#121: Finding Happiness In The Advent Of Technology with Ervin “Earl” Cobb

Thanks for the invitation. I'm glad to be here.

It's a pleasure. You know what? You've done a lot of things. I would love it if you'd give us a little survey of your history, of your bio, so to speak, in a condensed format, but love for people to know a little bit about how it is that you have come to be where you are today.

Certainly. My history fits very well in the complete unabridged American history. Okay. And I don't say that unabridged just occasionally because I think that's the case. Because most students who've gone to school in this country, say in the last 40 years, haven't gotten all of America's history, which to me is a lot of richness that a lot of people don't have, and which might be some of the issues that we're going through this next 100 years of existence here. But I was born in a little town. When I say little, it was about 2,000 people. in middle Georgia, right in the heart of segregation. Okay. And my mom and dad never went to school. My dad was painter, carpenter, barber on the weekends. Mom had 8 kids. I'm one of 8. And during all of the time growing up, 2 things never, ever entered when I was young into my thoughts. That is, I never thought that I was poor or disadvantaged. And I never felt that within my family and my community and the constraints that we were in, that we could have been any happier. Coming out of that environment, loving family environment and small-town Southern environment, 47 years later, life's been good. I never would have imagined that I would have had the opportunities and the income and the associated wealth that has come with that when I was a little kid in Vienna, Georgia, during the summers making go-karts, because I was known as the maker. Every summer I'd make something. That's probably why I went into engineering. But within that 47 years, there's a couple of engineering degrees. There's an excellent training program with Honeywell and Motorola. There's a wife now of 37 years. There's 3 grandkids, Jordan, who just turned 18, Jayden, the middle kid, who just turned 13, and granddaughter who will be 10 going on 14 in November. Fortunate enough to have enough opportunities and work for enough companies earlier on where there was things called fixed pensions and a lot of bonuses, and also ran a venture company with some luck. Now sort of semi-retired. You never retire, but I got out of corporate life back in 2008 with my last stint at Wells Fargo, where I ran all of their critical data centers before they bought and integrated all of their data centers with Wachovia. And at that point, I wrote my first book on leadership called Focused Leadership. And if you get that book and you read the first intro, the first part, I tell you what that was all about. It was my Pivot. Okay. It was my realizing that I don't have that BlackBerry connected to me anymore, that I've got some options because my wife is still actively involved in her third career, believe it or not. And I've always wanted to communicate in writing. And people would always say, Earl, what are you going to do when you stop getting off airplanes and flying around the world and building things and leading people? I said, I'm going to get this out and I'm going to write. You say engineers don't write. What do you mean engineers? I said, wait

a minute.

I was an engineer for about 8 years. Okay. The first 8 years of my career. The last 15 years of my career, I was a communicator as a senior executive. That's what it was all about. And even in some of my seminars and presentations now, particularly to the project managers, I let them know that if you're a senior manager, you don't produce nothing. People who work for you produce the things. C. Okay. And in that is where I had the gift of message. And back in the earlier days, we didn't have the Zooms and all of this, and you wrote the memos and you wrote letters and you had communication meetings where you had to go to every location to sit up and talk to your people and meet people. And that's sort of how I sort of morphed into enjoying this publishing business. And I say that with a small P because the nice thing about what I've been able to do with Richard Press, which is a part of our company, is that when I get up in the morning, I've got over 40 authors that I've published, that I market, that I promote. Unlike when I was in corporate America, everybody that calls my number, they're in my life now because I want them in my life.

Resilience. It's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about. And in times of massive change and disruption, the kind of rapid change that we're all experiencing as leaders, as business owners, as entrepreneurs, we have to learn how to not only increase our own resilience but that of our teams. So right now we have a powerful opportunity for you to find out just how resilient you are. Some years ago, my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken. And all you have to do to get your own free resilience leader assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes. And it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are. Yeah, I want to circle back to a couple of things you said at the beginning. First of all, thank you for sharing a little bit more in depth about how it is you've navigated in the last several years, your career and otherwise. The math isn't adding up. So before I get into this other thing I want to talk to you about, something's not adding up for me. 37 years now.

I'm 65. That's when I left Vienna.

Oh, got it. Because I'm thinking to myself, 47 years and he's married 37 years. I'm about to have a bigger pivot than I thought I was going to get in this episode. The man married his college sweetheart at age 10.

No, I'll be 66 years old if the Lord's willing in February.

Ah, yes. Good, good. What a blessing. I want to get back to something you said earlier, which is that you grew up in a small town And didn't have a lot, but there were 2 things that were true for you. I think this is really the, at least at the outset, the track I want to follow. One, that you never felt poor or disadvantaged. And 2, that you couldn't imagine yourself being any happier. And this is growing up in a family in a small-town place with not a whole lot financially, let's say. That is very telling to me of what is possibly missing In our world now. I mean, we're living in a very, very interesting time. Again, yes, I look at things in a way that say everything's always happening for good, for a good. We may not see what that good is. There's that old expression, everything happens for a reason. I always found that to be an expression that didn't bring me a lot of comfort because it— well, I should say it didn't until I realized it wasn't necessarily a complete statement. Everything happens for a reason. And then instead of a period, you can put a comma there and complete that by saying, and that reason is there to serve. What's the service that comes out of that thing? I mean, it could be a child that passes away. It could be anything that's sort of on the outer edge of what you think that would be inconceivable or irreconcilable or something you could never get past. And even the worst of those types of things or even tragedies, you'd say, what on earth could come out of this? But if we look at it through the lens of that it will serve someone, it might serve me, it might serve my community, it might serve people that I can't even imagine at the moment, it changes things in a great way. So I don't look at what's happening in our world, even the divisiveness in and of itself as being a bad thing. But there's no question that it is causing disruption and it is causing pain right now for a lot of folks. And what seems to be not present in the world we're in right now is what you just described. And I'm curious whether you think social media, whether technology— because you were in the tech space, you're an engineer, and you're in information. I mean, you were involved directly in the information side of technology. That technology and that information has only made communication more possible. It's made it cheaper. It's made it to the point where the work that people do is possible from anywhere all over the world these days, remote working. has created a revolution. The possibility of remote working is only expected to increase. More people are going to work virtually tomorrow than they did today. And 10 years from now, who knows? Could be 80% or 90% of our workforce is working remotely. So the communication advances have been very positive. I just look and say, man, growing up and not knowing that you are poor or not ever thinking of yourself as poor, not ever thinking of yourself as disadvantaged, And that being coupled with this feeling that you were happy. Do you think technology— this is the question I've got for you— do you think technology has disrupted that foundation of family life to the point where people look at others? I mean, kids know they're poor today because all you got to do is get on Facebook and at least there's this idea that other people have a lot more going on for them than maybe you do. What are your thoughts on that, Earl?

Well, my answer to your question would be a conditional yes, and I'll get right back to that. To me, it gets back to one of my favorite fables, and it goes back to some Socrates writings. And he presents this fable about these men that were living in cave time. Okay, so there was no Facebook or anything back then. Okay, but they had a routine. The men would go out hunting and bring back the food, give it to the women. The women will cook the food. And before they would go and have dinner— remember, they worked all day, so when they come back, the sun had set, okay, and they had lit the fire— they'd all sit on these rocks and face this cliff with the fire behind them. And they would see these shadows on the cliffs in which they believed were their strengths that allowed them to return safely from hunting that allowed them to be able to bring back food to feed their families. Stay away from religion, but I don't know what wasn't religious, but it was like you got to believe that something's helping you, right? And over and over and generation to generation, then one day one of those men accidentally fell off the rock during that ceremony and looked around and saw that what they have been valuing for generations as their strength and telling him at the end of the day, you did a good job, was actually the shadow from the fire. And when the guy saw that, he got back on the rock, and he tried to explain to them, no way. And he was never the same. In my lectures today, I call that cognitive perspective. And perspective is so important. You go back to when I was growing up, why did I not feel poor? Because mother and dad, they worked enough. We worked enough. I worked in the cotton fields in the summer. I enjoyed it. It was with the family. We always had something to eat, and we always kept in mind what was important for us and the family. And on top of that, my mom and dad, even though they didn't have a high school education, they had a 72-year-old marriage before mom died first. And out of the 8 kids, 7 of them have at least a bachelor's degree, 6 of them have master's degrees, and 2 have PhDs. Because we were immersed in reading and in education and getting a realistic perspective of a world that we had to understand that we were just a small part of. This is not our world. We are part of it. And to me, that's the difference today. You got technology, yes. But you have— I mean, we the country have tens of millions of young people and students that have the same Facebook issues, communications. But why do they still not go to jail and not get shot in the back and end up going to the Harvards, UCLAs, and Arizona States or wherever? and become attorneys and get on the Supreme Court because they have a perspective and a support system that allows that to be. So that conditional yes is yes, but if you go back to the root cause is that it is so hard when you have generations of generations of generations of family, and I'm not just talking about Black families in the South. I'm talking about Anglo families in Kentucky or in Ohio where I lived. That what's been baked into their perspective and baked in their ability to do more and baked in the opportunities to get more education has been a perspective that has been set or established, if you will, by the rules and the regulations and the institutions I was saying

what your perspective there is enlightening. It makes sense to me. The baking-in process, sometimes you could call that programming. It's the values that get passed down from one generation to another. Whether a family is valuing education or perhaps— I think there's a bit of that nature-nurture debate that goes on as well. I was thinking more along the lines just of the fact that we're living in less simple times. There's no question that our times that we're living in are— there's just more There's more access to information. There's more access to what other people are up to. And that's a good thing. There's tremendous benefits in that. I'm just sort of questioning for myself as I was listening to you that at a simpler time when it wasn't as easy for people to see into other people's yards, there's that old expression that the grass is always greener. With the advent of technology and in particular certain social media that is so prevalent with people today of all ages, I mean, Really, age has no bearing on that, it seems, at the moment. It's very easy to see into other people's yards. It's very easy to see what other people are up to. And when you're a young person growing up, to maybe not have had a lot— I grew up in a small little apartment, shared a room the size of a closet with my brother. And I would say my upbringing was very similar in the respect that we didn't know we didn't have a lot. It was difficult for us to know that because pretty much everybody where we lived had about the same. Yeah. We could just walk a mile or so and see that there were people that were living in single-family homes, and a single-family home was certainly different than living in an apartment. So I had a sense that there was some economic difference there. But because it was less easy for me to know what people were doing elsewhere in the world and all that kind of thing, I just feel like I didn't know I was growing up without anything. I didn't feel disadvantaged, just like you didn't.

Right.

And couldn't have imagined myself being happier. So, you know, it's mostly an observation. Didn't know if just where you're sitting today that you think that technology has created any challenges that we can't reconcile, or are there things that you would say have to pivot in the tech space even to make it possible for people to return to maybe some simpler, simpler understandings? And whether that helps you, especially if you're a grandfather, you must be thinking about those grandkids quite a lot.

Yeah, I agree. But I guess my view is just the opposite because the horse is out of the barn. We're not going to stand in line at the bank on Saturdays anymore. That's done. And if you go back through time, automobiles, when they first came out, was just as innovative or productive in terms of now we can have wheels and we can do things, right? That didn't stop Henry Ford, right, from understanding that I've got to make cars affordable so people can buy them, so the people who buy them Can have money to buy my cars. I mean, so I don't think it's a matter of technology or anything slowing down. I think it's a matter of the mindset. I think there's a reason why very few societies— and I don't want to get too deep here, I know I try, I tend not to do that— since the Incas have ever survived. Okay, the reason why the British still don't have the empires and all that, and the Spaniards, and it comes down to the human aspects of just people and society and what people wish to do. Because we could be just as effective in terms of communications and all the tools that we have and be doing 180 degrees the other way. I mean, we could have kids getting PhDs because now they have access to the internet at age 12. It may be going the other way, not adding to the distraction. It could be adding to the access and the growth and the development, and it could be adding to bringing people together and it could be adding to tearing down walls and not building. I mean, it could be doing just the opposite. So it's not the technology in my sense. It's what we choose to do with that technology. And to be even narrow, that we has always been an issue with me. OK, because that we is a very small percent of the population who have the wealth, who have the knowledge, Who understands the power of divisiveness, that has something to gain. It's not the majority of the people. Majority of people wake up like you and I and enjoy their family and don't really think about all this other stuff. But history has shown that it's always a few, and even in a democracy, that somehow will just taint the opportunities for the vast majority, because controlling the vast majority Wow.

The pace of change over the last couple of years has been rapid. And if you're a leader, a business owner, an entrepreneur, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Every day it's something different and something new. But the one thing that I've learned in performing at the height of all of those roles has been that we must be resilient. In fact, it's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about. And it's the reason why my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken. And all you have to do to get your own free resilient leader assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes, and it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources Resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are.

Yes, I didn't expect that our conversation would take this turn, which is terrific. So I'm always thrilled when we could just follow the threads of things and hopefully close some loops. I don't know that we're going to close this loop because it's an open conversation about something deeply important. So I'd love to know a little bit about your pivot story and you could share one of the more profound moments in your life where you did pivot. And it was wonderful right before we started our— this broadcast, you said that you'd not only written 10 books, been part of writing 10 books, but you'd also read the book Pivot.

Yes.

So I thought, you know, not every guest I have on the show has read the book or read the book entirely, although

I

never call anybody out for starting.

And it took me about 30 minutes to read the first 50 pages. Okay. I kept going.

Good man. For those of you that have not read Pivot, how would you phrase what that is at the beginning of the book, Earl? What would you call it?

I thought it was cool with the boat, the lifeboat. And yeah, I mean, I—

No, I mean the 50-page thing.

Oh, the 50 pages. Yeah. I mean, you're right. Remember, I'm a publisher and I tell authors, people don't read today. OK? I mean, if you take all the books that have sold in the world, OK, probably less than a tenth of a percent, a tenth of 1% of the people in the world are buying and reading. There's far more people that don't read and won't read for whatever reason. So getting anybody to read your material is extremely good.

And it's interesting too is that folks will buy a book but not finish it. And I guess that's what we're calling people out on some level in that first couple of chapters is just the idea that in so many ways, 50-paging something, writing or reading 50 pages and stopping, you know, there's a lot of people started books that haven't finished the books they started.

Right.

To write, and plenty of people who've started to read a book and didn't finish it. So this idea of 50-paging is actually a habit that we 50-page different aspects of our lives. You start something and then don't actually complete what you start. So it is a bit of a calling out people to the carpet, so to speak. And I've heard that from a lot of folks that, hey, listen, you know what, once I read that, how could I not finish the book? I mean, you're basically telling me if I stop right here, this is very much what I do.

And that's what it takes.

Well, sometimes. Yeah. So it was done intentionally, let's put it that way, isn't

it? Yeah. I think it's very well written. Of course, the message isn't new. Nothing new under the sun. So what's always important is how that message is conveyed. And I think certainly your analogy of the pivot in basketball, and I mean, all of that sort of adds to me the readability and really gets the message across. I mean, I've got people that I know would get that message before they get the same message that's provided in a different book. So I think that's an excellent point. And you brought up the idea here of maybe picking one pivot, one in my life or something, and sort of— let's get a little lighter here— and sort of kick it around and sort of see how did it follow the process that you put forth with the roadmap and the inspiration, the realization, and of course the tools. I would say probably one of the major pivots, and I talk about it in our book, Living a Richer Life. In fact, in here we got 4 of our pivots that we exposed to the public. It's actually the one that talks about staying in my daughter's life. Okay. And if whoever wants to get the book and read that, I think that's one of the most touching things, because what we do in the book, we follow the thing that we created, Life Enrichment Continuum, where we have a thing called exploration mode, where you discover, you deliberate, you select, and you engage.

Well, you know what's great, Earl, is that we'll— as part of our show notes, we'll have links to that so people can go and find out more and also buy the book, etc. So, if it's that story that you feel called to share right now about staying in your daughter's life, let's dig into that.

Okay. My daughter, who will turn 41 in December, is from my first marriage. Okay? And my first marriage lasted a full 2 years. So when she was 3 years old, I was a single father. And having to deal with that, and in terms of getting a sense about what is this thing at— what was I, 25, I don't know, whatever— about relationships and family and kids and stuff like that, I had to go through this process over the years. Of getting a grasp of where my daughter would really fit, that is, in my life as she grew up. And I won't go through all of that, but there were things that I'm sure every single parent, divorced parent, married again, multiple— both families on both sides, something about daughters, and particularly when you're an executive flying around the world during most of her time. And my wife Charlotte, her stepmother, basically spent the time with her, and then her need to yearn back to her mother, if you will, and her side of the family. So So we went back and forth for years. But the pivot for me was for me to sort of get a grasp of what that was really all about in her mind and how to make sure that she stayed— that we stayed in her life and that we allowed her life to be the best of both sides and not one-sided. And with that, of course, my wife and I had to go, and we sort of got a roadmap, okay, in terms of— How are we going to do this? First of all, we needed clarity. And we spent the time over these years always saying we're going to think about what she wants and what she's asking for and where she's going to live. And so we just didn't decide on things based on emotion, which is my thing about don't react, just respond. Take the time to get the clarity and respond. And then the second thing is the momentum. That is where my wife, Charla, and I are getting on the same page. Okay, about how we were going to go and how we were going to work through that. Different in terms of all the career pivots and all the business pivots, which sort of traditional. I didn't find myself in a situation where I had to— any of my 34 years in the corporate world— to make a decision other than, am I going to stay here or am I going to go there? But the kinds of pivots that I think are more important— when I say pivot in terms of things that need clarity, And things that need momentum, things that need a plan, and to see that plan executed to the objective that you're looking for, or more of those soft pivots like the one of keeping my daughter in my life. Okay. That involved other people, that involved emotions, those types of things.

Yes. That's a great way you put that as well, Earl. The idea that there's soft pivots, there's something less extreme than quitting a job or being Fired or let go from a job or changing a career. Those are pretty extreme moments in time, but there are also daily pivots. There's soft pivots of your thinking. Yes. Soft pivots of whether you hold on to a feeling or let it go, whether you're willing to release your anger or forgive yourself or forgive someone else. Those are also really important pivots.

As a matter of fact, our common friend Teresa has written a whole thing about forgiveness, the power of forgiveness.

It's a magical thing, forgiveness. It really is. And I remember there's a student of ours from years ago, was part of one of our programs many years ago, who wrote a book, and her name is Juliana Erickson. Juliana Erickson. I recommend this book. I haven't mentioned this on the air in a while, but The Other F Word is the name of the book. And that F word is forgiveness, which is pretty telling that sometimes it feels like a dirty word for a lot of folks. That to forgive is on some level a condoning of whatever it is that you're forgiving.

Right.

And I did learn, I don't say I don't need reminders of this learning. So I do definitely need to be reminded of this time to time. But I did learn some years ago that forgiveness isn't about the other person, it's about ourselves. Yes. You know, there's lots of studies that have been done about what it feels chemically, what's produced in our bodies when we feel anger, when we feel resentment, when we feel guilt, when we're unable to forgive it. It's literally producing poison inside of us. And sometimes feeling that way is a bit like wanting to see someone else pay or suffer or just, you know, on some level be held accountable. But that poison isn't harming them. The poison of that feeling is only harming ourselves. So forgiveness is the only antidote I'm aware of. The only thing I've ever learned that deals with that is forgiveness.

Yeah.

So it is a very powerful tool and a pivot tool for sure.

Yeah, absolutely. And one of the things I got out of your book that I thought, and maybe I'm unique in seeing in the book, and it wasn't said directly, but of course inherently it is, is that we take for granted Some of us, that we were all born with the same amount of frontal lobe, the part of our brain that allows us—

Yes, the frontal lobe.

To envision and to plan. That's a gift. It's not— everybody isn't born with that. And so if you look at someone and they've got 2 arms and 2 legs and a nose and an ear and they look normal, okay, and that's not necessarily that those attributes that allow you to do what you do, even to pivot, okay, even in basketball, to learn how to pivot isn't something that everyone can do easily. Not that they can't do it. It just takes more something to give them a guide or a dose at a time or movement at a time to be able to do that. And how I've come about understanding how people pivot or change or do those things necessary for them to change Is that by them first, and you sort of mentioned this with forgiveness in a way, first them understanding their human configuration, that is how the brain works, the vision thing, the thinking thing. There are things that you don't even think about that you are doing, that your brain is doing, that's controlling you, that has to be, and it's not going to stop. You got to learn how to control that, emotions and those types of things. That's why a lot of the coaching and counseling and things that help people get through pivots or realize that they have to pivot has less to do with someone's motivation of wanting to do it physically and energy and that type of thing, they can't get this together. They can't get that ringing out of their ear, if you will, to be calm, to go through that.

Yes, that makes sense. It makes perfect sense. And I believe it's a great conversation, which we won't get into at the moment, about the difference between genetics and epigenetics, which on the one hand, genetics being what you said, that It might be easier for you— I'm not saying this is true, but it might be easier for you to play the piano than it would be for me because you're more— let's say you just understand on an intuitive level something about music or about notes, or it could be language that you're able to learn a different language more quickly. I was never good with languages. I'm not great with math. I mean, there's some people that just have a natural aptitude for some of these things, whether it's language acquisition or it's Whether it's mathematics or it's musical ability or any of those things. So I agree with you on that side of things, that there's what's more innate, I guess, or easy for some folks to pick up. And then there's the epigenetics conversation around what we can actually learn and how it is that we can almost reprogram our DNA on some level through practice, through skill acquisition and practice of something that we really want to be great at. I can't make myself into, you know, to use that basketball analogy, I love basketball, but I couldn't fill up the hoop the way my dad could and I wasn't 6'2. 6'2 like he was, so I couldn't jump as high or do other things on the court. But had I, when I wanted to be good at it, I still found my place where I could contribute and I could enjoy the game and enjoy the process of playing the game. So I think it's a wonderful conversation, which I think leads into the last question I have for you because it dovetails nicely with the concept of how it is that we practice things. So for me, the most significant practice of my adult life or the This phase of my adult life, we'll call it the last 10 years, has been the practice of prayer, the practice of me finding the presence of spirit on a moment-to-moment basis. That's just a personal thing. It's changed so many things in my life. And that practice of something, that's acquiring a skill and then practicing it, like writing. Writing is— my dad, who's a professional writer, a creative writer, fiction writer for so many years, he said, writing is rewriting. That's what writing is. Writing is rewriting. Yeah. That means you're editing constantly and constantly until you get to that thing that you feel like you can let go of, that it's as good as it can be and now I got to move on to the next thing. And that's a practice. I have a word, we use a word in the book Pivot for that kind of conscious practicing of things and we call it rituals. So Earl, what is something that you do on a ritualistic basis to help you to be better as a person, better as a leader? business person, better as a father, as a husband, as a grandfather? Do you have a ritual or a set of rituals that you could share with us?

I certainly do. And I'm so fortunate that my wife and I are pretty much on the same page. I was born on the 1st of February. She was born on the 31st of January. The first thing is that I wake up every morning thanking the Lord for allowing me to have another day. I practice the fact that this day didn't have to be, did not have to be. There are a lot of people that didn't wake up this morning. There are a lot of numbers I can't call at my age anymore. They don't answer their phones. So this idea of being thankful, being grateful for the opportunity. The second practice is I never begin a day— not saying I've got control of it, But I never begin a day without visioning how that day is going to go with a schedule. I just don't get up and say, see what I feel like at 10 o'clock. I'm just not that type of person. And so I always have a schedule. I mean, even if it's on vacation or whatever, here is what— how— this is how I'm going to get everything I can get out of this day. The other ritual that I have is that I always find And usually it's in the morning on the treadmill or on the bicycle, because I usually 6 days a week I'm in the gym, in my home gym. I always find something to read that's new to me, that new terminology, new finding, new something such that I can make sure that I learn something. This is what I tell my grandkids. If you can't read, you're lost. Okay? Because that's the only way that you can really learn. You can really create and go and do things by doing the reading.

I really hope you're enjoying this episode of the Change Proof Podcast.

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The other thing that I do is that I have set times that I give each of my brothers and sisters a call during the week. My brother in Denver, we talk every night. My sister in Atlanta, we talk on Saturdays. My sister who's down in Florida, we talk on Wednesdays. Those are rituals that allow me to every day get a sense that this is what I'm about. I'm not about the talking heads on CNN and Fox or whatever. This is what I am about.

Beautiful, beautiful, Earl. I want to thank you for being on the program today. I've really thoroughly enjoyed our conversation.

Same here. Yeah, really enjoyed it.

I'm sure a lot of other people feel the same. And as I bust through this imaginary fourth wall, I'll say this for everybody that's been Listening, watching and listening, some of you. Please leave a review on iTunes, on YouTube. You can leave your comment or your review at adammarkel.com/podcast as well and we can respond right there. But the feedback is terrific and we really appreciate having it. We've got an incredible kickstart guide for those of you that have read Pivot or have not read Pivot. There's some really powerful questions. I truly believe that we are benefited by the quality of the questions we ask ourselves and Earl was kind enough to express in his way. Some of the questions that he'd been asking himself. And you can get access to these 6 powerful kickstart questions. Find out where you are right now. Get a sort of a lay of the land. Are you pivoting? Is a pivot on the horizon for you? If you're curious about that or you want to even dig deeper, you can get that for free. There's no obligation and no strings attached. You can go to startmypivot.com, startmypivot.com, and get access to that kickstart guide, download it, and then of course let us know how that's working for you. And we can support you. We're happy to do it as well. And lastly, as an incredible resource we have on Facebook, if you're the kind of person that enjoys being on Facebook and being in a community of like-minded and like-hearted people, then you can go to pivotfb.com or direct on Facebook to the Start My Pivot community there. We'd love to have you. It is sacred space and someplace that you can feel you can participate or you can simply observe, but there's just a lot of really amazing things going on there. So welcome you to that space as well. I want to close the session just by reminding us, as Earl did just a moment ago, it's a perfect segue into how we conclude these podcasts, which is with a reminder and even with a prayer that we all get to wake up tomorrow. We got to wake up today, that's a certainty. You wouldn't be watching this, you wouldn't be listening to this if that wasn't true. I wouldn't be here if that wasn't true. And that, as Earl reminded us, is very much something to be grateful for. So my hope is that we all get to do it again tomorrow. That's my intention. We get to wake up and have the opportunity to also acknowledge and be grateful for whatever you feel like being grateful for in that moment that you realize you are in fact awake. If you're also inspired to declare out loud, to just say something at the start of your day to plant some seeds in the soil of your mind that may be different than the seeds that you might typically be planting. We wake up oftentimes, put our feet on the floor, and the first thoughts we've got is about our schedule. Or about work, about our commuting, or about chores, or that we're running behind time. And there's lots of things. And sometimes thinking about money or even a grievance, oftentimes that can be the beginning thoughts of the day. And you could choose to change that by tomorrow morning waking up feeling grateful and declaring out loud these words: I love my life. I love my life. I love my life. I love my life. It's been a blessing to be with you today. Earl, thanks for your participation. Yes, for sure. And we'll see you all again soon. Ciao for now.

Thanks for listening, everyone. We hope you now have the tools and greater insights to navigate your own pivot. Help us inspire others by sharing this episode and leaving your comments over at adammarkel.com/podcasts. For more tips, strategies, and support as you consciously pivot into a new business and lifestyle you love, join our Pivot Community on Facebook at pivotfb.com.