#16 Matt Kincaid

Tri-Cities Influencer Podcast with Paul Casey

Matt is the managing partner of Blue Rudder. When asked what was his journey that lead him to where he is today, he says it was not a planned journey. Matt went off to college at Gonzaga where he got a couple degrees. He then went out into the business world where he bought, ran and sold a few businesses. It was then that he got an itch that he wanted to teach, so he went back to school to get his PHD in Leadership Studies. He came to teach here at Columbia Basin College for six years and went on to teach at Heritage University by Yakima where he has been there for three years. He has had a calling for leadership for the last 10-15 years. His advice about advanced degrees and education is do it while you are young. Being married now with three little kids, there are too many financial commitments and other distractions now! He would tell his 20-year-old self to find a good mentor. He has been very fortunate to have a few really great mentors. When you are 20 you feel like understand the world and that you have it all figured out, but then you fast forward another 10-15 years and you realize you were 20. You didn’t have it figured out! He has a mentor now that he met at 22 on the basketball court. His wife actually sang at his wedding and has been a great influence in his life. He is a psychologist and has been able to learn a lot from him. He has a few kids that he mentors currently and through the basketball camp he runs in the summer. He has coaching clients as well. When Matt thinks about his strengths, he thinks about the people he surrounds himself with. He has three young kids that encourage him to get out of bed and be his best self. He feels his biggest strength is having a very wide life perspective. He has a big picture all the time, which can also be considered a weakness. He asked his wife what she thought was his weakness, and she said that he isn’t very organized all the time. When you look at the big picture, you can often lose sight of the details. Find people in your life to help you stay on track. Post notes on your mirror; have your spouse remind you about something five times a day for a week until it becomes a habit. The other thing he would say that as you find your strengths, try to find an occupation that lines up with them as best you can. By doing this you will have less frustration and friction in your life. StrengthFinder is a great test you can take online. Another one was created by professor Martin Seligman who has a website called www.viacharacter.org. He has found in his studies that we should operate in our strengths instead of improving our weaknesses. Matt doesn’t really have a morning routine because his days are all so different. He tends to get up early, has coffee--and he really hasn’t had a morning routine in the last 9 years because his teaching schedule changes often between nights and mornings. When he wakes up in the morning, he plans the day and just gets stuff done. He feels fortunate that with his job there are always new students every quarter or semester and that provides a lot of change. He has a personal battle with feeling like there isn’t enough time. So, he works hard to maximize his days. He has had some friends that died young and he just doesn’t want to wake up and waste the day.

Matt’s challenge in leadership is about being intentional. As humans we are creatures of habit. Being intentional means having a lot of discipline and energy. He then needs to have mental focus and he gets that by treating himself well, which means he needs to be spiritually, mentally, and physically well. It’s really hard to be an effective leader if you aren’t taking care of yourself. Being a leader is not easy; there is a misconception that you wake up a great leader. It’s lots of ups and downs. Matt exercises a lot and is very intentional about what he and his family eat. They have never eaten fast food. They also do simple activities like hang out in the back yard, take walks, watch movies together. Since having kids, they make sure that they go on a family vacation every year. It’s a time to unplug, turn off the phones and be together. Building trust is everything. Matt talks about a certain failure in his book about when he was leading a painting company in college. He thought he was doing well. Years later a friend, an employee asked Matt why they didn’t do a certain something on a house. Matt was surprised that it had taken him 5 or 6 years to bring it up to him. The failure in that was that he must have been doing something in that leadership role that made him intimidating or not approachable. Leaders need to make time for reflection. Reflection plus experience is the best teacher. If you don’t reflect, then you don’t learn from the failures or experience. There are many ways to reflect. Talk to someone at the end of the day and journal. Bluerudder.org Mattkincaid.net