saying. Most people are judged not when things are going well. You're going to be judged when everything is going wrong. That's when you're going to be judged. Alexander the Great. When you read his life story, when you read his history, there was a battle where Alexander the Great, all his men was running away from the battle. And he turned around on a horse and went into battle. It says when you read the story that all of his men started to see him go in and they were like, can't we can't leave. We can't leave. We got it. And they turned around and they were wounded. Many of them were wounded. They turned around and they went into battle and they won the battle. Nobody wants to follow somebody that's a weak leader. So when we talk about influence, strength has to do with that mindset. Not so much from a physical, right? More from a spiritual mindset that people know, people can see, they can tell. Like you can go into a room and if you spend, most people spend a few minutes, they can tell who the leader is, not by the words that they said, but again, by who people are looking at and who people are following. Like when a question is asked and they're like. Well, what does Jason say, right? That's where you can tell. Cheers for that, Israel. So you said, I think the law on influence is a very important law, and I'd like to explore your take on it. So one was strength, and you said there were four parts. What would the second element be? The second part is what we call empathy. And empathy, there's so much. When I go into empathy, like I love talking about empathy. Empathy is not just like, hey, I'm sorry, or being sincere. Empathy is more of having emotional intelligence of what to say at the right time and when you don't say anything at the right time. It's being able to have that discernment when you're able to be empathetic, not from what you can get, but because you really care. And I meet with people, Jason, that the empathy doesn't come easy to them. Like I go, I, one of the things that we've done, um, is volunteer into the prison systems. We go in as a chaplain and we go on to see men in their forties, fifties, sixties, seventies, many of the eighties, many, many of them doing four or 300 years in prison, literally, they're never going to get out. And some of these men, they struggle with empathy. So it's like, you know, from a faith-based perspective, I'm able to help them, but it doesn't matter who you think you are. You have empathy inside of you because you're a human being where people get stuck with empathy is like that's not who I am and they're really like shut down that person I can actually help someone that doesn't doesn't acknowledge that they don't have empathy that one that that's hard to help but somebody that says you know I just I don't that's not me is where I don't cry I'm not just an empathetic person that's typically rooted in something in their life which you know something that needs to be addressed where we need to heal, we need to unlock some trauma to then bypass something in their psyche to then help them give themselves permission to be more open to, you know what? I can't be more empathetic, but someone that says, I'm like, no, I don't, I don't, I don't like they deny it. That person is very hard to help. It's actually easier to help the person that's like saying like, no, this is not who I am. Cause that person is at least identifying it and acknowledging it, even though they're not making themselves one with it, that person I can help so much easier than someone that's like just denying it. But that's where empathy comes in. and to give another frame of empathy, another word that I love. And this kind of goes into like the four C's of content creation that I use. And I'm just going to drop them real quick. This is another tool. So when it comes to content creation, I look at consistency, number one. Number two, I look at conviction. Number three, I look at compassion. And number four, I look at charity. Now, when it comes to empathy, I want to highlight the word compassion. One of my favorite words. Compassion, when you look at the definition, it has to do with the love, like the pure love that a mother has for the baby that's in her womb. And that was just born like that, like that love that this is why like, sometimes like you've, you read the history books, like when women, like a baby gets stuck in their car, you see women get supernatural strength. That strength is typically pulled from the empathy that's rooted in compassion, right? It's a supernatural power. So compassion, I tell people it's where the, it's the mountain and the fountain where all miracles flow from. And as a leader, like if we want to truly be a servant leader, it's going to be hard to maximize our potential as a leader. If we don't activate empathy and compassion, like you gotta be empathy. You gotta actually care. It can't be something where it's like, yeah I'm just doing this because I'm getting paid or I'm doing this because I'm getting something out of it that doesn't work people will see through that every single time, Indeed, indeed. There is a superficiality to that. People will cut through the facade real fast if it's not sincere and it come from a genuine place. And just to riff on what you said there, Israel, because compassion is a superpower. I also think that self-compassion is a superpower. You know, we can turn that compassion on to others, our friends, our family, our colleagues. But sometimes we are our own worst critics. We fill ourselves with self-criticism, this self-flagellation. But if we are able to show that compassion to others and we can turn that faucet of compassion upon ourselves, I think it's also about showing empathy towards ourselves. Because it's very interesting what you brought up, working with men in correctional facilities. From the media or of what I read about, you know, correctional systems in the States, it can be a jungle, an entrapped jungle where empathy may be seen as a vulnerability, as a weakness. And maybe that is to some degree how they shut off. I was wondering, could you expand on that? This is just my own curiosity. These men that you work with. Yeah. Yeah. So I go, we volunteer as a chaplain. And because of COVID, things have been on a standstill because they really don't want any light in there. They don't want any. It's a system. And again, this is we're talking about something very important. It's a system that is to create or recycle, repeat. Definitely needs reform. We go in because we want to bring help and the gospel into the people that sometimes don't have an opportunity. But you're so you're 100 percent correct. And I love what you shared because that empathy is seen as a weakness many times because that's how we were trained. You know, one of the other things that I love to teach on are, again, this is another law, the law of purpose. It's the four questions of purpose. And, you know, when people come to me, Jason, they're like, well, I don't have clarity of my purpose or my identity. And because these are things that I used to struggle with as a child, not having my dad. Like I go through these four questions with people. And the four questions, really quickly, this is another tool for people listening. Like, this is a great exercise. And I do this literally every month, at least once a month. I go through the four questions. It's what do you love to do? Or what do you love? What you hate, number two. What makes you cry, number three. And I'll get to that one in a moment. And then what annoys you? What or who annoys you? So those four questions, like what you love, reveals the gift that you have. Okay? Reveals a gift that you have. So you got to double down. I try to find a way to use that gift because it's going to bring fulfillment and joy and passion to your life. Number two, what you hate actually reveals the solution that you were born to bring to that thing that you hate. So, like, if you hate oppression, well, what are you doing to solve oppression? Like, if you hate children, like, for example, one of the things that I hate is seeing children without their dads and, you know, widows in their affliction. Like, I hate that because I saw my mom go through it. And I like I get even emotional talking about it I have to sometimes stop because then I'll start crying but because I went through it's one thing for someone to tell you something but it's another thing for you to live it it's a whole nother experience so like like that's some of the things I hate so what do I do I have you know systems I have you know we volunteer we do different things and we pay it forward to raise up and I pour into young men as well and that didn't have fathers that went through why because I need to bring a solution to the thing that I hate. Right. And then number three, number three, the question, what, what makes you cry actually reveals the situation that you are called to bring joy to. So if something's making you cry, what can you do to now? And what I typically do is how people show people how to have a purpose-driven business. So it's like, we show them how to create profits, but then donate some of those profits or pay it forward into those things that make people make them cry. So they can bring joy, right? To those situations. But every time I teach that, you always get someone that says, I'm a man's man. I don't cry, right? Like they, in their mind, they think that for some reason, people that cry are like not men. And I'm like, that's not true at all. Actually, like one of my favorite leaders in history and someone that I really look up to, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, when you read his life's history, that one of the shortest, you know, shortest verses in the Bible is Jesus wept and when you read his life he wept twice that we record but we know we know that he wept more he's wept twice he wept over his friend Lazarus that died showing that death is an enemy right and he then he rose him from the dead and then he also wept he wept over Jerusalem right, When he saw Jerusalem, it says that he wept over, he literally cried, and he said, how long have I been with you? I wanted to bring you in like hens with their, you know, the chicks with their hen, like as a mother does, right? Children, right? And, you know, they didn't listen, right? So, like, true men cry. But that's one of the main things that, like what you said, like, it's not a form of weakness. It's a form of empowerment. empowerment and then number four the fourth question is what attributes or what who annoys you that actually reveals the attributes that we're called to serve so we can wash those things away to make those people or businesses or companies or whatever whoever you serve make them a better place to make the world a better place but yeah i mean it's it's not a it's not a weakness at all i think it's a superpower and as long as you use it in the right way because It's not you're going to cry and go into that. No, you use it to be to connect with people at a human level. And and you've got to be sincere. Like they they got to feel you. They got they got to know you exist. It can't just be. Yeah, I'm sorry you're going through that. Like that doesn't. That's not that's not it. We got to be more. We got to be. We actually have to care. We have to go down to a human level. We have to quit. Stop trying to just focus on ourselves and put ourselves in other people's positions and think about what they're feeling, what they're going through. And get down with the humanity and connect with them at that heart level. That's what I mean by crying and empathy and showing weakness and connecting with people. Because in one point of like, I know I'm talking a lot here, but I'm flowing because this is a very good point. Like there was a story that I heard, Jason. And you've probably seen a lot of this, especially in your work. There was this young girl. Her mother had died in a tragic car accident. And the father was having a very hard time to try to connect with his daughter because every time they would go on Sundays to go to church, she would just break down. Like it was like bad. She was going through a significant amount of trauma. And her dad couldn't understand. So he was just trying to like get her to like, you know, just like, okay, honey, I understand. and just come please. And he was just trying to get her out of the house. And it just kept creating this cycle. And they were like stuck in a loop. And then one day the dad decided to do something different. Sunday morning, they're getting ready. She goes into the room. She's got ready. She's there on her bed and she's just crying. And the dad decided to do this. He kneels down. It's the first time he actually goes down. So he typically is standing, right? But he kneels down and goes to like almost like the same level, but a little bit under her, like to have almost a conversation at the same level. And he looked her in her eyes and said, honey, I know that you're hurting. You miss mom, don't you? That's all he said. You miss mom. And she said, yes. And she started to bawl and cry. It was like something broke. And then the daughter hugs the father and they're there hugging and having that moment. And then all of a sudden it was like someone turned on a light where he even got confused, okay my okay dad let's go to church like complete joy come on come on dad let's go to church and he's like yeah let's go to church and ever since that moment and that never had like those moments of breakdown obviously it happened but not like that why because the dad understood like sometimes and again i would love to hear your take because you're a professional this is what you do this is your gift. Like. People that haven't been trained about this, right, they don't really understand how that works. So they'll just ignore it and try to move on. But there's certain things that need to be fired in people's brains for them to get it. And when you create those moments with the people that you're leading or you're seeking to lead and you're creating a connection with, that's how you build a world-class team. And that's what true servant leadership is. It's when you build those independent relationships that when you build those independent relationships, when everybody comes together, it becomes like, for the lack of a better phrase, like a spider web, for lack of a better phrase, that is so tight and so one that you can take on the world. You can accomplish your mission, mission, vision, and anything else you desire. It's interesting. It's a beautiful story. You know, when the father gets down on his knees, sees his daughter in the eye, right? Because it's always been a different perspective. Just lowering himself to her height is a type of reframe. It changes up the perspective. It changes up the pattern of their interaction. It's novel. It's new. And that fires off new sort of ways of how they engage. So it's almost a new dance between father and daughter. And by him physically looking her in the eyes and actually listening you know actually listening it's not like he wasn't listening but that that connection of being seen also connects with being listened to there is an understanding by him simply saying you know you miss mom, to some sense i'm paraphrasing what you've said right it's also just hearing those words it resonates with her in the new pattern of seeing each other in the eye being listened to and it validates the loss it's okay to feel loss it's not just let's get over and go to church let's take a break and pause here for a second and when the father looked in the daughter's eyes and they connected at that level changed the pattern of interaction it switched it as you said it was like a flood blade there the lights went on or whatever it was whatever metaphor we want to use analogy, that validation. That allowed his simple act and he just kind of stumbled on it. He just changed his routine. That opened the gate for her. It allowed her to escape that mindset and to, hey, dad, let's go to church now. Right? I'm not saying that's exactly what happened, but just briefly, you know, riffing on what you're saying is real. That's kind of what really sort of resonated within me. That's kind of what my brain kind of spat up, what it was. It's the listening, seeing, understanding, and validating, and changing up the pattern of the communication. And we can do this as leaders in a corporation if we shift just a slight pivot here. Because I think what you're also talking about, empathy, I'd like to go back to the laws of influence and explore the other ones. But just a moment. Empathy, I think it's very important because we, I was always told about emotional and cognitive empathy. And emotional empathy is something such as the daughter and father. That's where you want emotional empathy, trying to relate to the other person's emotional state, right? But as a leader, emotional empathy, I think over time can actually break someone, break the leader because too much emotional empathy. Because emotions, from my experience, are very infectious. And if we don't stand vigilant at the center of our brains, at the door to our brains, is that we can do that for a while, Israel. We can emotionally feel what other people are feeling. But over time, it can become very overwhelming. We carry that with us. What I try to teach when I'm working with clients in different organizations is cognitive empathy. It still means you're present. It still means you're listening and you're seeing and you're understanding and you're validating their emotions, but you are cognizant, hyper cognizant, not to try to feel what they're feeling. And you can't be 100% bulletproof. You will feel it. But if you are self-aware not to feel what they're feeling. But the thing is, you're exploring their opinions, you're exploring their points of view, their beliefs, whatever it is, you're trying to help them work through the conundrum. But I think the sense of a leader or a therapist or a coach, whatever label we want to use, I think his or her job is to stay objective, right? Because the other person's in their subjective storm. If we get emotionally entangled, we get sucked into that storm, and then all of a sudden we're co-ruminating together. But if we can stay objective, we can use cognitive empathy, but it's still empathy, but we're trying to pull a person out of that emotional storm so they can find a way forward. Now, we may not be able to change the situation, Israel, but what we can help them do is be the catalyst for them to reframe the situation. Like the father got on his knees to look in his daughter's eyes, it changed the pattern. It reframed it for her. And as you said, it was such a really nice story she went through the gates and she found her sense of freedom per se if i can characterize it that way i just wanted to riff on what you said there on empathy oh 100 and you know for empaths it's hard for them to have that typically it's hard for them to have that cognitive because they do get sucked in right for sure you know for people like you and i we can visit the emotion and we pull back because you got it you got to know how and that's what, by the way, when we empower entrepreneurs and CEOs to speak and sell from the stage or connect from the stage, anytime they visit a moment of trauma or emotion that they're sharing with the audience, because that's one of the things I teach when training speakers, you want to use it as a superpower. You can always go to the trauma, visit it, but don't stay there. You touch on it and you come right out. For example, when I was just sharing about my dad and everything, I almost got emotional there. I just touched on it. I went back. Because we have to finish the show, right? Sometimes you get people that will turn on the emotional plug and they can't stop it. You got to be able to control that, right? So I 100% agree with you on that. And it's many times people need to relearn because... Depending on your background, what you went through, what you didn't go through, there's a lot of historical data that's going to influence how you are, what you do, or how you even see the world. So many times there has to be training. There has to be some development. There has to be some things we need to unlearn to then relearn, right? And it's very important. When it comes to influence, we don't want to get to a point where we don't have any empathy, right? We want to at least have definitely the cognitive empathy. And from time to time, I would say, because it's not every day, but there may be moments in life where, let me just throw out an example. You know, you may have somebody that's on your team and, you know, one day, you know, somebody, unfortunately, one of their loved ones passes into eternity. And you know instead of you just saying i'm sorry for your loss maybe you actually go out and get some flowers or you go to the actual home going party or you know the funeral and you go and you visit and you show up and and you and you're there present right i mean it's outside of the box but those are small things that make a big difference and inside of our community i probably empowered and trained easily over probably 300 pastors in the last 12 months like actual pastors like in ministries. And I deal with them a lot. I deal with this a lot. And I see it a lot because I'm also in ministry too, where a lot of people will come to us with their baggage or they'll come to us with their stuff. And it's hard for us not to get into like, because these are people that we love, we care about, and we want to help. And it's like finding that balance again with the cognitive empathy is huge. Because if not, like you said, you will get emotionally drained. And not only emotionally drained, you may get burnt out to the point that you may want to throw in the towel with all of it because it's too much. Indeed. Right. And that has happened as well. I've seen that. So, um. I'm loving this conversation, man. This is, this is, I hope the people listening to this can, can, as we've already been receiving a lot of value and they're, they're also, uh, a lot of these questions and things are there, they're thinking through and it's really helping people. Brilliant. If we could circle back to the law of influence, so you've talked about strength and you've articulated empathy. What would be the third element of the law of influence? The third element is kindness. And it's one of those words where someone can argue it's connected to empathy, but it's different. Kindness is sometimes to be clear is to be kind, Right. Like I don't don't don't misjudge. Kindness is not being nice with everybody and you're just letting people walk over you. Whatever what everybody wants, you're going to do as a servant leader. That's not what kindness is. Kindness is more about. It's more about being clear and treating everybody with the same delineation, treating everybody with the same heart. Right. And setting up a culture where where people are are connected. And it's even more so to be clear. Let me give an example. Let's say Susan. Comes in and she continues to make an excuse. I'm late because of you know my dog whatever right and it's like okay it happens once show kindness, it happens again this this is what this is where most people there's there there's a path that's created where it's very hard to turn it typically happens at the second point because the number two is the number of division division in spanish and what happens is like something happens once If it happens twice and you let it go, you already chose a path of where you're going to where you're going to send it. It's like the fork in the road. So what typically people do is on that second time, they'll say they'll show kindness again because we want to show grace and we've all done it. Then it happens number three. Now, if you say something on number three, it's going to be perceived as you're being rude. Even though you have all the rights, it's going to be perceived that way. So what do leaders do? They let it slide. And by the way, if you're a CEO or if you're somebody that's in leadership, it's it's typically good to have somebody else do your correction calls. Like if you're going to fire somebody, if you're going to correct someone, don't correct them. Have somebody else do it. That's reports to you because you've got to remain that there's a certain I don't have time to go. We don't have time to go through this now. There's a certain psychology to that with CEOs that you don't want to be the one going down and correcting somebody because that's going to drop your positioning and it's not good. You got to stay there, you got to have somebody. But when it comes to these simple corrections like people showing up late, at that second point, when Susan did it again, this is what you say. Hey Susan, I really appreciate you letting me know that you were late because of your dog. I actually don't have a dog, but my sister has one and I get it. I just want to be clear. Watch me now. Clear, because to be clear is kind, that it's not okay to be late. And we get, everybody has reasons. Like I had, I could have been late this morning as well, but I couldn't because I have a responsibility. So I'm just going to let you know that if it happens again, I'm going to have to write you up and I have to report it because everybody here is held to the standard. It's just the regular standard here. And I just, you know, I care about you. I appreciate you. And you're very important to the team. And we want to make sure you're good in all your personal items. But just got to let you know. So is that cool? Yeah, no, I understand. See, now what happens is at that second point that you touched on it, now it's not going to be perceived as rude if she's late on the third time and you do what you said. Because you were clear, and that is also being kind. We get kindness confused by just letting everybody just get away with things. This is something I used to struggle with, by the way. So I know this very, very well. That's how I learned about it, right? And I had to understand like, okay, I can't just let people, I can't just let people do everything they want because they're going to mistake that as a weakness and walk on top and just feel like they can do whatever they want. I got to be clear with people because to be clear is to be kind. And I don't want to be talking behind anybody's back. I don't want to talk to John and say, look at Susie. I want to be clear and I want to have an open way that everybody can kind of like, you know, be clear. And they're going to know that, like for me, they know what they can expect every single time. They're not second guessing. And that's a part of influence that a lot of the leaders miss because they see kindness as a weakness or they're so kind that they let everybody get away with everything. And people aren't going to follow you if you're like that. So we got to be clear. To be kind, no pun intended. Yeah. So just to rewind, to make sure I'm understanding your clear message is that it's about managing expectations. So at the second incident that something is, it's to call someone out, it's to manage the expectations. And so instead of taking the road of benevolence, of being nice all the time and letting it slide, what I hear is that a leader, he or she needs to manage the expectations by balancing two moral imperatives benevolence and honesty it's okay to be nice but you need to also be honest that look this does not float i we hold everyone to the same standard and so susan or steve this is how it's going to play so by the third time it comes on it doesn't look like you're trying to to railroad them or to create a conflict you've set a pattern of interaction based on both honesty and benevolence so as you said as i understand it kindness is just not being nice and everyone in the boat sometimes it is rocking the boat sometimes it is having the hard conversation through honesty but through that honesty there is a a moral imperative to improve that person to understand that these are the standards we hold for everyone is that what i understand you're saying. A hundred percent, because as the leader, as a servant leader, as the visionary, which is, by the way, number four of the laws of influence, like being able to have a vision, like you see something that they may not. And as a leader, as someone that really wants to build influence, they need to believe at the subconscious level, not even at the conscious level, at the subconscious level, that you see something, that you're taking them somewhere. You know, whatever the team is, organization, business, whatever it is that you're doing, you're taking them somewhere where you see and they're trusting you. They're giving them your trust. Like, so if you don't, if you don't correct that, then it's going to come back later to bite you. And a lot of us don't want to go into that confrontation or have somebody confront those little things that happen because we want to be nice, right? But again, it's exactly what you said. We've got to manage those expectations because if you allow Susan to do it, if you correct Mark, you didn't correct Susan, you just created a problem. And that will lower your influence. It will sabotage your influence, and it won't be as powerful. So it's 100% what you said. So the fourth element to the law of influence is vision. Vision. Vision, right? Yep, vision. Yeah. So vision in that sense, is it sort of the overall big objective that our values as a company or team are pulling this way? Or is there a much more nuanced way that you define or operationally define vision under this law of influence, Israel? So the three steps, and you asked us some really great questions, by the way. I'm really loving this interview. The three V's, I call it, include vision. But the first V is void. Void, as in space, as in... Void, as a void that you see. That's what actually determines vision. And that vision will determine your voice. So when I teach people how to find their voice through my process, the first thing that I do is I help them identify a void that they see. So as a leader or in anything that like people like, okay, now I'm going to go into some speaking stuff. Like I, I'm not a motivational speaker. I respect motivational speakers. I train a lot of them. Like I have a lot of motivational speakers in my, in my community, but, and, and I kind of reframe their thinking. I'm more of an inspirational speaker. Because the word inspire comes from the Hebrew word to breathe, to ruah, to inspire, right? I love people to see what I'm doing and then they hear what I've done and what I'm doing. And then they see like, wow, that guy's going after a vision. He's using his voice. So then he's filling voids. So then it can inspire action in them. Many times when people get motivational speaking or you got the motivational leadership, come on, guys, let's hit them. Right. And they see this all words. it will go in one ear and go out the next. But when people actually see your consistency and they see something in you that they want in themselves, it will build influence for them to follow you. It's like a magnet, right? Like when you look at the great leaders of history, they pretty much all of them unlocked these four things. When you look at Nelson Mandela, for example, a lot of people, they accuse Nelson Mandela, but when you read his life, the man moved the nation through these four levels pretty much because he saw a vision and he was willing to pay the price. So that creates inspiration in other. It inspires to move the masses. One of my books, Service of Speaking, the whole thing is how to impact, inspire, and influence the masses. I teach people how to implement the law when they speak with their keynote, their presentation, they're trying to raise funds, whatever it is, like these basic little things that sometimes seem so insignificant really are the key to move the needle, to. Subconsciously, you know, connect with people and to have them, you know, follow your actions, right? Follow your words. It's not done by just theory and guessing, like success leaves clues. And when you study history, like I have, you see certain patterns and you see certain attributes and certain keys that people unlock. And that's what I love to teach people on. So I hope that helps give people clarity. But vision is very important. Yeah, so vision, you said it's three V's. It's void, it's voice. And what was the third V? V. So in vision, right? So part of vision is like the vision is part of one of the three V's. So it's like, sorry, my bad. Sorry. Yeah. So like, but vision is the key to unlock the influence because you can see a void. That's not going to do anything. You could use your voice. That may not do anything. It's when you couple those three together, that really helps you to build something that's unique and to build a movement. And it doesn't even matter if you're a part of somebody else's vision. Like if you're in a C-suite or you're a manager, right? Or you have your own business. Like these principles apply to all. But if there's no vision, there's going to be no movement. When there's no vision, people actually perish. Things go down. And a leader that doesn't have vision, no one will follow. Well, thank you very much for that. We are coming close to the top of the hour, and you've been very generous to share your philosophy and how you break it down of servant leadership. Considering that, is there any last thoughts or advice you would like to leave with our listeners before we call it a day, Israel? You know, what I would say is this. There is a gift that I would love to give you and your audience that typically it's something I charged for it, but I would do it at no cost. And I would love to leave them with that because if they got value from what we just shared and they want to go deeper with the laws, I actually have a guide. It's called the Online Business Blueprint that walks through some of the other laws that we weren't able to cover today, like the law of the leak and some other laws that can really help someone in the journey, especially as a servant leader, but more importantly, someone that's looking to grow whatever whatever they're looking to do this this god can help them so i would love to share that with you in the audience as a free gift brilliant would that be is it a link i can include in the show notes and they could go through it or so the easiest if they go to the link it's actually good they're gonna there's gonna be an investment for it so i would rather just give it to them for free so what the way we would do that in a simple way is if they go to israelduran.com and they find my Instagram page, like Instagram, and they direct message me the word blueprint. We'll send it right over. Well, Israel, thank you for a very compelling and intriguing conversation today. I've learned a lot and it's added to my repertoire of skills. Thank you, Jason. Thank you for having me. Well, before we wrap up this episode, I'd like to return to one insight I promised would stand out. And that is this. Leadership isn't about being the loudest voice in the room. It's about knowing when to lower your voice, to meet others where they are, and to lead from that place of grounded service. And as Israel put it, true influence is built through clarity, empathy, and consistent action, not control. So if today's conversation challenged your thinking or it gave you something practical to work with, I encourage you to take a moment and reflect on the four questions of purpose Israel shared. Start there. See what shifts. If you want to go deeper, you can message Israel on Instagram with the word blueprint to receive his free online business blueprint guide. Israel, personal thank you for spending some time with me today and sharing your wisdom and your knowledge. Truly appreciated. Again, folks, as usual, thank you for spending some time with me today. If you found value in this episode, share it with a colleague or someone in your circle who's navigating leadership with heart. Life is about leading from the inside out. But until next time, keep well, keep strong, and we'll speak soon. You. Music.