Tremendous Tracey

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.

I'm a lifelong Pennsylvanian and I'd never been to the Philadelphia Flower Show. That changed this weekend. Walking through breathtaking displays for the very first time, I was reminded of a leadership program I built ten years ago called Seasons of Leadership — and one truth hit me all over again: beauty isn't the result of addition. It's the result of courageous subtraction. Every stunning exhibit existed because of what was removed. Most leaders don't have a growth problem. They have a pruning problem. This March, it's time to pick up the shears.

It started like any other Wednesday morning. Tracey Jones poured her coffee, settled in for what we call "Coffee and Claude Time," and mentioned that her husband Mike had received a strange voicemail.

"This is Manny Rivera calling from Zwicker and Associates PC. Please contact me or any of our representatives at 1-800-397-5324."

Seemed simple enough. A debt collection call. Probably a wrong number. We'd clear it up in five minutes and move on to more interesting things.

Out of a 9-day journey, five days involved airports, two nights were spent on airport floors, and one sketchy hotel room. But those four days in Belize? Watching my husband Mike reconnect with his friend of 48 years made every bit of turbulence worth it. The journey there was hard. The journey back was hard. But what happened in the middle? That's where the magic lives. Don't stop Belizing.

Storms hit. Plans derail. You board and deboard and board again. Sometimes there are ice barnacles. Sometimes you sleep on an airport floor next to snorers and goose-honking nose-blowers with a banana halo around your head.

But you don't stop believing in the destination. You don't stop investing in relationships. You don't stop serving the next client, making the next introduction, building the next connection. Because decades from now, that young captain you helped? That family whose future you secured? That colleague you introduced to the right opportunity. The new friends you made at the airport during a snowstorm?

A penguin is breaking X., but this isn't a story about burnout or despair. It's about defiance. And the gallows are getting flipped everywhere.

Following the rules is not political. Expecting accountability is not aggression. Seeing clearly is not a character flaw. The hideous genius of DARVO is that it makes you doubt truth itself. It weaponizes your decency against you.

My father, Charlie "Tremendous" Jones, always said, "Thank you for your smile." I pulled his expressive genes—I once had to get my passport photo taken THREE times because they kept telling me not to smile and I told them I couldn't!

So when I watch Indiana's Coach Curt Cignetti on the sideline, I'm mystified. The man doesn't smile. Not ever. His poker face could win in Vegas. And he just led Indiana to a 15-0 season and the National Championship game.

Here we are in 2026, and guess what? Most of us are still carrying trash from 2025. It didn't magically disappear. But here's what I learned from a trash can in Colonial Williamsburg: it doesn't have to be ugly. Your transitions through the tough stuff should still be beautiful.

While the shepherds found the baby in Bethlehem, Jesus would forever be known as "Jesus of Nazareth"—a nothing town with no prestige and no pedigree. The kind of place you couldn't wait to leave. How often do we look at where we came from as a limiting factor? The most transformational leaders rarely come from the expected places. They come from Nazareth. 

Organizations are supposed to bring out the best in people. But here's the paradox: each of these leaders was forced out for the very things that healthy cultures should have been developing and nurturing.

Will they find their way off the island? Or are they forever carrying their misfit label?

This modern-day Pilgrim's Progress is a transformational journey for every leader who's been told they're "too much" or "not enough."