How to Lead When Everything Feels Uncertain with Marc Pitman

Summary

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Nonprofit Nation with Julia Campbell

Episode: How to Lead When Everything Feels Uncertain

Guest: Marc Pitman, Founder, Concord Leadership Group
Date: May 13, 2026

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Overview

In this episode, Julia Campbell welcomes Marc Pitman, renowned nonprofit leadership coach, author, and founder of Concord Leadership Group. Together, they explore the challenges of leading nonprofits through periods of intense uncertainty, such as funding cuts, increased demands, global instability, and widespread self-doubt. Marc shares practical insights on why embracing doubt can actually strengthen leadership, how to lead teams with confidence and vulnerability, and the importance of systems, habits, and values in turbulent times. The conversation is energetic, honest, and brimming with actionable advice for nonprofit leaders at all career stages.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Current Work & Innovations: Integrating AI in Nonprofit Leadership (03:41–06:32)

• Marc’s AI Projects: Marc is focused on making leadership and fundraising training accessible by compiling his writings into vector databases and creating custom GPTs — Fundraising Coach GPT and a leadership GPT called the “Pocket CEO.”
• Practical Application: These AI-driven tools help overwhelmed founders, retiring senior leaders, and middle managers seek instant guidance tailored to their current challenges.
• Memorable Moment: Julia and Marc bond over tech, with Julia inspired to consider a similar approach for her own work.

“I want to make sure I want to help people get access to good training on fundraising and good training on leadership.”
— Marc Pitman (03:41)

2. The Surprising Gift of Doubt in Leadership (06:32–08:09)

• Central Idea: Marc challenges the assumption that leaders must always project certainty. He argues that doubt, when embraced, makes leaders more human, enables them to see new perspectives, and drives authentic leadership.
• How Doubt Helps: Doubt can be a catalyst for introspection and innovation, shifting leaders’ focus from what’s “wrong” with them to what unique strengths they bring.

“Doubt invites you to look for other perspectives … and sometimes, for some people, doubt is the catalyst that pushes them into — I’m tired of just feeling like I’m broken. I think I have something to offer here.”
— Marc Pitman (07:05)

3. Navigating Uncertainty: The Leader’s Role (09:08–10:23)

• Vision Over Answers: Instead of obsessing over whether an issue is “vision” or “mission,” Marc encourages leaders to focus on why they’re here and what they’re committed to doing.
• Consistency in Adversity: In times of existential threat, clarity of purpose acts as a gyroscope, helping organizations adapt without losing sight of their core direction.

“Even though the storms are raging around us … there’s still some sort of solidity, some sort of gyroscope … this is still needed and this is still necessary.”
— Marc Pitman (09:12)

4. Communicating Uncertainty Without Instilling Fear (11:03–13:14)

• Transparency Rooted in Values: Leaders who communicate openly about uncertainty, anchored in the organization’s core values, foster resilience. It’s not about “never knowing”—it’s about consistently reiterating “this is what matters.”
• Breaking the ‘have all the answers’ mindset: Our culture conditions us to equate leadership with certainty, but real leadership is guiding amidst ambiguity.

“Having the answers is how we get the grade … that isn’t leadership, and that’s not life.”
— Marc Pitman (11:31)

5. Vulnerability in Leadership: Scars, Not Wounds (13:14–15:44)

• Vulnerability ≠ Oversharing: Based on Brene Brown’s concept, Marc and Julia discuss the importance of sharing lessons from healed “scars” rather than open “wounds.” Selective vulnerability builds trust without destabilizing teams.
• Developing Others: Marc shares that true vulnerability is sometimes simply admitting “I don’t know—what do you think?”

“We have to lead and tell our stories from scars, not wounds.”
— Julia Campbell (13:50)

6. The Dead Rat Analogy: Empowering Problem Solvers (15:51–19:25)

• Empowerment in Action: Marc uses a memorable “dead rat” analogy from his days as a pastor to illustrate teaching teams to bring solutions, not just problems.
• Technique: Ask team members for “three ideas” to solve any problem they identify—this encourages autonomy and growth.

“You’re probably uniquely gifted to be able to also show how we can remove it. So what do you see right now are the three things that we could do?”
— Marc Pitman (16:49)

7. Succession & Future Planning in Uncertain Times (20:26–23:38)

• Succession Anxiety: Succession talk often stirs fear, but normalizing conversations about backup plans and redundancy strengthens teams.
• Navigating with Systems, Habits, and Values: Marc encourages leaders to focus on these three pillars: objective systems, habitual practices (good and bad), and observed values—not just stated ones.

“The three things that leaders can focus on are systems, habits, and values. … Our true values are usually looking at our past behaviors and our stories.”
— Marc Pitman (22:37)

8. Fundraising & Mission Communication in Crises (25:47–27:06)

• Never Stop Asking: Organizations that maintained communication and fundraising through crisis recover faster.
• Empowering Donors: Withholding asks during hard times is actually disempowering—giving donors the chance to help is a gift.

“There’s nothing compassionate about not asking. … Giving is one of the most empowering things to our donors.”
— Marc Pitman (26:03)

9. Staying Grounded: Habits & Personal Wellness (27:58–31:47)

• Making Space: Marc champions scheduling “space” between stimulus and response, like intentional calendar blocks and time for reflection, rest, and meditation.
• Self-Care Isn’t Optional: Leaders must prioritize their own well-being — whether through regular exercise, naps, or pursuing personal hobbies — to have the resilience needed to support others.

“Whatever we can do to create space. … For me, every two weeks, I block [off time] for looking over my calendar, making sure my projects are in order, and prayerfully looking at what do we have coming up.”
— Marc Pitman (28:52)

10. Permission to Play & Find Joy (35:17–36:01)

• Play as a Theme: Marc and his wife Emily intentionally choose “play” for their year’s theme, giving themselves permission to pursue what brings joy, instead of defaulting to shame over having fun.

“Whenever we feel like, oh, that’s just frivolous, or that’s play, we know, oh, that’s the door. We’re choosing door number three.”
— Marc Pitman (35:47)

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Notable Quotes

• “Doubt helps you to be more human.” — Marc Pitman (07:05)
• “There’s nothing compassionate about not asking.” — Marc Pitman (26:03)
• “We have to tell our stories from scars, not wounds.” — Julia Campbell (13:50)
• “How dare we remove that opportunity from people?” — Marc Pitman (27:06)
• “Systems, habits, values—those are what help navigate through a crisis.” — Marc Pitman (23:38)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 03:41 — Marc’s AI projects & leadership tools
• 06:32 — Why doubt is vital for leadership
• 09:08 — Staying grounded in uncertainty
• 11:03 — Communicating through crisis
• 13:50 — Vulnerability from “scars, not wounds”
• 15:51 — The “dead rat” problem-solving analogy
• 20:26 — Succession planning & backup systems
• 22:37 — The power of systems, habits, values
• 26:03 — Fundraising in times of upheaval
• 28:52 — Building personal habits for resilience
• 35:17 — Permission to pursue joy and play

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Further Resources & Contact Info

• Marc Pitman: Concord Leadership Group, FundraisingCoach.com, LinkedIn (“Mark Pitman”), Threads (@MarkPitman)
• Podcast Mention: Still Figuring It Out (Marc & Emily Pitman)
• Julia Campbell: Instagram @JuliaCampbell77

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Tone & Takeaway

This episode is practical, encouraging, and reflective. Marc and Julia keep the tone authentic—balancing hard truths about burnout and uncertainty with actionable optimism and a dash of humor. The central message: Nonprofit leaders can—and should—embrace doubt, empower others, and intentionally care for themselves, all while staying true to their mission and values.

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Transcript

[Julia Campbell]

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Hello, and welcome to Nonprofit Nation. I'm your host, Julia Campbell Campbell, and I'm going to sit down with nonprofit industry experts, fundraisers, marketers, and everyone in between to get real and discuss what it takes to build that movement that you've been dreaming of. I created the Nonprofit Nation podcast to share practical wisdom and strategies to help you confidently find your voice, definitively grow your audience, and effectively build your movement. If you're a nonprofit newbie or an experienced professional who's looking to get more vis. Reach more people, and create even more impact, then you're in the right place. Let's get started.

[Mark Pittman]

Hello.

[Julia Campbell]

Hi, everyone. This is Nonprofit Nation with Julia Campbell. Today, I am actually really excited about this conversation. We are going to talk about some heavy topics like funding cuts and global instability and constant change and doubt and uncertainty. But I'm sitting down with someone that I think is one of the most optimistic, hopeful, positive leaders in the sector and beyond. It's Mark Pittman, who many of you know, founder of Concord Leadership Group. And Mark has more than two decades of experience coaching CEOs and training over 25,000 leaders across the globe. He's the author of Ask Without Fear and the Surprising Gift of Doubt and a lover of Pabst Blue Ribbon and cheese curds. Where we. When we hung out in Milwaukee, and I remember I didn't know how to order cheese curds because I didn't really know what they were. So I ordered, like, the extra large. And then this is not. I don't need the extra large, but

[Mark Pittman]

I wasn't sure, and I needed my lactate.

[Julia Campbell]

Yeah. Oh, my gosh. That was such a fun. That was such a fun trip. And also fun fact. Mark went to college in my town, my tiny town of Wenham, Massachusetts, which is 4,000 people. So that's such a crazy small world connection for us. How are you doing?

[Mark Pittman]

I want to come down to Greenville again.

[Julia Campbell]

I want to come down to Greenville again.

[Mark Pittman]

I love they have PBR on tap at the People's Tap because they think it's a riot to have pbr and people love that it's on. It's on draft.

[Julia Campbell]

So I love pbr. It's very refreshing. So welcome back to the podcast. I'm really excited to see you. And I just want to know, you know, to start out, like, what are you working on and what excites you the most lately about your work?

[Mark Pittman]

Well, you won't be surprised probably to find out that I'm working on a million different things, because, of course, that's my wiring, I guess. Two different things, I'll say. One of them is I am taking all of my books and all of my writing and blogs and trainings and putting them into vector databases. And I want to make sure I want to help people get access to good training on fundraising and good training on leadership. So I have Fundraising Coach GPT that Cherry and Koshy helped me to put together. And then I have a leadership GPT that is all my leadership writing that I call the Pocket CEO. And it makes me feel like, okay, so the stuff I've been doing for the last 29 years has merit, has life beyond me, even if I finally trim my BL in my blog, that's been, you know, going since 2003.

[Julia Campbell]

So I love that. The pocket coo. That's so cool.

[Mark Pittman]

So there's the Pocket. So the Fundraising Coach GPT [e-mail] frcgpt the pocket COO is @leadershipgpt pursuing passion.com. both of them are still being tested. But, yeah, the Pocket COO has it. So there's a overwhelmed founder is one of the one form of answers. Overwhelmed senior leader that's looking to retire is another one. And then middle manager that just isn't really sure how to. Like, no one trained me to lead, and it's different than doing the thing I was doing before.

[Julia Campbell]

That is so. Oh, my gosh. I love that so much. I know Seth Godin was talking about creating some kind of, like, Seth Godin GPT so you could just go in and ask it questions. And is trained on all his books, all his writings, all his blogs. I need to think about that for me and all the content that I've created.

[Mark Pittman]

Yeah. And I've been vibe coding it so I even vibe coded. Another thing I vibe coded was a leadership.

[Julia Campbell]

I just learned what vibe coding was yesterday, by the way. My husband was like, you should vibe code something. And I'm like, I don't know what that is. So for those of us that don't know or didn't know.

[Mark Pittman]

So if you go to ConcordLeadershipGroup.com Zapper Z A P, P, E R, you'll see what a vibe coding project could look like. It's a leadership zapper. It's a first person shooter where you get to shoot the negative thoughts that go through your mind and get points.

[Julia Campbell]

I love that.

[Mark Pittman]

So much fun.

[Julia Campbell]

I need that. That is so cool. Well, I love this because I do talk a lot about AI on my podcast and the ways you're using it, they're just so applicable and it's making your thoughts and your process accessible to so many more people. And it's really a way to scale the consulting that we do. It's kind of the thought leadership that we do and just make it really, you know, accessible to a wider group of people. So thank you for doing that. I send me all those links. I want to put them in the show notes and I also want to just look at it for myself.

[Mark Pittman]

Yeah, I'd love to have it. They're all being tested, so I'd love to have feedback on them from people.

[Julia Campbell]

I love that it's all being iterated. It's all just, you know, we're trying it out.

[Mark Pittman]

Yep.

[Julia Campbell]

And I think that, you know, really does bring us to our. Our topic today, which is, you know, the overall topic leading in times of uncertainty. But I love in your latest book how you challenge a core assumption about leadership and a core assumption that we need to project certainty. But you say that doubt is essential. So why is doubt essential? Especially right now? And I wish we had recorded the half an hour we talked before we hit record.

[Mark Pittman]

For me, it's. It pushes you to be more human. Interesting that I started out with AI projects I'm working on. But doubt helps you to. It invites you to look for other perspectives to think about that maybe, maybe my way of seeing the world isn't the only one. It's not that my way is wrong, but maybe there's a different way. And it helps, also helps us to stop listening to every. All the externals only and start listening to some of the stuff that our being is telling us. And our wiring and intuition is. Has been kind of knocking on the door that, hey, there's another way. And sometimes for Some people doubt is the catalyst that pushes them into. I'm tired of just feeling like I'm broken. I think I have something to offer here. And it helps them figure out what are those things, how to word those things so it sounds more objective language rather than just, I don't feel that way. You know, that that doesn't fly well in leadership. But saying here are some and then being able to have language to, to explain what you're trying to do, that can be that catalyst and invitational to that invitational moment.

[Julia Campbell]

And I know you work with many different CEOs across a variety of sectors and leaders. And when I think of a leader, I think of someone that maybe has like a clear vision for this time period. But I love when you talk about doubt and how it makes us human and how it actually helps us talk to our staff who are facing increasing, you know, shrinking resources, growing demand, and then also just a time of global uncertainty, a time of when you send an email out and you talk about, about literally anything you're going to get blowback or pushback or someone saying you're too political, or someone saying you're not political enough, or someone saying you're too extreme or not extreme enough. So how can leaders sort of rethink their relationship with uncertainty in the time we're going through right now? That's like productive.

[Mark Pittman]

Wow. How many hours do we have together?

[Julia Campbell]

I know.

[Mark Pittman]

So the, the great question, because I think this is. We've seen this in multiple ways through my career, but it feels like more intense ways in the last five or six years in particular, last two. Part of it is knowing what we're working toward. You said vision. And I think that there's. I don't get into the whole is a mission, is a vision. I don't find that debate helpful as much as what are we doing, why are we doing what we're doing? And if we can be clear on that, even though the storms are raging around us and there are existential threats at every corner, there's still some sort of solidity, some sort of gyroscope of. But this is still needed and this is still necessary. So how do we get this done? And part of the leader's job is getting tired of saying, this is still necessary, this is still the thing we need to do. And helping people focus outside of their own anxieties and not ignoring necessarily, but help them to remember this is what we're going towards, this is the future we're driving towards. All of a sudden the road get blown up. So we're not really sure how we're going to get there. But this, remember, this is going to be great if this is accomplished.

[Julia Campbell]

Exactly. I think that oftentimes leaders feel like they need to know all the answers and they need to have all their ducks in a row and they feel that way in order to make their staff feel safe. So if, if a leader right now is saying, oh, I mean, I don't know, we're facing layoffs or program cuts and, you know, maybe even organizational survival, extreme budget cuts, but I just don't know what's happening right now. How can they convey that to the staff, to the stakeholders, without really inciting a lot of fear?

[Mark Pittman]

I guess some of the clues that are in how people face the lockdowns because there was a global existential threat for all of our organizations for profit and nonprofit. And some leaders are able to say, we don't know what the future looks like, but we hold these things to be really important and we know that we're going to treat each other like human beings and we're going to do the best by each other. And if we have to have layoffs, we're going to try to help people have soft landings. But it was rooted in values and beliefs. Those leaders seem to be able to pivot faster. And we've seen in other nonprofits, other times of intense headwinds, that the people that continued communicating their vision, continued fundraising, continued outreaching, actually got out of it faster. It's the people that stopped or that this isn't the right time or we should hold back. Those are the ones that took years longer to get back to pre crisis levels. That's an answer. The other thing I'd love to give people listening is the permission perhaps of. We are coded from grade school, middle school, high school, college, sports, early jobs that we have to have the answers. Having the answers is how we get the grade. Having the answers to the. Knowing the answers to the questions, having, you know, even certifications. We need to know all the. What are all the questions so we can have all the answers. That isn't leadership and that's not life. That is an aspect of working in our society and our employees expect that of us. So there's that double edge thing. It's internal and it's external because the employees have gone through the same systems that we've gone through. Leadership, though, is being able to chart a course that isn't ever clear. What shocks most leaders that I've worked with is every. All the other leaders I Look at. Seem to have it all figured out.

[Julia Campbell]

Oh, imposter syndrome.

[Mark Pittman]

Well, yeah. And it's sort of like, did I not get the memo? Was there a training that I missed? And it's not because the other leaders have it figured out. It's just because it isn't safe to be vulnerable. And there needs to be some level of confidence that a leader exudes so that people will stay with the organization and be able to have the space to do their work productively.

[Julia Campbell]

No, I love you said vulnerability because I'm a huge Brene Brown fan and I think, you know, vulnerability, like, equals courage. Like, it's courageous to be vulnerable.

[Mark Pittman]

Absolutely.

[Julia Campbell]

But I don't know if she said this. I'm going to credit her with this, and then I will look it up and change it later.

[Mark Pittman]

She's our new Mark Twain. All the quotes. Good credit.

[Julia Campbell]

Exactly. I think it was her podcast with Adam Grant, and she said, but we have to, like, lead and tell our stories from scars, not wounds, so.

[Mark Pittman]

Oh, that's.

[Julia Campbell]

If you have an open wound and you are still in crisis and you're bleeding, it's very, very hard to tell your story and instill that confidence in people. But telling stories that are scarred over a little bit and a little bit harder, you know, a little bit more in the past, I think it's a little bit easier to be vulnerable with those. So when people hear vulnerability, they think, oh, I have to be crying and telling everyone all my personal stories and, you know, like, all of my different things I'm going through. But I don't think that's what vulner vulnerability means. And I'm having trouble with language.

[Mark Pittman]

It's in the air. No, I think that. But I. I just had a. I had a leader years ago. Tell me. I like, you know, I'm told to be vulnerable. I'm told that that's how to lead. But I have a hundred people that are relying on me to make their mortgage payments.

[Julia Campbell]

Yes.

[Mark Pittman]

If I'm losing my stuff and telling them all the uncertainty that I. That I'm living in, they're going to get stressed out and they'll leave the leave or they'll. They won't be. They won't even get to be able to do the job that they said that they wanted to do because they'll be so stressed. So I think you're right. I think there's a selective vulnerability. I love the scars, not wounds. I was told that it was better to talk from after you've been through a thing and So I have to be very selective when I'm in the midst of a crisis and talking about it because I know that it's a very different perspective than having gone through a crisis. I think for one of the biggest areas of vulnerability and hardest for leaders based, and it's tied to the previous question, is saying not sure, what do you see as perspective? The minute you can say somebody asks you something and this is where direct reports, even not in a crisis. One of the most annoying things for people that grow up that I coach is that the direct reports don't think for themselves. The direct reports keep coming to them and looking to them to provide all the answers.

[Julia Campbell]

Yes.

[Mark Pittman]

So training your direct reports. I'm not going to give you an answer. I'm going to ask you, what do you think?

[Julia Campbell]

What do you think the best approach is?

[Mark Pittman]

Did I tell you about my dead rat analogy?

[Julia Campbell]

Okay, a dead rat analogy.

[Mark Pittman]

Okay. So about 20 years ago, I pastored a church for about four years and it was a church plant. We were starting a fresh. No people. This expression hadn't been there before. This expression of the church. And I had a full time job at a hospital fundraiser as a hospital to pay for my pastoring habit.

[Julia Campbell]

So it wasn't to pay for your pastoring habit. I love it.

[Mark Pittman]

It wasn't like I had a lot of free time either, but I was committed. This is the calling. This is what I had wanted to do for four decades. There was one moment where, well, there was a period of time where people kept showing me problems with the building, with the people, with the procedure, with the order of worship. And fortunately we had a cat at the time who brought a dead molecule to our backyard. And I called it a dead rat because I don't know if people know moles as well. So what I would tell my.

[Julia Campbell]

Tell people that dead rodent of some kind.

[Mark Pittman]

Yeah, I'd say, you know what? They'd give me this problem and then

[Julia Campbell]

wait expectantly, what are we doing with it?

[Mark Pittman]

Right. And I said, you know, my cat, I think cares for me and worries I'm not eating enough because sometimes you'll leave a dead rat on the doorstep. And I think that's supposed to be sustenance and a gift, but I just see a dead rat. So next time could you come to me? When you come to me, you have seen a dead rat that I didn't see. Thank you. And because you've seen that, maybe you have a way of like three or four different ideas of how to get rid of the rat. And so next, as you. As you share these things, we need to hear this. We want to hear these things that you're seeing. We need that perspective. But you're probably uniquely gifted to be able to also show how we can remove it. So what do you see right now are the three things that we could do? And then it was shocking because they've never been asked in JET work or faith community to think. And so that was big. And it was great because you know what happens next when they say there are three A, B, and C, I will be able. Say, B sounds really good. Would you take care of that? Would you lead that part? So it's delegation.

[Julia Campbell]

Okay. I needed this this morning when my daughter came into my room at 6:30am and was yelling, where are my volleyball jerseys? And I was like, you're 16. I've been away for, like, two weeks. And I don't know, like, I don't know where your volleyball jerseys are. But. But to me, what's so interesting about how I reacted to it was I just reacted and, like, I don't know, like, figure it out, blah, blah, blah. But if I had said to her, okay, your jerseys are missing. What are the three things we can do? We can look through your laundry. We can look at the laundry that's already being done. You're giving.

[Mark Pittman]

You're giving her.

[Julia Campbell]

Oh, I'm giving her. Right. So I would ask her, what are three?

[Mark Pittman]

Yeah.

[Julia Campbell]

Oh, my gosh. Yep. See, my. My whole thing with parenting that I know that I need to do, be better at is get the problem solving. So I'm not really comparing parenting to being a leader of an organization getting people to problem solve. Like, hey, the, you know, printer's out of paper. Okay. What are we doing here? Or like you just said, like, oh, my gosh, we. We didn't get this grant. And I'm really upset about not getting this grant. And if I was the leader, I would say that's really disappointing. I know you worked really hard on that. But what are, like, three things that you think? Because, like, you just said, Mark, you're uniquely positioned to do this because you're in the trenches on the ground doing the research. What are three things that you think we could do about it? No, it's going to totally redefine my parenting now.

[Mark Pittman]

Well, and I want to.

[Julia Campbell]

I'm going to talk like a psychologist. What do you think?

[Mark Pittman]

What do you think we should be doing? Tell me about your mother. Oh, don't talk about me. No. One thing I want to underline what you said, though, the. I gave you the end. I gave you the scar. This is the story that was produced of it. I didn't give you the wound. Which was the frustration of, why did they keep coming to me? Why can't they think for themselves, have all this free time? I've got enough other stuff. They don't even know the other stuff I'm doing. Like, nobody's cleaning the toilets. I'm cleaning the toilets. Why is nobody cleaning the toilets? So all of the emotions were that preceded this rational, reasonable, strategic answer you missed. But I think that's part of my creative process. I usually stress out first.

[Julia Campbell]

I think that's really important to understand, and that's why you are a leadership coach, because you've been through this and you understand, and then you have these tools and these frameworks that you can teach others. And really what you're doing is teaching leaders to help other people become leaders.

[Mark Pittman]

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. We want to always be trying to bring up others. One hospital system I worked in in northern New England, they talked about the Moose plan. What if our CEO got hit by a moose?

[Julia Campbell]

What if our CEO got hit by a moose?

[Mark Pittman]

Yeah, because they. They didn't like the lottery thing, because they like to think that the work was so meaningful that even if you won the lottery, you'd still work there because you were. You loved what you did. But the odds of winning, you know, if it's a moose versus man, the odds of winning are the. In the moose's favor. So.

[Julia Campbell]

Yeah, true. No, I think that's a. There's a really great analogy. I also don't think that enough organizations do succession planning really well or do future planning. So when there's, you know, sort of so much doubt and. And burnout and anxiety and job insecurity, how can we really plan best for the future? What is your advice to leaders?

[Mark Pittman]

It varies based on the leader's wiring. A blanket answer definitely would be that the succession planning question, I think, is an important one because many people, especially in nonprofits, don't realize there's a pathway. I was talking to a former fundraiser who now works in a construction firm. She was hired to help with leadership and talent development because the construction firm people were coming in and thinking that they were hired for their job, and that's all they could do. They didn't realize there were all sorts of opportunities for growth. And one of them was moving from here in Greenville to Charlotte and thought he had to leave the company because he was moving. He didn't Even have the awareness, even though he worked there, that they had out. They had an office in Charlotte, so they were able to keep him employed. So I think part of what we do is if we talk about succession planning, it often feels like an ad hominem attack. I want you out. So when I want to replace you or it freaks out the board because you're talking about I'm leaving if you're the CEO. But I think it's normalizing that talk of redundancy maybe or backup systems. Who's the backup? If we're not available, how do we start codifying these things? And I think that helps provide stability in this leading in this chaos where I just did a blog post on the three things that leaders can focus on are systems, habits and values.

[Julia Campbell]

Systems, habits and values.

[Mark Pittman]

So the systems are flexible, but they are something objective and outside of our personhood. So we can all focus on them objectively. And it doesn't mean that I'm a bad. Nobody's attacking each other. It's what are the systems that we have in place. Those are often rooted in habits. And sometimes we can tell it's a habit versus a system when the system goes away and we still keep doing the thing because it's habitual, which is actually it can be good or bad. It's neutral. I was, I wrote it in terms of a good thing. But there can be bad habits. We could reward bad behavior. We could keep people long past their toxic people in our organizations. That could be habitual because we don't want to have confrontation. And that's bad. But the third one, the the under kind of the grounding of it all is our values. What do we find important? What do we reward? And it's usually not the words that we've said before. It's usually looking at our past behaviors and our stories that we talk we use to reinforce those behaviors. Those are usually where we can really find our. Our true values.

[Julia Campbell]

So systems, habits, values.

[Mark Pittman]

I think those, yes, those are help navigate through a crisis and help a team again, not ignore all that's going on around them. But also, hey, while we're here, we've been charged to focus on these things. Do these systems, are they still in this crisis? Are these systems still serving to get us where we need to go or should we tweak some.

[Julia Campbell]

Exactly. I love that you talked about COVID because I do think, I mean that was a real reckoning for a lot of organizations, especially like, you know, maybe arts organizations or organizations where people gather person after school Programs. I mean, it's so many things. Food pantry is like, where people needed to be there, like physical people need to be around physical people. And then that whole doubt of, you know, should we be asking for money during this time? I think we're experiencing that right now. Should we be talking about our mission right now when there's just, I haven't even, I didn't even look at the headlines today because I can't. It's sometimes just so overwhelming. But it's like, should we be talking about this right now? Is this important enough? Should we be quote, unquote, you know, burdening our donors? Should we be raising money in this climate where gas is like $7 a gallon? Like what, what should we be doing? I don't think we're ever going to leave this time of uncertainty and just get to a time where everything is like peachy and rosy and we'll all know what to do.

[Mark Pittman]

So, and part of the problem with when it was peachy and Rosie and whatever, whose iteration of that is, is it incredible systemic inequities and misogyny and patriarchy? So there are still really big problems. It was just problems that we kind of were had systems for navigating. And so I do think you're right. I think we are in a uncomfortable and I, optimism, I hope really generative time of breaking free of a lot of those things. But as in any good story right now that the, the future is unclear whether we're going to have a glorious, you know, renaissance or if we're just going to go into authoritarianism. I don't know.

[Julia Campbell]

It's literally like anyone's call. Like, I, I, I also don't know. Yeah, we're hanging on by thread. We're hanging.

[Mark Pittman]

So what to, to your point about COVID though, what we have found, and I've been fundraising for 29 years, what we have found, and like I said earlier, is that the organizations that keep asking and keep contextualizing their ask.

[Julia Campbell]

Contextualizing their ask. Yes.

[Mark Pittman]

Yeah. There's nothing compassionate about not asking. Nothing at all. And there's two reasons for that that I could think of. One is how dare we make up our mind, the minds of our donors for them? Who do we think we are? I don't know. Your podcast, I would say, who the hell do we think we are that we can decide for our donors if they don't want to be generous? That's not our role. Our role is to, as adults share a need and ask if people want to contribute. The other Part is, in a world that's totally falling apart, giving is one of the most empowering things to our donors. All the world is going around. I can't even look at the news all the time. But, man, I can support this organization because this is what I believe in and this is what I want to support and see in the world. And we could be offering that to people. We saw that arts organizations that couldn't have symphonies, symphony orchestras that couldn't have performances, raised more money not having performances than they had before, because people just want. They. They loved it, they wanted to support it. And some people just felt like, I am building, I am investing in what I think is important, and I want to see in the future. And how dare we remove that opportunity from people?

[Julia Campbell]

I love that. That's just like a breath of fresh air. That's so refreshing. How dare we remove that opportunity from people? And who are we to assume people are adults, like you said? And also, we're giving them an opportunity just to reiterate what you said, for them to feel empowered and feel in control and feel like, okay, in this time of uncertainty, I can help this, this particular cause issue, area organization that I really care about. I know I feel that way, and I felt that way especially during COVID and I feel that way right now, feeling like I know what nonprofits are capable of and I know what these organizations can do. So what sort of daily or, like, ongoing practices can help leaders stay grounded, not even grounded in doubt, but just help them stay grounded, stay sane.

[Mark Pittman]

One of the biggest things that I got from when I was a teenager reading 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey was the idea that there was a stimulus and there was a response and there was space in between it. The pressure to react quickly has always been part of human beings. We've had to have fight or flight or freeze or fawn, whatever those are. We needed to know, is this bear going to attack me or is it a threat or not? We have grown into a society that doesn't have that kind of existential threat at the same level. It's more systemic and slow. And in many places in our. I'm speaking out of privilege where. Where we live in the United States and in many Western countries, there are other countries where we are inflicting great harm. And that is not the case. I think whatever we can do to create space. We had talked before we started recording about creating space on our calendars. That is one of the big. For me, every two weeks, I took a scrum training course with Diane Leonard from Diane Scrum.

[Julia Campbell]

I read that book. I love that.

[Mark Pittman]

Yeah. And Diane Leonard does a Scrum for nonprofit certification, which is brilliant. I don't know how to do it as a single person, But I do 90min. It's every two weeks. I block. And it's for looking over my calendar, making sure my projects are in order, and prayerfully looking at what do we have coming up. How did we do the last two weeks? Many leaders that I coach find that the only time that they're creating space for themselves is in the calls that we do twice a month. So when we end our year of coaching, they often almost guiltily say to me, I'm going to keep this block on my calendar because nobody bothers me. It's like, it's your calendar. You're the leader. Go for it. So I have a lot of habits. I get up relatively early. I've always been an early riser. I walk four miles at a cardio two heart rate. I meditate 30 to 60 minutes a day. I eat high fiber, high protein. There's certain things I know that I need to do in the morning because of my neurodivergency and because of my wiring. That sets me up better for the day and sets me up better to be there fully present for my family and for the people I serve. That I also know is because our kids are out of the house. It used to be when there are times where I would get up at 4 in the morning and so I'd sacrifice sleep, which isn't necessarily healthy. But because I needed to get these things done and my. I need to like. I listen to podcasts at 3x speed. So I listen to.

[Julia Campbell]

Oh my gosh. I remember being in your car and listening to some podcast that was like three times speed and probably in Swedish. I was going crazy. I was like, what's happening here?

[Mark Pittman]

But so I the opposite of me.

[Julia Campbell]

I like the one time or even like slower. But that's so funny.

[Mark Pittman]

So finding out how you re. How you replenish. There's other people in my life that don't replenish that way. It's going to an art museum or going to nature. Nature is really has I. What I've been reading about neurology. We are designed to.

[Julia Campbell]

We're designed to be outside.

[Mark Pittman]

Yeah. Be outside. So. So there's I think and I think it all. So the patterns. I could give you my formula which is. Is probably suspect because I'm a straight white male living in 21st century America. But there's also there, there's fighting for those disciplines and choosing what for me. My wife has just reflected that she hears me say this a lot. Tomorrow me is going to be a lot happier that I do this now. I don't want to do this now.

[Julia Campbell]

Future me, I call it future me. Okay, so like future me is going to hate me if I don't do this today.

[Mark Pittman]

Right. I could do this in the next 15 to 20 minutes and. Or I could let it go.

[Julia Campbell]

Yep.

[Mark Pittman]

And then future me is going to be really tick. So I think it's, I think it gets down to creating that space. And for some people It's 15 minutes. I know for meditation practices. The teachers I listen to say two minutes of mindfulness is huge start. And so just building that and then helping that space become a little bit more enlarged and experienced and also freeing yourself up from the guilt and shame of needing it. There's no guilt or shame for needing it. And you're not really. It's like putting on your own oxygen mask first.

[Julia Campbell]

Yes.

[Mark Pittman]

You don't have to have any guilt or shame that you're putting yours on first. That is the best advice and the best way to continue living so that you can help others as well.

[Julia Campbell]

Yeah, I, you know, before I was diagnosed with cancer, I always had a really hard time justifying like napping.

[Mark Pittman]

Yeah.

[Julia Campbell]

Or resting during the day. I always had to like go, go, go, go, go and then get the kids and do this and dinner and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But now, even though I'm done with treatment, napping is still something that I either I block into my day. I also obviously coming from a huge place of privilege to be able to do that. I work at home and I am able to do that like a couple times a week. But also just resting or just taking even like you said, 15 minutes to just breathe or rest, I found has been really important from going from, you know, the go, go, go to not doing anything for about a year and then expecting myself to just kind of get back into that routine. So like, I love what you said, you know, giving yourself grace and, and really putting your own oxygen mask on first as much as you can. You know, I know that's really challenging, especially for those executive directors that are working, you know, 12, 15 hour days. But I think just, I think being more intentional with my time has helped me. Whether it's trying to take things off the calendar that are not serving me, or once again, I do have that choice. But also just being more streamlined in what I'm trying to accomplish and also what I know I can accomplish with my current energy levels and knowing what

[Mark Pittman]

it's okay that you're not going to accomplish. Most of us have more in our life that we can than we could ever accomplish. And realizing, you know, I've had a good day and this is. I am going to now take a break. I am going to now have a meal without any interruptions or I'm going to go watch this sappy rom com or Pride and Prejudice 1995 because it's. Well, okay, I was thinking Pride and Prejudice 1995, Real Housewives. Similar. Yeah, it's family drama.

[Julia Campbell]

There's Pride and Prejudice, isn't there?

[Mark Pittman]

I don't know. No, it's new. Wuthering Heights. And don't get.

[Julia Campbell]

Oh, Wuthering Heights.

[Mark Pittman]

Don't get my daughter started because it's not. The costumes are wrong, the story is wrong. It's not Wuthering Heights. It's just an excuse to use a good title according to the expert. Living in my house.

[Julia Campbell]

I take note. I do want to see it helping

[Mark Pittman]

as a nonprofit executive director that's not only getting pulled from staff and direct reports, but also from board. And the board tends to communicate when they're not at work. So that's usually in the year off hours. So part of it is setting times that you're not accessible. I work ever since my time at Gordon. I learned about the Jewish practice of Sabbath. And I'm not Jewish, nor have I ever played that on tv, but I appreciate the one I follow never is Jewish. And the pattern of having a 24 hour period where it's not. I'm not responsible to produce the stuff has been something that served me for decades. And it's floating. I'll usually start. It's often like sometimes like 4pm Saturday to 4pm Sunday last week because I had a home brew thing. So I brew my own beer. And there my home brew club was meeting also and having a competition. So it was all day Saturday. I was like, I gave donated platelets and then I went to this brewery.

[Julia Campbell]

We all aim to have as much energy and stamina as you, Mark.

[Mark Pittman]

Well, it's not about being like me. God help everybody. But it's also also knowing what your. What gives you life. And yes, knowing what.

[Julia Campbell]

Yeah, what. What energizes your batteries.

[Mark Pittman]

And I don't know why we're wired this way, but shame wants us to feel like that's bad. Oh, this is too much fun. I'm not allowed to have this much fun.

[Julia Campbell]

Right.

[Mark Pittman]

And I think that could be a tell for us. It is for Emily and I, when we feel this, like, oh, but there's no way we could do that. That becomes a. Like a red flag. But it's probably a rainbow flag. It's not red. It's not warning. It's. It's invitational of.

[Julia Campbell]

Yes.

[Mark Pittman]

That means we should probably do that. So this year we've been. Our word for the year has been play. Whenever we feel like, oh, that's just frivolous, or that's play. We know, oh, that's the door. We're choosing door number three. That's the door we're going to go through, even though there's all these other things to do.

[Julia Campbell]

So being intentional about your choice with Emily. I know. I think people would love to hear about it.

[Mark Pittman]

Okay. So Emily and I met 31 years of marriage.

[Julia Campbell]

Yeah.

[Mark Pittman]

We also had been married for 31 years, so we only knew each other for about eight months. And before we got married, which we don't advise, but it's worked for us because we're both.

[Julia Campbell]

Me too. We've talked. We've definitely.

[Mark Pittman]

Oh, that's right. Yes. I forget.

[Julia Campbell]

I only knew my husband for eight months before we got engaged. And I'm going to celebrate my 21st wedding anniversary this year. So something to be said for the eight months. Maybe it's magic. I don't know.

[Mark Pittman]

And we've been asked a number of times, even by our kids, how is that you're still growing? How is it that you're not ossifying, calcifying, getting smaller, narrower, in your view? And people also loved hearing us talk, so they said, you should have a podcast. So we're in our fourth season of Still Figuring It Out. That's the name of the podcast.

[Julia Campbell]

I can't believe I don't listen to it.

[Mark Pittman]

We're doing it. A friend of mine said, what's the business purpose of this? And I said, it brings Emily and me joy. Even if there were no listeners, we just love having a half hour, 20 minutes to talk about a topic. And now we've started inviting guests in. And, yeah, it's been a real, real bright light. Last week's one was on cocktails, hospitality, and art. Like, how do you find your center in a world that seems to be falling apart? And so we had a friend on who's a spirits educator for distilled spirits, and so. And she's a cocktail crafter for a local distillery in Pittsburgh.

[Julia Campbell]

I know my husband And I say we should just have a podcast of us like watching and heckling sci fi TV shows.

[Mark Pittman]

Oh, see, that would be fun too. Yeah, except for the copyright issue, but

[Julia Campbell]

yeah, that's so great. Well, Mark, how can people connect with you online? Learn more about your work and what you do and get your books, all the things.

[Mark Pittman]

Thanks. I hope I've made myself ridiculously easy to find online. So if you Google Mark with a C. Pitman, P as in Peter I T M A N, you should find me if it looks like I've been in a Charles Manson movie. That is not me. That's the other Mark Pittman.

[Julia Campbell]

Oh, is there another Mark Pittman?

[Mark Pittman]

There is. I, I, yeah, I googled myself for the first time, which sounds awkward, but it's, it's just searching.

[Julia Campbell]

I Google myself all the time.

[Mark Pittman]

Okay. In 1999 and I found that there was another Mark with the C. So that's why I got markfittman.com because I realized who knows? So search me. LinkedIn. I'm always there. My website, concordleadershipgroup.com c o n c o r d leadershipgroup.com and also for listeners. This podcast clearly fundraisingcoach.com would be one of the longest running blogs in the nonprofit sector. It continuously blogging for the last 23, 24 years. And I try to respond all those ways. Except during that 24 hour period of rest.

[Julia Campbell]

Exactly. Oh my God.

[Mark Pittman]

And I'm on threads a lot too. If you guys are on threads.

[Julia Campbell]

Oh, you're on threads.

[Mark Pittman]

I like threads a lot. Yeah, that's Mark with a C. Pitman. Not there's no A in that one because there's a backstory. But it's Mark Pittman. Yeah. Instead of Mark A. Pittman.

[Julia Campbell]

Oh, great. Okay, cool. Yeah, you'll have to teach me all about threads. I have not.

[Mark Pittman]

Keep up with the pw. At the time of this recording, Boston Fleet just won the first finals for the PWHL Walter cup. And yay, it's first semi final. So they're, they're moving toward through the, the, it's playoff season now, so that's so exciting.

[Julia Campbell]

Okay, well this has been wonderful. We could just record for hours and hours and hours. But it's just so great to see you. So great to hear your perspective. I really actually did get some very tangible insights and something I'm going to use when I am, you know, when I say like, oh, I want you to do something like in my house or conversations with people or a client. I love the idea of the three things. Like what do you think are the three things that could make this happen? Rather than me, which is I'm kind of like the I automatically want to do everything for everyone and I want to have the solution. So that is incredibly, incredibly helpful to me. But just everything that you talk about, Mark, I love it. I could listen to you all day. So I'm definitely going to listen to your podcast with Emily. And yeah, everyone check out Concord Leadership Group, fundraisingcoach.com and Mark Bittman on Friends and hopefully I'll see you very soon.

Well, hey there. I wanted to say thank you for tuning into my show and for listening

all the way to the end.

If you really enjoyed today's conversation, make sure to subscribe to the show in your favorite podcast app and you'll get new episodes downloaded as soon as they come out. I would love if you left me a rating or a review because this tells other people that my podcast is worth listening to and then me and my guests can reach even more easy earbuds and create even more impact. So that's pretty much it. I'll be back soon with a brand new episode, but until then you can find me on instagram Julia Campbell, 77 Keep changing the world, you nonprofit unic.