#16: Finding Strength in Loss: Edward E. Mosley Jr.'s Journey

Finding Strength in Loss

In this deeply emotional and inspiring episode, we sit down with Edward E. Mosley Jr., a transformational leadership coach, 2X author, speaker, and former combat veteran with the United States Marine Corps (USMC). Edward's journey is one of incredible resilience in the face of profound personal loss and life's most difficult challenges. Several years ago, Edward's world was turned upside down when he lost his beloved wife to cancer, followed shortly by the passing of his mother-in-law. Overwhelmed by grief, he believed that love had died with them, and for a time, he closed himself off from the possibility of love and happiness.

As a combat veteran, Edward had already faced the hardships of war and battled PTSD. However, his losses marked a new, pivotal moment in his life, forcing him to confront not just external challenges, but also deep emotional wounds. Through his journey of healing, Edward found the strength to embrace life once again and rediscovered love. Now, he shares his story of overcoming grief, finding resilience, and living with purpose.

In this episode, Edward discusses:

The emotional impact of losing loved ones and how to navigate the grief journey while honoring your emotions.
His path to healing and rediscovering love after believing it had been lost forever.
How his experiences as a combat veteran helped shape his resilience and approach to overcoming PTSD.
Practical strategies for those experiencing profound grief and how to rebuild life after loss.
How to turn life's most challenging moments into opportunities for personal growth and transformation.

Edward's story is a powerful reminder that even in our darkest hours, we can find hope, strength, and love once again.

Connect with Edward E. Mosley Jr.:

LinkedIn: Edward E. Mosley Jr.
Website: edwardemosleyjr.com

This episode is a must-listen for anyone dealing with grief, navigating life transitions, or searching for resilience and hope. Whether you're a healthcare professional, veteran, or someone seeking personal transformation, Edward's insights will inspire you to find purpose and strength, even in the face of life's toughest challenges.

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Follow the Host, Kelly Buckley:

Stay connected with Kelly Buckley and join her journey of healing, resilience, and gratitude. Follow her on social media for more inspiring content, updates on future episodes, and insights on living a life full of hope and purpose.

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00:00:01
Hello, everyone,

00:00:02
and welcome to another

00:00:04
episode of Broken Beautiful Me,

00:00:06
Stories of Hope, Gratitude,

00:00:08
and Resilience.

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Today,

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we are so fortunate to have as our guest,

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Edward Mosley, Jr.

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He is a retired Marine

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combat veteran with

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twenty-two years of honorable service,

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a consummate professional speaker,

00:00:23
and an internationally

00:00:24
recognized expert leadership coach.

00:00:28
Well known as Coach Mo,

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he has earned his respect

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and place as one of the most exciting,

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transparent, authentic,

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and charismatic speakers worldwide,

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delivering

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thought-provoking strategies

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that have an immediate

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life-changing impact.

00:00:43
Welcome, welcome, Edward.

00:00:44
It's so nice to have you here.

00:00:46
Thank you, Kelly, for inviting me,

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and I'm just excited to be here as well.

00:00:53
So before we kind of jump in,

00:00:55
if you could just for our

00:00:56
listeners who may not know

00:00:59
about your work,

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can you briefly share a

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little bit about your

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background and kind of the

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path that led you to where you are today?

00:01:06
Yeah, thank you.

00:01:08
So where I am today is is

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definitely has been a journey.

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And as you know, you read in the bio,

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retired Marine, twenty two years,

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served in combat.

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And how did I get here today?

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So about fourteen years ago

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in twenty ten was one of

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the I guess one of the worst,

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the heaviest,

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hardest years that I had in my life.

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And it kind of, it was in a,

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probably about a two to

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three year stretch,

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but everything started around that time.

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So, you know, here I am, this strong,

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educated leader, you know,

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career's going awesome and

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things of that nature,

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and certain tragedies happened.

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And so first it started with

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my previous mother-in-law

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being diagnosed with lung cancer.

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and she's sick and she's at

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a point where she's on

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hospice and she passes away in April of,

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but at the same time there,

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my previous wife,

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she notices that she's not feeling well.

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And she decides that once

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everything's taken care of with the mom,

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that she's gonna go to the

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doctor to be checked out

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and see what's going on with her.

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And so she goes to the

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doctor around that April,

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May timeframe of twenty ten.

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And she is diagnosed with appendix cancer.

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Oh, my goodness.

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Yeah.

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Very, very rare.

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And so she passes away in

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October of twenty ten.

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And so, you know, you,

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we had three children, um, ten years old,

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sixteen, nineteen year old.

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And we go from, you know,

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losing the mother-in-law to

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losing the mom to now it's just me.

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And so.

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This all started in birth

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out of all of that.

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My first book,

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The Journey of a Faith Walker,

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A Broken Man,

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it's from a man's

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perspective on dealing with loss,

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grieving, pain, my faith in God, peace,

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love.

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and then being a father, being a parent.

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Now I'm a single parent and

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I had to deal with the

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girls' conversations and

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those questions of, well,

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why did mom leave me?

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And where's my mom?

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And how do you deal with that?

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So I went through a lot of chaos myself.

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So I called it leadership

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and leadership and chaos.

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And that's how this whole

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journey of speaking and

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coaching kind of started.

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That's how it birthed.

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And what I what I had to

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realize was that I had to

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be I wasn't strong anymore.

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You know,

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you talked about the I listened

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to one of your clips where

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you talked about, you know,

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chaos and grieving and pain.

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But from a man's perspective,

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it's a little different.

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And so I noticed that men,

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we don't we don't openly

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and outwardly express

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things that we're going

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through because we have to be strong.

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And one of the things that I

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had to realize was that I

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wasn't Superman and I had

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to take that cape off.

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And I couldn't walk around

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with this facade on any

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longer because it was

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hurting me on the inside,

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but it was not doing any

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good for anybody around me

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on the outside.

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And so I noticed that as I

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was going to work,

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I finally made it back to work.

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And then my chief of staff,

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he terminated me.

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Uh, he, he, you know,

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I lost my job and his

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reasoning was I was not at

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work doing my job,

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but I was approved to be at

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home taking care of my, you know, my,

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my wife and my mother-in-law who was,

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who had just passed away.

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Right.

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So that showed me that there

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was no empathy in leadership.

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There was no sympathy.

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There was nothing.

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And so I go from, you know,

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we go from having two

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incomes to one income to no income.

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And everybody's looking at me like, dad,

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how are we going?

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You know, what are we doing?

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You know?

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And.

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That's when everything just kind of,

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just birthed in me to share

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with other people things

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that I have went through,

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how I maneuver things and

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how I made it through.

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And so when you see me from

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where I was to what you see now,

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it's totally different.

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And so my healing and my

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strength comes through

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sharing my story to people,

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but also showing them where I am now.

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And how I got there, you know,

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and the steps I took to go

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from broken to healed.

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So, you know, that's kind of a long,

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short story, but that's how we got here.

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I mean,

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I can't imagine what you and your

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children experienced and as a father,

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what that meant for you.

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And I understand very much

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what you're saying about

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men and grief and emotion

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and how it is expressed differently.

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My husband and I grieved in

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very different ways.

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Yeah.

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And, um, it can, it,

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it can create a

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miscommunication because you, you know,

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it,

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you really do have to make an effort

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for people to understand where you are.

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Um, first, before I go another step,

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I have to say thank you for your service.

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Um, cause that's very important and,

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and very appreciate it.

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So, um, I,

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I can't go another second

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without doing that.

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Um, so.

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When you were,

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you said you birthed this

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and that really resonates

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with me because I do feel

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like we're presented with

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these moments and,

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and these things that

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happen in our lives and

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that we have an opportunity

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if we listen to, like you said, you know,

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with your faith to take

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pain and turn it into purpose.

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So when, when you started,

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so you were in this space

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where everything was coming

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at you at the same time.

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So when did you decide, okay,

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I'm going to take this,

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I'm going to make something out of this.

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And I am going to take this

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out to the world so that we

00:07:41
can create more empathetic leadership,

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more authenticity in our relationships.

00:07:48
What, how did that all start?

00:07:52
Yeah, that was, you know,

00:07:57
I wrote about this and I

00:07:59
talk about it a lot, you know.

00:08:04
It took me six years to finally kind of,

00:08:10
I guess, get out of my own way.

00:08:13
But within that six year period,

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I got in trouble a lot.

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I got in trouble with the police,

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law enforcement.

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I was just spiraling out of control.

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My dad,

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there's a phrase that he said years ago,

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it has stuck with me,

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but he said I was a sinking ship.

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And, you know,

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the more I thought about

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that and the more, you know,

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financial issues and, you know,

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just life issues that kept coming up.

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I think what really got me was, you know,

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I called it a vacation.

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I was putting a phrase on it

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because I wanted to make it

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sound better than it really was.

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But I had got in trouble.

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I got a DUI.

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Okay.

00:09:08
It happened, so I had two, right?

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And each of the DUIs that I

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got was on significant days.

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So like one was on an

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anniversary and one was on a birthday.

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And one of the things that I

00:09:25
did that I didn't know that

00:09:27
I was doing was I was isolating myself

00:09:30
Um, and I was, I, my, my, my, um,

00:09:34
my healing or my, um, medication was,

00:09:38
was alcohol.

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And in the, the,

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the one thing that got me was, um,

00:09:44
I got in the last time, you know, it was,

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it was,

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it was at the point to where I

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could have been, you know,

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locked up for some, for, for some time.

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Right.

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And, you know,

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thank God that I didn't hurt

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anybody or anything like that.

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Um, but

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When the police officer pulled me over,

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I think I was so exhausted

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and so tired of just chaos

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and just trying to find a

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good and a bad and that

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type of thing to where when he asked me,

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you know, had you been drinking?

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My normal response was no,

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or I had not only had one or whatever.

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I think I was so tired of

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just the way I was to where

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I was just like, yes.

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I just at that point,

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I just became honest with

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what was going on in my

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life and I didn't like it.

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And I was putting so many other people,

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especially my children,

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I was putting them in just

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in a in a in a.

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in a world of chaos, you know?

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And so, you know,

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I made it through those

00:10:47
things and I went to my,

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my little weekend where I

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had to go do some things and, and, and,

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um,

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kind of stay away for a couple of weeks.

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And during that time I noticed, and I,

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you know,

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I was talking to different

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people and I just knew that that,

00:11:03
that wasn't the life that I wanted.

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You know, um,

00:11:06
there was so many other

00:11:07
things that I wanted to do in life.

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And I,

00:11:13
So then that was kind of a turning point.

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And then the one thing that

00:11:18
really got me was I thought

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that I was more valuable

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and worth more not being here.

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So I contemplated suicide.

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I went as far as I had everything set.

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I was just a moment away from doing it.

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And the thing that got me was

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you know,

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it was a selfish move in that if

00:11:45
I were to do that to myself,

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then my kids would have nobody.

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Right.

00:11:48
So they would have lost their mother,

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their grandmother, and then, you know,

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I go and, you know, take my own life.

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And when I started to really

00:11:57
get those things in my head, it's like,

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wait a minute,

00:12:00
this is not where I want to be, you know,

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and I was forty at the time, you know,

00:12:05
so young, you know,

00:12:07
and it was those kind of

00:12:09
things that really made me, you know,

00:12:10
really sit down.

00:12:13
That's when I finally said I

00:12:14
need to get some counseling.

00:12:17
Finally, you know, at the six year mark,

00:12:19
when he got some counseling in the room,

00:12:23
let's say if there was ten people,

00:12:24
by the time it got to me,

00:12:27
that was now they say, yeah,

00:12:28
my husband was killed in combat or blah,

00:12:31
blah, blah, whatever, whatever.

00:12:33
And by the time it got to me

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and I introduced myself,

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that was the first time, Kelly,

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that I said, hey,

00:12:38
my name is Edward and my wife died.

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She's gone.

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I would always say she was in heaven.

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And that was the first time

00:12:45
I had ever said it.

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And I noticed immediately when I said it,

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I felt like this weight had

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been lifted off of me.

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And that was the first time

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that I had actually

00:12:55
accepted what was happening.

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And so I think that for me,

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that was the first part of

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the steps of accepting what had happened,

00:13:04
not sugarcoating it,

00:13:06
not putting some little flowers around it,

00:13:08
but actually accepting what had happened.

00:13:11
And at that point,

00:13:13
is when everything changed.

00:13:15
That was the point that I

00:13:16
noticed that things started to change.

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You know,

00:13:23
I often use the word surrender

00:13:26
when I talk about my moment like that,

00:13:29
you know,

00:13:29
that kind of moment where I

00:13:33
spent a fair amount of time, you know,

00:13:36
skirting around what I needed to look at.

00:13:39
And then, but there, do you think,

00:13:41
because when I say the word surrender,

00:13:43
when I finally surrendered

00:13:44
to my circumstances, well,

00:13:46
then you're admitting that

00:13:50
I don't have any of this

00:13:51
figured out at all.

00:13:54
I don't know where to go from here,

00:13:57
but I'm surrendering to the truth.

00:13:59
There is something freeing about that,

00:14:01
right?

00:14:02
Yeah, it is.

00:14:03
For me, again,

00:14:07
when I use the word surrender, right,

00:14:10
it's like I see it almost

00:14:12
as a I am submitting it.

00:14:20
Yes.

00:14:20
To something that is that is

00:14:22
that I can't control.

00:14:23
I'm submitting.

00:14:25
Well, for me,

00:14:26
that same word that I the

00:14:28
synonym for me would be acceptance.

00:14:31
I accept that I can't control it.

00:14:33
And it gives it a little for me,

00:14:36
it gave it a little more.

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Willingness in the ability to accept it.

00:14:43
Like, okay, I know I can't change that.

00:14:45
So rather than me saying I

00:14:47
surrender to something,

00:14:48
I phrase it as I accept

00:14:51
what has happened.

00:14:52
I accept that.

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I take responsibility for

00:14:55
everything that I did.

00:14:57
So for me, it was more of the acceptance.

00:15:03
And I could allow other things, people,

00:15:07
feelings to come out.

00:15:09
in in you know that the

00:15:12
reality is so it was it's

00:15:14
the same word but for me I

00:15:15
like the word I like the word acceptance

00:15:18
I actually really like that

00:15:19
word as as well.

00:15:22
It takes on a whole new flavor,

00:15:24
doesn't it?

00:15:24
Yeah.

00:15:25
So when you when you made I mean,

00:15:27
that's a huge turning point

00:15:29
for anybody in their life

00:15:30
to to kind of come to that

00:15:33
point of acceptance.

00:15:34
How did your kids respond to

00:15:36
you when they I mean,

00:15:37
they must have seen a huge

00:15:38
change when you started to

00:15:40
turn this corner.

00:15:42
So I've got to tell you that

00:15:45
even to this day.

00:15:48
for some people,

00:15:50
and I would definitely say

00:15:51
for any kind of

00:15:52
relationship when it comes to family,

00:15:56
children, spouses,

00:16:01
each person sees it differently.

00:16:07
And you have to accept the

00:16:09
fact that your pace of healing

00:16:13
your type of healing, when you heal,

00:16:16
how you heal,

00:16:17
is totally different from

00:16:19
the next person.

00:16:22
I had to accept the fact

00:16:23
that my oldest daughter

00:16:26
healed and accepted

00:16:28
differently than I did.

00:16:31
And each of them came around

00:16:36
to accept my healing and

00:16:40
this new me differently.

00:16:43
You know, at one point,

00:16:46
the three of them and I,

00:16:47
we weren't on the same sheet of music.

00:16:50
You know,

00:16:51
and so it took time for for them

00:16:54
to realize, you know, who I was,

00:16:59
this new person, because some people,

00:17:02
you know, even our friends or, you know,

00:17:04
you name it.

00:17:06
Some people only can only see you.

00:17:11
They can only see you.

00:17:13
In the light that you were.

00:17:15
Yes.

00:17:17
You know, they can't they will rather say,

00:17:20
well, you know,

00:17:21
he used to be this way or

00:17:22
he did these things.

00:17:23
So he is he's that he is

00:17:24
this type of person.

00:17:27
Rather than seeing you for

00:17:28
who you are now.

00:17:31
I think that's huge.

00:17:32
And we have to understand

00:17:34
that people come in our lives for a day,

00:17:37
an hour, a year, a lifetime.

00:17:40
And everybody has a purpose.

00:17:42
Everybody has a moment in

00:17:44
time in our space to where...

00:17:49
That's just what they're for

00:17:50
for that particular season

00:17:51
or that moment.

00:17:52
And that's one of the things

00:17:54
that helped me was when I

00:17:56
realized that my previous wife,

00:18:00
she had a purpose in life

00:18:02
and her purpose was served.

00:18:05
And we both had a relationship with God.

00:18:07
And so when I looked at it

00:18:09
from a spiritual perspective,

00:18:11
we all have to, you know,

00:18:13
we have a certain time that

00:18:14
we're all going to expire.

00:18:16
Yes.

00:18:17
And so I didn't look at the tragedy as,

00:18:20
okay, God, why did you do this to me?

00:18:21
Why did you do this to me?

00:18:22
Because to me,

00:18:23
that means that I wish it

00:18:25
was somebody else and not me.

00:18:27
I asked God,

00:18:29
what is it in these tragedies?

00:18:31
What is it that you're going

00:18:33
to use me for where I can

00:18:35
help other people?

00:18:37
So out of everything that I went through,

00:18:40
what is my purpose of going

00:18:43
through this as a man, as a father,

00:18:46
as a friend, as a black male?

00:18:49
We don't talk about this.

00:18:51
Men in general don't talk

00:18:52
about depression or we

00:18:53
don't talk about suicide.

00:18:55
We don't talk about things of that nature.

00:18:57
But the statistics even show

00:18:59
even higher that

00:19:00
African-American men don't talk about it.

00:19:02
The percentages are like out of the roof.

00:19:05
Okay, I didn't know.

00:19:07
So for me to have...

00:19:09
the ability to share my

00:19:11
story and other Black men

00:19:13
see what I went through, what I did,

00:19:16
where I am now.

00:19:18
It's just a blessing that I

00:19:19
have this as a journey to

00:19:21
talk to other people.

00:19:23
Yeah.

00:19:23
And to help women that they

00:19:25
may be in relationships or

00:19:27
married to men that may be

00:19:30
struggling with how do they get this out?

00:19:33
You know,

00:19:33
they're living with something

00:19:34
that they may be holding on to.

00:19:35
How do they get it out, you know?

00:19:37
And if I can be that

00:19:39
gleam of hope or that light or whatever,

00:19:42
for they can see of me

00:19:44
going from broken to healed,

00:19:47
then I can help.

00:19:47
If that's my purpose,

00:19:48
then that's my purpose.

00:19:51
And that's a beautiful purpose.

00:19:53
Um, you know, I, I have, I have, uh,

00:19:57
worked with many couples

00:19:58
and that's a struggle for them.

00:20:00
It's, um, you know,

00:20:03
one path of grief is

00:20:04
completely different than the other.

00:20:06
Um, communication, uh,

00:20:09
breaks down because people

00:20:11
don't feel understood.

00:20:13
So, you know, I, I,

00:20:15
It's so needed because, you know,

00:20:18
men and women,

00:20:19
our minds are different and

00:20:20
that that works very well together in,

00:20:23
you know, most times.

00:20:25
But in times of grief, sometimes, you know,

00:20:28
you you need to connect with another man.

00:20:30
There's certain.

00:20:33
things about being a husband

00:20:35
or a father that, you know,

00:20:38
I wouldn't understand.

00:20:41
So for you,

00:20:42
when you started to go out and

00:20:44
speak to people and when you,

00:20:47
you had mentioned, you know,

00:20:49
the higher statistics with black men.

00:20:51
So when you started to spread your message,

00:20:55
what was the response like?

00:20:58
um at first you know so so

00:21:00
first of all I must admit

00:21:03
um you have to be all in

00:21:04
you have to be a hundred

00:21:05
percent in um and so my

00:21:08
core principles that I use

00:21:10
that I had to really um and

00:21:13
I'll use the word now

00:21:14
surrender to I had to surrender to

00:21:20
I could not go out and speak to people,

00:21:23
talk to people,

00:21:24
write or do any of this if

00:21:26
I was a ninety percent in.

00:21:28
Yeah,

00:21:28
I had to be completely the three

00:21:30
words of my these are my

00:21:31
three core principles, authenticity,

00:21:34
transparency and vulnerability.

00:21:36
Yes, I could not.

00:21:40
What I noticed was when I

00:21:42
was only ninety percent in.

00:21:45
and I wasn't making myself

00:21:46
vulnerable on that stage,

00:21:48
how could I expect my

00:21:50
audience or another man to

00:21:52
be vulnerable to me?

00:21:53
Right.

00:21:55
And so that is what I noticed.

00:21:58
And Kelly,

00:21:59
I went out on the stage one time

00:22:01
and I completely bombed.

00:22:03
I mean, I was on that stage.

00:22:06
I could not connect with the audience.

00:22:09
I didn't connect with them.

00:22:11
I was up there.

00:22:12
I think I had like thirty

00:22:13
minutes to speak.

00:22:15
And I was twenty five

00:22:17
minutes into the into the

00:22:19
into this this keynote in

00:22:21
the lady holds up the sign

00:22:22
that gives me the

00:22:23
notification that I have

00:22:24
five minutes to start wrapping it up.

00:22:26
And I had never talked to the audience.

00:22:30
I never connected to the audience.

00:22:32
and I I get off the stage

00:22:36
and then my my current wife

00:22:38
uh you know she's there

00:22:39
she's in the audience and

00:22:39
she's like you know we're

00:22:41
in the car we get through

00:22:43
everything we get you know

00:22:44
pack up everything we get

00:22:45
in the car and I'm just in

00:22:46
silence because I I knew

00:22:48
that I bombed and I asked

00:22:49
her say how did I do she

00:22:50
said you you did okay and

00:22:53
what I noticed was until I

00:22:56
became vulnerable

00:22:58
on a stage and just

00:23:00
completely transparent to

00:23:01
the audience and to the

00:23:04
people I'm talking to, it never worked.

00:23:08
It never worked.

00:23:10
And there's when I speak

00:23:12
that I look for three

00:23:14
different type of people,

00:23:15
three different type of

00:23:16
groups in the audience.

00:23:17
Right.

00:23:18
And it's pathos, lotos and ethos.

00:23:21
Those are the three people I look for.

00:23:23
And so you got the emotional

00:23:24
person and they're hearing the story.

00:23:27
And then you got that intellectual person.

00:23:28
You got the statistical person.

00:23:30
You got all those people.

00:23:32
And you may not get all three.

00:23:34
You know, you may not get all three.

00:23:36
But I was so wrapped up in

00:23:39
telling my story until I

00:23:42
missed the audience completely.

00:23:44
Yeah.

00:23:45
And I had to go back to the

00:23:46
drawing board and say, okay,

00:23:47
you got to do this better.

00:23:48
And when I revamped it, right, I was like,

00:23:51
okay, you got three minutes.

00:23:53
You got two to three minutes

00:23:55
to hit them so hard with

00:23:57
something about you that

00:23:59
you connect with them right off the bat.

00:24:02
And now you got them.

00:24:04
And when I changed that formula,

00:24:06
I started getting results.

00:24:09
When I changed and started

00:24:13
talking to them directly

00:24:16
right off the bat,

00:24:18
then I started getting more

00:24:20
engagement from men.

00:24:22
started getting more

00:24:23
engagement from from women

00:24:25
in the audience I started

00:24:27
getting more calls um it

00:24:29
just flowed better and so

00:24:31
that was one of the key

00:24:32
things that you have to you

00:24:34
have to know your audience

00:24:37
um you have to talk

00:24:38
directly to the to the pain

00:24:40
that they're struggling

00:24:41
with not your pain you can

00:24:44
talk to their pain

00:24:47
then now you have the

00:24:48
ability to bring them into your world.

00:24:52
But if you automatically go

00:24:53
out and you talk about your pain,

00:24:55
they may not understand your pain,

00:24:58
but they have pain.

00:25:00
Yes.

00:25:00
And so that's how I had to

00:25:02
flip it to talk about pain

00:25:04
in general and then started

00:25:07
to draw where we connect.

00:25:11
And once I was able to do that,

00:25:13
then I started to notice a

00:25:14
difference in the

00:25:15
engagement in the audience.

00:25:17
Mm hmm.

00:25:19
I mean, I think I will tell you,

00:25:21
I've had a moment like that, too,

00:25:23
where I was doing a keynote.

00:25:25
And at the end,

00:25:26
I just I just wanted to do

00:25:29
over because I just didn't

00:25:30
feel I was like, wait a second,

00:25:33
can we rewind back that and

00:25:34
let me try that again?

00:25:35
Because it just I didn't

00:25:36
feel like I resonated with

00:25:38
the audience I was speaking to at all.

00:25:41
And and you're right about

00:25:43
and and those three words, transparent,

00:25:46
authentic and vulnerable it those to me,

00:25:51
it's,

00:25:52
I read them on your website and I was

00:25:54
like,

00:25:54
that's so powerful because people

00:25:57
know when you are up in front of a group,

00:26:00
if you are not real with them, they know.

00:26:05
And they, because they,

00:26:07
they want to see themselves in you,

00:26:09
right?

00:26:10
They, in order for them to feel, um,

00:26:14
are courageous enough to

00:26:16
share their own stories or

00:26:17
to come up to you after a

00:26:18
keynote or to even share it

00:26:21
with a family member after

00:26:23
they've heard you with your

00:26:25
your story they have to see

00:26:28
themselves in you and the

00:26:30
only way you can do that is

00:26:31
if you are if you are

00:26:32
completely open and

00:26:34
transparent about the good

00:26:35
and the bad and I mean I'm

00:26:37
hearing that as we're

00:26:37
talking this morning you're

00:26:39
talking about it wasn't

00:26:40
always easy and we weren't

00:26:41
always on the same sheet of music and

00:26:43
Because that's reality.

00:26:45
That's life.

00:26:48
So what has been the most

00:26:50
surprising thing you've

00:26:52
learned about yourself from this work?

00:26:55
Oh, man.

00:27:00
If you could see my office,

00:27:01
you would see all these big

00:27:02
poster board pieces of

00:27:03
paper just wrote on with different.

00:27:06
I want to think the one thing that.

00:27:09
Yeah, this is what I want to say.

00:27:10
The one thing that I think.

00:27:12
has helped me tremendously

00:27:16
is there's two things.

00:27:18
But the one thing,

00:27:19
the first thing is I wanted

00:27:21
to have a relationship with the world.

00:27:24
And that's how I had to kind

00:27:25
of phrase it to get out of my own way of,

00:27:28
okay,

00:27:29
this is what I want to tell people

00:27:32
rather than just have a

00:27:33
relationship with the world.

00:27:35
Just talk to people.

00:27:37
Just be transparent.

00:27:38
Just talk to them about,

00:27:40
because they're having real issues.

00:27:41
And I can't always show up

00:27:44
on some social media in

00:27:46
this perfect world.

00:27:48
You know,

00:27:49
every tie is tied up and

00:27:51
everything is all, you know,

00:27:52
this and that.

00:27:53
I'm like, no,

00:27:55
that's superficial because

00:27:57
people are secretly crying at home.

00:28:01
And for men, they're secretly crying,

00:28:04
but they don't show tears.

00:28:06
You know,

00:28:07
so I can't always show up in this

00:28:09
suit and tie and all spiffy

00:28:11
and everything.

00:28:13
Now it's like,

00:28:13
how can I relate to that

00:28:17
nineteen or twenty year old, you know,

00:28:19
high school college student

00:28:21
that is contemplating

00:28:22
suicide in his college dorm

00:28:24
room if I'm always in a tie?

00:28:27
But I contemplated suicide.

00:28:29
So we have that in common.

00:28:31
So instead of talking about me,

00:28:33
talk about what got me to

00:28:35
the point of thinking about suicide.

00:28:37
So now I can relate to that

00:28:39
nineteen year old and I'm fifty four.

00:28:41
There's a huge there's a huge age gap.

00:28:45
But we struggled with the same things.

00:28:48
So that was my thing is have

00:28:50
a relationship with the world.

00:28:51
Right.

00:28:52
the other thing that I did

00:28:53
was um and it took some

00:28:55
time for me to get here was

00:28:57
I told my wife I said hey

00:29:00
um you know I realized at a

00:29:03
point to where I was in a

00:29:07
situation to where it's me

00:29:10
so now I'm remarried and

00:29:12
with amongst the the two of

00:29:14
us we have five kids so you

00:29:16
take those five people

00:29:18
You take her.

00:29:20
And so now you have six

00:29:22
people and then there's me

00:29:24
and I'm trying to deal with it all,

00:29:26
right?

00:29:26
So I'm like, I just can't do this.

00:29:28
I can't do it.

00:29:30
And so I got to the point where I was like,

00:29:32
you know what?

00:29:34
I'm going to talk to a

00:29:37
counselor myself because I

00:29:38
need to figure out for me, right?

00:29:41
And I did that.

00:29:42
And I said,

00:29:42
the next step of this was now...

00:29:46
Let's do couples therapy.

00:29:48
Let's go.

00:29:48
Let's do couples therapy.

00:29:50
It was kind of funny because

00:29:51
I'm a coach in my therapy.

00:29:52
My therapist, she was like,

00:29:53
I don't know how this is going to work.

00:29:55
You've been a coach and I'm

00:29:55
a therapy therapist.

00:29:59
We'll see how this is going to work.

00:30:00
And I said, what I would do,

00:30:02
I would take off the

00:30:03
coach's hat and I would

00:30:04
just be in the session.

00:30:05
Right.

00:30:06
And so one of the things

00:30:08
that I finally did was in a session,

00:30:13
I told my wife and I told the therapist,

00:30:16
I said, hey, I need to find my voice.

00:30:20
I'm in a house.

00:30:21
I'm in a relationship.

00:30:23
I'm married.

00:30:23
I'm with a family.

00:30:25
I'm around friends.

00:30:26
But I don't even know my own voice.

00:30:30
And that was a huge point.

00:30:34
because it made my wife say, wait a minute,

00:30:37
what do you mean you don't have a voice?

00:30:40
And then the therapist was like, okay,

00:30:41
what does that mean?

00:30:42
And when I realized who I

00:30:44
was and where I had my

00:30:47
voice could be heard and I

00:30:49
knew how to project, that was huge.

00:30:52
That was huge.

00:30:56
And those two things right there really,

00:31:01
kind of catapult to me even

00:31:02
to the next level as as as

00:31:05
as a man or even just just

00:31:07
being in existence um in

00:31:10
the moment you know yeah

00:31:12
it's so wrapped up in in

00:31:15
you know like how many

00:31:17
times you know how many

00:31:18
people do you know that

00:31:19
that always say they don't

00:31:20
have time for a vacation

00:31:22
yes lots we're always

00:31:24
working but life is so

00:31:26
short and I learned that at

00:31:28
the age of forty so it's

00:31:29
like you know we have to

00:31:33
you know we have to prepare

00:31:34
for tomorrow but if there's

00:31:37
something that you want to

00:31:38
do today and it's not going

00:31:39
to hurt anybody and it's

00:31:41
just something that may be

00:31:42
stupid but it may make you

00:31:44
that just may be your

00:31:45
moment you just want to do

00:31:46
something stupid and just crazy then

00:31:49
Who cares about what other people think?

00:31:51
And we're so wrapped about

00:31:53
what the perception and

00:31:54
what other people may think about us.

00:31:56
Yeah, yeah.

00:31:58
I mean,

00:31:58
I think social media plays a part

00:32:00
in that too, right?

00:32:01
Like you said,

00:32:01
it's this false version of self.

00:32:05
And so then when we want to

00:32:07
be true and silly or goofy

00:32:09
or do something, like you said, you know,

00:32:11
crazy that you've thought

00:32:12
about doing and not to hurt anybody else,

00:32:14
but just, you know, live your life.

00:32:16
I mean, how many...

00:32:18
How many movie stars or

00:32:20
actors or artists or these

00:32:24
people with all this money,

00:32:27
how many people have we

00:32:28
heard over the last, let's say, five,

00:32:29
ten years that have killed

00:32:30
their self because they weren't happy?

00:32:32
They were struggling.

00:32:33
You can't say it's about if

00:32:38
I have this amount of money,

00:32:39
I'm going to be happy.

00:32:40
You can't say that.

00:32:42
One of the things I learned about my wife,

00:32:46
it's like,

00:32:49
So the first thing she did

00:32:50
to me was she gave me this book,

00:32:52
The Five Languages of Love.

00:32:54
And I just,

00:32:56
I hesitated for like so many

00:32:58
months or whatever to read it.

00:32:59
And I would read like page

00:33:01
and page and page, you know?

00:33:02
And,

00:33:02
but what I realized was I learned some

00:33:06
things about her, right?

00:33:08
Where it's like,

00:33:09
she likes the little small things.

00:33:11
Like,

00:33:12
let's say she gets up and she goes to

00:33:14
work.

00:33:15
She may write me a note in

00:33:17
front of the coffee pot

00:33:18
that just may just with a

00:33:19
little heart to say, hey,

00:33:21
have a wonderful day, you know, whatever.

00:33:24
And I may get up an hour or so later.

00:33:26
And when I go to make my tea or whatever,

00:33:28
I see this note.

00:33:29
Just little stuff.

00:33:29
That's free.

00:33:31
Yeah.

00:33:32
That doesn't cost anything.

00:33:35
And so I noticed it's little

00:33:36
things like that that make life great.

00:33:41
And those are the things

00:33:42
that helped me heal as well.

00:33:44
Because at one point, Kelly,

00:33:47
I said love died.

00:33:50
Love died.

00:33:51
When my previous wife, when she died,

00:33:54
I was not going to love

00:33:55
anybody because I didn't want anybody.

00:33:56
I didn't want to get close

00:33:57
to people because if that

00:34:00
person were to leave me,

00:34:01
then I'll be hurt again.

00:34:04
And I'm going to give you

00:34:04
another story when I knew I

00:34:07
was just gone.

00:34:08
So we would go to family and

00:34:11
friends Christmas parties, right?

00:34:13
And so there's one particular Christmas.

00:34:15
There's two Christmases.

00:34:17
So there's one particular Christmas.

00:34:20
I like cigars, right?

00:34:21
And there's this one cigar that I like.

00:34:23
And they're very hard to get.

00:34:24
And I can't even find them anymore, right?

00:34:27
And so...

00:34:28
My wife and my kids,

00:34:30
they were able to find,

00:34:30
they got me a box of them.

00:34:32
When I opened that box,

00:34:35
I was just so happy.

00:34:38
And the statement was, wow,

00:34:40
that's the first time we've

00:34:41
seen you that happy in years.

00:34:42
I'm like, hmm, okay.

00:34:45
So I kept it moving.

00:34:46
And then we went to,

00:34:47
I think it was the next year,

00:34:48
we went to a friend's Christmas party.

00:34:51
And she had this game to where...

00:34:55
you had to pull out,

00:34:57
like you couldn't see what

00:34:58
was wrote on the paper.

00:35:01
So there were characters, right?

00:35:03
And then you would tape the

00:35:05
character to your back, right?

00:35:06
So you don't know the

00:35:07
character that you are or who you are.

00:35:09
You could only ask yes or no

00:35:11
questions to everybody else there.

00:35:15
And so as I'm going around

00:35:17
asking questions,

00:35:20
people would look and see

00:35:21
who the character was on my back.

00:35:23
And

00:35:25
I would hear comments, people like,

00:35:26
oh yeah, that's him.

00:35:27
Oh yeah, that is definitely, oh yeah,

00:35:29
that's him.

00:35:30
And I said, and I said, you know what?

00:35:32
I already know who it is.

00:35:33
I already know who the person,

00:35:34
I already know who the character is.

00:35:36
And they was like, no, you don't.

00:35:37
I said, yes, I do.

00:35:39
You know who I guessed?

00:35:41
Who?

00:35:42
Scrooge.

00:35:44
No.

00:35:45
And I guessed it right off the bat.

00:35:47
That's who it was.

00:35:48
That's who it was.

00:35:50
And at that point, I was like, wow,

00:35:52
have I become that person?

00:35:56
and I knew from that point I

00:35:58
had to change my whole

00:35:59
outlook I could not walk

00:36:01
around not smiling being a

00:36:03
scrooge person um and from

00:36:05
that point on I just

00:36:06
started just just doing

00:36:09
stupid stuff and having fun that's good

00:36:15
And your message, so you then translated,

00:36:18
this message translated

00:36:20
into a book and then it's, and then you,

00:36:23
you are also, you know,

00:36:29
a world renowned speaker.

00:36:30
So tell me, tell me how,

00:36:33
when you wrote the book,

00:36:34
what was that like for you

00:36:35
to be so open and raw?

00:36:40
You know, it even took time.

00:36:43
So I didn't start out just

00:36:45
to write a book.

00:36:46
That was not the purpose, all right?

00:36:49
What helped me get through everything,

00:36:53
my outlet was journaling.

00:36:56
I would just write.

00:36:57
And every day I wrote about something.

00:37:01
When I was on the train to get to work,

00:37:04
if I was carpooling or if I

00:37:08
was on the bus or something,

00:37:10
If I'm at lunch, but when I was at lunch,

00:37:12
I would just, you know,

00:37:13
take my little book and I

00:37:14
would just write.

00:37:15
If I saw somebody weird

00:37:17
walking down the street,

00:37:18
I would write about the person.

00:37:19
I'm like, we look at the person as weird,

00:37:22
but are we the one that's weird?

00:37:24
You know,

00:37:24
why do we have that type of perception?

00:37:26
You know,

00:37:26
I would just write about everything.

00:37:28
And over time,

00:37:29
I think I had probably wrote like

00:37:31
Three hundred pages of just

00:37:34
just this these this inspirational,

00:37:37
you know, in somebody said to me,

00:37:39
why don't you write a book?

00:37:40
I was like, I don't write no book.

00:37:42
You know, I'm not a you know, it's not me.

00:37:44
And so they connected me.

00:37:46
They sent me this

00:37:47
information to a person and

00:37:49
I reached out to the person.

00:37:50
I said, hey, you know,

00:37:51
somebody told me to reach out to you.

00:37:53
And so what she said, she said,

00:37:54
send me ten pages.

00:37:56
Just send me ten pages of what you wrote.

00:37:58
So I took a picture of the ten pages,

00:38:01
because it was in a book,

00:38:01
it was in a journal.

00:38:04
And I sent it to her,

00:38:06
and she immediately picked

00:38:07
up the phone and called me.

00:38:07
She said, this is amazing.

00:38:10
you have to put this in some

00:38:12
type of format so others

00:38:14
can read it and you know it

00:38:17
was stuff in there like

00:38:18
when I'm sitting in the

00:38:19
hospital room you know just

00:38:21
looking at my my previous

00:38:22
wife when she was just you

00:38:24
know when she's taking

00:38:25
medications and she's not

00:38:26
in you know not there I'm

00:38:28
writing about how I feel

00:38:29
and what I'm seeing and how

00:38:30
do I get through this and

00:38:31
my what I'm doing today and

00:38:33
And that turned into the first book,

00:38:35
you know,

00:38:36
it turned into the journey of a

00:38:38
faith walker because the

00:38:40
only way I got through any

00:38:41
of that was my faith in God.

00:38:43
That was the only way.

00:38:45
And so that turned into the first book.

00:38:48
Right.

00:38:49
And it did pretty well.

00:38:51
You know,

00:38:52
it wasn't this huge bestseller and,

00:38:54
you know, but it did well.

00:38:57
And when people read the book,

00:39:01
when I would see them or

00:39:02
they would make comments, I would be like,

00:39:06
wow, let me go back and read that.

00:39:08
Because sometimes for like

00:39:10
five or six years, Kelly, it was like,

00:39:12
I lived outside of myself.

00:39:15
It was like,

00:39:15
I'm over here and I'm looking

00:39:16
at myself and, and I am, I mean,

00:39:19
it took some time to remember things that,

00:39:22
that I, that I did or said, or, you know,

00:39:25
during that time, it was just so unreal.

00:39:27
It was so surreal to where it's like, wow.

00:39:30
And,

00:39:33
I literally had somebody

00:39:34
contact me on Instagram and this guy,

00:39:38
I had never met him in my entire life.

00:39:41
He was literally telling me

00:39:42
that he was about to end his life.

00:39:44
He was driving up in the

00:39:46
mountains in Denver or somewhere,

00:39:48
I think it was in New Jersey somewhere.

00:39:50
And he was literally telling

00:39:51
me what he was doing.

00:39:53
And he said he saw something

00:39:54
that I posted that changed his life.

00:39:58
And it's things like that

00:39:59
that you don't know

00:40:01
the impact that you may make

00:40:02
on other people's lives.

00:40:04
And so that was the first book.

00:40:05
And so then as kind of some time went on,

00:40:08
I was approached by someone

00:40:10
else to be a part of a book anthology.

00:40:13
And so me and seven other people,

00:40:15
I think it was ten other people,

00:40:16
we wrote this other book together.

00:40:19
And so that kind of

00:40:21
catapulted me into talking

00:40:24
to various groups,

00:40:25
talking to various people.

00:40:27
It really got me into

00:40:28
coaching and mentoring.

00:40:31
that's kind of just taken on

00:40:32
a different level.

00:40:34
And so now being a leader

00:40:37
and being in an organization and working,

00:40:41
now it's like, okay,

00:40:43
how do I take what I've

00:40:44
been through and I can help

00:40:47
leaders and I can help

00:40:49
people in organizations in the workforce.

00:40:52
And what I noticed was,

00:40:55
You know,

00:40:55
there was so many people struggling with,

00:40:58
you know,

00:40:59
anxiety and depression and

00:41:00
things of that nature.

00:41:02
But we have leaders that are supervising,

00:41:06
managing them,

00:41:07
and they don't know how to

00:41:08
deal with that.

00:41:10
so that gave me the

00:41:11
opportunity to to bring my

00:41:14
talents and my gifts into

00:41:17
you know leadership

00:41:17
development programs you

00:41:19
know now I'm able to talk

00:41:22
to you know leaders and say

00:41:24
hey you know um how can you

00:41:26
lead people if you don't

00:41:27
know yourself so for me the

00:41:29
first step of leadership is

00:41:31
self-discovery you have to

00:41:32
know yourself you have to

00:41:33
know that's the baseline of

00:41:35
my pyramid is knowing yourself

00:41:38
And then the middle piece of

00:41:39
the pyramid is all about

00:41:41
change management.

00:41:42
Once you know yourself,

00:41:44
now you can make a change

00:41:46
in your life and help other

00:41:47
people that you may lead or supervise.

00:41:53
And now as you get to the

00:41:54
top of the pyramid,

00:41:55
now you're talking more

00:41:56
about the strategic level,

00:41:58
that big overarching level,

00:42:00
the executive level, the CEO level.

00:42:04
But again,

00:42:05
if you are a CEO or senior

00:42:08
executive and you're

00:42:09
sitting in this isolated bubble,

00:42:12
then you're detached from

00:42:14
your organization.

00:42:16
That's a problem in itself.

00:42:17
It is.

00:42:19
And so our organizations are hurting.

00:42:21
I mean, there's low self-esteem.

00:42:23
There's toxic work environments.

00:42:26
Organizations are not being flexible.

00:42:30
Low employee engagement.

00:42:32
you know, employee, you know,

00:42:33
dissatisfaction.

00:42:35
And so that's how I have,

00:42:37
I have been able to, to kind of, um,

00:42:42
insight or,

00:42:43
or get into organizations and

00:42:45
talk to leaders, um,

00:42:47
about the organizations

00:42:48
because you have employees

00:42:49
that are struggling at work, you know,

00:42:52
you know, how do you,

00:42:54
how do you deal with that?

00:42:56
And you see, um, I mean, honestly,

00:43:01
Everybody that walks in

00:43:02
through the door of any

00:43:03
organization has something going on.

00:43:07
Yep.

00:43:07
They're dealing with something.

00:43:10
And every leader who sits in

00:43:12
that corner office is also

00:43:14
dealing with something.

00:43:16
Yep.

00:43:17
And then they walk in

00:43:18
through the doors to their

00:43:19
company and then the

00:43:21
responsibilities of their

00:43:23
job is just put on top of

00:43:25
whatever they're dealing with.

00:43:27
And I remember when I

00:43:28
started my career as a

00:43:30
nurse and one of the things

00:43:33
one of the professors said

00:43:34
when I was in university was, you know,

00:43:36
you need to leave your

00:43:38
problems at the door

00:43:40
because you're here to care

00:43:41
for other people.

00:43:42
How do you do that?

00:43:43
And I took that to heart, right?

00:43:45
I did.

00:43:45
I was like, okay,

00:43:46
leave it right here at the door.

00:43:48
But as time went on, I was like,

00:43:51
how is that even possible?

00:43:53
How do you leave stuff at

00:43:55
the door when you're taking

00:43:57
care of a child that

00:43:59
reminds you of your own

00:44:01
child or a parent that

00:44:03
reminds you of your parent

00:44:05
who passed away a few years before?

00:44:07
You can't leave that stuff at the door.

00:44:09
You can't.

00:44:11
And you shouldn't because that in itself,

00:44:14
like I remember when I

00:44:16
would take care of people who had cancer,

00:44:19
my mother passed away from cancer.

00:44:20
Sorry to hear.

00:44:23
Thank you.

00:44:24
And, and when I would go in,

00:44:27
it was that experience,

00:44:30
my personal experience that

00:44:31
I was supposedly supposed

00:44:32
to leave at the door that

00:44:34
made me a better nurse,

00:44:36
not only for that patient,

00:44:37
but for that patient's family.

00:44:38
Yeah.

00:44:39
And so I think just in general,

00:44:42
in in the way that companies run,

00:44:45
whether it be a privately held company,

00:44:47
a public one, health care,

00:44:49
it doesn't matter.

00:44:51
We have to get away from that.

00:44:53
Oh, we're professionals and we're not.

00:44:56
No, we're we're people first, right?

00:44:58
And we have to take care of

00:45:00
the people part of it first.

00:45:01
And that's what makes a great company.

00:45:04
If your people feel like you

00:45:05
see them and you hear them

00:45:08
and you're taking care of them,

00:45:10
that's when you have success.

00:45:12
Is that kind of that's kind

00:45:13
of your that's what I was gathering.

00:45:15
Oh, yeah, that's that's huge.

00:45:17
That's that's where organizations, a major,

00:45:20
major number.

00:45:21
There's so many

00:45:22
organizations right now

00:45:23
that are that are missing that mark.

00:45:25
And they really missed it post-COVID.

00:45:27
If they did not.

00:45:30
make a pivot during COVID,

00:45:33
they're hurting.

00:45:35
That is so big right now because, you know,

00:45:38
to your point,

00:45:38
how do you leave that at the door, right?

00:45:41
You know, but what I have seen is we have,

00:45:46
so leadership is my thing, right?

00:45:49
That's my baby, that's my orbit,

00:45:52
that's my world.

00:45:53
And when I study leadership,

00:45:55
I studied it and you look

00:45:56
at it from the nineteen hundreds.

00:45:58
Right.

00:45:59
We have this authoritative style.

00:46:02
It's it's it's it's transactional.

00:46:04
You know, it's it's I'm the leader.

00:46:06
You're the follower and go, go, go.

00:46:07
Right.

00:46:08
That has has moved.

00:46:10
That has morphed and evolved

00:46:12
to now we're into this servant leadership,

00:46:15
this transformational leadership,

00:46:17
this authentic leadership.

00:46:21
Now, just think.

00:46:24
We weren't there years ago, right?

00:46:27
No.

00:46:27
And that's this traditional

00:46:30
style structure where it's

00:46:32
leave it at the door,

00:46:33
check it at the door.

00:46:34
When I was in the Marine Corps,

00:46:35
one of the biggest things

00:46:36
that they used to tell us, hey,

00:46:37
if we wanted you to have a wife or a life,

00:46:39
we would have issued you one.

00:46:41
Oh, my gosh.

00:46:42
But how can I effectively be

00:46:45
on the battlefield over in

00:46:47
some other country not

00:46:49
thinking about my family back at home?

00:46:53
You can't do that.

00:46:54
And I was on a podcast.

00:46:56
I had somebody on my podcast.

00:46:58
Her name is Dr. Shabir.

00:47:01
And she's a physician.

00:47:03
And she made this statement that is like,

00:47:06
how can physicians,

00:47:09
who's taking care of the physicians?

00:47:12
You know, you all are nurses.

00:47:14
You're in this world where

00:47:15
everybody comes to you in

00:47:16
pain and they're hurting you.

00:47:19
and you're hurting and you

00:47:20
have pain who's helping you

00:47:23
you know and so that is so

00:47:26
all you know to the point

00:47:27
to where it's like we have

00:47:30
to learn how to um what

00:47:34
word am I looking for we

00:47:38
have to be flexible

00:47:41
And understand this,

00:47:42
see this whole work-life

00:47:44
balance thing is so hard

00:47:46
and difficult for some

00:47:47
leaders and organizations to understand.

00:47:50
If I have to take care of my sick mother,

00:47:52
then I have to take care of

00:47:53
my sick mother.

00:47:54
I cannot be a hundred

00:47:56
percent focused at work if

00:47:57
I know my mother or my

00:47:58
family member is hurting.

00:47:59
Right.

00:48:01
No, but the structure that we have,

00:48:03
that we're still set, you know,

00:48:06
most organizations want you to work nine,

00:48:08
eight, nine, ten, ten hours a day.

00:48:12
who says that's the right formula?

00:48:15
If I could do my work in

00:48:18
four hours and I can go home or, oh,

00:48:22
this remote work thing is

00:48:23
killing organizations.

00:48:26
They want people back into the office,

00:48:28
but why though?

00:48:30
Why do they need you in the office?

00:48:32
Now, some situations you have to be,

00:48:35
like healthcare workers,

00:48:36
you have to be a certain time of day.

00:48:40
If I'm at home and I work

00:48:41
four hours and I go and

00:48:43
walk my dog and I come back,

00:48:46
I don't care you just walk your dog.

00:48:48
If that's a stress reliever

00:48:49
for you and then you come

00:48:51
back and you give me two

00:48:52
more awesome hours or your

00:48:53
work productivity has increased,

00:48:55
you're engaged, you're a healthier person,

00:48:59
that's the person I want.

00:49:01
And you said it to the...

00:49:05
if organizations are not valuing, you know,

00:49:09
if they don't value their employees,

00:49:11
then they're losing, they're at a loss.

00:49:14
Yeah.

00:49:16
I remember being part of a

00:49:17
merger of two companies and

00:49:23
there was a comment made and it was,

00:49:26
you know, if we don't do this right,

00:49:28
you know that the strongest

00:49:30
swimmers jump ship first, right?

00:49:32
And it was talking about

00:49:33
that valuable piece of the

00:49:36
team that was looking to

00:49:39
the leaders and saying, you know,

00:49:42
you handling this okay?

00:49:44
Cause I'm not going to stick

00:49:45
around if this is,

00:49:47
if this chaos is what it's

00:49:48
going to be all about.

00:49:50
And it's, you know, this model.

00:49:52
And like you said, post COVID,

00:49:53
why do we need everybody

00:49:55
back in the office if they

00:49:56
are performing right?

00:49:58
And it's not applicable for

00:49:59
every situation, but,

00:50:01
but deal with those people as,

00:50:03
as individuals because you

00:50:06
don't know what else they're juggling.

00:50:08
And yeah,

00:50:10
when I think about those

00:50:12
strong people leaving first, that,

00:50:14
that just tells me we have to,

00:50:17
we have to turn this upside down.

00:50:19
And you said something about

00:50:20
being a servant leader,

00:50:22
and that is such a strong,

00:50:24
strong way to approach it because,

00:50:28
you know,

00:50:29
how else is the company staying

00:50:30
open without the employees?

00:50:33
It's not just the guy,

00:50:34
the guy in the corner

00:50:35
office can't do it all on his own, right?

00:50:37
Yeah.

00:50:38
And it's not just that it's,

00:50:39
it's what is the average?

00:50:42
So when you look at this

00:50:43
modern organization now, right,

00:50:45
let's call it that.

00:50:46
Cause that's what it's, it's, it's modern,

00:50:47
right?

00:50:49
What is the average time you

00:50:50
think an employee stays in

00:50:51
an organization these days?

00:50:52
Hmm.

00:50:56
Three years?

00:50:57
Yeah.

00:50:58
About three to five years at the most.

00:51:00
Yeah.

00:51:01
Back, you know,

00:51:02
early when you had more

00:51:03
factories and that structure of, you know,

00:51:05
punching the clock,

00:51:06
people would stay there for thirty years.

00:51:08
Yeah.

00:51:08
They would lure you for thirty years,

00:51:10
you know, twenty, thirty, forty years,

00:51:11
get the pension, you know, whatever.

00:51:13
But as people have,

00:51:15
as we became more modern

00:51:17
and more technologically advanced,

00:51:23
we do so much quicker.

00:51:26
And if an employee stays in

00:51:30
an organization past three to five years,

00:51:34
it's because they see

00:51:35
something there that they want.

00:51:38
But most people,

00:51:41
three to five years, and if they,

00:51:43
like you say,

00:51:44
if they sense chaos and confusion,

00:51:48
and if they don't see

00:51:50
something in it for them

00:51:51
there in that organization,

00:51:53
then they're gone.

00:51:55
They are.

00:51:56
It's not the same as, you know,

00:51:58
I remember my father went

00:52:00
to work after he finished

00:52:02
high school in a paper mill.

00:52:04
And that's where he worked

00:52:05
until his retirement.

00:52:07
It's just not that way anymore.

00:52:08
And I do notice I have a son

00:52:11
who's twenty seven.

00:52:12
I do notice that they are

00:52:15
far more aware of work-life

00:52:17
balance and what they,

00:52:18
what they want to see than I ever was.

00:52:21
I had no awareness of that

00:52:23
until I was totally burnt out.

00:52:24
And then I was like, Oh,

00:52:26
I need to balance this.

00:52:27
Right.

00:52:29
So hopefully that,

00:52:30
that generation coming behind us,

00:52:32
that this will be kind of, you know, more,

00:52:35
more of a normal approach for them.

00:52:37
What would you say to a

00:52:41
person like that who's in

00:52:43
their early twenties?

00:52:46
They are just starting out

00:52:47
in the workforce.

00:52:50
What would you say,

00:52:51
how should they approach

00:52:53
that work-life balance and

00:52:55
navigating that work

00:52:57
situation that focuses on

00:52:59
their wellbeing and mental health?

00:53:01
Yeah, so that's huge.

00:53:07
I think,

00:53:07
so what I do understand now is

00:53:10
when you're in your, I think,

00:53:11
I can't remember how he actually said it,

00:53:13
but how the gentleman said it, he said,

00:53:16
in your twenties and thirties,

00:53:17
you're kind of just,

00:53:18
you're kind of just out there.

00:53:19
You're kind of all over the place.

00:53:20
And in your thirties and your thirties,

00:53:23
you kind of start to get it

00:53:24
in your forties.

00:53:25
You get it in your fifths.

00:53:27
So it's so, so you, there's phases in life,

00:53:29
right?

00:53:30
Yeah.

00:53:30
I would say,

00:53:33
And I tell my son, he's twenty five now.

00:53:36
Yeah,

00:53:36
all three of them under one's

00:53:38
birthday today.

00:53:39
But I tell them all when

00:53:41
you're in your twenties and your thirties,

00:53:44
enjoy life.

00:53:45
Travel the world.

00:53:47
Don't be scared to take a

00:53:49
job that may be in another country.

00:53:52
Just just try everything.

00:53:54
I still have family members

00:53:56
and friends that are in the

00:53:57
same area they grew up in.

00:53:58
They have never some of them

00:54:00
have never even flown on an airplane.

00:54:02
That to me is not life.

00:54:03
So I would tell them to if

00:54:05
you don't want to join the military, then,

00:54:09
you know,

00:54:10
get an organization and see if

00:54:12
they have international opportunities,

00:54:15
even if it's just for six months.

00:54:18
Learn the.

00:54:21
Learn what other countries, you know,

00:54:23
go and work in their

00:54:24
workforce for a minute.

00:54:26
Because there's so many

00:54:27
liberties and things that

00:54:28
we have in the United

00:54:29
States that other countries don't have.

00:54:30
And I think you'll get a

00:54:31
better understanding.

00:54:34
I think everybody should

00:54:34
join the military for two years, you know,

00:54:38
to get a true understanding

00:54:39
of what it means to be an

00:54:43
American citizen, you know.

00:54:45
So I would say travel.

00:54:46
I would say explore.

00:54:49
I would say try various industries.

00:54:55
Be flexible and open.

00:54:57
If you have a degree in business,

00:55:01
you don't have to just

00:55:02
always work in a corporate office.

00:55:07
You could take that degree

00:55:08
or some portion of your degree,

00:55:10
and you can work in the

00:55:12
medical field or in car sales.

00:55:17
Just try it all.

00:55:19
That's what I would tell the twenty seven,

00:55:22
twenty eight, thirty year old, you know,

00:55:24
try as much as you can

00:55:26
before you make because the

00:55:27
average person is going to

00:55:28
go through probably about

00:55:29
five or seven jobs before

00:55:31
they find that one job they like anyway.

00:55:33
You know, that's what I would say,

00:55:36
you know.

00:55:37
Be flexible.

00:55:38
Yeah.

00:55:40
Be like a sponge and soak up

00:55:42
as much knowledge as you can.

00:55:46
Yes.

00:55:47
From older folks, you know,

00:55:49
from just people that are.

00:55:54
People that are in the

00:55:56
places where you want to be.

00:55:59
just soak up that information.

00:56:01
It could be somebody your same age,

00:56:02
but they may have the job

00:56:03
that you wanna have.

00:56:05
Just ask questions,

00:56:07
be like a sponge and soak

00:56:08
up information from them.

00:56:09
Everything is about information.

00:56:11
It is.

00:56:12
And I mean,

00:56:13
learning even how to navigate

00:56:16
certain conversations when

00:56:17
you first start in a work situation,

00:56:20
it's difficult when stuff

00:56:21
is wrong and you have to, you know,

00:56:24
confront a situation that's

00:56:25
uncomfortable.

00:56:27
I remember paying attention

00:56:28
to some really smart people.

00:56:31
I always like to kind of sit

00:56:32
next to the smarter people

00:56:33
in the room and pay

00:56:34
attention to how they navigated things,

00:56:36
you know, how...

00:56:38
How did they approach this situation?

00:56:40
How did they research for a

00:56:42
certain project?

00:56:43
You're right.

00:56:43
Be open to everything.

00:56:45
Being that sponge,

00:56:48
I think that was one of the

00:56:49
best things that I could

00:56:50
have ever done in my career.

00:56:52
I can just speak for myself in that.

00:56:54
And I one hundred and ten percent agree.

00:56:58
So what about and I know

00:57:00
that you've you've worked with with them.

00:57:03
So what about the the VP or

00:57:06
the CEO or the CEO who is

00:57:09
in a company and they are

00:57:11
looking around at the

00:57:12
landscape of their company?

00:57:14
And they see things they

00:57:16
want to improve upon.

00:57:17
They see that they want to

00:57:19
be more transparent and authentic.

00:57:23
What do you say to them?

00:57:24
Like,

00:57:24
what is your approach for them when

00:57:26
they come to you and say, help me?

00:57:29
Yeah.

00:57:29
So I think my approach is

00:57:33
first asking them,

00:57:34
why do they want this change?

00:57:36
Yep.

00:57:37
They have to understand, you know,

00:57:39
why they want the change.

00:57:42
Because when you can get to the why,

00:57:45
The real why,

00:57:46
when you can peel back the

00:57:47
layers and get to the real why,

00:57:50
that's when you can

00:57:51
effectively help them

00:57:53
implement the change you're looking for.

00:57:55
So if they were to say, well,

00:57:58
I see a lot of my employee

00:58:04
engagements are down or I

00:58:07
have a high turnover rate.

00:58:11
Is the real root of the problem

00:58:15
that you have employees leaving?

00:58:18
Or could it be that your

00:58:22
layers of hierarchy,

00:58:24
your layers of leaders and your managers,

00:58:27
maybe they're actually the

00:58:28
real issue that's making,

00:58:30
that's forcing your employees to leave.

00:58:31
So you have to get to the

00:58:33
real root of the problem.

00:58:37
What is it you're really trying to get to?

00:58:40
Now, the issue is,

00:58:45
Is it performance-based?

00:58:50
So I would go and say, okay,

00:58:52
so if you're saying that

00:58:53
you have a lot of employees

00:58:54
that are leaving,

00:58:55
there's a couple of things

00:58:55
I would look at, okay?

00:58:58
Do you have a lot of EEO complaints?

00:59:01
Do you have a lot of grievances?

00:59:05
Then the next question would be, well,

00:59:08
what are the reasonings,

00:59:10
the reasons behind people

00:59:12
that are filing the grievances?

00:59:14
And then if you see a consistency,

00:59:17
if your themes are, well,

00:59:18
me and the supervisor, me and the manager,

00:59:20
me and this,

00:59:21
now your problem may not be

00:59:23
the problem that the reason

00:59:25
that they're leaving is

00:59:26
because you have a leadership problem.

00:59:29
And so now you may need to

00:59:30
get leadership development

00:59:32
to your leaders.

00:59:34
So that could be the real issue.

00:59:38
Another example would be...

00:59:43
What if your organization

00:59:45
has been around for twenty years, right?

00:59:48
It's a solid organization

00:59:50
and your mission and vision

00:59:51
statement was developed thirty years ago,

00:59:54
forty years ago.

00:59:55
Right.

00:59:56
And your mission and vision

00:59:57
statement is not reflective

00:59:59
of the demographics of your organization.

01:00:03
You know,

01:00:04
your mission and vision statement

01:00:06
may be outdated,

01:00:08
so you're not attracting

01:00:10
the right customer.

01:00:13
You know,

01:00:13
or or you can't recruit the right

01:00:17
employees because your

01:00:19
vision and your mission

01:00:20
statement is outdated and

01:00:21
may be offensive in some way.

01:00:24
Yeah.

01:00:25
You know,

01:00:25
so it could be as simple as your

01:00:26
mission and vision statement.

01:00:28
Right.

01:00:29
Another thing I always look

01:00:31
at is does your C-suite

01:00:34
reflect the demographics of

01:00:36
your workforce?

01:00:39
Oh, I love that one.

01:00:41
if your c-suite is

01:00:42
conservative white males

01:00:45
and everywhere that on the

01:00:47
wall all you see is a

01:00:48
conservative white male

01:00:50
then if your demographic of

01:00:52
your employees is not

01:00:54
reflective of that now your

01:00:56
employees doesn't feel as

01:00:57
though the c-suite even understands where

01:01:02
the workforce is even coming from,

01:01:04
you're disconnected.

01:01:06
If you have more men on your

01:01:10
higher levels of staff than women,

01:01:16
then you may be perceived

01:01:20
as a sexist organization.

01:01:27
Do you have any women at the

01:01:29
higher levels of leadership?

01:01:32
You know, do you have any any what,

01:01:35
you know,

01:01:36
is are they are there any black females?

01:01:39
Are there any Asian?

01:01:40
Are there any you know,

01:01:41
so how does that diversity

01:01:43
inclusion look across your

01:01:44
entire organization?

01:01:45
So there you got to really

01:01:47
get to the to the root of the problem.

01:01:49
And that's that's where I

01:01:50
spend a lot of time with

01:01:52
them individually is, OK,

01:01:55
let's let's bring in your

01:01:56
staff and let's see what

01:01:57
your C-suite looks like.

01:01:59
Yeah.

01:02:00
You know, let me observe a staff meeting.

01:02:04
You know,

01:02:05
let me talk to various groups to

01:02:10
see what their opinion is

01:02:12
of you as a leader, the CEO, the company,

01:02:14
the organization.

01:02:16
And when you can get all of

01:02:17
that information and all

01:02:18
that data and you present it to them,

01:02:22
if they accept the data and

01:02:25
they really want to implement change,

01:02:29
that's when you get the real change.

01:02:32
Yeah.

01:02:32
If they're not willing to

01:02:33
accept the findings of the data and say,

01:02:37
OK, I got it, and push it down,

01:02:41
you know, that's, that's, that's, that's,

01:02:44
that's, that's the meat of, of change.

01:02:46
The other thing that I have noticed in,

01:02:49
and the data shows is that

01:02:50
a lot of organizations are

01:02:52
going back to this top down

01:02:54
leadership approach where

01:02:56
everything is being forced

01:02:58
from the top C-suite down

01:03:00
rather than kind of a bottom up or,

01:03:03
you know,

01:03:03
middle out or something like that.

01:03:05
So there's a lot of things

01:03:06
going on in these,

01:03:07
in organizations right now that, um,

01:03:10
They got to pivot.

01:03:11
They have to make the change.

01:03:14
They have to.

01:03:15
That is so true.

01:03:17
And I mean, when you think about, you know,

01:03:20
you were talking about the

01:03:21
data points that you

01:03:22
present them back with.

01:03:24
Employees notice if you,

01:03:28
not only if you accept the data points,

01:03:30
but if you're going to

01:03:32
change right along with them.

01:03:34
You know,

01:03:34
if you are a leader in an

01:03:36
organization and you're like, oh, well,

01:03:38
we have to lower absentee

01:03:40
rates and overturn and whatever.

01:03:42
We want to improve upon this,

01:03:43
this and this.

01:03:44
But employees can then look and say, well,

01:03:48
the guys in the big offices, well,

01:03:51
they didn't seem to change

01:03:52
too much with what they're doing.

01:03:54
Yeah.

01:03:55
That doesn't work.

01:03:56
Right.

01:03:56
That's not authentic.

01:03:58
And so I think and I mean,

01:03:59
I'm not picking on the guys

01:04:01
in the offices by any stretch,

01:04:03
but I think what where we

01:04:05
are right now and this

01:04:07
comes from being post-COVID

01:04:09
where I think we were all

01:04:10
faced with our mortality in

01:04:12
a very real and scary way.

01:04:17
we, we don't have to,

01:04:19
we don't have to live in that kind of,

01:04:21
or work in that kind of

01:04:22
environment that we can

01:04:23
have something that works for everybody,

01:04:25
kind of that win-win agreement that you,

01:04:27
you know, I know Stephen,

01:04:28
Stephen Covey always used

01:04:29
to talk about a win-win

01:04:30
agreement for people so that, you know,

01:04:34
you could see how

01:04:36
I can succeed, but so can you.

01:04:38
And I think if an employee

01:04:40
can leave at the end of the day and say,

01:04:43
my boss wants me to succeed too,

01:04:45
that that employee is not going anywhere.

01:04:48
You're absolutely right.

01:04:49
And, and, and that's, that's,

01:04:50
that's the golden nugget right there.

01:04:53
You know, but it takes it back to,

01:04:55
you know, grief and, and, and, you know,

01:04:59
and, and hurting and pain and, and,

01:05:02
when employees feel as

01:05:05
though they're valued, they're heard, um,

01:05:10
you know, something that's small.

01:05:11
I remember,

01:05:11
I remember a supervisor bought

01:05:13
these little plastic looking gold coins.

01:05:17
And anytime an employee did

01:05:18
something great,

01:05:19
she just gave them a coin, you know,

01:05:21
and it was just this, it was not money.

01:05:24
It was a non-monetary gift, but it,

01:05:27
but she just made that

01:05:29
person feel valued and

01:05:31
emotional and just attached.

01:05:33
And when we can get back

01:05:36
into just really seeing people for,

01:05:40
for people and who they are and understand,

01:05:44
you know,

01:05:45
Elwood may be having an off day today,

01:05:48
you know, have the flexibility to say,

01:05:53
hey, you know, I'm not on it today,

01:05:57
but when we can lead,

01:06:01
from that perspective of

01:06:02
being empathetic in, you know,

01:06:06
this whole emotional intelligence,

01:06:08
this whole piece of, Kelly, there's like,

01:06:13
fifteen styles of leadership out there.

01:06:17
But we only talk about about three,

01:06:19
you know?

01:06:20
And these new forms of,

01:06:22
in this modern environment is so,

01:06:24
it's so new and it's,

01:06:28
it's scary to certain

01:06:30
organizations and leaders, you know, Hey,

01:06:33
we have to understand that

01:06:34
our employees are going through a lot.

01:06:37
Yeah.

01:06:38
You know,

01:06:38
and if we're not looking at it

01:06:40
from that lens and we're

01:06:42
only focused on the result,

01:06:45
then we're losing it.

01:06:47
We gotta be, we have to be, um,

01:06:52
knowledgeable that, you know, I may,

01:06:55
I may supervise, you know, ten employees,

01:06:58
but not all ten of them are

01:06:59
going to be a hundred percent every day.

01:07:02
Yeah.

01:07:02
You know,

01:07:03
we gotta be in a relationship

01:07:06
with them to understand who

01:07:08
they are as people.

01:07:10
And I think if, and I mean,

01:07:13
if someone is not having a great day,

01:07:17
And I mean, I've been there.

01:07:19
I'm sure we all have that at

01:07:20
a certain point in our careers.

01:07:22
And you have someone who's

01:07:24
managing you and saying, you know what?

01:07:27
I see that you're not having a good day,

01:07:29
but there's so many good

01:07:30
days you have had.

01:07:32
So take a breath if you need

01:07:34
to take a moment,

01:07:35
if you need to take the

01:07:35
afternoon and sort through

01:07:38
some things or just that

01:07:40
little bit of humanity shared.

01:07:42
Right.

01:07:43
Yeah.

01:07:43
Yeah.

01:07:44
It goes miles and miles.

01:07:47
Think about this, Kelly.

01:07:48
Now, this is another driver for me.

01:07:50
This just pushes me.

01:07:53
I got fired.

01:07:54
I got terminated from my job.

01:07:58
Not even three months,

01:08:01
two months after my

01:08:03
previous wife passed away.

01:08:04
And he looked at me with a straight face.

01:08:08
No sympathy, no emotional nothing.

01:08:13
And he said, well, Edward,

01:08:14
I'm going to have to let you go.

01:08:16
And I thought it was a joke.

01:08:20
And he said, well, you know, unfortunately,

01:08:22
the projects and the tasks

01:08:23
that you are responsible

01:08:24
for fell through the cracks

01:08:26
and we lost some of those

01:08:27
contracts and blah, blah, blah, blah,

01:08:28
blah.

01:08:31
Just that right there told

01:08:35
me that there are people in

01:08:38
positions of authority that

01:08:40
do not care about their workforce.

01:08:43
Yeah.

01:08:44
So why are they in those positions?

01:08:47
That's a very good question.

01:08:49
Yeah, you know?

01:08:50
That's a very good question

01:08:51
because obviously, you know,

01:08:54
there was so much going on

01:08:56
in your life at that moment.

01:08:58
I mean,

01:08:59
the grief is one complicating thing

01:09:02
that you deal with,

01:09:04
but you also had children

01:09:06
to figure this out with.

01:09:08
You had a lot on your plate.

01:09:10
You're right.

01:09:10
Yeah.

01:09:11
And if employers,

01:09:13
if we can't take the time

01:09:15
to see that that person is

01:09:17
a human just like we are

01:09:20
and deserves patience and

01:09:22
love and respect, then eventually,

01:09:28
and it's kind of a,

01:09:29
you see it in a longer term kind of view,

01:09:31
but what they don't realize

01:09:33
is their company is going to fail.

01:09:34
Oh, yeah.

01:09:36
Eventually.

01:09:36
Yeah.

01:09:36
Something is going to crack

01:09:38
sooner or later.

01:09:39
Yeah.

01:09:40
It may not happen tomorrow,

01:09:42
but it's going to happen

01:09:43
because people will go

01:09:46
where they are valued.

01:09:47
Yes.

01:09:47
That's it.

01:09:49
They will.

01:09:50
And we talked about them

01:09:51
only staying three to five years.

01:09:53
So you have a finite amount

01:09:55
of time to show them that

01:09:57
your organization is the place to be.

01:09:59
Exactly.

01:10:00
So we need to train better leaders.

01:10:02
And that's why we are very

01:10:05
lucky to have you.

01:10:06
because you can go into a

01:10:07
company and you can help them.

01:10:10
You can help them see that, right?

01:10:12
So before we finish up,

01:10:14
and I know I've kept you

01:10:15
longer than I should,

01:10:17
but this has been such a great chat.

01:10:21
Tell people where they can

01:10:22
find your books and if they

01:10:26
want to talk to you about

01:10:28
their needs for their company,

01:10:29
how they find you.

01:10:31
Kelly, I've made it simple for myself.

01:10:36
So it is simple as can be.

01:10:39
Any social media you think of, Instagram,

01:10:44
LinkedIn, my web page, Twitter,

01:10:49
it's edwardemosleyjr.com.

01:10:52
That's it.

01:10:52
Perfect.

01:10:53
So if you Google or type in

01:10:57
www.edwardemosleyjr.com,

01:11:00
that's the web page.

01:11:02
you know all of my contact

01:11:03
information is on there you

01:11:05
can book a discovery

01:11:06
session you can book you

01:11:08
know me to speak um

01:11:09
everything is is there um

01:11:11
so any any social media

01:11:13
platform is edward e mosley jr

01:11:17
I love your Instagram feed, too,

01:11:19
by the way.

01:11:20
I love the little nuggets of

01:11:21
wisdom that you share.

01:11:23
It's really good.

01:11:24
And your website with some

01:11:26
of the articles and blogs and stuff.

01:11:29
I like that, too.

01:11:30
I was going through.

01:11:32
I may go back to that now

01:11:33
this weekend and read a little bit more.

01:11:35
Cool.

01:11:37
So just to close out,

01:11:39
with every guest that I've had,

01:11:40
I like to ask what they're grateful for.

01:11:43
And I have a global

01:11:45
gratitude group called Just

01:11:46
One Little Thing.

01:11:47
And so I started it in my grief.

01:11:50
And the reason I called it

01:11:52
Just One Little Thing was

01:11:54
because some days just one

01:11:56
little thing was all I

01:11:57
could find to be thankful for.

01:11:59
And so we used it as a tool because my son,

01:12:02
who's

01:12:05
And that's the way we got through.

01:12:06
We were going to look for

01:12:07
little things to be grateful for,

01:12:09
even though we were hurting,

01:12:11
we weren't denying what was

01:12:12
going on because we were a mess,

01:12:15
but we said,

01:12:15
we're going to find one little thing.

01:12:17
So one little thing, you know,

01:12:19
the changing fall leaves

01:12:20
the very thankful in,

01:12:23
in my own house today that, um,

01:12:26
that the hurricane that

01:12:27
turned into a tropical

01:12:28
storm that we didn't lose anything.

01:12:32
too many trees or because a

01:12:34
lot of people had a lot of

01:12:35
damage in our neighborhood.

01:12:38
And so I'm very thankful for that.

01:12:40
So what are you thankful for today?

01:12:43
Wow.

01:12:45
You know, Kelly, I am thankful for life.

01:12:50
Yeah.

01:12:51
I'm thankful for life.

01:12:54
I try not to take anything for granted.

01:12:58
And I'm really thankful for

01:13:01
love and just happiness.

01:13:09
I am truly in a place of

01:13:11
just enjoying life.

01:13:15
You know, now I had to learn patience,

01:13:17
man.

01:13:17
My wife,

01:13:17
she jumps on me all the time at one word.

01:13:20
Well, my goodness,

01:13:21
I'm not a patient person.

01:13:22
I wasn't a patient person.

01:13:25
But I had to I had to learn that.

01:13:27
And so I'm just thankful for

01:13:30
just the ability just to

01:13:33
just to just to live.

01:13:35
yeah the gift of another day

01:13:37
I mean not everybody else

01:13:38
is guaranteed that are they

01:13:40
none of us are and so when

01:13:42
you wake up you got to give

01:13:43
thanks yeah yeah and you

01:13:46
know the other thing I will

01:13:48
add to that if I may is you

01:13:51
know when you look back for

01:13:53
me when I look back over

01:13:55
everything that has

01:13:56
happened in my life I can

01:13:58
get through anything yeah

01:14:01
Because I've already been down so,

01:14:03
so low to where it's like, hey, you know,

01:14:06
you can only go up.

01:14:08
And now I'm familiar with

01:14:11
what chaos looks like,

01:14:12
what it smells like, what it feels like.

01:14:14
So when I see myself kind of

01:14:16
turning back into something, nope,

01:14:19
you've been there before.

01:14:21
Yeah.

01:14:21
Yeah.

01:14:22
It is a lesson that you don't forget,

01:14:24
is it?

01:14:25
I know that, you know,

01:14:29
I feel quite humble about,

01:14:31
I never forget the

01:14:32
perspective that was given

01:14:34
to me by tragedy.

01:14:36
Yep.

01:14:38
And, you know,

01:14:39
not to say that you're

01:14:40
thankful for anything bad

01:14:43
that ever happens in your life,

01:14:45
but I do give thanks for

01:14:48
the wisdom that I gained from it.

01:14:51
Yeah.

01:14:52
It made me a better human.

01:14:55
I hope I'm trying.

01:14:56
I keep trying every day.

01:14:57
We're a work in progress.

01:14:59
It is.

01:15:00
And that's the beauty of it.

01:15:01
You know,

01:15:01
you one day may be so-so and the

01:15:04
next day you're just awesome.

01:15:05
So, yeah.

01:15:06
Yeah.

01:15:08
And it's giving yourself the

01:15:09
space to learn every day.

01:15:12
Yep.

01:15:12
Edward,

01:15:12
this has been an absolute pleasure.

01:15:15
Thank you so much for taking

01:15:16
the time to talk to me.

01:15:18
This was great.

01:15:19
Everybody go get Edward's books,

01:15:22
look at his website.

01:15:24
And if you are a leader in a

01:15:25
company that needs help,

01:15:27
I want you to reach out to

01:15:28
him because I think he

01:15:29
could make all the difference.

01:15:31
Thank you so much, everybody.

01:15:32
And we will see you on the next episode.

01:15:36
All right.

01:15:36
Bye-bye.

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