What if the pressure to succeed in business is actually an invitation to become a different kind of leader?
While it’s tempting to think you’ve got it made once you reach the top, the most effective leaders never stop growing. They continue to seek out wise mentors, invest in supportive communities, and bring their struggles into the light rather than trying to manage everything on their own.
In this eye-opening episode of Performing Under Pressure, Austin Conner, PLPC, sits down with Clint Guier, an executive leader who has spent more than two decades with the same company. Clint’s journey from a farm kid in small-town Missouri to the executive vice president of a rapidly growing organization offers a window into the everyday realities of leadership: making decisions that affect hundreds of people, navigating growth and risk, knowing when to delegate, and learning from the people who have gone before him.
But this conversation goes beyond strategies for succeeding in the business world. Clint reflects honestly on the ways pressure has shaped him over the years, including the temptation to seek approval, the cost of carrying stress alone, and the impact that unprocessed pressure can have on the people closest to us.
At the heart of Clint’s approach is a shift in perspective: from performing for approval to recognizing that his work is an opportunity to steward what God has given him and serve others well. Whether you’re leading a company, building a career, or simply trying to navigate the pressures of work and family, this conversation offers an encouraging look at what it can mean to pursue excellence without making life all about yourself.
Highlights from this Interview
Austin: Today we’re going to enter the realm of the business world. To help me do that is our guest for this episode, Clint Guier. Throughout this episode, we’re going to hear about the specific pressures that Clint faces, but also speak to the broader pressures that everybody in the business world faces.
Clint and his wife, Jen, have been around The Crossing for almost 20 years, which is crazy, because I’ve never met them until now! Clint is a humble, a steady, and faithful presence wherever he finds himself. He works hard. He doesn’t complain. And he believes how you go about your business, and in life in general, is just as important as what you accomplish.
Clint, thanks so much for being with me today in the studio. Tell our listeners a little bit about who’s in your family, how you guys got involved in The Crossing, and then we’ll talk about your job.
Clint: Thanks for having me. My wife and I started dating back in 2005, and were looking for a church to attend together. She had some colleagues that were attending The Crossing, so we tried it, and after that first sermon we knew we were home, and we’ve been attending ever since. We got engaged that Valentine’s Day of 2007 and then got married August of the same year. We had three kids in three years, and now they are 13, 14, and 16 years old.
Austin: Wow, and you survived! Tell us about your job and what that looks like for you.
Clint: I’ve spent my entire career at a company called Senior Benefit Services. I’m the executive vice president, so I basically touch everything that happens there on a daily basis. We’re a Medicare brokerage. Our slogan is, “We make Medicare easy.” Medicare is a government entitlement program for people 65 and older or people with disabilities, and it can be confusing. We help our customers navigate those waters every year.
Austin: How did you find yourself this role?
Clint: I’m a farm boy. Grew up in a small town called Sweet Springs, Missouri. I was ready to get out of town and move on to bigger and better things. So I went to Mizzou, majoring in agriculture. The summer after my sophomore year, I interned as a crop scout in Watsika, Illinois, in the middle of nowhere. I was wandering around in corn and soybean fields all summer looking for problems with pests and weeds and reporting back to the farmers. I realized that was not my life’s calling.
The next summer, I was looking for some sales experience. I had a fraternity brother that was working for Senior Benefit Services at that time. I’d given him a hard time for being in the insurance business but then came groveling to him for an internship that summer. After that internship, I knew without a doubt that’s what I wanted to do after I graduated from Mizzou.
Austin: Can you describe your trajectory at the company?
Clint: Everybody in our company starts at internships or entry-level positions and works their way up. So I’ve done about everything there is to do. I started as an intern, became a sales agent, and moved into management while growing my client base. I started recruiting people and building teams. Now, 23 years later, I’m running that division of the company.
Austin: Were you asked to come to the management side or did you have to advocate for yourself and say, hey, I would like this opportunity?
Clint: The two gentlemen that were running the company were mentors of mine as well. They would meet with us at least quarterly one-on-one and we were having lunch one day and they wanted to know what I thought my future looked like with the company. I told them that I saw the impact they were having and wanted to do what they were doing. They both were very supportive and excited for me. A theme throughout my career is having great mentors to encourage me.
Austin: What tasks at your job are common to other businesses you’ve seen? And what are ones that are pretty unique to your role?
Clint: We’re a sales and marketing organization, and we’ve got customer service and HR and all the things. You’ve got to market and generate leads and provide amazing customer service and those things are very common to other businesses.
What’s unique with what I’m doing is partnering with other companies, starting in 2021, acquiring small agencies and books of business. Managing that kind of risk is something that I never imagined myself doing, but it’s allowed us to double the size of the company in the last five years.
Austin: You mentioned that some of the new tasks you’re doing aren’t in your wheelhouse and aren’t normal for you. Have you figured out at what point you say, “This is not in my wheelhouse, so I’m going to delegate that and give that to somebody who is,” versus, “This is on my plate and I need to get better”?
Clint: I figured out early on that just because you think you’re the best at doing something doesn’t mean you’re the one who should be doing it. If you have to be in control of everything, you’re going to limit your company’s growth. We have such a depth of amazing leaders within our company, which makes delegation easy and allows me to focus on other areas of the company where I can have a greater impact.
Austin: I imagine a lot of people listening are thinking, “Well, that’d be great to have amazing leaders and bosses and mentors that I trust. But that’s not true of my business.” If you didn’t have mentors to rely on, how would you navigate that?
Clint: If you don’t have those people in your sphere, you can find them. You can find inspiration from people in the past through good books. Then you model that within your organization. Or you can move on to another organization that’s in line with your values.
Austin: Have there been any helpful books that you would recommend?
Clint: My all-time favorite book on leadership is Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin. It’s about the political genius of Abraham Lincoln, and there are so many amazing lessons, including his ability to forgive and not hold grudges against people who were trying to harm him. I’ve seen through my personal walk with Christ the grace that’s been extended to me, and extending that grace to others goes a long way.
Austin: I think you got that right. Let me ask a little bit of a different question, and it’s explicit in our series title. Where do you feel the most pressure to perform in your job right now?
Clint: The word “perform” is an interesting one. If I’m being transparent, I’ve been performing most of my life. I was the youngest of three siblings. I performed to get attention. Move into middle school and high school, and then you’re performing for your peers. Take that into college. For me, that meant joining a fraternity, performing there, trying to fit in, trying to be liked and admired by others.
I certainly performed for Jen to get her to say yes when I asked her to marry me. And then you move into the business world. And then with social media thrown into that, sometimes you find yourself performing for people you don’t even know.
When you realize that your true calling is to serve God, you can transition from performing to becoming a steward of the gifts he’s given you. The decisions that I make and how I conduct myself out there in the marketplace potentially impacts all of our 150 employees and the 44,000-plus customers that we serve.
That’s a healthy pressure there because I realize it’s not about me. It’s not about getting others’ approval. It’s about positively impacting all the people who are counting on me to make good decisions.
Austin: How has pressure taken a toll on you, and how have you learned to manage it?
Clint: Early on, I wouldn’t talk about it. I would internalize it, compartmentalize it. You’re going home to a new wife, a new marriage. You’re trying to navigate that with all the challenges of work. Then you throw three kids in three years on top of that. You’re going into chaos when you get home from a long day.
I would lean into alcohol, lean into really destructive behaviors. My stress would manifest itself in anger directed at all the wrong people because I didn’t have a great outlet for that. By the grace of God, through The Crossing, I joined a men’s group in 2008. That’s been amazing for me. And Jen and I joined a small group in 2009.
The Crossing counseling ministry has been a major blessing to me. I meet with your fellow counselor, John, on a regular basis. Seeking wise counsel and bringing my struggles to God has helped me so much. Thankfully, I’ve had people in my life who have encouraged me to bring those potentially destructive things out into the light.
Austin: I really appreciate you being honest. A lot of us can relate to facing pressures at work that your family doesn’t quite understand. I can’t always be 100% present when I’m home even when my kids want ‘dad’. So I can relate to what you’re saying. Our listeners who are in the business world and have kids can too.
Clint: John gave me a helpful analogy to understand how my anger can affect Jen. He’s like, “It’s just whoever gets in the crosshairs.” It’s not that the individual in the crosshairs has done anything wrong. Many times, it’s the ones that we love the most and we’re closest with that get the brunt of our anger.
Austin: That’s good to remember. What has it looked like to incorporate your faith and Jesus into your job?
Clint: I’m very blessed to be a part of an organization where our founder was a Christian. We pray before the meal at company events, and I rarely hear any pushback from that. I want to share my faith to others through how I carry myself. I often use Scripture because when God presents it to me in a way that’s blatantly obvious, I’m inclined to share that, whether it’s in a meeting or in a one-on-one conversation.
Austin: That’s good. Sounds like you’ve been blessed to have a Christian founder. Any advice for somebody who is not in a supportive environment?
Clint: Pray for those people in your organization. We serve an amazing God who can do miraculous things. When people behave in a hostile way, it means they’re hurting. The only way to impact that person for Christ is if they know you and trust you. That’s hard to do if they’re ornery or downright mean. But through prayer and over time, it’s remarkable what God can do in people’s lives.
Austin: I’m convicted and I want to do that more for myself. You mentioned that you’re just now starting to accrue a little bit of wisdom. What’s the best piece of advice you have been given?
Clint: One of my mentors told me early on, “Clint, never take financial advice from somebody who’s not doing as well as you financially.” I’ve extended that into every area of life. Never take marital advice from somebody whose marriage isn’t doing as well as yours. Parenting advice, etc. There’s a lot of conflicting advice out there. So be discerning with who you listen to.
The other one is to put gossip to death. I’ve made mistakes acting off second- or third-hand information. As a leader, you have the power to hurt people if you make decisions from misinformation. Unfortunately, I’ve hurt people. I’ve had to apologize. They say knowledge is power, but it’s the application of knowledge that’s actually power. Try not to make the same mistakes twice.
Austin: Let’s pretend you are the old, wise sage; maybe your hair’s a little gray or almost white. Any perspective or advice you would give to someone right now who is just starting out in the business world?
Clint: Something I find myself saying a lot is “Comparison is the thief of joy”. It’s so easy now to compare yourself to others, and I am guilty of it. You jump on LinkedIn and it looks like everybody is killing it out there, right? I’m not as good as these people. That’s the enemy robbing your joy.
Lean into the gifts that God has given you to serve other people. Make it about them and not you, and you’re going to find yourself in a much better position in life. If you can do your job in a way that is others-focused and not you-focused, you’ll have better results.
Austin: Are there any particular scriptures that have been helpful for you? If you’re in the business world, it seems like it would be great to just have one verse as a foundation to stand on.
Clint: Early on in my career, one of the agents I was working with was a Christian and in his email signature, he put John 3:30: “He must increase while I must decrease.” It’s so beautifully simple. It’s not about me. It’s about God. We’ve got limited time on this earth to serve others and glorify him. The less we can make it about ourselves and the more we can make it about God, the better outcome we’re going to get.
Austin: That’s so helpful! My last question for you. Anything else you’d like to share that we didn’t get to?
Clint: I’d like to encourage anybody listening to realize that you’re not alone. The work I’ve done on myself through your ministry has been so helpful. John told me that everybody should be in a counseling, and I agree with that. Seek help, look at your life, and peel back the layers of your onion.
Austin: Clint, thank you so much for being here. I’m encouraged. I’m confident that people listening are encouraged as well. Listeners, we hope that you come back for more episodes in our Performing Under Pressure series.