GA 461 | Scientific Thinking and Confidence with Sam Morgan

Do I want people to look like when I work with them? What do I want them to feel? And the words that came to mind for me were feeling, seen, heard, and valued. We all want that in our lives, right? And the word that came to mind was worthy. You know, I want folks to feel worthy when we're done.

Today, I am excited to welcome Sam Morgan to the show. Now, Sam and I, I've actually sort of known Sam, if you will, through the virtual world and LinkedIn and all that for many, but was super excited to finally get him onto the podcast. And man, let me tell you what Sam delivered. This is a fantastic episode. Sam has got just a fantastic story and he's gonna, he's gonna, he's gonna do it well. He's gonna tell you all about himself and his journey, but really the topics of the, of our. Of the episode really begins with the whole kind of idea. Sam is a big Toyota Kata scientific thinking geek. Like, like I am. And like many of we begin by talking about the interconnection between scientific thinking and confidence, which is an interesting pairing to put together. Something that I don't think we've really ever talked about before on the podcast. But anyhow, the way that Sam really explains it and how he connects these two ideas of scientific thinking and confidence is really his story. And his story of sort of building a coaching business and stepping into the darkness, into the cave, as he kind of uses as a. An allegory kind of thing, and, and just experimenting his way forward. And anyhow, it's just a really fantastic story tying all these concepts together. And then we sort of went completely. We sort of had a plan to talk about that, you know, going into the podcast. And then something popped in my mind.

I took.

Earlier today, I posted this thing on LinkedIn. I posted a question and the question was basically, what's the idea of contentment? You know, being content, you know, being satisfied, being happy, you know, can contentment and continuous improvement coexist? And so I put that out on LinkedIn earlier today and we've gotten some lot some really interesting comments on that. And so I posed that question to Sam and he delivered an answer and then we had a nice chat about that as well. So anyhow, really appreciate Sam. He's got this fantastic way of being transparent, vulnerable, yet got, but yet also has this quiet confidence about him that was just really intriguing. So I think you're going to like this one. Show notes can be found over@gemba podcast.com look for episode 461. Also, scroll down on that podcast app, whatever you're listening to, and make sure that you hop over and check out Sam on LinkedIn and also check out his coaching business because, you know, if you're looking for some coaching or something like that, I feel like Sam is going to be an excellent fit for many folks out there. Okay, enough for me. Let's get to the show. Sam, welcome to the show. How's it going, Ron?

Thanks so much for having me on. It is going awesome. I'm so glad to be here.

Yeah, man. Where are we calling in from?

Vancouver, Washington today. So for those who are not educated, it's not a Vancouver, B.C. it is actually a suburb of Portland, Oregon, and between Oregon and Washington.

Yeah, never heard of it.

Pacific Northwest.

Yeah, I'm sure it's lovely, though.

Yeah, There you go.

All right, well, I'm excited to have you on. In particular, this topic is really intriguing to me, so I'm sure the listeners are going to. Going to enjoy it, but as you know, Sam, we like to get things going right out of the gate with our guests sharing a quote. So do you have one?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. And when. You know, I've heard many of the podcasts here, and my friends, you know, Adam Lawrence and Karen Ross and Katie Anderson have all been on the show and then heard others, of course, and this was one I was really looking forward to because. Because it's really. This quote actually has made such a big impact in my life over the last year or so, and I'll share a little more about that story around it, but it's from Joseph Campbell, and I heard it in the book Dare to Lead by Brene Brown. And Joseph Campbell is a mythologist author, and he actually influenced the Star wars series. So George Lucas took a lot of his framework for the story from Joseph Campbell. And the quote is, the cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek. And that's been my. My journey. I've been. I've allowed fear to really hold me back from really finding the treasure that I've always wanted, but just have been held back by. And it's back in the back of the cave, and it requires you to take steps forward into the unknown.

Yeah, that threshold of knowledge. Right. As we.

You said it.

A lot of folks like to talk about. Yeah, that's fantastic.

Great, Great.

All right, well, hey, Sam, tell us a little bit about yourself. Tell us about your. Your background, how you first got involved in all this continuous improvement stuff, and then what you're up to these days.

Yeah, Absolutely. Well, I. I really have been practicing continuous improvement my whole life. If I think about it. Back when I was like seven or eight, I got this little, I think it was called Toby the Robot Tape Recorder. And I took them apart because I wanted to know how it was working. And ever since then, like, I've had this desire to know how things work and why they work the way they do, what's causing it to work such a way. And fast forward to about six or seven years ago. I was in an operations role and my folks, folks in my team were like, hey, you should check out this Lean 101 class the company's rolling out. And I'm like, what the hell is lean? I have no clue what this is. What are you talking about? I. I'm doing just fine with my fitness. Appreciate that. And our company had been rolling out kind of a lean deployment throughout the organization, and it was coming up into our area, and so they kind of offered this class to get people familiar with the concept. So I was like, okay, fine. So I attended. And at the end of it, I was like, oh my gosh, this is my jam. I love this. And, you know, the idea of continuously improving and also respecting people, it's like, where has this been my whole life? I'm in love. So I started just diving into things like Paul Akers and Two Second Lane and the Bales, I believe is how you pronounce their books. And actually the Gemba Academy stuff. Quite honestly, we had that resource then. And so I was just diving in all over where I could learn and then starting to practice. And I had my manager then I was like, yo, like, I just love this stuff. And I know it's rolling out to our area here in about, you know, in a few months, but I just want to start right now. I want to create like a huddle board right now. And I had no clue how to create a huddle board. I just had watched some Paul Acres videos, is like, well, let's just write downtime on the board and like, have our team go over the waste and then like, identify a waste. So we just did it without even having deployed. I was just so passionate about it. And so over time, I just started looking for opportunities to practice, got involved in different organizations and started applying for roles there for continuous improvement roles, especially within the. The business. I just wanted to be in the business with the people. I mean, strategy and deployment is cool, but like, actually being with the people, helping them do problem solving is like, that's my jam. That's what I want to do. And so I started applying for these roles, but just ran up against the roadblock of experience and actually having. I didn't have a lean like a master black belt in lean, Six Sigma or anything like that. I was just practicing and learning. And so I got. I got kind of frustrated. And that's where I ran into Katie Anderson and Karen Ross and can part of one of their K2C2 cohorts. Started growing my coaching and problem solving skills and went on to LinkedIn and started posting every day about purpose for a whole year and started learning about the importance of purpose. And then I just came to the point where I ran into the kata during my time kind of exploring this. And I said, well, I want to practice this in my own life. I want to learn it, because this will help me with my coaching skills. And so I started learning and I started coaching others and I was like, oh, I like this. I could do this. Last year I attended katacon and that's where it happened, man. That's where the flip switched for me. And now I've got my own coaching practice and excited to move out from there. From here. Yeah.

Oh, my gosh, I love it. I want to go back to your. Your. I remember all of your LinkedIn activity and still do talk about what was your motivation behind the whole purpose project? For lack of a better phrase, I.

Like that purpose project. Well, a part of that K2C2 cohort with Karen and Katie was every, every day for six weeks while you're in there, you would set. You would set an intention that was aligned with your purpose. The first activity you did was come up with a purpose and draw a purpose out. And you can see, you know, for the listeners at home, they can't. But back here is an actual picture that I drew over almost, almost three years now of my purpose. And so I started moving towards that with. With intention. And so every day, that first day I wrote, my intention was to do something I would not normally say yes to. And I'm the kind of person who doesn't like to put myself out there. So I was like, I'll create a video and upload it to LinkedIn about this whole project around purpose. And so I did that. It was around like 90 seconds to 2 minutes. And then I was like, oh, I could do this again tomorrow. And so I did, and I did it again the next day. And I had started sharing my purpose, intent and action that I'm going to take that would align with that and the Reflection on that action. What I did the previous, the previous day. And I think it was like a week in. I was like, dang, I could do this for a year. Like, I could do this for a year. And sure enough, I did every single day for a year, with the exception of being on the camping trip in the middle of nowhere and having some technical difficulty one day, every single day for a year, I posted a video and I called it 92nd purpose. And by the end of it I was using. I even applied it to. I started editing the video, editing, adding like music, putting like, like emojis and different things on the video and even had my daughter who started doing the editing and stuff. So it was really.

I remember your daughter. That's the thing that I remember you. She was always, she was your editor. I was like, look at that.

Yeah, the skill was cool because like I started, I did that every day. I was like, hey, how about I pay you like five bucks a day for just, you know, here's the video. You do everything else. Right. And so she started learning, in fact, from that experience, she actually started going on. She created her own channel on Tick Tock and she actually created these, these type of animated videos called Gotcha Lifes. If parents, if you don't know, ask your kids, I'm sure they'll. They'll know. There's these animated videos that you make with like still screenshots and you can tell little stories. And she started putting those out and she eventually got a following of like 11,000 people, which I'm like, I don't even. I have like half that. And I've been on, like. Yeah. On LinkedIn for, you know, years. So it was resonating with the people. Right. So her experience through that and learning led her to do something she really loved. And now she's like growing and wanting to act and do some other things. Yeah, it just really came out of just that one first intention of doing something that I wasn't comfortable with. And that's been like the theme, honestly, like going back to the quote of my journey the last couple years, but specifically this last year is really stepping into that unknown.

Are you comfortable sharing what. What your. What you had identified as your purpose?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So over time, it's interesting, like, over time I had this longer purpose and eventually came down to it all had. Had to do with. With light and, and I had these conversations. And Karen, as you know, is always. She's very good at being direct and sharing and she and I have great relationship and she. She shared that at that point and was like, she had heard where my purpose was because it was changing over time. And she was like, you know what? It sounds like you're saying that you're. You're a light. That's what you are. You know, you have all these things that are on top of that. But what if it would just, you know, came to that. And I was like, yeah, actually, and I just sat with it and I was like, all of the areas of my life I started looking at as a husband, I want to be a light and provide, like, a place, like a shoulder for my wife to cry on. I want to be a light and creating hope for people in my community. You know, I want to be light for my kids and show them an example. You know, I want to be a light at work and give them some feelings of confidence and security and passion. And so all these words that were associated with light, I never thought about until I just, like, broke it down into that one thing and my purpose to be a light.

Wow. I love it. You could even. You could even add in sometimes in a dark world, you know, depending on the situation that we're in. So that's. That's fantastic. Wow. Really good. All right, well. Hey, man. So I know you're a big. Caught a guy. You mentioned that earlier. And as. As am I, and as a lot of our listeners are, so. I'm sorry, super excited for this, because I don't think we've. We've really ever connected these two ideas on a podcast here. And that is really the connection between scientific thinking, AKA what, you know, mini coin, Toyota Kata, and confidence.

Confidence.

And so, yeah, I just want to start just opening it up with, like, what's up with that, man? What's scientific thinking got to do with confidence?

Yeah. Yeah. What's love got to do with it? Yeah, yeah. So for me, like, this. This happened from. This experience from. From Katakan. You know, it's sharing that story. And, you know, I. I got the honor to be able to share at Katakan last year and looking forward to again again this year. And I shared early in the morning and later that afternoon, Tilo Schwartz and Mark Rosenthal, who many of the listeners may be familiar with, who are active in the kata community, we're sharing and asking people to write down challenges that they have in their life, like personal, professional, and to put them down as kind of like an experiment and thinking about, you know, walking through kind of the Kata process on a personal, personal note. And so I wrote down I'll never forget this. It was like one of those moments where you look down and you don't even. Like you're kind of out, almost outside your body. But it was this tingle down my spine moment where I looked at my sheet of paper and it says, I don't have the confidence to charge for coaching. I was like, oh boy, I can't even get that right now when I'm talking to you. Like, it just woo. It comes up. Because I grew up my whole life and never feeling like I could offer value. Who's going to listen to me? Like, what do I have to offer that someone else doesn't already have out there? And that's still a thing, you know? And so I spent the next day and a half talking to all of these, like experienced coaches, people that have their own consultancies, like asking them, hey, what's your practice? How much do you charge? All these things. Learned a lot through that process. But I came back to my hotel room that the following night and opened up my email and I had just interviewed with this retirement plans firm. That's the background I come from operations in retirement plans. And had applied for this continuous improvement role and was super stoked, Ron. Like, I was like, oh my gosh, this is what I'm meant to do. This is where I'm supposed to go, go. Like, they were excited. I could see how I could support the work. And the email came back, sorry, this is the end. And it was so hard. But at the same time I was like, if I didn't have that context, that previous moment, that tingle down your spine moment. So the next morning I sat out on the beach in Jekyll Island, Georgia, listening to the waves crash and was like, if I do this, if I go out and start coaching people, what do I want people to look like when I work with them? What do I want them to feel? And the words that came to mind were me, were feeling, seen, heard and valued. We all want that in our lives, right? And the word that came out was worthy. You know, I want folks to feel worthy when we're done. And so a couple hours later, I was flying home from Jacksonville, home. And that quote came to mind. I was listening to the audiobook, Dare to lead. Big fan of audiobooks. Go, go. One and a half, two. Two times. Speed. A little more efficient. Yeah, yeah, for you. But that's where it started for me. And so I came home, reached out to Julie Simmons and she's retired at that point in time. Sure. She referred me to Gemma Jones, who coached me for 10 weeks. And my challenge that I created was to really understand who I was as a coach, who the people that I could help best and what was my process to be able to do that. Through that 10 weeks, though, Ron, like, I was so committed to the results. I was so committed to, like, actually creating the business that I got so dialed into, like, doing the process. Exactly. Getting the results that when I didn't, I got upset. I lashed out at my kids and my wife, and I didn't show up for my friends. And so I took a walk as I was doing like a reflection with Gemma. That was one of my steps. And I sat on the park bench and I was like, and I'm someone who's come from a recovery background. You know, I've had, I've done personal work on challenges in my life. And one of the challenges that was always for me was like, I was performance over honesty. Like, I would always perform to get the affirmation. And it had never been, like, about, oh, well, learning is good. It was like, no, it doesn't matter what you learn. It's like, you just gotta perform. And the thing about the kata that it teaches you is that it's not about the results, it's about the learning. And that's what I came up with with, with Gemma. It's about the learning, damn it. And so when I came back, I. From that experience, I recognized I needed to show up differently. And so as I continued to start, continue to do this coaching, and I had a couple clients I was working with, I started with another coach. And this November, I had a meeting with my then manager, someone who I respect. And he said, oh, there's this position. You. You're going to take it. And I was like, no, that's not really what I wanted to do. It's not a position I ever said I wanted to take. And so did some reflection with my wife and came back to my director, who is a former manager of mine, who had mad respect for him, was like, this is not the continuing. This is not like the respect for people. This is not that kind of culture. And I had done this activity with my coach, a different coach. We actually meet weekly, but we Talk Daily on WhatsApp. So we have this daily, like, cadence. And he had me do this activity called Fear setting, where you look at what's your fear, what's the thing you want to do that you're afraid of doing. The first step is address what the worst case scenario is, then put in the next column, what you could do to prevent it, and then if it happens, what you could do to repair it. Second step is, hey, if you do this action, whatever it is, for me, jumping and starting my own coaching business, and it isn't like a wild success, you know, like, what are the benefits that you'd get from just doing it? And lastly, six months, a year, three years down the road, when you do, if you don't do this, what are the implications of that? Now, you might be saying to yourself, sam, okay, get to the point here. Where is the confidence piece in this? And for me, I came to the end of that point and I said, you know what? I have the resources within myself to be able to start this. And I think that that's the thing for practicing every day. When you do that, you start recognizing that when there's an obstacle in your way. I've just got to try and experiment. I just got to try something and take action, and I can do it. I don't know the path. I didn't know the path to start my own business. I mean, yes, my wife had done it, but that wasn't me. Like, that wasn't my own journey. And I had to learn that for myself, that just by taking those little daily steps of action towards a place where I wanted to go to. Yeah. And I was like, yeah, actually, I can do this. I have it within myself to do it. And that's really the message that I have for folks who are out there that are like. That are stuck and are like, dang, I've just been in this place my whole life. And really, for. For me, it comes down to this book that I just. That I'm finishing reading called Feel the Fear and do it anyway by Dr. Susan Jefferson. I encourage folks to get it, she says, the basic fear that we all have. And I have it on a, On a sticky note here. The, The. The reply to it is that I can't handle it. Whatever it is in our life, if it's a professional challenge, a personal challenge, it's like our thought is, I can't handle it. And what the kata teaches you is the reply that she says is, like, so what? I'll handle it. Right? Like, I. By practicing every day taking action, I can handle it and I can overcome it. And then as you start doing it, you build that confidence. It just happens. You don't even, like, you're like, oh, I'm going to get confident. It just, like, starts happening.

Yeah.

If I, if you would have told me, like, hey, I'm going to be on this podcast with Ron Pereira, Gimba Academy, that all my friends that I look up to had been on. Like, I'd have been like, you're crazy. Like, sure, yeah. That was, like, something I would have loved to do and done, but, like, there's no way in my mind I would have, like, had the confidence. But now here I am, and people out there can do it, too. It's crazy. It literally is crazy.

Well, yeah, I 100% understand and agree with what you're saying. Like, my. My. My experience with practicing Kata scientific thinking, just iterative learning, whatever you want to call it, is that he really is this incredible. This weight can be taken off of your shoulders. Because I feel like before scientific thinking, you know, even I think back to my corporate days, when before Gamba Academy, I'd be working in, you know, trying to solve a problem or whatever. And it's like, you kind of, like, have this pressure. Like, oh, man, I'm the CI person. I'm supposed to know how to do this, right? And so you got all that pressure on you, right? And you. You might. You mask it in different ways. And, you know, maybe you're. You know, you got some friends that you can. You can share the load with, but in the end, you still carry that weight. And what I've discovered with scientific thinking is that you don't have to have that weight anymore. You don't. As we say in the kata community, you don't have to be so sure. Right? I don't know. But I'm gonna. I'm gonna experiment and see what I learn. And that's what's beautiful about it.

It is.

When we set up an experiment, or our next step, whatever you want to call it, we make our prediction. That's cool. And then we see what happens. And if our prediction didn't turn out, doesn't make it as a bad person. You know what I mean? It just means that. Guess what? It's beautiful. I learned that that didn't. That didn't work the way I thought, but, gosh, now I know more. And. And you're moving forward, right? And that's what's so awesome about this.

Whole framework I have in my background. You can't see it, but I've got this stuffed plush toy that I got from the Kata Cascadia folks, Tracy Defoe and others there. And the button on there says, I don't know Yeti. Right. It's a humorous way of reminding us that it's okay that I Don't know yet. Right. And that's actually encouraged. In fact, over the last, like, two to three weeks, I've talked to folks who are either CI coaches, coaches, like, and, like, life coaches, folks who work for, like, government agencies, who are coaches and consultants. And I've had moments to be able to, like, actually coach them in. Like, we were just, like, having conversation and helping them move forward. Like, one even was like, dang, what's your Venmo account? I need to pay you. And it was just, like, a conversation. Right. Like, so to, like, think that now here I am, coming from that space, and I'm able to, like, coach folks. Like, I literally, in the last. There was, like, two days this week, and I talked to someone from Germany, Peru and New Zealand, and all were like, you know, in these different spaces. And I was able to, like, just by being present, by. By listening, not getting in my own head, and, like, saying, oh, you don't have a certificate. You don't have this. You can't do that. It was, like, just holding space for them, and they were like, wow, like, I am not alone anymore. Like, there's other people who are struggling. Like, now I'm more clear on the specifics of the kind of people I want to help, you know, Now I'm not. I'm clear. I need to, like, jump free and jump into my coaching practice fully. Right. Like, I would. I don't know that I would have had the confidence to really, like, think that I could actually support anybody. Support anybody or coach a coach. Right. But because I've gone through this process, you know, I've stubbed my toe time and again. I've just learned to just be present, to listen, to be open, and to trust that I have it in me to be able to support people. And that's honestly what the kata has really helped me do. And the folks that I've worked with, it's helped them find in themselves, too.

Oh, I love it. You know, as our friend Mike Lombard would say, just kts, man.

Yeah.

You know?

Yeah. I'm one of my old coaches, actually. Dennis Gallick. He was part of some of the new ME work, and he had some initial Toyota experience and was a coach with me at my past organization for me, and he introduced me to that term kts, And I was like, yeah, buddy, I love it.

I. I got a question I want to ask you, Sam. I. I don't know if you saw it earlier. I. About an hour ago, I posted this question on LinkedIn, and it was actually in A podcast that I, I did a solo podcast, the previous one to this one. And I had, there's this guy, Sahil Bloom, I don't know if you've heard of him, he's like sort of this marketing, finance kind of self improvement kind of guy. Be super prolific in his newsletters and makes you think and all that. And he did this deal where he had turned, I think 32 years old, young guy, and he went out and he saw all these 90 year old people that he had in his life and then folks that knew these folks and he asked him, hey, if you could go back and talk to your 32 year old self, what would it take? Anyhow, it was a super powerful little newsletter. So I read a bunch of these statements of what these folks are saying, and one of them was sort of about something around contentment and gratitude and all that sort of thing. And, and so towards the end of the podcast, that solo podcast, I was like, I was kind of like just almost talking to myself because I didn't have a guest. And I was like, gosh, you know, there's this, this, this weird tension maybe, I don't know if that's the right word, between things like contentment and continuous improvement. Because, you know, if you're content, well then, you know, continuous improvement. We're striving to, you know, find a better way, pursue perfection, all the rest of it. And so, but then on the other hand, I, when I think about contentment, I think about my kids. You know, I, I have some, you know, My oldest is 20, almost 21. And, and you know, it's like, hey dad, you know, I need the new iPhone because the new iPhone, whatever is out and mine's a iPhone 10 or something like that, you know, so they're never content. We always want more, more. We always want the better thing, the new gadget, whatever it might be. So, so my question on LinkedIn was, and I want to ask you, and don't be on LinkedIn reading all those answers yet. Can you. Can contentment and continuous improvement coexist?

Oh man, now you're speaking my language. You know, another one of the things that I did in my experimentation was create this video series called CI in 5 where I would talk to continuous improvement folks who as I was getting to know and learn, I'm like, well, how can I learn more about what's important about continuous improvement? How about I just talk to folks and ask him in five words or less, and in five minutes or less, tell me what continuous improvement means to You. So I did a series of 50 plus of those and I talked to various different folks and as I went further on, I talked to folks in different industries. And one was a life coach. And I asked her what her CIN5 was and her phrase was continuous sufficiency. Right. This idea that I'm always good enough where I am right now. And that question that you asked Ron is one that I've processed through and thought about too. And I think this idea of being good enough where we're at now, but also having a purpose and a vision for where we want to be and living out who we are in every space of where we're in. So I think that. That you can hold that right. It's not a. I think we're at where. I think where you can kind of fall off the edge on this, so to speak, is I'm not enough. You know, this isn't good enough. It's never good enough. It's always about showing up and our identity gets tied into how we show up and perform. It's not about, like, I want to improve because I want it to be in alignment with my purpose and who I am. No, it. Most people I would say that I run into, it's. They always want more. They always want to do more because they honestly don't feel like they're enough inside. If they were like, truly honest with themselves, like truly honest like you, they were sitting in there in their studio just talking to themselves and that they were honest themselves. Yeah, you know, I'm showing up this way. I'm performing, I'm having to do all these events, wanting to hit these KPIs, because I honestly don't feel like I'm enough in myself. Now you can have someone who actually was wanting to strive and is content in themselves as well. And I think for me, that's what I want to be. I want to be the person that's content in myself, but also has a passion to want to live out my purpose and be a light with everybody and everywhere that I am, but also to know, like, at the end of the day, I'm good enough. Like, when I come home, like, there's a. There's a satisfaction knowing I did my best today and that was enough. And when I show up again tomorrow, this is. This is what my coach talks to me about all the time. And we just take childish wipes every day, like a little bit at a time to try to get to where we want to get to. And that's enough. At the End of the day when we come home and then we just do it again the next day. And yeah, that's where that, that tension, that tension holds. What about you? Like, did you, how did, what did you, what did you land on? How did you. Got me. You asked me that question. Where did you.

Yeah, no, man, I, I, I, I think I can't even remember what I said for, for sure on the podcast. People are like, well, they just listened to it last week. Well, Ron, you said, yeah, but you know, to me it's like, I do believe that they can coexist. You know, there were some folks, some super smart folks, lean folks on the LinkedIn thread and we'll post a LinkedIn thread in the show notes here so people can click on it. It'll be a little bit old, but you know, it's always, it's evergreen content there on LinkedIn. And there were some folks who said they have to coexist and then there was others who said, no, they can't coexist, Right? And so these are very smart, lean, extremely experienced practitioners, completely opposite of one another. And my, so, so I don't claim to know the answer for sure, but my, my, my thought process is that, that they, that they can. There should be harmony between the ideas because I do believe, like, contentment and say things like gratefulness, they really go hand in hand, right? And if you're never content, you'll never, to me, then it's going to be really difficult to be grateful, right? And so for me, like, I'm super grateful and I'm, I'm super content really with, with, with today, you know, and where, what I have and where I am and my, and definitely grateful, right, for health and family and, you know, my work and things like that. Right? But also there's this yearning in me that I know it can be better, right? And then I, and I'm actually grateful for that, too. I'm grateful for the opportunity to be able to make it better tomorrow and strive for that. So maybe also the contentment falls in like, as Nick Saban would say, you know, the Alabama football coach, the process, right? And Kirby Smart at Georgia, he's also big Nick Saban disciple. You know, follow the process. That's what it's all about. Like, make do your best every minute of every day, whatever you're doing. And when you do that, then the championships are going to come, the, the revenue is going to come and all the rest of it, right? But when you, so it's almost like being content knowing that we're following the process to the best of our ability, and then that the results are going to kind of. They're going to come on their own, you know, that sort of thing. I don't know that that's where my mind is on it.

Well, you said a word there. I think that that may be something for. For folks to think about as they. They think about. I'd be curious to know, like, in the podcast, if they comment, you know, on the podcast, like, what their. What their thoughts are on that as well. But, like, for me, the word that stands out from what you just said was opportunity. This year, you know, I really started to understand the power of words. You know, a couple years ago, I was sitting down at a table with one of the lean coaches, their experienced lean coach, and he said, sam, you know, one of the things that. That has come to. To me is the power of. Of words and, like, creating, you know, our reality for, like, I was like, okay, bro, okay, all my eyes, new age, whatever. And now I'm coming to this place where I recognize and then reading this book, feel the fear and do it anyway. And lots of these other spaces that I'm in where we're talking about changing our language, right? Because language changes the way we think and how we look at the word and how we look at the world changes how we act towards it, right? So if I look at, like, looked at starting up a business or if I looked at, you know, getting a promotion or, you know, improving my marriage, improving the line at work, something that seems impossible, if I look at that as, like, oh, that's scary, or it's like, that's an exciting challenge, right? Like, when you. When you use those words, something inside your brain switches. And so this year for me, like, I started the beginning of the year, January 1st, with my wife. Every year, she's done a vision board, and I can't tell you what percentage of those items have actually come to pass. Basically, almost all of them. Like, in all the areas of life, marriage, kids, work, spiritual, all the different spaces. And so I was like, oh, I got to do this. So this year, I created a vision board. It's a picture of a tree. And so. And I have different words. And I looked up the word opportunity, and the color that is associated with is yellow. And I thought, it's close to yellow gold. This is the year of golden opportunity. And so the word I think for us to think about maybe when we think about improvement is, like, opportunity, right? Not an opportunity. Oh, I'm Short. Oh, I don't have enough. Oh, I'll never make it. It's like, oh, man. There's a. There's beauty out there. There's amazing possibility out there. So not in, like, the striving and never ending, but in the. The pursuit of something amazing, impactful, life giving that's out there for all of us. But we have to look at it from that mindset. And I think, like, this kata mindset, this having a challenge, something to strive to achieve, we can create something that is a beautiful opportunity to move towards. But we got to see it that way. We can't see it as something. Oh, God, not another one. It's like, oh, yes. Another opportunity.

Golly, this has been so good, man. I know. We sort of had a little plan and the whole. The last 15 minutes weren't on in our plan.

Right.

I told you this is gonna happen, man.

We're practicing kata right now. We're adjusting as we go. Yeah, man. Yeah. Kgs, man. Yeah. As we're doing right now.

That's right. That's right, man. But this has been so fun and so good, and I'm. I'm so glad that you came on. And I'm. I love your energy and your, Your.

Your.

Your passion and your. Your vulnerability and your transparency. You know, I really appreciate that, man. You know, and I want to have you back on the podcast. So I'm going to ask her right now in front of every. All of our listeners. So you got to answer yes or no. Will you come back on?

Oh, my gosh. Well, listen, I'm already. My friend Adam Lawrence. He's actually coming to visit. I'm so excited. I haven't met him, and he's been one of my biggest supporters and is always just such a great guy as. I know your listeners know. He's been on like eight times now. Yeah, he. He always has this inside joke. He's going to catch Karen Ross. I know I'm not going to catch any of them, but, like, like, I recognize for me, it's an honor to be here, to be able to. To encourage and challenge and provide thoughts. And I learned from this opportunity, too. Like, go back and reflect on this and listen to it. My wife thinks I'm crazy, like, listening to my. My stuff. But go back and listen and think about and see what folks. How folks engage with it. Like what. What resonated for folks, what didn't. Yeah. And I think for me, just being able to show up as myself and be confident in myself and share like Before I wouldn't have, like, I was just like, oh, I've gotta, I gotta hide this part. Like, I gotta sound like I'm an expert. I gotta share all these stories. No, like actually what people respond to is vulnerability. They meet. People meet vulnerability with vulnerability. Right. And so when I show up in this way, hopefully folks, well, it'll move them one step closer to being able to be vulnerable and share. You know, I've got this challenge in my life and I need to like move forward towards it. And it's not a challenge, it's not scary. It's an opportunity. It's a beautiful opportunity for me to grow and learn and really be all that I want to be. Yeah, I've just been scared to go into that cave to do. Yes.

I love it. Sam, if folks want to connect with you, what's the best way?

Yeah, illuminatecoach.com is a great place to go. And LinkedIn, I am on there all day, every day as they say. Well, not every day, but just all the time. So I'd love to connect. Shoot me if you want to chat, explore, talk more about these things. Just shoot me, connect and shoot me a DM on, on LinkedIn. That's a direct message for the older listeners, by the way.

Yeah, I got you man, I got you. And say you're you URL again for your website. Yeah, illuminate coach.com okay, illuminatecoach.com and we're going to link everything up in the show notes so folks can just scroll down on the app that you're listening to or go to gembapodcast.com this is episode 461. So go, go connect with Sam and call him up and get some coaching going, man. That's what we need. That's what we need. So hey man, I appreciate it. Thanks again, Sam. Keep up the great work and I look forward to our next conversation.

Me too, Ron. Thanks again. It's been a pleasure and an honor.

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