Latest / Steve Azar's Resonance: A Podcast for Leaders, Unpacking the Power of Song, Silence and Strategy / Resonance Season 3-Episode 5: Throwback Thursday-Mike's Origin Story

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Resonance Season 3-Episode 5: Throwback Thursday-Mike's Origin Story · Steve Azar's Resonance: A Podcast for Leaders, Unpacking the Power of Song, Silence and Strategy

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: This is Resonance, the podcast with leaders that unpacks the power of song, silence, and strategy.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: We believe the great leadership begins with deep listening, not just to others, but to the still small voice within.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_03: It's not just about being a successful leader, it's about being soulfully aligned as well.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: In a world moving fast, resonance invites you to pause and reconnect with purpose, people, and possibilities.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: We'll dive into some cool stories, celebrate with friends, and dig deep into the music too.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: A song has a way of staying with words and not alone.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: So whether you're leading a business, a team, or just trying to lead your own life with more meaning, this is Resonance.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Resonance, Resonance.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_03: Hey everybody, welcome to Resonance Podcast.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_03: My name is Randy Harrington, and today I am with Steve Azar and Mike Farrell.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_03: And uh we're just three guys trying to figure the world out, man.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_03: That's what's going on right now.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, that's all it is.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_03: And so uh we're gonna dive in, though, to a pretty interesting conversation.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_03: Steve Azar is kind of the common denominator between the three of us.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_03: We've all stumbled into Steve's path over the years.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_03: And Steve, I'm gonna come to you right away.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_03: How in the world did you find Mike Farrell?
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: Man, it was uh interesting evening.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like the same time when I found you.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's been it was beautiful.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: Both moments were uh were uh I'm grateful for those moments and all the ones that have come since.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: I met Mike in South Dakota, used to do a lot of charity events there, uh, and now I host a little hit hit singer-songwriter show for the last we're going on 10 years.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: Mike and I eventually started having conversations, a lot of the same interests, uh, from golf to food, et cetera, et cetera, and especially his core values, just getting to know him and the work that he does and how he uses his normal life, which is has a lot to do with a lot of smarts, but a lot of heart.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: And he he has these wonderful principles that he incorporates not only in his daily life and how he lives his life, but also the people that he consults.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: And it just so reminded me of you, Randy.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's how I think that we all are together now.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't mind being a common denominator for such a beautiful trio.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the duo looks really good.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: Me, I'm not so sure.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_03: But it is interesting, right, that that this is the way the world works, that we we form these relationships and then things unfold as a result of those relationships.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm I too have just uh, because of you, been introduced to Mike.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_03: And so, Mike, if you didn't know, is a successful author and consultant, pro golfer at at which blows my mind.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, that whole concept.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, but and and to me, this foundational piece is uh he's called the monk guy.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_03: And so we want to understand a little bit more about where that came from.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome, Mike Farrell.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_03: It's good to see you, my friend.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hey guys, good to see you.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_03: The monk guy you this is a moniker that's stuck because now uh I was telling my wife, she said, are you I said I'm gonna do a podcast.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_03: She says, Who's I said Azar and the monk guy?
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, okay, great.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_03: All right.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_03: So uh that moniker is there.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_03: But how let's let's just jump in.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_03: We're gonna do one.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, there's yeah, the captain, absolutely.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_03: So so I'm blown away by this though, because you at a later stage in your life than I expected, really kind of came to the church?
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Is that fair to say?
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh not necessarily the church.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: That had been there for a long time.
• 3:42
  unknown: Okay.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: The Benedictine piece.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_03: The Benedictine piece is is very interesting.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_03: And I've since meeting you done a little bit of homework on Benedictine principles, and it is profound stuff.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, this dude wrote this stuff in 530 A.D., thereabouts approximately, yep.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_03: And he was doing a service to the entire Christian community at the time because it was just kind of all over the place.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_03: And he's the guy who said, Hey, wait a minute.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_03: If we're going to really devote our lives to this, these are the principles that we need to be following.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_03: And those principles are still in play today.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yes?
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 4:19
  unknown: Yep.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_03: Well that's a good thing.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, real quick, I'm just interrupting, because that's so much of how I mean that's the base and foundation of his consulting.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm really looking forward to hearing again today his story and how he adopted those principles and how they work in today's society of business.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_03: You know, and amazing to me.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_03: This is something we can all learn from, that we can all take on and apply.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_03: And and and as I listen to you, one of the things that really knocks me out is there's no demand that you are Episcopalian or Catholic or whatever.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_03: These are just good life principles across the board.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_03: So with that, Mike, jump in.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_03: What in the world led you to this?
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's a it as as Paul McCartney would write, it's a long and winding road.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, this started out, uh, I mean, way back when, when I was even in in high school, uh, I had an inkling uh that I might want to be a priest.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: And uh spent a year in in high school in a uh in a high school seminary program, uh, wound up that we we moved out of the area, moved back to South Dakota, and it was just too far too far from home to try and finish that out, and so went back to public school and and you know, was very involved in sports and obviously played golf and and those kinds of things.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: I did a quick stint in the Air Force after I graduated and then went to school and played golf for two years and then decided that I was gonna be the next Jack Nicholas and uh turned pro and and started chasing, you know.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: And after a couple of years of that, realized I wasn't gonna be the next Jack Nicholas because I I couldn't butt to save my soul.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_03: Well you can't just say you're a pro, right?
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, how does that happen?
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_03: No, you have to have a certain handicap.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: Back in those days, you could declare yourself a professional and go start playing as a pro.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, now you didn't have a PGA card or any of those kinds of things, but you could certainly do that.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: And the more money you won, the more opportunity you got to play as a professional.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I was pretty good on, you know, the pro ams and some of the smaller tours and that kind of thing.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, with that, thought, well, then I can play with the big boys.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, so I spent uh the better part of a year as a what's what they called a Monday rabbit back in those days, where you'd show up on a Monday morning with 7500 guys and you know play for five, four or five spots.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: And if you weren't one of those four or five spots, they had a list of the programs that you'd go play in and you'd jump in the car and go find one to play in.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: So it was the life of a it was the life of a gypsy.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_03: It's a little like gigging, right?
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's a little like music gigging, it sounds to me.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_03: Right, right, yes.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: Jump in your van.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: The only difference is Steve was already booked, so you didn't at least he knew he was gonna get something out of it.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you know, I uh want to go and redeclare.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: Can I go back in time and redeclare my person?
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: Mike's frozen.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: He's doing Mike.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, there you are.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: You're back, Mike.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: You froze for quite a while, which was kind of fun to watch.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 7:22
  unknown: But no.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyhow, we uh uh, you know, I did that and and then uh decided I better go get a real job.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, worked for a little bit and then decided that, you know, really did want to pursue this idea of the priesthood.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so you talk about a 180-degree turn, you go from playing professional golf to into the seminary, spent the better part of five years in the seminary studying for the priesthood, and decided that uh that wasn't for me.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: Just uh, you know, the the the whole idea of the celibacy thing just didn't fit very well with me.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: So uh I mean that was it.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_03: That was the that was the that was in essence, that was it.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: I really you know thought that I wanted to have a family and be married and that kind of thing.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, so I you know went to work, worked for uh some Catholic parishes, and basically spent a year and a half refereeing four priests that couldn't sit down in the same room together, and you know, I put on my striped shirt and grabbed my whistle every morning and you know go to work.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: And after a few after a year and a half of that, I decided nah, I don't want to do that.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: And by that time, you know, I really had been studying and really looking at how to start my own business.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: I had a great great role model in my dad.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: My dad was an entrepreneur, he was uh a financial advisor for almost 50 years and always independent.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, so I watched financial advising was cool too.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: I mean right, exactly, you know, and and really, you know, watched him build his business and how he took care of his clients and and that kind of thing for all of those years.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I wanted to do that uh in some form or fashion myself, and so started a consulting company, and uh fortunately I'd made some pretty good contacts in the golf business, and uh my first client was in the golf business, and uh they had deep pockets and they did everything I suggested they do, and we hit a home run.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: And from that point on I got pretty popular.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: But after about eight years of that, where I was putting on a hundred thousand miles a year on an airplane, was you know, it was like as as you know, Steve said in our first podcast, you know, being gone 250 days a year, just decided that was I didn't want to do that anymore.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: So really looked at trying to figure out how can I still be have my own business, but you know, do something different.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, then that's when my dad stepped in and said, Well, you should, you know, get into the get into the financial services business.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, at that time I was making a fairly significant income, and for me to go from from that to making 20 grand a year as an insurance agent was probably not a good move.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: But I was in the right place at the right time.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: There was uh some legislation that Congress had just passed that allowed community banks to get into the insurance and investment business, and I started a company that the goal was to help them do that, not only provide them the products and the services, but also train them and consult with them on how to build that into their into their banks.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: And again, right place at the right time.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: Things went very well.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: And uh about ten years later, I got an opportunity to go to work for a one of the largest insurance companies in the industry.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: They made me a deal I couldn't refuse, and so uh I sold my share out to uh uh my partner in in our business and uh went to work for them, and that lasted a year, and they got bought up by a bigger insurance company and decided that uh you know they didn't really need my services at that point.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: Fortunately, I'd built a pretty good following of clients by that time, and and uh they stuck with me, and that really kind of got us to 2008.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: I've got songs about 2008, I can tell you.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, exactly.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, what happened in 2008, obviously, the financial crisis.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: The funny part about that is I had about a year and a half prior to that, I had decided to write my first book because one of the processes that I used with all of my clients was a very simple strategic planning process.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so I decided to write a book about that.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: I had written the book, the book had just come out, in fact, literally a few weeks before uh September 15th.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: And September 15th was a Monday.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: I happened to get on an airplane and fly from Minneapolis to Charlotte, North Carolina, early that morning.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and when I got off the plane and turned on my BlackBerry, it was blowing up.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: There were messages and emails and texts.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: As I walked into the airport in Charlotte, there were people standing around TVs.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, the first thing you think at that point is, oh my God, did we have another 9-11?
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: And what had happened is about half an hour prior to that, Lehman Brothers had filed for bankruptcy.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: And that was kind of the tipping point of the financial crisis.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so from that point on, it's interesting because up to that point, all of my work had really been about helping people build success, build profitability, build market share, all of those kinds of things.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: And now, literally in half an hour, it went from that 180 degrees to how are we going to survive?
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: And can I just say something real quick?
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: So a huge betrayal in the bank, I mean the industry there, right?
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: The way they handle it, we we could not, you know, uh it's it could be a little frustrating for the common men out there who everybody out there working their tails off and women and and you're trying to do things right and all that, and you never get you can never you're never gonna be the beneficiary of a bailout, right?
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah unless you go bankrupt or something.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's really interesting that that all took place, and I understand why, because it would have affected so much more in life.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but for you, I got a quick question, Mike.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, like, you're having to constantly pivot here.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: This is a that you mean you got COVID, it hadn't even shown up yet.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: You've got 9-11, and then you've got you've got this banking crisis in 2008.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it keeps coming at you.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: But the one thing that I keep hearing you say, and I think Randy will agree, is what I said yesterday.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: Relationships, relationships, relationships.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: You every time you moved to the next thing in your life, you drew upon those relationships you had in the past.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I love hearing that because that is a common thread right now in your whole life so far, is you developed some serious, wonderful, um, you know, deep relationships that you guys trusted each other because of the history that you had.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right, right.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, after that happened, a lot of the folks that I was working with, I mean, it really uh the the work became how do we survive?
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um and and after about two and a half years of that, it really began to take its toll on me because I was constantly trying to figure out how am I going to help them survive.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: And and and knowing as well that if they don't survive, I don't survive, you know.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so now it's now it's a situation that it's taken its toll on me.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going through some real struggles, borderline depression, you know, I'm in the process of going through a divorce.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: All of these things are kind of piling on top of me.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: And by the time I get to about 2013, I'm ready to shut her down and say, I just need to stop.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: I need to step away from all of this, and I need to figure out what the, you know, what the next chapter looks like.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I did that, and it was extremely difficult.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's a it's a dark period that I don't ever want to dream about going through again.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: But what happened coming out the other end, as I began to kind of think about it, one of the things that I I felt right away is that I want to write a book on what it was that allowed some of these folks that I worked with to survive and even in some cases thrive versus the ones that didn't make it.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so that really led to the second book, which is called The Sweet Spot.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: And it really I found those three things that were the common denominator.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, they had great strategy, and number two, they were very positive.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't know it, but they were really exercising the principles of positive psychology, not only themselves, but in their organizations.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: And then the third one, which was which was kind of interesting to me, which was kind of the tipping point of where I'm at today, was that all of them had very strong faith principles.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, they knew because of their faith that they were going to come out at the other end and be just fine.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: That is really what kind of prompted me to move to the next step and say, okay, I want to really start digging into this to see what that means.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: And shortly thereafter, uh, I was introduced to the rule of Benedict.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: The first time I read it, it absolutely blew me away.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it's not an easy document to read.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: Benedict uh had a tendency to be very blunt and to the point with what his message was in the rule.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: And when you start trying to interpret it into today's language, it can be a challenge.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: But what I found and what I have studied and learned over the years since then is that it's the most incredible blueprint for how we live and work in community.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: Nice to say.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: Brandy, I know you something's on your mind, but I wanted to say, Mike, it's interesting that you decided after 2008 and you went into this place where you were, which you had never found yourself before.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: You know, as songwriters, we take a pen to paper every time we go there.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: So I've been doing that even when my pains were at 11-year-old, and I'm sure, but they were relative, right?
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: So the bottom line is I it's interesting that you decided to write a book, which took a lot of effort, and it took you being very vulnerable, and at the same time, you were trying to move the ball forward and get to the next place and dig yourself out of there.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: Interesting, it took a pen and paper to help that.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: I just yeah, pretty, pretty cool.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_03: We're actually we were on exactly the same page there, is our because what struck me was yeah, it's almost counterintuitive to say, oh wow, I'm going through all this junk.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna write a book.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_03: It's like, huh?
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_03: How you know, how did that happen?
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_03: But you know, one of the things that I've discovered as a college professory guy, that how many times have I found myself in a lecture hall doing a lecture that I've done 50 times, and then all of a sudden I finally understand what the hell I'm talking about.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_03: So it's really interesting to me.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_03: Here I am.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_03: Oh yeah, I'm telling you what I and then it was like when I when it came out of my mouth whatever hundredth time, it was like, oh gosh, now I finally understand it.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_03: And my wife tutors math, and she does the same thing.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_03: She'll, I you can see her, she will finally come to understand something as she's helping somebody else.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_03: And it's not that she didn't understand it before, but it's like something clicks.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_03: And I feel like that's what that's what I got when I looked at your books.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_03: I saw them as being the fruit of of struggle and consideration.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_03: Not written in in a kind of, oh, the life is wonderful, let's just all be no.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_03: This is like it's gonna be difficult.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: So, how does the consulting thing take shape for you?
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: Is it after book number one, after book number two, the sweet spot?
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: When does that become your next move in life?
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the the consulting piece really had happened prior to the first book.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I spent many, many years doing it.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um I got that, but to me, the the level that you're at now with the Benedictine principles, I feel like you you've made this pivot now.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: And you're a different you're a different person because you've gone through some things that you never wanted to go through.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: And you've watched your friends and your business comrades go through a lot of the similar things, and now I think that you're you're this whole Benedictine way of doing thing, isn't that now peep it's rearing its head a little bit more?
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, and and in fact, that's pretty much what all of my work is right now, whether it's you know, executive coaching or leadership development or organizational change and development, all of the things that I'm doing now are based on what I call the monk principles.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and I've got five of them.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: And again, this was really extracting, you know, as I look around in my office, I can't tell you how many books are on the rule of Benedict and commentaries and you know, dissecting them and all those kinds of things to really understand what is it Benedict was trying to get at and how do we take it and apply it to not only the business world, but our personal lives as well.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, those those five principles intention, stability, community, excellence, and profound hospitality.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, those really are the five principles that I try and and and build around.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I've got all kinds of frameworks that go around each one of those five, but it really is is allowing me to go in and and what I'm seeing today, and you guys probably see this as well in in the relationships that you have.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: I know, Randy, you work with a whole bunch of different organizations doing what you do.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: There seems to be a need for it.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: I think that especially as we talk about it from a leadership perspective, if you look and see what's going on in the world today, what's going on in our country today, we don't have a lot of great leadership role models today.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: There, you know, this whole idea of leading with virtue and exercising good character and integrity and all of those kinds of things, that, you know, that seems to be something that's kind of fallen by the wayside.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: That now it's now we're gonna, we're gonna, you know, lead by whatever we think we should do.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter if it smashes somebody else.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it really has an impact.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I and I think one of the easiest things to prove that is if you look at, you know, Gallup does uh employee engagement survey every year, and they've been doing this for 20 plus years.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: Over the last few years, especially, that number is up in the 70 to 75% range of people that are either disengaged or actively disengaged in their organizations.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and and and the interesting thing about it is if you look at those businesses or organizations that are doing it differently, uh, that are using some of the principles of positive psychology and using some of the principles from the rule, and and they don't even know it that that's what they're doing.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: But those engagement numbers are much, much higher than their competitors and their peers.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think it's really an opportunity for businesses and organizations to say, maybe there's a better way to do this, maybe there's a better model to look at.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: And oh, by the way, it's 1,500 years old.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's a it's survived the test of time.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, uh you know, if you study the history of the rule, I mean, Benedict is considered the father of Western civilization.
• 21:51
  unknown: Right.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: Are you the only consultant in the that you know of in the country that follows these principles and uses the new paper practices?
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: As far as I know, I'm I'm Sure, there are probably some, you know, university professors at some of the Catholic universities and that kind of thing that maybe talk about it and probably do some.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know of anybody else that does it the way I do it.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I'm sure there's only one monk guy, baby.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, as far as I know, there's only one monk guy.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_03: I think you know, you've done the work of taking that 1500-year-old document and applying it to non-religious communities of business.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_03: And so what I'm heard, what I heard you just say is that by embracing this value-driven approach to leadership, you're creating a strategic differentiator for your company.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, you said it from the point of view of when I look at these companies, the ones that are succeeding are the ones that have this root.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_03: And they may not even know what they're doing.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_03: There's not something that may not even be intentional, but this is just the way they be.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_03: This is the way we do it here.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_03: And it seems to be in alignment with that.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_03: And that does feel it feels very good and very needed in this day and time.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_03: I do think that it's one of those beautiful things that we all have as travelers in the world, when you come across that little business that's somehow swimming against the tide of just trying to screw everybody and make as much money as they can, and they're actually doing the little things that that make a difference.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_03: I see that in New Orleans a good bit.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_03: I see it in the South a good bit uh in general, where people are uh what do they call that in New Orleans?
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_03: The legnap.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_03: When you get you get the little extra, the little something extra every single time, the little extra touch that makes all the difference.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: And it's interesting when you think about that.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, one of the one of the buzzwords today out there based on the book Unreasonable Hospitality and you know, some of the other folks that are out there, and I love Will Godera's book.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's fabulous.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: But Benedict was talking about this stuff 1,500 years ago, and uh that idea of profound hospitality that really goes deeper than even creating client experience.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: I love the word profound.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: I just love that.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: The first time I ever saw it, you know, when he when I saw that, everything else was standing sort of on its own.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: And when I saw the word hospitality, being from Mississippi and we are known as the hospitality step, and you go into O Miss, and when you know, we know that, so you know as well, Randy.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: But the deal was when that word profound was sitting in front of it, and man, it just sat it just took on a whole new life and looked really, really large to me.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: A version I'd never seen before.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: Is that what you're doing with the Viking cruise?
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly, Steve.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: This is this is what you're doing with the Viking, our our Steve Azar's Mississippi show.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's you know, we're number one on the Mississippi, and and we're passenger rated, so it's what it's what it is.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, it it's it's our entire team.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of us, and everybody from our chef that curates it, my buddy that's making making catfish for us since we were little, and uh one of my best friends, and just there's so many of us that have been doing this a long time.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: My band, they know just it's unbelievable how everybody is that, Mike, in our on our team.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like an unwritten rule.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: And when it adds up all together, it's extremely profound.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's only steroids.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because everybody cares about being kind.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, yeah.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: And and even and you, you know, you even said it, I think on one of your shows, you said it, Steve, that you know, you're there to greet them when they come in, and you're there to to say goodbye when they leave.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: If they're in person, right there, you know.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: I I mean that if that's not Benedict talks about treating every guest as if they're Christ.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: Now that's profound hospitality.
• 25:40
  unknown: Yeah.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: Well, let me let me just say this in the music business, you do these meet and greets for you know, so or certain group of people before the show.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: But I gotta tell you something.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: The time that you spend with the people, obviously you play in front of the crowds, and uh the bigger the crowd, the longer the line's gonna be afterwards to sign autographs and say hello.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so those that's when you really got that was work time.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: So playing on stage was never work to me.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's never been, it's been the joy of my life.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's been the most peaceful place.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: It is more comfortable than me getting in bed and laying in it at night and waking up in the morning.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: I am so comfortable there.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: So that's always the easy part and the place that I run to and I'm grateful for.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: But it's the time, and you got sometimes three and a half hours of meeting everybody, hugging.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a hugger, you know.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway, long story short, yeah, but I feel like just like once again, like we talked about when you guys put me on the couch and I was on the hot seat, I feel like I was raised that way.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: And um, everybody around me that was pivotal in my nurturing uh that I was drawn to were that way.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: And then when I saw someone that wasn't, then I would realize that even if you tried to work with that person, it wasn't gonna work out in the long run because you were so apart when it came to that.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so I mean, they didn't even have the H in hospitality, you know what I mean?
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: And those things happen, but I I love hearing that, and I know I'm getting off base right now.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_03: No, no, no, profit hospitality is cool.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_03: And and I get I get upset with what I would call faux hospitality, right?
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_03: Where there it looks like it's supposed to be hospitable, but you can smell it a mile away with just the the way that person interacts with you when you first meet them or whatever it is, you go, Oh, this is you know, this is uh I don't want to cast an aspersion on Disney World, but it's sort of fake.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_03: You know, it's sort of like Yeah.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: You can't be able to do it.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the Disney World, they they have it down to a process.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's the and there's still hospitality there.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think there's any question.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: And their process is maybe the best in the world.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_03: And they're doing a quite job.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_03: But I mean, you know what I guess I'm trying to say is is that you you know it when you feel it.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_03: And it's in hotels a lot.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_03: It's one of the places, you know, and uh Oh no, you can't fake it.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: You cannot fake it.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you can't you can't fake it on stage or off stage or in a conference room or in a board meeting or right now.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: You cannot, I just don't believe you can fake it.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: And some people do get away with it, but I've I feel like they're shortened by it because they they're missing the point.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_01: And some people aren't capable of being part of it.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I think it brings up a good point too, in the fact that um this idea of profound hospitality is very different than customer service.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: I think in a lot of a lot of places, stores, businesses, restaurants, whatever you want to see, they think that doing good customer service is hospitality.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a completely different animal.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: Hospitality goes much deeper.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's I just did a workshop for a client yesterday and talked about the idea that every single touch point of that client is analyzed and looked at and said, how do we feel, how do we make them feel more welcome?
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: How do we do things like pay attention to the details?
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: How do we anticipate versus react?
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: Think about Ritz Carlton.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, Ritz Carlton does a phenomenal job of understanding who you are before you ever check in.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then customizing that experience.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they're one of the best in the world at that.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: And that's that's where you look at it from a hospitality standpoint versus a customer service standpoint.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, let's face it, if you don't have good customer service, you're not going to be around very long.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: But just because you have customer service doesn't mean you can turn it into a multiplier.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: Profound hospitality turns it into a multiplier because now everybody starts talking about the experience that they've had with you.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's what's so important uh about that idea of profound hospitality.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: And you look at a Benedictine monastery or an abbey today, and everything stops when a guest arrives.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: All the other stuff that's going on stops, and all the focus goes, all the attention goes to the guests that just walked in the door.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_03: That would freak me out.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_03: Y'all get back to doing what you're doing.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_03: I'll be all right.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_03: I love it.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I think the other thing that you you hit on there is this concept of experience.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_03: That that that's really what the opportunity is for people is to create some sense of experience by virtue of the business.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_03: And that's what you're doing with your concerts all the time.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_03: I've seen it again and again.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_03: Just this, the little touches, the little connections that you make that uh that that close the gap between the audience and the and the performance and and bring it together.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_03: So this concept of experience, I think, is is what we're chasing.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_03: Because that's what we're gonna remember.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_03: That's what we feel.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_03: Uh right.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_03: It's not the t-shirt, it's the feeling I had when when I was there, you know.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that reminder.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know, Mike, Mike also has a big advantage because if you listen to him talk, you're gonna believe anything he says.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: Because the tone, that that voice of his, you know.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: I get to spend time, I've been able to spend time blessed with Morgan Freeman.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: He's got that voice, everybody knows.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I I get the feeling, you know, when Mike starts to talk, I'm gonna I'm gonna listen to him.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's it sounds like there's no way he doesn't know what he's talking about with the timber.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_01: He's the timber in his voice.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: Got the timber.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there's no question that there's no question that I'm a legend in my own mind.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: So you know that's all right.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_03: You can be that.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna lay a little academics on you real quick.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, this is gonna go fast, but I think it's relevant.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_03: So there was a philosopher named Martin Heidegger.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_03: He wrote around the beginning of the 20th century, and one of the things that he observed was the Industrial Revolution happening.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_03: So all these people coming from the farms and coming into the cities, particularly in Europe at the time, and it really changed the social fabric of the world profoundly.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_03: And he was realizing that a lot of the people who were starting companies had no idea what they were doing because it didn't exist before.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_03: These were just people with a little bit of money, and so they would start a company, but have no idea how to lead it.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_03: And so what he wrote was he said that he found the leaders of the day to be thrown, T-H-R-O-W-N, a throne leader.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_03: What he said it meant something very specific.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_03: You know you are thrown when four things occur.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_03: First of all, you you have got to make a decision.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_03: The second thing is you don't have time to go research and get all the evidence you need or whatever, opinions.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_03: That's not going to happen.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_03: Third, you don't know what everybody else is doing while you're making the decision.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_03: And fourth, you can't not decide.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_03: Not deciding is deciding.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_03: So that's what it means to be thrown.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_03: So you're driving down the road, it's a wet night, it's hills, you're not familiar area, and there's trucks and cars all around, and 100 feet in front of you, a deer walks into the road.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_03: What are you gonna do?
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_03: Well, the driver's association says the deer is toast, right?
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_03: Because I can't risk another life by driving off the other side or whatever, slamming on, you know, whatever.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_03: It's gonna be a bad thing.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_03: So me and the deer are gonna have a problem.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_03: What Heinegger tells us, though, is that we're we're in that situation.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_03: You're driving down the road, you see the deer, you do a gut check.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_03: You go into your values.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_03: I have to make a decision.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_03: Am I gonna swerve?
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_03: Am I not gonna swerve?
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_03: Does the deer see me?
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_03: Do the cars around me see me?
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_03: I don't, they don't know.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_03: So guess what?
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_03: My values say between human life and the deer's life, the deer is gone.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_03: Okay?
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_03: Now let's take that exact same situation.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_03: You're driving down the road, 55 miles an hour, it's a rainy night, and a child walks into the road.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_03: Feel your way your guts.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_03: Now your gut is telling you, you ain't hitting that child.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_03: You're gonna put somebody else at risk, you're gonna put your own life at risk, you're gonna go off the road, you're gonna do something stupid, but you are not gonna hit that child.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_03: And that's what Heidegger was really telling us is that when we're in these throne positions, it's not about people say, Oh, I listen to my gut.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_03: I think your gut is your values.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_03: And I think to the degree that you have a relationship with those values, that you use them on a regular, you know, basis, they're they're available to you.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_03: If they're not, then you're gonna go to that gut check and it's gonna be empty.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you're gonna get nothing back.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_01: But go ahead, Steve.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: No, go ahead.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yours is gonna, I was gonna be funny, but go ahead.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'll save it.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'll save the entertainment value of this show for a second.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it it it's interesting, this whole conversation about values, and and when you think about and look at the historical idea of values, it all comes from virtue.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: It all comes from Aristotle and the ancient Greeks and Thomas Aquinas and Augustine and you know, all of that.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it's that virtuous behavior.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: Character is the exercise of virtue, and character drives value, values.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so understanding, and and I think that's one of the challenges, is that if we understand our character and exercise our character in the right balance, we will live out our values.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: When they get out of whack, when they're either too much or too little.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: I do this exercise in workshops all the time with their character strengths.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: Are you exercising them too much or too little?
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: My number one, my number one character strength is humor.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if I'm making fun of everything, then I'm probably using it too much.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: If I'm taking everything way too serious, then I'm not using it enough.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so getting that in balance, just because it's a character strength, doesn't mean I have it in balance.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's where you rely on some of the other strengths.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so when we think about exercising our values, those are based on our character, those are based on virtue.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: And if we're doing those in balance correctly, then we give ourselves the opportunity to lead well.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's like tuning a guitar, you know?
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, that's true.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_01: I realized that, you know, I was our take 24 rule we talked about yesterday.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_01: If something bothers you in 24, yeah.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_01: I just realized that we just took three minutes, and what I was gonna say wasn't that funny at all.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm glad I I'm glad you interrupted me.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna say it.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_01: That was a take three.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, you talk about character.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: How much of this stuff are we born with, and how much of this, you know, the those virtues, and how much of this stuff is nurtured and mentored into us?
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think you've got two different, you know, two different things.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: You've got personality, which we're born with, you know, that's how we're hardwired.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: You've got character, which is built up over time through your upbringing, through your experiences, through your learning, those kinds of things.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: However, there's a there's a great tool called the Values in Action Inventory that's put out by the University of Pennsylvania.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: And Martin Sealer.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the guy that kind of he's the godfather of positive psychology.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: And what they determined is that these these character strengths come from cultural, come from education, come from learning.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: But when we identify what we've got, they might change a little bit, but in most cases, you're gonna be have the same, same ones.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_00: They've got they identify 24 of them, and so your top five might move in and out of like the top eight occasionally, but most of the time they're gonna stay the same.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's just a matter of understanding how you're using them and how you're keeping them in balance.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_00: Personality, on the other hand, you know, that's uh that's how we're hardwired.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: So if you look at tools like disc and Myers Briggs and Enneagram and some of those, those are determining how we're hardwired.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now, it's always good to know those things and how they work and all that kind of thing, but those you're not going to change.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's that's how we're hardwired, you know.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that's the difference between what we're hardwired with and what we learn and and understand over a period of time.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_03: That was really helpful.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_03: That was very helpful for me.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_03: That the distinguishing personality from character.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_01: From character, yeah.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_01: Me too.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_01: You're welcome, Randy, for me asking that.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes I lean on you so much.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes Gilligan, sometimes Gilligan steps.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: You never know when my little body is gonna come up with a good question.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_01: Skipper and the professor doing their thing.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: So funny.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: This is really I love I love hearing that, and I love you talking about virtue.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so what about people that that are born with zero empathy?
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_01: No, I'm serious.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_01: The ones that you know, we've seen it a lot in the news.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_01: We see it a lot in the news for our whole lives, but uh, we pay a little, I pay a little bit of more attention that how could that person lack that?
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, like, how does empathy become void in anyone?
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, it's interesting.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_00: The first line of the rule of Benedict is, and Steve, you've heard this before, listen with the ear of your heart.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love that.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: And and you know, so listening with empathy, compassion, understanding.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: If we don't listen, it's pretty hard to exercise empathy.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: And and so if if that individual is the type of individual, and and you know, I can I can name quite a few leaders that are a little bit like that, you know, if not a lot like that, that they don't want to listen to anything.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's all about them.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's all about ego, it's all about, you know, they're gonna get to what they're gonna do, and they don't care how many people they're gonna run over to do it.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: Those are the people that I think lack the ability to listen with the ear of their heart.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_00: And if they're not, it's pretty hard to exercise empathy.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_01: I think you two get the jobs that you do when y'all go out and consult, you walk into an arena that the people that you're consulting are, first of all, pretty dang smart because they got CEOs and they got to where they got and all that, and the companies are doing well.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_01: They all want to, well, I guess they always want to make sure that they can, they all know that they can do better.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm just wondering how you guys start the process, how you prepare to go into a company that you're not there daily, and they are, and how do you get their respect?
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, how do you guys build this model to go in?
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_01: I know you're both very authentic.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_01: We talked about that.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_01: I know you're both gonna come in just like you are right now.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be the with the same intention, the same reflections in your voices.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's how you're built, but how do you prepare for that?
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like you're walking on my stage in a way and telling me, hey, Steve, I think you can be better at this.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_01: I've been doing this my whole life.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I I would be a little skeptical.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I think, and Randy, you can jump in here too.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, first off, I think it's it's the questions you ask.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it really doesn't start with me knowing everything.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: It starts with me wanting to know everything.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a big shift.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I start with the questions.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_00: I start with, you know, because I think the better questions you ask, the better you begin to build that relationship.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: And you can't really, I can't really do what I do without asking a whole bunch of questions on the front end.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_00: And probably using some tools.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm working with a client right now using a tool called the Competing Values Framework.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure you know that one, Randy.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_00: But it really is on is understanding how an organization works and what their culture is.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so understanding that I can't go in and give them anything of value until I understand where they're at and where they want to go.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: And whether it's using a tool or just asking a whole bunch of questions.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_03: It's interesting that uh I've noticed I have a number of clients that I've known 90% on Zoom, you know, and it's it's much more difficult for me to make those assessments.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_03: I always I'm almost to the point of saying I have to walk into your world at least once or twice and breathe the air in your physical location before I can really begin to understand.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm taking cues from everything.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I would agree.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_03: The only other trick I would lob out there that I actually do use is um, and I won't use the academic terms, but thank you for that.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_03: So there's this basic basic idea is there's this thing called ontology, which is the study of what it means to be.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_03: And then there's epistemology, a study of what it means to know.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_03: And if you put an equal sign between those two words or between those two concepts, that if I know I think this is what it means to be, then this is what I think I should know.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_03: And if I change what I should know, then it changes what I can be.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_03: So without getting too too wack-a-doodle, I'll walk into a company, and as I'm listening to them talk about their problems, they typically will cluster around we're not becoming what we want to be, or we're not achieving what we see as our mission and our vision.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_03: That's or they'll say, we don't understand.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_03: We don't even have our mind on what the the pro we don't know how we're doing.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_03: We don't know why we're failing, we don't know why we're succeeding.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_03: And so I typically, that's the first big fork in the road for me.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_03: Is it about what they know, or is it about the sense of their their sense of identity as a company?
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, that's cool.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_01: That's perfect.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_00: Well, fellas, I think we've just about run out of time.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_03: Well, it's never enough, but uh I learned I learned about 19 things from you.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, first of all, we're gonna go back to Azar, though.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_03: Relationship, relationship, relationship.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_03: I wrote it down as relationship cubed.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_03: There you go.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_03: Because that's what you're really saying.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_03: And and I think that's that's really, really great.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_03: I I think this idea of of teaching as a way to know, that writing a book as a way to know, as a way to come through and and to to jump in there, strategy, being positive, carrying faith as a differentiator in in companies.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_03: And that my last one is you can't fake it, friends.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_03: You can't fake it.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_03: If there was one true thing said today, it's that.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_03: Because we've become very sophisticated as human beings and sniffing it a mile away and and being done with it.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_01: So authentic with the as songwriters, when you can truly decide to be the songwriter that's always gonna be honest with it, it's a game changer.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_01: It takes a long time to find yourself as a writer and as an artist and as a performer, and to be able to sort of figure that out, that takes a journey in itself.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_01: And you you'll never figure yourself all the way out.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_01: And you hope you're gonna continue to improve.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_01: But with that said, being vulnerable requires honesty.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that I've seen a direct uh correlation with everything you guys said today: virtue, values, a profound hospitality, everything.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_01: But authenticity is just extremely it's just imperative.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yep, yeah.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_03: Mike, a great pleasure to see you.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you for sharing your story.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_03: We're gonna be back with more resonance, and we're gonna just get into some deep weird stuff.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_03: So please come back and find out.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna put Randy, we're gonna put Randy on the couch next time.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's his turn.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_01: I cannot, I cannot wait.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_01: And we're gonna wear red next time, and you're gonna wear black, Mike.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_01: We'll make it happen.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_00: Mike, where can we get the podcast?
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_00: See you later, guys.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_00: We'll see you next time.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_03: Stay where there are podcasts.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_03: You get the podcast.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_00: You can get the podcast on all the major major podcast channels, Spotify, Apple, all those fun places.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_00: Or you can go to resonanceleader.com and uh it'll be there.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_00: And uh all the links, and you can find out a little bit more about the three of us.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_00: And probably we'll we might even have a link to Steve's new hit song, Killin' It, Killin' Me.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's an awesome, awesome one.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta listen to it.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_01: Just and don't forget to give us one of those hitchhiker thumbs up every once in a while.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's what they tell us.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_01: We'll see you guys later.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for listening to Resonance.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_01: Find us at resonanceleader.com.