Today we’d like to introduce you to Shad Berry.
Hi Shad, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I began my career in our family business that my dad founded in 1972. I am the youngest of eight kids, five boys, and three girls. My older brothers were all in the family business, so it seemed natural to follow suit. I was a sales rep for one of our product lines on straight commission, making who knows how many cold calls daily and demonstrating office equipment to other businesses.
Ultimately I was promoted to Sales Manager, then Vice President of my division. During that same time, since graduating college in 2000, I married my incredible bride, Veronica, and we started having kids pretty quickly! Our oldest was born in 2001, our second daughter was born in 2003, we had a son in 2005, and another daughter in 2007. By 2007, after working in the family business full-time for seven years and being around it my whole life, I had a growing conviction that I would not be in the business for the rest of my life.
Though I wasn’t sure where that would lead me, at the same time, I was participating in a nine-month program called Downline. Downline exists to provide biblical education and spiritual formation for people who wanted to a deeper understanding of the Bible with specific application to mentoring others, including your children. This experience proved to be a highly influential and developmental season for me. The opportunity to join their staff in an operations role presented itself, and after a couple of years of consideration, it became clear that this was my next step.
In 2007, we also found out we were expecting our 5th. Sadly, this pregnancy resulted in a difficult miscarriage, put Veronica on bed rest for some time, and left her with a painful and persistent infection. Yet, as she healed, we still felt like we had room in our hearts and home for another child. We had some dear friends and mentors who had adopted multiple kids, and we got to observe that process first hand, which had a profound impact on us and helped us decide to expand our family through adoption. Over the next three years, I transitioned into my role at Downline, and we waited to see if a birth mom would choose us.
In 2012, we received a call from the adoption agency letting us know a birth mom had selected us with an adoption plan for her son, who was due in a month. After the long wait and ups and downs, we were thrilled about the addition, and so was our family. One month after meeting the birth mom, she went into labor and invited us to join her at the hospital, which we did. A few hours later, our son was born, and we had the opportunity to meet him. We were thrilled to meet him and introduce him to his siblings. They were elated, especially my son, who was dying for a little brother!
Four days later, we left the hospital headed for home. In the state of Tennesee, the law allows the birth mom to revoke her surrender within ten days of leaving the hospital in our state. Without warning, on the 9th day, we received the fateful call that our birth mom had decided to revoke her surrender, and we were to hand her son back to her on the 11th day after leaving the hospital. We were devastated and confused by the news, but on the 11th day, through tears, we handed him back to his birth mom with a deep ache and tremendous compassion.
Between leaving our family’s business, the miscarriage, and our failed adoption, our emotional and mental state was not in the best of shape. We were both depressed and exhausted by this point and living with some degree of denial about that. As a result, I finally swallowed my pride and asked for help. Dr. Tim Holler was an elder at our church, Professor of Psychology and Counseling at a local university, and practiced counseling privately. I called him in a moment of deep panic and high anxiety and told him I needed his help which started my counseling journey and what I would call my road to healing. After meeting with the team for over a year, I had become acquainted with a field I never knew existed and certainly didn’t understand, but I was grateful for the gift it had been to my family and me.
After ending our clinical relationship, Tim and I remained friends. I was highly interested in the field of counseling and the support and care offered by effective counselors. Tim entertained my myriad of questions and ideas, and we dreamed together about what we could do to support our community’s emotional and mental health needs. In 2014 with our shared desire to see more people heal, grow, and change, we decided to launch a counseling center that offered effective therapy (healing), multiplied effective therapists, and helped everyone become a more healing presence. Today, that agency is Kardia Collective.
Kardia grew quickly and by 2019 had two locations and a virtual counseling presence with over 25 licensed counselors and professional coaches. What had started as a passion project was now a legitimate business. But, if it were going to continue to grow, it would need more of my time. As a result, In 2020, I decided to officially leave Downline to devote my time and attention to leading and growing Kardia while developing a leadership development program that incorporates emotional and mental health into the leadership development process.
I co-wrote a book with another mentor and friend, Ken Edmundson, called Next Level Leadership: Navigating the dynamic changes coming in the 2020s. Together we lead Next Level Leadership which trains mid-market business owners and executives in proven principles for growing and sustaining their business while helping them practice emotionally and relationally healthy leadership.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
While I feel incredibly grateful for the people and opportunities I have had in my journey thus far, it has not been without struggle and pain, which I think is common to all.
Leaving the family business was particularly painful because it meant leaving family members I had looked up to and aspired to work alongside for most of my life. In addition, deciding to go had relational and financial implications for my family that took several years to wrestle with and navigate and still impacts my life and relationships today.
The adoption journey before, during, and after was filled with challenges and setbacks.
It certainly hasn’t been smooth, but I don’t think smooth is possible. There have been innumerable lessons learned and re-learned on virtually a daily basis.
A few central lessons I lean on routinely, if not daily, would include:
1) Passion is a more sustainable source of energy than fear. Passion is the response your heart experiences when connected to what you care about most. Passion is less concerned with image, success, or status and focuses on maximum contribution. Passion is more focused on contributing to the people and places it loves than it is with how hard and painful it might endure to serve them. Fear turned anxious stifles our passion by attempting to control the future in order to guarantee results that will be most favorable for our image, success, and status. Passion listens to legitimate fear and seeks wisdom, and applies faith. Passion allows us to be more courageous in the face of fear because if we don’t pursue contributing what we have to who we care about, we will not be content. Passion is not enthusiasm. It is a flame that burns steady and bright. It isn’t impulsive, but it is consistent and faithful. Strong and true. Not easily deterred but flexible. It is renewable, and it is powerful. Anxiety is temporary and exhausting because it competes for the same oxygen that passion needs to breathe.
2) Control is an illusion and security a fantasy. Living with passion is risky. The most passionate people among us always face opposition, even to the point of death. That won’t be the case for most of us, but rejection feels like dying, and I don’t know anyone that enjoys that. When you are open and honest about what you care about and how you think you can contribute, you will be more exposed and vulnerable than at any other point in your life. It is as painful as life gets if that is criticized, judged, rejected, or dismissed. As a result, we seek the illusion of control, play it safe, and take actions that require little faith. I’m not suggesting we act recklessly. On the contrary, it is wise to seek counsel, consider possibilities, and limit risk where possible. However, there comes a time when you have all the answers you can get, and there are no new questions. At that point, it’s decision time. Jump or turn around. That may be a 2-foot drop or feel like a never-ending free-fall during which we are acutely aware of our lack of security which is another reason we are less likely to jump. There may be “safer” options for you, but that doesn’t mean you are more secure. It just supports the fantasy that makes you feel more secure. The pandemic is an easy illustration of that.
3) Living fully takes a lot of courage, and courage takes a community.
Suppose you are passionate, someone willing to suffer for something they care about more than suffering or discomfort. In that case, you will experience legitimate fear, which means you need the courage to do things you are afraid of and have no ultimate control over their outcomes or how others judge you as a result. Courage is the willingness to fully participate in your hope and passion with full acknowledgment of the risks. Nothing I’m talking about here is life and death, but if you pay attention closely, you will become aware of how scared you are of being rejected and judged by others near and far. That is why a unity of people who share things in common, also known as a community, is vital to giving and receiving courage. Like water from a well, courage does not draw itself out. We need someone else in our lives who will draw it out of us with the commitment that their care and love for us are not contingent upon the outcomes of our contribution. Instead, they know and affirm the integrity of our hearts, trusting that what we want to contribute to others and the world is worth working and even sacrificing for.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Kardia Collective and Next Level Leadership?
Kardia Collective is a community of professionally licensed counselors and coaches who exist to help people heal so they can live with courage, hope, and freedom. They exist to help you connect to your passion and support the courage it takes to live with it. Today, our team consists of a combination of 30 licensed professional counselors and professional coaches specializing in any range of emotional or relational challenges. Including but not limited to anxiety, depression, process and chemical addictions, eating disorders, family systems issues, phobias, addiction recovery, personality disorders, pre-marriage and marriage counseling, grief, ADHD, OCD, food and nutrition, executive leadership, life coaching, spiritual formation, and more.
Our team offers individual sessions and group settings to create safe and confidential environments proven to lead toward personal healing and growth. Our Care Providers come from a very diverse background of training and expertise. The first step for anyone seeking help is to reach out directly to Kardia through our website, email, or phone. Clients will start by talking with our Client Care Coordinator, who understands the client’s goals and works to identify the right Counselor or Coach. Our Client Care Coordinator helps make sure this process is a simple and pain-free as possible.
We offer care in person at one of our two offices in Memphis as well as online. In addition, we have Providers who are licensed in Tennessee, Mississippi, and Arkansas.
Based on my own ongoing experience and work with professional counselors and coaches as a client and teammate, I never cease to be overwhelmed with gratitude for who they are and the work they do. Yet, unfortunately, counselors and Coaches may likely be among the most under-appreciated and undervalued contributors to the health and wellbeing of our society. During the pandemic, their value and appreciation have likely increased, but they are still a long way from being seen for the heroes they are.
At Kardia, we share one conviction that a vital ingredient to the healing process that leads to more courage, hope, and free-living is a relationship. We are all born into a relationship, grow in a relationship, are wounded, and must heal in a relationship. For many, trusting someone else to want more for them than from them is a big ask. Our team is committed to creating a place of safety and trust that helps make healing possible.
We are also committed to supporting professional counselors and coaches to build sustainable and healthy practices as a business. Our support team focuses on managing the business side of the practice so our Care Providers can focus full attention on supporting the growth of their clients. We can also support our Care Providers in growing their practices faster than average and help ensure they can continue doing what they do for a more extended period.
Through Next Level Leadership, we offer mid-market leaders support, development, coaching, and training. Specifically, we equip them with the tools and techniques necessary to lead sustainable, scalable, and profitable businesses. Part of the program’s goal is to holistically train leaders in the principles of leadership and the practices of relationships because that ultimately is what leadership is, a relationship because emotional intelligence and relational integrity bring joy and fulfillment to their leadership and those they lead.
Unfortunately for most, our leadership models have leveraged relationships to get results instead of using the security of relationships as a source of courage to inspire contribution. Leadership has been in a state of crisis for some time. The pandemic has merely accentuated and exaggerated those stress fractures into full-blown breaks. Combine that with the pace of technological advancement, artificial intelligence, five generations currently represented in the marketplace, and rapidly changing economic factors. As a result, leaders need more support and development than ever before, and traditional means of training leaders will continue to be inadequate.
Next Level leadership offers a highly personalized, highly integrated, and in-depth leadership development process that recognizes the need for organizations to be smart and for their leaders to be incredibly healthy relationally and emotionally speaking.
Risk-taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
Anyone who endeavors to do anything of value or contribute to the world is taking on risk whether they realize it or not. If the outcome is guaranteed, there is no risk, and the action doesn’t require much help or courage. If the outcome of the action is not guaranteed, the more the possible results, the more exponential the risk. Risk tolerance has to do with how well or resiliently an individual can tolerate the stress of the initial action and the final result.
What happens to a person and their view of themself and others in the “meantime.” Entitlement is the expectation or demand that the world guarantee the outcome we desire without risk. Risk comes in all shapes and sizes, be it financial, relational, emotional, or physical. It is part of what pursuing the desired outcome costs you. For those with a low-risk tolerance require significant inspiration to risk disruption to any of those four categories. Others with higher risk tolerance will take action that might prove disruptive to any of those categories, but they believe it to be worth it.
Somewhere in the middle or beyond that might be the adrenaline junky that has become so dependent on the high they get from living on the edge that they don’t feel alive unless there are considerable risks at stake often.
Leaders are willing to take the initiative on behalf of an internal hope that they believe is worth pursuing in the face of potential failure, critique, judgment, rejection, and failure. Leaders assume a vulnerability under the risk they are willing to take to represent the hope they carry and cannot hide. To be vulnerable means “wound-able.” No one who has ever led anything has been beyond being wounded.
For some, risk tolerance correlates directly to our relationship with security. Our false sense of security often keeps us from pursuing something we feel strongly about or living out of our conviction. It feels safer to maintain the status quo or keep things to ourselves. It seems that no matter how hard any of us try to “play it safe,” suffering finds us all. To me, living fully appears to be more accurately associated with representing oneself in the world with integrity than keeping ourselves out of trouble. We are all vulnerable, and our sense of security is relative.
I don’t consider myself a risk-taker, but I do see myself as passionate. I wish I were more passionate, and I wish I were even more willing to take risks myself. I, too, am overly dependent on my false sense of security and my fear of being rejected, judged, and discovered as knowing less than people think I do and having less to offer than I’d like. It’s an affliction in some ways that I actively work to confront and confess. Throughout my career, the risks I have taken have ranged from very significant to very insignificant. Yet, it is surprising how much power some less significant risks have over what I do or don’t do.
For instance, anytime I post something on social media, there is a fifty-fifty chance it will never get posted, and if it does, there is a high probability I will spend some time in fear over how it is being perceived or judged. On the larger scale, the things I eluded to earlier – adoption, pregnancy, career change – all came with thousands of considerations with variable and multi-faceted levels of risk. Nevertheless, some emotional, relational, and financial fears were realized. Some of the outcomes and sources of support and courage were utterly unexpected, beautiful, and beyond what I could have ever hoped—leaving me grateful.
The reason our tag line includes the language “to help others live with courage, hope, and freedom” is because courage is necessary to face the risk of leading a significant, meaningful life. Risk is a vital part of progress. There is no way to truly love beyond yourself and isolate yourself from the risk of pain, loss, and suffering. Courage is necessary to fully participate in the hope you carry for yourself and others. It is inevitable and essential if we will lead free lives and help others do the same.
In the absence of courage, we wither in the face of risk and are no longer free. We do not act according to the love, hope, and compassion we carry and act out of self-preservation we use to protect ourselves. We all do it. No one ever stops swerving back and forth across those lanes. Yet another reason why it is vital to be in a community. To be in a relationship with others who share a common unity, who can lend you courage when you need it to face the risk of living your hope freely.
Contact Info:
- Email: shadberry@kardiacollective.com
- Website: kardiacollective.com
- Instagram: shaddberry
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shaddeanberry
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/kardia-collective-counseling-coaching-and-training-memphis
- Other: https://edmundson.group/next-level-leadership-book/
