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Hosted by Masi Willis and Shannon Scott, Lead Like You Mean It is a leadership podcast for those who want more than inspiration—they want impact. We’ll help you lead from the inside out, with tools that stick and some truth that stretches you.
Shannon Scott (00:01.674)
Masi, we're back.
Masi Willis (00:04.556)
Hey girl, welcome to 2026.
Shannon Scott (00:07.41)
my goodness. we're already like January is done. I don't know how to feel about it. It has gone so fast.
Masi Willis (00:15.374)
I mean, I promise you yesterday was Y2K. And I was bunkered up in the mountains like we were all gonna die. Like, are you kidding me? And it's now 2026.
Shannon Scott (00:29.356)
Yeah, 2026 and already the second month of 2026. So how was your holidays? How was Christmas? We haven't talked to our Lead Like You Mean It audience since the middle of December.
Masi Willis (00:42.582)
Yes, it was great. had, yeah, I loved our Thanksgiving grateful episode. Thanksgiving was really great with my family. We had a fantastic Christmas. The kids came down, they were from Rhode Island. My niece and her husband and Matthew and Grace came up from Savannah. We were all together. We went to a German Christmas market and it was really fun. And then of course you and I had kind of a...
Shannon Scott (01:06.829)
my.
Masi Willis (01:11.608)
kick off to the new year, new year's weekend. mean, let's face it, it really stunk and sucked that the dogs lost. And that was.
Shannon Scott (01:15.254)
Yeah.
Shannon Scott (01:21.076)
Yeah, that was unfortunate and maybe the most insane confusing ending to a game I've ever watched and I've watched a lot of weird games.
Masi Willis (01:33.054)
Worst last play ever. I mean, it was like hot potatoes. We used to play that in elementary school.
Shannon Scott (01:38.848)
Yeah. Yeah. It was, it made no sense at all. I could not fathom what was happening. So yeah, that was unfortunate. So my condolences to you and all of the UGA fan base. Cause I know that's a, that's a bummer. It's a bummer. well, yes, it was great. I had all my birds back in my nest at the cabin and
Masi Willis (01:54.134)
It was. It was. And what about you?
Shannon Scott (02:07.088)
I hosted people from December 16th through January the 5th. So I, as a raging introvert, had a lot of people coming through here. And then I, a couple of days after that, hosted a retreat here for the staff team at Kava where I...
am leading content. So yeah, it's been, it's been all people all the time, which you would love and I need a break from. Yes, it's time to hermit, but I do love podcasts. So this is not, this is not feeling like, taxing at all. So, all right. So we're a few weeks into the
Masi Willis (02:42.346)
It's time to hermit. It's the winter months for you. Yep. Yep. Which is great.
Yeah.
Shannon Scott (02:58.27)
new year the hype has probably faded by now our calendars are full again the reality of 2026 and how fast it's going has set in and this is usually they say like there's literally a day on the calendar that is the day everybody abandons their new year's resolution so people either abandon their goals or they double down on being busy about this time every year
and so you have kind of determined that this year is the time to ask a really important question which is what is this year going to be about for Macy and as part of that you have a
Masi Willis (03:40.248)
Yeah.
Shannon Scott (03:45.162)
banner I would say over your year that is make it matter which I loved it when you came up with it. I loved it when you said it. You've already talked to your email list a little bit about it but I would just love for you to unpack why you chose make it matter for 2026 and just give the audience your heart behind it because I have a feeling some of them might choose it for themselves too.
Masi Willis (03:48.013)
Mm-hmm.
Masi Willis (04:14.094)
Yeah, you can take it. Well, yes. Thank you for asking the thing for me as resolutions have never landed with me. I don't need a turn of a year to find something to cling a hold of. And I often have prayed or asked through a word or something that was going to banner, you know, and this year I reflected on 2025 and there was so much intentionality in my 2025.
because I did unnatural things for my connector voice. actually set some goals and I was in a group of fellow coaches that held us accountable for delivering those goals. I'm not a write it on a board and track it metric it every quarter. That's just not me. But the big umbrella things that I chose to reach, I reached. And when I got to the end of the year, it was like, wow,
Shannon Scott (05:02.017)
Yeah.
Masi Willis (05:13.426)
when I look through choosing to make something matter. If everything matters, nothing does, right? And so I really, I don't like the word busy. mean, busy is not the same thing as meaningful. Yet people kind of carry busy like it's a banner, like it's a flag, that it's a reward that they have. Everyone says they're busy.
Shannon Scott (05:22.582)
Ooh, that's good, yeah.
Masi Willis (05:42.606)
And so I wanted to make sure I kind of looked at it through the lens of when you're going to make a choice, choose for yourself, make it matter. Is this going to matter to anything in my life? And if I couldn't answer yes, my thought is this year is let's, let's peel off what's not necessary for 2026 and let's really focus on this concept of balance.
Shannon Scott (06:12.064)
That's so good. And you said everybody says they're busy. Do you think that's because everybody is busy and maybe too busy?
Masi Willis (06:23.362)
Okay, I might step on some toes here, but everybody in the world is busy, especially in the Western world. do not siesta. We do not take holiday like our friends across the pond. We're not great at pause. And like you always say, there's power in the pause, right? That's been kind of a statement that you have coined and has helped me think through it. We don't pause.
Shannon Scott (06:46.252)
Yeah.
Masi Willis (06:52.566)
And so to wear a banner over your head and say, I'm just busy, that is a choice you made. That is not something that elevates you different than the person next to you. I don't care what role you are in life, whether you are full-time, multiple jobs, multiple opportunities, or multiple children that you're taking around, you allow your kids to be in two and three different sports.
Shannon Scott (07:22.358)
Yeah.
Masi Willis (07:22.444)
You're not busy. You're not balanced.
Shannon Scott (07:25.579)
Yeah.
That's good. The, I would imagine anybody listening to this podcast probably resonates with feeling busy because it just would follow that if you're listening to lead, like you mean it, then you're likely a leader. And that means that you have a breadth of responsibility. And because often we are high capacity and high output and driven, that can very quickly lend itself to
busy and part of why you chose Make It Matter, I think, is not because
it was, you know, the latest trend on social media, but you have been coaching leaders who were exhausted. And often when you're exhausted, you are ineffective. And I've heard you say that most leaders aren't lazy or disengaged, like we just said, but they are over committed. So what you are doing with make it matter is instead of focusing on give more effort,
it's really give more intentionality. So how do you get your brain around what it looks like to not just be busy with a full calendar, but to be very intentional with where you're placing your energy.
Masi Willis (08:34.69)
Mm-hmm.
Masi Willis (08:45.474)
Well, I mean, if you say yes to everything or you're lazy at your no, you're not lazy with your yes, right? You're over committed. And like we said, when everything matters, we end up living in reactive mode. We're not really looking at being proactive. It's just, we've gotten lazy with always saying yes.
And in my leadership coaching and with the enterprise organizations I work with, nothing is going to slow down. It's going to be a choice of leadership of where you're going to focus is really what leadership.
Shannon Scott (09:24.116)
Yeah.
Shannon Scott (09:28.554)
Yeah, there's not gonna come a time when the calendar suddenly opens up.
Masi Willis (09:34.742)
when I get caught up. I just need this day to get caught up. I haven't met anyone recently that feels like they're caught up because we don't ever turn ourselves off. We don't have the luxury of the industrial age anymore. We live in the digital age and so we are lazy at choosing when to turn things off. Therefore, we are way over committed, which probably means we're under delivering and
Shannon Scott (09:43.681)
Yeah.
Masi Willis (10:04.511)
We probably aren't clear and don't have like clarity around what that might look like. Where do we focus?
Shannon Scott (10:11.722)
Yeah, I think sometimes there is a temptation to be busy because now if I'm busy, I'm
relevant and I have a you know I have an identity now as somebody who's important enough to be busy but I think leaders are at a risk of confusing responsibility with relevance like the two are not equal just because you have a lot of things you're doing does not mean that there is an intentionality and a change making aspect to what you're
Masi Willis (10:31.233)
Mm-hmm.
Masi Willis (10:39.191)
Yes.
Shannon Scott (10:52.49)
doing. So it's so important that you focus on the things that deserve your attention. I have had to learn that just because I can do something doesn't mean it deserves my energy. So what what have you been seeing in leaders that made make it matter kind of unavoidable for you if you wanted to get where you wanted to be?
Masi Willis (11:03.68)
Yes.
Masi Willis (11:18.476)
Well, there is just pure out burnout. There's when you look at what matters, if you're busy and you're burnout, there's, you don't make great decisions. You have decision fatigue. have, you know, people are emotionally reacting to things. They're assuming the worst in others rather than choosing the best. Their leadership becomes like,
really shallow because they're not taking the time for it to be this depth of leadership. And eventually you resent you. You resent the busyness. Right. And when you wear it on, when people say I function of high capacity, like, well, come on people, that's not a badge. Also, when we're like, I work at 110%. What? That is not even a mathematical thing that makes sense. You only have 24 hours.
You can't work at 22 point, you can't work at 26.4 hours. There are, there is no such thing as that. So I feel like what leaders are, are like sticking their flag in the ground saying, I'm so busy, which makes me really important actually is diluting your influence. And we're teaching people and we're teaching our team. We're teaching our employees.
that they've got to hustle, hustle, hustle, hustle. And we're teaching them that shallow is what we're buying. When in fact, if you were a leader saying, let's sit and pause and let's think through, are we focusing on the right things or all the things? And if we, okay, I'm going to use this as an analogy. We prune plants and fruit for a reason. We don't want the vineyard that has ginormous grapes all shriveled up on a plant.
Shannon Scott (12:53.281)
Wow.
Shannon Scott (13:02.517)
Yeah.
Shannon Scott (13:10.145)
Yeah.
Masi Willis (13:16.5)
we prune back so that eight grapes become their most full expression of the fruit it was meant to be. And there is a purpose for pruning. And so there should be a clear direction of what each moment you should be proving and make the right thing the right thing and the busy things the unnecessary things.
Shannon Scott (13:40.929)
Well, and I think somebody would hear you say, you teach people, you teach people, and they might be saying, I'm not teaching people to be busy. I'm not teaching people to be over-committed. I'm not teaching people to, but you our, you know, you and I both have sat under Andy Stanley for a long time and he says, what gets rewarded gets repeated. And
Other people say what you tolerate, you teach. So whether it's caught or taught or however you want to parse the words, what you tolerate, what you allow to be in your organization, and then what you reward, that's what you're going to get. So you're teaching it whether you like that or not.
Masi Willis (14:26.296)
Yeah. Yeah. You teach it to your kids. You're teaching it at home. You know, we're teaching that everywhere. I'm going to get real personal here. One time, had a counselor years ago to say to me, you teach guys not to pursue you in your dating relationship because you always show up. You're always available or you're trying to connect with them. So it's the same concept of exactly what you're saying.
You are teaching people busyness and we use different kind of tools to help manage this. How do you prioritize? When do I need to have this hour of busyness, which is crossing off the tasks. But the intentionality is going to come when I have this hour of focus on a project that is strategic to the direction I'm going through my ear.
Shannon Scott (15:19.862)
So what would be, if you could pick a question that those listening could just reflect on and just kind of self assess in this moment. So we've said all this, we've said busy is not a badge of honor. We've said, you know, what you tolerate, you teach. How could listeners just like reflect and kind of self assess how they're doing in this area?
Masi Willis (15:34.03)
Okay.
Masi Willis (15:43.542)
Yeah, asking a question like, you know, where have I been spending my energy just because that's what I was expected to do and not because it actually matters. And when we look at that or we reflect on, did I make that choice? Okay, I'm going to out myself right here. I had something to happen this week. One of our, one of my clients is a CEO who passed away.
Shannon Scott (15:57.26)
That's good.
Masi Willis (16:11.054)
And he is a major leader in his company. He's 96 years old and they're going to celebrate his life on Saturday. And I was thinking, Oh, I need to pack up and fly to his funeral and be there and be present and give respect. And I had to pause and go, wait, are you spending this energy just because you think it's expected of you and not because you need to? The harder question was,
Are you making this choice because you want them to look at you and think, she cared. So she showed up. Was it self motivated and I want to self recognition. That's a hard question to ask in an honest way and realize I'm only home for 48 hours and I've got to fly back out on Monday. This is not the best use of my time. And I, I respect this man and I respect the organization and I'm known for that. I don't have to show up.
Shannon Scott (16:48.587)
Yeah.
Shannon Scott (16:52.97)
Yeah.
Masi Willis (17:08.736)
and take the one day I have at home, it just doesn't matter. And so I had to make it matter meant I could be the best version of myself for his organization I'm flying to on Monday. That was more important than the busyness of flying and coming home in a single day.
Shannon Scott (17:29.228)
So it sounds like based on that, you know, explanation that there's really two versions of make it matter. There's make it matter, which is what you have chosen for the year, which is let me ensure that what I do is intentional in nature and it matters to what I believe I have been asked to do in this life.
There's another make it matter that is a little bit self-serving where we want to make things matter because we want to feel better about things and that is not the kind of make it matter that you're talking about. Would that be a fair way to draw that distinction?
Masi Willis (18:08.556)
Yes. Yeah, it's self leadership. And we don't really turn the mirror on ourselves that often to say, Hey, it is about me. And if I don't take the self leadership and create the pace I need to be in, think about the boundaries, like the words I use, or can I actually follow through with all these yeses? I keep saying the self leadership's harder sometimes than even
having your team or your organization help you to find that, it's when I can defend it and I'm kind of dying on the defense end of it, I probably should really consider is this really truth? Is this really what matters? Am I making it matter? Am I forcing it to make it matter?
Shannon Scott (18:58.292)
Yeah, that's good. Well, and I have found that if I don't decide the urgency of everyone else will decide for me. So what you're basically doing with this year is going, I have made an intentional pre decision and have predetermined that I'm going to do things that I can lay my head on my pillow at night and no matter for what I believe I'm on the earth to do.
Masi Willis (19:09.133)
Yes.
Masi Willis (19:27.736)
Mm-hmm.
Shannon Scott (19:28.206)
And I'm not gonna let the urgencies and emergencies of others dictate for me what matters. So how do you, like what's just practical? How do you...
do that for yourself? How do you coach leaders to do that for themselves? Because a lot of us feel like, well, I mean, I can't say no to them, or I've got to let them jump on my calendar whenever they want to, and I have to show up, and I have to go, and I have to do. How do you kind of take some of that agency back?
Masi Willis (20:01.014)
Yeah, I have to, because I am naturally a people pleaser, as my makeup of my voice, I want people to like me and be liked by me. want everyone to connect to something. I have to ask myself, what's the motivation of your yes? Also, if I don't do this, what actually will happen? Will the world fall apart if I don't show up?
with the meal for the person who just had a baby, but three other people have the opportunity to. If I say no to my husband because we need to not go to this game or we need to not go out with these people because we need quality time together as a leader. If I'm looking going, if I, if I'm, if I'm, if I need to show up, there's another question.
What if you've been busy and you actually have intentional places you need to show up? You need to be present on a monthly basis having one-on-one conversations. And when you say to your team members, we don't have time for that because we're so busy, like, hey, this is some clients or year-end places where they're like, hey, we don't have time right now. We'll put that on the calendar in 2026 when I've gotten my feet underneath me. I'm like, you're not going to get your feet underneath you.
Yes, you might feel this new location differently, but right now is when you actually need the leadership coaching to pace yourself and set boundaries, like you said, because they're teaching their team, leading ourselves and leading each other's on the back burner, because we've got to set everything up efficiently and perfectly. Yes, there is a time to adjust, but that shouldn't take precedent over a healthy approach.
to wise choices, clear direction, clear leadership, point, you your North Star being understood, it keeps you afloat more than you swimming upstream.
Shannon Scott (22:08.874)
Yeah, that's good. So as we kind of start getting to the conclusion, let's talk about what it looks like in practice to make it matter. So this should work no matter whether you are a business leader, whether you are reporting to someone and you don't actually lead anyone, but you are leading yourself. This can look like a mom who's homeschooling and trying to figure out how to make it matter in the environment she creates.
home, like just we want to be clear and say this is not about big dramatic expressions. Like making it matter doesn't look dramatic, but it does look disciplined. So what are some examples, some practical examples for people who want to make it matter that will work no matter what we're working in or on?
Masi Willis (23:01.602)
Yeah. You know, I think realistic goals, true, probably fewer so that you have clear, clearer priorities. You know, I have worked at the last part of this year with most of my clients talking about their big moves for 2026. And so often every, all the one-on-ones, all of the leaders come in, they have like five, eight goals.
Like, hey, let's clear this up. Like more is not better. Fewer and tighter, much more effective. Making sure that conversations don't get postponed. Do not put off communication. Communication is the beginning of high performing teams. So what hasn't been said, what hasn't been in a conversation, go have them. Like you look at putting structure and systems around things. Stop just solving and being that
Savior Complex, the hero of the organization, because what was shattered and falling apart, you came up and fixed it all, because we like being fixers. No, build a structure around it so you never have to go in there and be Superman. And just make sure that boundaries really are set to protect your own self relationships as well as energy. You know, I waste unused energy on thoughts that really don't.
matter. I have to look at how am I going to show up with my mom and dad and the moments that I have with him because it's far and few between and I have to make it matter. I have to make it matter with my friends. used to, I can say yes to way too many people because people are my cocaine. So why would I ever want to let go of that high? But the unhealthy place is the thought that more is greater.
And in fact, less is more intentional. And the depth of my time, I begin getting back what I didn't even know I was going to get because they're not shallow. They're very deep.
Shannon Scott (25:11.072)
That's so good. you know, we, we have said before, and we tend to say in coaching that most leadership breakdowns aren't about character of the leader, but they are about clarity, unclear communication, unclear expectations, just, and we all know if, if there is an expectation on me and I don't know about it, that creates frustration, not only for the person who has the expectation, but me.
because I never even knew that it was there. If I'm unclearly communicated with, a trust gets eroded. If I'm constantly moving the goalposts as a leader, I'm not only frustrating my people, I'm exhausting them as they run around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to shift on a dime to all my changing whims. So I'd love for you just to talk as we get to the end about clarity.
Masi Willis (25:57.143)
Yeah.
Shannon Scott (26:10.914)
When I worked at my previous job, they said over and over and over, clarity is kindness. Clarity is kindness. So just talk about the importance of clarity as we grasp this make it matter value for this year. Why is clarity and great communication so important to that?
Masi Willis (26:35.81)
Yeah, I love that clarity is kindness, it's generosity, because confusion can be so expensive. The lack of clarity, miscommunication, no communication, the idea of if I just leave it broad, you know, I can be nimble and shift, that is so costly for team members, so costly for your personal friends and being able to
really bring that clarity isn't in marriages, in families, it applies to my internal self-taught, what are you telling yourself right now, Macy? Is this, you're defending your decision here. You're wanting someone to say you should do this. You probably then shouldn't do it because it's going to be costly and saying what matters clearly and kindly, it just...
reduces the need to have this emotional cleanup later. The skepticism in, it's frustrating to me when leaders don't communicate. They hold information and they think it's better because they're waiting and waiting and waiting until all the details are in place. All the while, there's little things that people are watching and they're going, well, why am I not in that?
conversation or I wonder if they're going to include us or did they even know how it was going to feel that they communicated that last minute date to me? Do they understand the consequences that impacted on me at home because now I've got to blah, blah, blah, blah. Lack of communication and no communication is worse than miscommunication. I believe that you have to come back around. It is generous to be clear.
Shannon Scott (28:34.634)
Yeah, I mean the emotional cleanup is so true. It is, and this is why people avoid it because it is hard to go back and make right what we have clumsily communicated. But if we're clear out of the gate, which may be hard for people to hear, but when it's done kindly, clarity always serves everybody better. So if there's a, if there's a communication point,
Masi Willis (29:00.962)
Yes.
Shannon Scott (29:04.778)
or a conversation that you are putting off because you don't know, you know, how to do it or you don't want to do it. We want to encourage you that it is kind to be clear with the person or people that you need to communicate with. This making it matter principle Mase is not
Masi Willis (29:08.046)
Mm-hmm.
Shannon Scott (29:28.242)
about big moves and big sweeping changes. This is about consistent decisions over time and I would say they probably feel really small at first but even a 1 % tweak in your angle is going to end you up in a very different place over time.
Masi Willis (29:36.609)
Mm-hmm.
Masi Willis (29:49.422)
Yeah, know, transformation looks boring, right? Especially since transformation takes time. But really, it's going to look boring before it's ever going to look impressive. We don't normally see or get feedback while transformation is happening. Now, you and I just experienced a very quick transformation in someone. had a work, Shannon and I,
Shannon Scott (30:15.53)
Yeah. Yeah.
Masi Willis (30:18.894)
And a friend of ours, Ryan, did a workshop last week and we got a feedback email that there was conversations at the table with a spouse and they had four hours to talk through what they had learned in this space. And like that's immediate transformation. But because it takes time, sometimes it looks boring before it's impressive. And most people quit.
right when they get to the point where it's about to compound and start getting better. It's why resolutions drive me crazy because about this time, beginning of the February, after the 30 days of January, you know, all the little cliche dry January and days of fasting, you know, it's like this, why don't we start them in June? Why did we have to wait till August? But at this point in time, I'm still thinking, make it matter.
Shannon Scott (31:09.334)
Yeah.
Masi Willis (31:13.45)
I'm still, and I believe it's gonna compound and that flywheel of performance in my life for 2026, I'm probably not gonna see it come to fruition until the fall because that's where it actually starts compounding and starts building. And that's when the transformation will happen. I'll be like, wow, for nine months I've made this choice. And exponentially I've been blessed because I refined and made clearer.
what I'm going to do, not what I have to do.
Shannon Scott (31:47.863)
Whew, that's good. you know, make it matter has been your thing, but I've got it set by my computer to remind me that that's not something you own the patent on. That's not your copyrighted phrase. That's something anybody can pick up and apply. And so I think we just want to encourage and I think you would say challenge people that before decisions that they're making today, this week, this month, this year,
ask does this actually matter? If yes, if it does matter, then give it your clarity, your energy, your presence. But if it actually doesn't matter, like you said about going to the funeral, it did not actually matter. You released it and you don't feel guilty about that. You released it without guilt because it didn't matter.
Masi Willis (32:22.733)
Yes.
Masi Willis (32:44.014)
Yeah. You know, and make it matter not by doing more, but by choosing better. Let what people see in you. I hope people will see in me, man, she was so intentional in her choices and this year counts. This year matters. 2027 will come and go too, but 2026.
Shannon Scott (32:51.924)
Yeah.
Masi Willis (33:12.334)
You really need to choose to lead like you mean it and choose to make it matter.
Shannon Scott (33:21.1)
That's good, Mace. And I would say listeners, if you want help even discerning what matters and then how to align your leadership accordingly, I would just encourage you and invite you to explore coaching through a discovery call with Macy. And you can find that information on her website at macywillis.com so that you can find out, okay, so I heard all this great stuff. How do I apply it to my life?
Thank you guys so much for being with us. We will look forward to being back with you next week and covering more great leadership tools that help you lead like you mean it.