Latest / Step Wise / David Betts on How an ALS Diagnosis Became His Teacher (Part 2)

Transcript

David Betts on How an ALS Diagnosis Became His Teacher (Part 2) · Step Wise

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: I still get emotional when I think about it.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_02: And I said to Ann, I said, I don't care if anyone ever uses the app again.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_02: Mission accomplished.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_03: Ready for the second part of my conversation with David?
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_03: This conversation picks up upon David's receipt of his diagnosis of ALS.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_03: It is life-altering.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_03: And yet, this rare, wonderful human being decided to use his mind and his capabilities and his talents to make life better and easier, not only for himself, but for many, many others.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_03: Can't wait for you to listen to part two of my conversation with David Betts.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_03: Give us some background on Story Flight Labs.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_03: Just tell us more about that.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_02: So I spent a long time after building and launching Talk to Me Goose, trying to figure out is it a business?
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_02: Is it is it a philanthropy?
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_02: You know, how does it make money?
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_02: What can we do with it?
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_02: The reality was that there was a really important component to this, which is focusing on trying to reduce the barriers for people getting access to the solutions they need to communicate.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_02: To me, it's a basic human right to communicate.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: One of the big barriers to that is cost.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_02: And um and especially outside of the US globally, it's a major barrier.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_02: Language is a barrier, access is a barrier, process is a barrier.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_02: So our focus on trying to make this available on consumer grade devices that many people have available already in their homes and making it available through relationships with foundation partners, non-governmental organizations, and government agencies, making it available for free or low cost to people who need it.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_02: That remains kind of core to this.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_02: The question becomes how do you build a sustainable business around that?
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_02: And in the process of building this, I came to know a family that lives out in Montana.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_02: They helped me early on with some of the user experience and user interface design for someone living with ALS, obviously further advanced than I am, to understand what it's like to interact with a solution.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_02: And they sent me a picture of Darren with his two young kids on his lap with a caption that says Merlin's making him a smooth talker.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_02: Merlin is the AI agent that helps with the text generation and text suggestions.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I just loved that because that was, you know, objective number two solve that text generation problem.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_02: But I was it was not sufficient because I couldn't get out of my head the idea that Darren has two young kids, one of whom had never heard her father tell her a bedtime story in his own voice.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe at all.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_02: I don't have kids, but I have a godson who we had always had around the dinner table, and we would always spend our dinner table evenings, our evenings around the dinner table telling stories, just making stories up, talking chocolate cakes and chocolate cake detectives, and it didn't matter what that we just would make up these wild stories around the dinner table, and that's how we entertained ourselves, and that's how we engaged with with Peter, making up stories.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_02: Stories have always been a big part of my life.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_02: I used to I always say that my theater background showed up in my consulting career is storytelling.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_02: Executives don't make change in their organizations unless they believe the outcome emotionally, and they invest in it emotionally.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_02: They make change in their organization because they believe in it emotionally, intellectually.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_02: You do that through storytelling.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_02: And it mattered so much to me that I spent my entire vacation in 2025 building a feature into Talk to Me Goose to create and tell stories.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, we put it in the app and sent it off and and gave Darren the opportunity to to share bedtime stories with his kids.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_02: That became a really unique that has is a really unique feature of Talk to Me Goose now.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_02: And I found myself playing with it all the time while I was trying to figure out that question about what is this business.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh-huh.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_02: And it was staring me in the face is storytelling because people like to create and share stories.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_02: And so we created a second app because it was staring me in the face called Fables Adventures, which is available to consumers on the App Store in iOS only to for people to download and create and share stories that they create, audio stories that are pretty compelling.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I learned a lot in that process about how to facilitate a user in creating their own personalized stories, putting my theater background, my facilitation background, the technology to work to create pretty compelling stories that are assisted by AI but are really the user's own ideas.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: And that became sort of the engine of this business that we think have applications in the workplace, in behavioral health, potentially in the long run, in community building, and other arenas that we can build a business around that can fuel the mission of getting Talk2Me Goose out to the people who need it.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_02: So that mission business actually has a sustainable enterprise model around it.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_02: So that problem that I spent all that time thinking about really does have an underlying business model, and that's become Story Flight Labs.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: I couldn't be more thrilled at the team that we're building.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_03: Very cool.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_03: You know, words are the currency we use to connect with people.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_03: One of the basic drivers is you want to make sure that people, as their ALS or any other um, I would assume, neuromuscular um kind of disease, when that starts to affect people's ability to speak or communicate in some way that it potentially runs the risk of disconnecting with other human beings.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_03: Stories.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_03: Interesting.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah, you've been doing that your whole life.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_03: What makes for a good story?
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_02: Stories have always been such a core component of you know of who I am.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_02: I studied theater uh somewhat unexpectedly, probably going off to college, thinking initially I was going to study medicine.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_03: Who knew?
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_02: Ended up going into the theater, got a master's degree, taught at Carnegie Mellon.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_02: You know, what makes a good story is write a compelling character, right?
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_02: Who's your hero?
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_02: How does that hero evolve?
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_02: Like what are their strengths?
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_02: What are their weaknesses?
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_02: What's their flaw?
• 6:30
  unknown: Right?
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_02: What really motivates them at the end of the day?
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_02: And and then kind of where does that story begin to take place and how does that evolve over time?
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_02: And then what's the core challenge that they're going to have to face?
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_02: And when they take that challenge on, how does that change them?
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_02: And then what do they do?
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_02: What do they do when they return home?
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_02: So if you think about that, that's the Aristotelian story structure married up with Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_02: And we've done all of that in the back-end technology to really facilitate.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we're going to bring Socrates into the equation too, those those open-ended questions to facilitate from a user the answers to those questions to help generate a personalized story from a user, if they put themselves as the hero, can tell their own story in ways that I think they otherwise might not be able to in 90 to 90 seconds to three minutes, uh, create their own story.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_02: And that's what's compelling about the capability that we've built.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_03: A lot of the listeners of this podcast are either corporate leaders or athletic leaders.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_03: There's a lot these days in the near in the literature about a leader's narrative, that all leaders need to have a formulate a good narrative.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_03: What have you learned in all of that stuff that applies to both of those audiences, the corporate leader and the maybe athletic leader, the D1 college coach that needs to communicate this narrative to others?
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: You know, as we think about telling our own story, it also helps us process through our own past challenges.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_03: Interesting, yeah.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_02: And generate some greater sense of self-efficacy.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_02: We learn better what motivates us and how to articulate that.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_02: We learn better how to articulate what our strengths are and maybe what our flaws are.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_02: And so we gain a greater sense of self-efficacy as a result.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_02: And then in the sharing of that story with someone else, right, we get a better sense of emotional resilience.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_02: Again, as we think about what we're trying to do at Storyflight Labs, that's one of the things that we're thinking about in the longer term is how can we actually use this technology to build that foundation of helping individuals within a workplace build a greater sense of self-efficacy and build a greater sense of emotional resilience and build a greater sense of belonging and loyalty and trust with the organization, because what does that lead to?
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: Ultimately, it leads to greater sense of belonging, leads to lower turnover, especially in those cohorts of people who have a high volume, high turnover rate, which leads to higher costs for organizations.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_02: And if we can do that at scale, then that has high value.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_02: So there's the use case.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_02: So we built an app, but it sits on an engine, and that engine has other use cases.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_02: So those are the things that we're thinking about.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_02: Who knew I was going to be on this journey?
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_02: But it it it builds on everything else I've done my entire career.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_03: The words and phrases that you're using around this self-efficacy and empathy and um sharing might cause some more traditional leaders to get a little wiggy.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_03: You know, the hair on the back of their necks stand up, like, wait a minute.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_03: When you put these ideas out about you know, great storytelling, do people pretty much get it?
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_03: Or is there still some resistance to that weakness part and the the failures I've had part and how I've overcome them and what I'm still struggling with part?
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_03: How do people adapt to that?
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_03: How do people accept that when you share that?
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_02: I think when you weave it into a coherent story, it it's not as overt as, you know, these are my weaknesses, this is my flaw.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_02: As I tell a coherent story, you know, you've heard today about implicitly about many of my and that's okay.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I think is one of the things as a leader is learning to be vulnerable a bit.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you don't have to lay it all out on the table, but being vulnerable and sharing it through a coherent story is a one way to actually implicitly let your team know who you are authentically.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_02: And that's why I think people resonate with stories.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_02: You know, helping people find their voice foster figuratively in this context, yeah.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_02: Not so much literally with Talk to Me Goose, but figuratively here is one way of helping people sort of learn to connect.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_03: Boy, that's that's awesome.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_03: What's been the biggest surprise so far as you've as you've built the app and now are building Storyflight Labs?
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_02: It's funny.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_02: I I have said to people a number of times, so you know, I I've built two businesses inside Deloitte, you know, this is a slightly different kettle of fish as a small startup.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um made some things more difficult, we'll say.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_02: But uh, you know, the same principles apply.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that's been a little bit of a surprise, is maybe how hard it is to do it as a as a small startup.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_02: But coming back to first principles of like what is it that worked inside Deloitte that I can apply outside of Deloitte?
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_02: I have to continue to remind myself that the same first principles apply.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_02: I need to build the right team, I need to get the right people around this that have the right experience.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, I need to be patient, I need to listen, I need to do all the things that I did before.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_02: Being patient with this disease is very hard.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_02: I feel the need and the urgency to move fast.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe the biggest surprise is the same principles apply when you're building a business, whether it's small or large.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_02: And reminding myself of that has been a little bit of a surprise.
• 12:06
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• 12:10
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• 12:32
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• 12:36
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• 12:56
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• 13:04
  SPEAKER_03: I'd love to hear a little bit more about the Darren and Elizabeth story.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_03: Um, there's more you've shared with me that's just so important.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_02: Well, Elizabeth is a healthcare writer, and in some form or fashion, we were connected long ago because of our industry affiliations, and she reached out to me.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_02: I think the app was barely out on the market.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: I was sitting on the corner of the couch, I remember it vividly, and I got a message on LinkedIn from her, and I think she was looking for something to write about and looking for a potential client.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_02: And and we just got to chatting back and forth on LinkedIn, and she shared about her husband, about Darren, and I shared a little bit about what I was working on, and in a few short back and forths, I learned that Darren was using a a voice clone that was very robotic, and I said, Oh, we have to talk.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_02: I wanted to introduce her to the technology provider that that 11 Labs that we use in our in our app.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_02: Just I didn't care if he used Talk to Me Goose.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: I just wanted her to see the opportunity.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_02: I told her about what we were doing.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_02: We had a Zoom call, and I remember her asking me if if there was a pirate voice available in the app, because Darren didn't have a voice clone in 11 labs, and so so I put a pirate voice in the app.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_02: And to this day, there is still a pirate voice in the app because Darren used it to play games with his children um using Davy, the pirate voice.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_02: And oh my god.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I just love that because he just that was one way he could entertain his children.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_02: And so she got a voice clone for Darren and got him connected to the app.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_02: And the first time that they created a story um after we built the story builder feature, she sent me a message.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_02: And their youngest said, uh she she said she got the kids together for for story time, which they did every night, and usually Elizabeth would read the stories, and she said, Daddy's gonna read a story tonight.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_02: And the kids were very confused because daddy didn't do this, and they created a story together, and and their youngest said, I want daddy to read that story a hundred, hundred times again forever.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_02: And she sent that message, and I was in the kitchen, and Ann was upstairs, and I I dropped a pan on the floor.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_02: I started sobbing.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_02: I still get emotional when I think about it.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_02: And I said to Ann, I said, I don't care if anyone ever uses the app again.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_02: Mission accomplished.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_02: Elizabeth said to me that as Darren's world got smaller, um, Darren passed away in January of this year.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um and as Darren's world got smaller, she said this was the thing that allowed his world to stay large, was to be able to share stories with his kids.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_02: The privilege to do that, Foster.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, why would I not want to be doing this?
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's beautiful.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_02: Like that, that's that's the told you there was gonna be part of this.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't know if I'd be able to get through.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_03: You're doing great.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_03: You're doing great.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_03: You are the poster child uh for somebody that has taken a challenge and turned it into opportunity and impact for other people.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_03: If you could leave with us two or three lessons you've learned from moving from adversity into possibility, what do the rest of us need to hear?
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I I I mention there's a couple things that come to mind.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_02: I mentioned that prior to this I was an avid cyclist.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I used to say, and I I still believe that we should all tackle hard things.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_02: I really believe that.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's hard things that make us grow.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I took on the French Alps not knowing if I could climb Alp Duez.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I can't do it in a car, David.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_02: I've tried.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_02: Well, they're gonna do it in the Tour de France this year twice, and uh I suspect they're gonna do it way faster than I did, but um, I don't care.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_02: I did it.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I did Gallivier, I did some of the monument climbs that they were hard and it was hot, and you know, I rode my bike across Britain and you know, I did hard things because they were hard, and because hard things remind you that you're human.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_02: It's important to do those hard things because they teach you where your limits are.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_02: And when I was diagnosed, you know, I sat down at that partner meeting that I mentioned with a good friend of mine, Amy, and you know, an incredibly amazing leader, senior leader at the firm.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, you know, I think I've been preparing for this fight.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_02: I pushed my body, I did two Ironmans, I've done, you know, marathon, I've done this stage race in the Alps, I've done, you know, I'd like to push myself to the limit.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_02: I think I've been preparing for this.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_02: People need to do hard things because unless you push yourself to the limit and some mental, it doesn't have to be physical.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_02: You don't know where the limits are, and and those things teach us.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_02: And they teach us how to be a leader, they teach us how to listen, they they teach us how to be afraid.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_02: And I think it's okay to be afraid.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_02: So that's one thing that comes to mind.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I'm afraid all the time.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_02: I was I was at a leadership retreat for a board that I sit on, and and the facilitator said, you know, turn to the person to your right and you know, share a moment recently when you were afraid, and I was like, I think I have an unfair advantage.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_02: Like I probably should step up.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_02: For the last 10 minutes and then two minutes before that.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_02: It just gives you a different perspective, I guess.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_02: But I like if my takeaway or my my recommendation is find something hard to tackle where you don't know if you're gonna be able to do it.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: I think the Japanese call it a mashogi.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_03: They do.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's right.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_03: And tackling that challenge won't necessarily kill you, but it's gonna sure rewire your brain and your physiology as you do that.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_02: And that teaches you what where where the boundaries are.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_02: And if you know where the boundaries are, then then you actually know what discomfort feels like, and and that's okay.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_03: You know, David, that's really an amazing um insight because I've been watching my own transition into later life.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_03: And as I've gotten into my seventh decade, I notice people around me and their worldviews are such that their world starts getting smaller.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_03: And it's because they're unwilling to challenge beliefs or habits that they felt very comfortable with.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_03: And doing hard things is antithetical to your world and worldview shrinking.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_03: It is, no, my my limits were actually out here.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_03: I thought they were here because that's where the edge of my comfort was.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_03: That's not where the edge of my capability is.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_03: So I love I love that.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_03: That's that's fantastic.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_02: We need to be uncomfortable more because I think people mistake discomfort for pain.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_02: True.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_02: And and discomfort is is not is not bad.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_02: Discomfort is growth.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_03: Pain.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_03: Talking like a true cyclist, I will say.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_03: That's that's fair.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_03: That's fair.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_03: All right.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I like to ask all of our guests um a couple of things.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_03: One is a lightning round of some questions.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_03: The second one is, and I'll ask the second one first.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_03: Tell us how we can support you and your work.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_02: So I think there's two two big things.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, for those who are inclined to support our work, we have an endowment that we've established with the Live Like Lou Foundation.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_02: I've committed to to raise uh a quarter million dollars with them to support our work on an ongoing basis for people living with ALS, and and that's at livelikelou.org slash goose.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_02: I think as of today, it says 93,000.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_02: I think it I just made another contribution, it will be a well over a hundred.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_03: Beautiful.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so that's that's the biggest way I think this audience could could help uh sustain what we're trying to do.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_02: And for those who who really enjoy storytelling and story making, uh check out Fables Adventures.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_02: Tell stories and share them with your family and share them with your friends.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it is how we're generating revenue on an ongoing basis.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_02: So download it, it's available on the app store.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_03: Appreciate that very much.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_03: So let me get into the lightning round with you.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_03: Uh piece of wisdom from your father you'll never forget.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_02: So when I was a kid, my my I was a catcher for baseball.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_02: My dad would sit behind the backstop when I was catching.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_02: And uh he he never would tell me what to do.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_02: And and this has always stuck with me, but he would always sort of give me the situation.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, runner on first, one out.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I take that as a leadership lesson today.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_02: Like, don't tell your team what to do, just make sure they know the situation because your team knows what to do.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes they just need a reminder as to what the situation is, and my dad taught me that.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: Kind of implicitly, because he never told me what to do.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_02: He never told me, like, there's a runner on first.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_02: You need to make sure that you're, you know, no, it's just a run-ar on first, there's one-out.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_03: Watch your release, be quick.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_03: Sometimes, in fact, it is our need, our insecurity as a leader that has us overcoach.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_03: Just but a reminder of the context or the situation, super helpful.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_03: What's one belief you've changed your mind about?
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I don't know that I've changed my mind on beliefs since I've been diagnosed.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: I think I have become much more hyper-aware of things that mattered to me.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_02: In particular, you know, we talked about empathy.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_02: I would say the minute I walked out of the clinic, I have become hyper-aware of folks using wheelchairs, of folks using walkers, of folks using canes.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that awareness has changed my mindset about what it means to be living with a disability in ways that matter.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_02: I think beliefs are something that are pretty hard and fast, you know, written into my who I am, but but my awareness and how they show up has changed in ways that I think I I have noticed.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_02: A book that shaped you.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_02: So I'll mention two.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um uh we talked about discomfort.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so one that what comes to mind is The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_02: Really interesting read and and caused me to rethink why I do uh why I have done hard things uh over my life.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um I think that's a really interesting read.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_02: And then the second one, there's this wonderful book by a person living with with uh with ALS called Bed Sores in Bliss, Finding Fullness of Life with a Terminal Diagnosis by Hannah Duplicity.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_02: She recently uh passed away.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but she actually lived just a few miles from me here in Pittsburgh, and I was introduced to her not long after I was diagnosed.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_02: And her book, the last chapter of which is five stars, and she talks about stubborn joy, and she has a few other things in there that just really resonate with the way I I look at uh at the world and at life.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_03: Sounds like we could all benefit from that.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_03: A quality you most admire in others.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, I I've thought about this one because it's something I I'm I'm terrible at.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_02: I always admire when people think because I'm a driver pioneer in the Deloitte, you know, business chemistry, you know, that that integrator capability that others have where they just walk into a room and they instantly know, like, so it's Foster's birthday today.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, so and so's cat, you know, you know, had kittens the other day.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_02: And uh this that hyper awareness as to what is going on in everyone's life when they as soon as they walk into the room and be able to connect at that level.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_02: And I I I've never been able to do that.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_02: I just so admire that.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_02: I I wish I had that that gene, but I don't.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_03: No kidding.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_03: I that's such a rare thing.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_03: I don't have it either.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_03: You know, this is as I've said a couple of times in this interview and to you before, this is such an inspiring story by how you've turned adversity into some real hope and opportunity and possibility for yourself and others.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_03: What gives you hope today?
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I'll say two things.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_02: One every time we give the app away to a new family, um today I gave it away to seven families.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_03: Wow, congratulations.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that gives me hope.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um, that that you know, that means I we just made a difference in today in seven families' lives.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_02: But the other thing that gives me hope is, you know, I spend a lot of my time doing advocacy work uh with the IMALS organization.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_02: And as broken as our politics may be and as difficult as politics are, um, you know, I am hopeful that that there is bipartisan support for change and legislation to support people living with ALS with the reauthorization of the Act for ALS that that provides funding for research.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, we do need to make progress uh and participating in a clinical trial.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_02: I'm hopeful that that drug, which has resulted from just you know the flood of funding that has come over the last five years and the years before that, is that we are going to find some breakthrough.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_02: So those two things give me hope.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, uh to the extent that that we have the opportunity right now before us to continue to fund research, you know, I think we will find reasons to hope for for a breakthrough with this disease.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_03: Anything you'd like to say as we conclude here?
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, I I talk a lot about time for you know obvious reasons.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I talk about the fact that, you know, every morning I get up and um stand at the top of the stairs and you know, take take inventory because you know, one day is gonna be the day that I'm not gonna come down the stairs.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna have to use the elevator.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_02: Today was not that day.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_02: One day will be that day, um, but not today.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I would just encourage everybody when you get up in the morning is take inventory for yourself, right?
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_03: Beautiful.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_02: What are you gonna get done when you come down the stairs in the morning?
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_02: And then before you go back up at the end of the day.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_02: My father used to say at the dinner table, you know, what did you what did you get done today?
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_02: What did you do today?
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_02: And and he'd often say, What did you learn today?
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, beautiful.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_02: Not what did you do today, but what did you learn today?
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_02: If you couldn't answer that question, you didn't get to leave from the dinner table.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think that stuck with me.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_02: And I think at the end of the day, before I go upstairs, I have to be able to answer that question for myself.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what did you get done?
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_02: What did you learn?
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_02: What did you do?
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_02: So I encourage everybody to be intentional with that time between, you know, when you come down the stairs and when you go back up, what impact did you make?
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and be intentional with all those moments in between because you know, we too easily just let them wash over us.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't have that kind of time.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_03: We so do, and I appreciate the reminder, you know, waking up, taking stock, being intentional, being grateful for what you do have.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_03: Fabulous.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_03: And people, I assume, follow you on David Betts on LinkedIn and LinkedIn, yeah.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_03: Uh Instagram, any any any of those?
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_02: I'm terrible on Instagram, but uh I am out there at debets underscore berg, debetsburg, because I live in Pittsburgh.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_02: But you can follow me there when I'm traveling.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_02: I oftentimes will post my travel photography there.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, beautiful.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_02: Headed to Japan in September and Antarctica in November, because you know, we're gonna see parts of the world we haven't seen before.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_03: Fabulous.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_03: And also, you know, all of the links and the resources that we've talked about will be in our show notes so listeners can access those.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_03: David, my mantra is set the table, invite cool people, magic happens.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_03: And you're a cool people.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_03: I'm glad you're at this table.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_03: It's um it's a pleasure and a privilege to learn from you, and I really appreciate the time you're spending with us.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_02: Foster, thank you.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_02: It's been a privilege to be here, and I I uh I appreciate the opportunity.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_02: It's been a pleasure getting to know you.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_03: Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_03: It's how people like you help people like me find this show.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_03: And if what we talked about today sparks something in you, there's a book called Leadership Rethinking the True Path to Great Leading.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, that's the real title, that goes deeper into this territory.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_03: It's on my website, fostermobley.com.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_03: And then sign up for our email list to be notified when my next book, Honoring, goes into pre-sale in 2027.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_03: And if there's one person in your life who needed to hear this episode, send it to them.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_03: Not because we need the numbers, because they need the conversation.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_03: Set the table, invite cool people, magic happens.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_03: I'm Foster Mobley.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_03: As always, friends, step wise.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_03: Our music for season three is composed and performed by Montana musical legend Philip Auburg, courtesy of Sweet Grass Music.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_03: Phil's recent passing was felt by many, including those of us associated with this podcast.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_03: We thank Patty Auburgh and Sweetgrass Music for access to this beautiful piece.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to Stepwise.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: Stepwise is produced, edited, and promoted by Zedist with support from Amber Gillard Consulting.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: Find more episodes and resources at fostermobli.com and follow Foster on social media at Fostermobley.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: We'll see you next time.