#16 Todd Voss on goals, switches, and idealism Dealing With 40

Dr. Todd Voss is the President of Southern Wesleyan University.

Here’s what I love about Todd Voss.

For this podcast I went to the Southern Wesleyan University website thinking I would find a really impressive BIO of Dr. Voss listing all of his academic achievements. The impact he’s at at Southern Wesleyan as President. The achievements. The buildings built. The money raised.

And I couldn’t find it. I am pretty sure it does not exist.

This guy is a quite, unassuming leader.

When I first met Dr. Todd Voss he was the vice president for Student Development at Indiana Wesleyan University. I was an 18 year old freshman.

Voss was incredibly student focused. He was driven. Always focused on both qualitative and quantitative growth.

At one time I asked him to formally mentor me -- and for almost two years we had lunch every Thursday.

He would later serve as Executive Vice President at IWU and we remained friends. After he left for Southern Wesleyan, we lost touch a bit.

Two years ago, as I was going through a personal dark night of the soul, I reached back out to him. And after years of not talking he was incredibly gracious with his time and really leaned in and was a great help to me.

Some things that got my attention....

"My plans are not necessarily God's plans."

Having multiple things going at the same time and you never know which one is going to click.

He's not big on timelines or deadlines on goals. This is contrary to so much you read and hear from goal driven people. I found Dr. Voss' perspective on this very interesting.

Talked about how colleges are destroying ideas by being worried about getting students to pass math. Students turn into realists. Voss wants to encourage idealism and thinking big.

Celebrate conflict and the negative outcome of decisions you have made. They are the best ways to learn.