Tremendous Tracey

A church convention and a stock exchange have more in common than you'd think: both reveal the oldest trick for silencing the people we'd rather not hear. Here's how to spot the rigged ledger—and dress your mind for the best-dressed list.

My father, Charlie "Tremendous" Jones, believed the bedrock of a tremendous life was rich dialogue. So I pay close attention when someone drops the "Q" from "Q&A". When you ask a fair, honest question and the room turns on you instead of answering it, that reaction tells you everything. Here's what the military, a board meeting, and an auditor's wisdom taught me about asking the hard question the right way.

Addiction isn't a weakness. It's devotion aimed at the wrong altar. A line from Ty Ngachira sent me back to a strange little phrase in Hosea 13 — "kiss the calves" — where God's people melted their own silver into an idol and bowed to the work of their own hands. Money does that. It doesn't create what's inside us; it reveals and magnifies it. Hand a fortune to a whole person, and it becomes a tool. Hand it to a hollow one, and it becomes a god. From Arthur Guinness to Milton Hershey to a short tax collector in a sycamore tree, here's what righteous wealth looks like when devotion gets redirected.

I was deployed to the UAE during the first Gulf War when I read Leon Uris's The Haj, and one phrase branded itself into my soul: The enemy of my enemy is my friend. I spent decades studying why people move in and out of groups — through my PhD research, my leadership practice, and my deep appreciation for Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) theory. I never expected my most powerful illustration would have scales.

I screamed at a baby garter snake in 2022. By 2026, I was calmly coaxing an eight-foot black rat snake off my kitchen blind. That transformation — from terror to trust, from out-group to tribe — is the whole leadership lesson. Some relationships you recognize immediately. Others take time, research, and a glass door between you and eight feet of black rat snake.

Meet Mr. Bo Tangles. And the ally you might be missing right outside your door.

He'd been gone ten years. The first stranger he met on the outside got to say welcome back into the world. And it almost didn't happen — because I never change my seats.

Golden Tempo — a 23-1 longshot most of the room had written off before the gates opened — had just come from dead last to win the 152nd Run for the Roses. Afterward, his trainer said something I haven't been able to stop thinking about: "He's a dead closer."

After the President survived a third assassination attempt, one reporter asked a question that managed to offend everyone watching. The single word that came before it reveals a leadership lesson hiding in plain sight, and what every leader can take from it.

Last night, historian Bill Federer shared a line that stopped me cold: when we meet Moses, David, and Daniel in heaven, they'll want to hear about our acts of bravery and kingdom work. Lord, have mercy. A reflection on warriors, publishers, speakers — and why the stories we're living right now matter more than we think.

If there's one phrase that captures the universal human experience of handing money over to the government, it's the one Jesus delivered two thousand years ago: "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's." But what do we really know about the people responsible for collecting Caesar's cut? They were the most hated professionals in the ancient world — and yet Jesus kept showing up at their tables. This Tax Day, discover what history's most despised profession teaches us about redemption, integrity, and grace.

What do Milton Hershey, Bob Burg, the Apostle Peter, and Joan of Arc all have in common? They were each one step away from quitting — and didn't. A trolley ride through Hershey, Pennsylvania, sparked this week's blog, and the lesson that came with it is one every leader and follower needs to hear: your breakthrough may be exactly one more away. One more order. One more call. One more cast. One more battle. Read on to find out what happens when you refuse to stop one step too soon.

Got it! Here's a crisp Shopify product excerpt for The Island of Misfit Leaders:

What if being pushed out was actually the beginning?

The Island of Misfit Leaders is a leadership parable about eight extraordinary leaders — Unity, Truth, Logic, Passion, Industry, Candor, Merit, and Conscience — who were told they were too much, not enough, or simply didn't fit. Cast out by organizations that couldn't handle their gifts, they wash up on a bleak, mysterious island haunted by the Abominable Mirror Man — a creature who weaponizes every rejection, every failure, every lie they ever believed about themselves.

But what broke them individually becomes unstoppable when they stand together.

Part fable, part leadership manifesto, this book is for every leader who has ever been penalized for telling the truth, raising the standard, or refusing to play politics. Your gift was never the problem. The soil was.

You were never a misfit. You were just misaligned.

When our pastor called our church body to a five-day fast, I heard God say clearly: you are doing this, and you will finish.

Every solo attempt had failed. But something was different this time — we were doing it as a corporate body.

What I expected was five days of misery. What I got was the most productive, clear-headed, spiritually explosive week of my life.

Arthur Wallis wrote nearly sixty years ago that the body, mind, and spirit are in a constant state of either assimilation or elimination. That's not just biology. That's leadership.

How much of what we consume — information, entertainment, food, noise — is surplus fat? How much is waste we've been too busy to eliminate?

It is spring. It is Easter season. Time to purge.

I have 22 acres of wooded property in Pennsylvania, which means I've spent more time with tree guys than most people ever will. So when one of them mentioned he was considering a partnership with his competitor, I asked the obvious question: "You're both incredible — what's driving this?"

His answer stopped me cold: "While I was investing in equipment, he was investing in people."

Eleven words. One sentence. And everything about how you build a business.