S5:E20🎙️ LIVE with Dr. Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D. (Multi Tracks Audio)

¡Hola!

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Hi, this is Dr. Lee Balkum. I've been a marriage counselor for over 20 years and I created this assessment because I understand the pain and the damage that the constant mean, angry, and hurtful fighting and bickering can cause, and because I understand the obstacles that you're up against when you're trying to put an end to the fighting. And because I sincerely do want to help you. It's what I do. It's what I'm really good at and it's one of those few things in my life that really gives me true satisfaction. That's what I get when I hear that I've helped a couple wipe the slate clean, start fresh, and get back to really enjoying each other. That's truly indescribable. Now, I have a PhD in counseling and I've authored several books which have helped thousands of people to put an end to the fighting, wiping the slate clean, and truly coming together as a team. I've been featured as a relationship consultant on shows like ABC's 20/20 and Dateline NBC, and on national magazines like Newsweek and Men's Health. Now, I'm not telling you this to toot my own horn. No, I'm telling you this to communicate to you that the information that you're getting in this free assessment is coming from a real expert with proven methods and a proven track record of success across thousands of couples over the past 20 years. They are not the untested theories and opinions of an untrained amateur. They are also not the methods traditional counselors use who typically have a 20% success rate. While the failure rate of traditional marriage counseling is a shockingly high 80% on average, my success rate is almost 90%. That means that 9 out of 10 people who use the approach are able to have a lasting, positive impact on their relationship or their marriage. And that means that you can do the same. The secret to my success is in the approach. While traditional marriage counseling focuses on the symptoms of a troubled relationship, talking about, uh, how you feel about past hurts and ripping open old wounds and often aggravating the problems in the relationship, my approach focuses instead on eliminating the root cause of the problems. With the root cause gone, the symptoms go away on their own, and that makes room for really transforming the relationship. This approach is not some pie-in-the-sky theory. It has been tried, tested, and retested. It has worked for thousands of couples, and it will work for you too. If you're ready to stop the fighting and bickering using the right approach, first read your free assessment below to learn what's broken and why, and then click on the button at the bottom of the page to learn how to fix it.

Alright everyone, welcome to a very special edition of the Leadership and Success Podcast. I guess today is going to be our very first marriage counseling podcast. I think the most important relationship in my life is definitely the relationship I have with my wife, Demetria Brown Zinga. So this morning I said I was really grateful as it is our customers here. We are grateful every time we meet for at least one thing. So this morning it was just for all of the people who have gone before me and who have set an example, trailblazers who have really allowed me to become who I have become because I do stand on their shoulders. But I'm also especially grateful for my wife, Demetria. So let us know what you are grateful for. Let us know where you are joining us from, what city, what state. And I see Daniel Young, a friend of the show, is coming from Midland, Florida. Thank you for being here. Let us know what you are grateful for, Daniel. And also, if you have a question for Dr. Bockum, go ahead and type it in the comment, especially if you have a marriage question. So let me see if I can properly introduce our guest today. So today, like I said, we're going to be speaking with Dr. Lee H. Bockum, PhD. PhD. He is a nationally recognized therapist, author, and coach with over 30 years of experience helping people thrive in their lives, relationships, and leadership role, especially when it comes to marriage. I believe he's America's number one marriage coach for sure. So, he's the creator of the Save the Marriage System, the founder of Thriveology, and the host of the Thriveology podcast, and author of multiple books on responsibility, forgiveness, and Meaningful Living. Hopefully we're gonna talk about at least a couple of his bestselling books today. So Dr. Lee's work challenges a common myth in leadership and life that thriving is about happiness or comfort. Instead, what Dr. Lee teaches is thriving is rooted in responsibility, emotional discipline, growth, and purpose, especially when life is hard. So without any further ado, please help me welcome to the Leadership and Success Podcast, Dr. Lee Bokum. Good morning, Dr. Lee. Can you hear me? Dr. Lee, looks like your camera is not on. Let me give you a moment.

Let's try it now.

Okay, I can hear you, but I don't see you on camera.

You suddenly disappeared, but thank you for the introduction. I was enjoying that, and then it went silent on me. I'm so sorry about that.

No problem. That's one thing that might happen when you have a live show. We're good. Yeah, if you make sure under the setting, there should be a video or a camera. Okay, very good. Now I can see you. Perfect. All right. Welcome to the show, Dr. Lee. Welcome. How are you doing today, sir?

I'm good. Thank you for having me, Bizzy.

Fantastic. And is there something you are grateful for today?

Oh gosh, I am grateful for every minute. I'm grateful to be sitting here. I am in what I call bonus time after I had a crisis years ago. So I work on gratitude all the time. Wow.

I think I know exactly what you mean because when I was a kid, they told me I would never live beyond 17 years old. I'm in my mid-40s now, and every day I am alive is bonus time. It's a day I have to be grateful. So, thanks so much for sharing that. Is there maybe something about you that most people may not know?

Yeah. So, one of the things that a lot of people don't know is when I was a kid, I was a magician. Really? In my late teens, yeah, into college, I was a professional magician. I did my last year I was performing before I went, I think I've had enough. I did 500 shows in one year.

Wow, that's pretty amazing. Well, maybe you can tell us briefly how you got to become Dr. Lee Brokamp, I believe the number one marriage therapist or coach in America. How did that happen?

Um, so I, I actually was trained as a therapist, and so I often refer to myself as a recovering, uh, therapist. I, I switched over to coaching, um, really as I was finishing up my PhD. I realized that it— I wasn't quite fitting the mold, and I wasn't really liking the results I was seeing, as you kind of mentioned, showed in that the video of me from many years ago. So, um, I realized that I needed to, to track to a better way of helping people, and coaching has been it. But also looking for how we've missed the train on helping marriages. And so my— I spent a number of years going, what's the better way? That's kind of been the hallmark of me, of saying, how can we do this efficiently, effectively, and simply? As— and let me say, simply, not easily. There's a difference between those two.

Can, can you expand on that, please?

Yeah, so, um, that, that's one of the confusing things. I have a book that's about how to save your marriage in Read Simple Steps, and everybody says this isn't easy. And my point is, simple is direct, right? If I want to go down the street, I can go curvy ways, and that would be complicated, or I can go simple, but I still have to write— I have to walk those steps, right? If it's up the hill, I've got to go up the hill. So significantly, people want an easy answer in today's world.

Wow.

And there are not many things of importance that are easy. There are some things of importance that we can simplify. So back to my, uh, little revelation that I was a nerdy magician when I was young. Um, I would do a trick and people would try to tell me how I did it, and they came up with the most complex ways of telling me what I was doing. And I'm saying, one, it was the most simple little move that I could have done, but they complicated it. And so I have seen that as a hallmark of what I try to do, of simplifying complex ideas into the most direct route. But that doesn't mean the path is easy, it's just direct.

Thank you so much. That's a very, very important distinction. Yeah, it's so true. It looks like most people like to overcomplicate things. I don't know why we love to do that. One of my best mentors, General Collins, used to say, you know, a good leader is a great simplifier, because if you can take something complex and simplify it, then you bring clarity and focus. That's, that's really wonderful. So, Dr. Dr. Buckum, you've spent over 3 decades now helping people thrive, often in the hardest moment of their lives. What experiences most shaped how you think about leadership, responsibility, and growth?

Yeah, so I was interested early on in what helps people to come back from traumas and from difficult experiences. And so, I did a lot of research in resilience. Now, part of that was because I was a chaplain early in my career. I was a chaplain in a hospital.

Wow! Is there anything you haven't done? My goodness!

I've done too many things. And so that, that experience put me in the midst of trauma every day. It put me in the midst of difficult moments every day. I saw people on their worst days, uh, getting the worst of news and also in the moments of celebration, you know, those, that's what comes at a hospital. And also in the very dull moments when they reflected on me about what life had meant. Um, I, I worked the second shift, so I was there from 3 to 11 when family went home, when staff went home, when it was me and a skeleton crew that were there. So I was hearing the, the talks about what life had been about. And it got me really focused on the fact that what drives us as humans are really two things: the connections, the relationships we have, and we draw out of what happens to us. And that's begun to be kind of the hallmark for me of what we are searching for, what we often miss those, those pieces? Are we creating lives of meaning and purpose? Are we focused on what's important? And are we in relationships in ways that feed and nurture us?

Well, so let's talk about thriving for just a moment because you've often said that thriving is deeper than happiness. Can you unpack that for us? And what did you have to unlearn personally before you could teach that truth to others.

Yeah, so, um, you know, we have this idea in, at least in the United States, of the pursuit of happiness, right? And we think that that means I should be happy, and that's not what that term meant then. It was much more about having the pursuit of an intention, of a purpose. And so happiness we have reduced in this day to an emotional state. That's temporary and is usually, um, by getting something, right? Uh, people are in that, um, whatever out there will make them happy is what they're gonna pursue rather than asking the question internally, what do I need to do? Um, eudaimonic, uh, that's eudaimonia is what the, um, the Greeks would've talked about of having the good life of meaning and purpose and having something that's important that drives us rather than the feeling of that, which is momentary. It goes away. When people are focused only on their happiness, they end up missing the deeper levels of living because it's about what they can, they can experience in that moment. It's momentary.

Wow. Actually, we have our first question from the audience. It's about thriving too. So Daniel says, Dr. Burkham, as a system architect, I focus on environmental engineering to make excellence a default rather than a choice. From your perspective, how much thriving is internal willpower versus the external infrastructure we build to support our identity? Grateful for the insight.

Yep. So yes. So let's go talk about why yes. I think it starts internally of going, what is that willpower going towards, right? What am I striving for? What am I trying to create? But then, and this is important that he named that external infrastructure, we all need systems in place, right? That those systems in place are what allow our desires, our, our decisions to function in the world. So if I, if I have an internal willpower of going, you know, I wanna be in better shape, but externally I'm not doing those things to get me there. I'm not exercising, I'm not moving, I'm not eating well. The structures aren't in place to facilitate that. So it's not a one or the other. Other. It's clarifying internally and then building that structure that supports that. That's, I mean, in many ways how, uh, successful companies start. Somebody has an idea, it's just an idea, that's kind of that internal willpower. Then they have to build the pieces out here that allow that to happen. And the more they're able to see the systems of that, of how that fits together and either facilitates or not You know, that's the kind of the conclusion of that. So, I've often said to people, you know, tell me about the systems you have in place for what you want out of life. And they'll say, I don't have systems. And my response is, that's actually a system. It's just not an effective one for what you want. It's effective for what you're getting, but not what you want. And so, when we create the systems that support our habits that can actually further what we're wanting to get to rather than just, kind of the accident, then it fits together, both of them. They have to go hand in hand.

Well, that is quite insightful. Now, was there maybe a moment— actually, you mentioned earlier, like me, it looks like you probably had the health scare a few years ago and you feel like every day you live today is a bonus day and you are so grateful to still be in the land of the living. But was there maybe a moment or a failure or a crisis or a health scare That fundamentally change how you lead yourself and others.

Indeed. Um, yeah, sure. I, so, um, I, I try not to talk about the, the diag, uh, the diagnosis of what I had because others who have that diagnosis don't have the option or the opportunity for healing that I had. Um, I, I, I got fortunate. I was sicker than usual for this, but it was the acute version, not the chronic version. And that is what made the difference. So, when I was in my 30s, I was studying thriving, I was talking about thriving, I was writing about thriving. I was not thriving. And so there was an incongruency between what I was studying, what I was writing about. The Thrive Principles is one of the things that came after that, but I was studying all of that and, and taking all of that in, but I wasn't, um, taking care of myself. And we are our— the, the biggest— the only tool we really have to get through life is this body we've got that we're in. And so I wasn't taking care of it. Um, so, um, I caught a little virus, and that little virus created a firestorm in my body, an autoimmune issue. And, um, outlook was not good. Um, and so I obviously— I'm here, I recovered, but they didn't think I would. Wow. So because of that, I started labeling everything after that, kind of the— that's the bonus time that I talked about. And, and I switched things up. And here's what I realized. It was not the scare that made everything switch. That was the ignition switch, though. So I had always wanted to scuba dive. And so as I was recovering, my wife said, you, you can't keep putting this off. And so she bought me scuba lessons for my birthday. And so I went to scuba class and the instructor who became my mentor in my pursuit of being a scuba instructor and dive buddy did that too. Just another little, little thing. But he— they had this first thing where you had to do a little swim test. And I, I thought I was actually doing a swim test. I realized later that they were just looking to see who they had to worry about. I'm stubborn, right? I'm very stubborn. And so I finished the test, but it exhausted me. Yeah. So there I am on the paddleboard. I do that too. So I finished the test. I dragged myself out of the pool and he's standing beside me. I looked up and I said, okay, Ray, if your point was I need to be in better shape, to do this.

I got it.

And he smiled at me. He didn't say no or yes. He smiled at me. The next day I started going to the gym, and going to the gym begun to be a linchpin for everything else. I went to the gym, I started lifting a few weights just in that little room they had off to the side for people who weren't weightlifters. And, and so it was a great setup, right? I wasn't overwhelmed with everything, and I kept doing that. And I started going, wait, if, if I'm not nourishing my body the right way, if I'm still eating the, the bad stuff I was eating before, I'm just negating the hard work I'm putting in. And so I changed how I was eating.

Wow.

And then I was going, wait, if I'm doing that and then I'm not sleeping well, I'm not recharging my body. So I started watching that and I'm like, you know, if I'm doing all of that and I'm still stressed out, I'm not dealing with that. And so piece by piece it began to fit together.

Wow.

That's not the only way that people do it, but that's the domino of having those systems in place.

Yes.

Um, and so that to me was a— I've got to just not just learn about thriving, but I've got to apply it to myself. How do I learn to thrive?

Wow, that is really, really powerful. Thank you so much for sharing that. So what would you say you've learned through all those experiences?

Um, that the bigger, deeper— so the two things I'll return to this because I think it's so important. The two things, and I'll go take this all the way back to when I was that chaplain, the two things that we're left with at the, when everything's stripped away, it's, you know, you're left with the relationships you have.

Yes.

And what meant things to you and what purpose you had in the world. Those, the meaning and purpose and those relationships, they are the ones that drive our sense of being in the world.

Um, yes.

So David Brooks has talked about us having the eulogy resume versus the work resume. And that eulogy resume is often about what really was important to us.

Yes.

That's— that was my daughter. The one before was my wife. And this is just in a little award ceremony. But those moments of connection are what are fundamental to us. It's a basic human need for us to have these connections. Which is why I focus on getting the marriages to where they can be, if possible. Um, and if not, solving the issues behind us. And that is my sweet wife. Um, yes. So that's, that's the focus there. But then ask the question, what am I here for? You know, how do I leave the world better than I found it? My belief is if we were all taking that on, the legacies we would leave behind. And I don't mean somebody remembering the person, but the legacy that lives on. That to me is the focus.

Wow, that is quite powerful. So let's talk a little bit about Connecting Relationship Mastery then to Leadership Under Pressure. So one of your core messages is that change can begin with one person, even when others resist. How does that principle apply to leading to leaders who are facing disengaged teams or resistant cultures?

Yeah, so I always ask the question of where else can you start, right? I mean, you— if you're not working on what you can control, you're going to be trying to control what you can't. So I can't make somebody on my team do something. I can model where we need to go, and I can say, this isn't working, what are we going to do about it, right? There's some some ways, but especially if you're in a leadership position to be able to, um, say we need a change. That's what leaders often have to do. But in terms of starting the process, there is only one place we can start, and that is with ourselves and asking the question, how am I in the way? So one of the things I've noticed about, uh, competent leadership is they're able to say, I'm responsible for this.

Yes.

Not, I blame you. And then when things are going well to say, it is my team who is bringing this along, right? They share the spotlight, but they're willing to say, I am responsible for where things are at this moment. Those two pieces together. What I think is a failure is a leadership that says the fault is there, there, there. Yes. And I alone am the one that is about success. That is never the case. And so we have to turn that around and say leadership is about saying, my place of change, right? I can change where I am and how I— even how I approach the relationships in the team, and that begins to transform others. There, there really are only 3 things that we have control over.

Well, can you expand on that, please?

Yeah, we can. So it's the 3 A's that we can control: our aspirations, our attitude, and our actions.

That's it.

So our aspirations are what do we want to head towards? Now, I can't control somebody else's aspirations. That's not possible. I can control what I want to head towards. I can control that piece. I can't control the fears because our brain is manufacturing those fears. I can control how much energy I put into it. Yes, but not whether the fears pop up. So we can control our aspirations. My own. I can control my attitude. And I don't mean like, do I have a positive attitude, but my attitude like direction. Do I say I give up on this, or do I say I will figure this out? Those are the two big ones, and both can be the right choice. Either one can fit. So somebody in a business where that business cannot move forward may need to say I give up. I'm walking away from this and I'll, I'll try something else. So that could fit there. But what I often see is people defaulting to that rather than asking, how can I figure this out? That's the growth mindset. Carol Dweck talks about that growth mindset. And the question of growth mindset is, given where we are, what's possible? I can choose to say, I'll figure this out. The last thing I can control are my actions, what I say, what I don't say, what I do, what I don't do. Now notice, if that is what I have to control, I can't control that in other people. And we spend a lot of time trying to control other people's aspirations, attitude, and actions when we can't, rather than focusing on our own.

Well, I believe that's worth the price of admission, sir. I've been married for almost 25 years now. We got married in July 2001. I can't, I can't believe it. But especially in marriage, it seems like sometimes people want to be right and blame. And I figured out pretty early that if I was going to do that, I was not going to be married for very long. So I'd rather be happy and not be right. But I guess the question I have for you—

so let me, let me change that for you. It's not really be happy and not be right. It's if your insistence on being right is on being right, you're not going to be happy, right? Yes, that doesn't mean you're wrong. It just means that if you're focuses on being right, you're there to win, to prove your point. And that destroys the possibility of happiness together.

Wow, powerful. Yeah, it takes a therapist to say it right. But really, the question I have for you, sir, in both marriage, but I think it applies to leadership as well, people often default to blame, right? That seems to be the case. What does taking responsibility without self-blame actually look like in practice?

So one of the— I do think it's important sometimes to analyze what went wrong, right? But one of the things— here's my analogy. You're in the house and the house is on fire. Is that the right time to be going, who set this fire? Why is this fire burning? So it's not— it's, what can we do here? How can we get out? So Jack Canfield, um, colleague talks about the fact that responsibility is the ability to respond.

Yes.

And that is often about— that's yours, Jack. And that's often about moving forward, not trying to figure out what was wrong. There's importance of analyzing what could be done differently, but the more important thing is where do we want to go? Um, with— and that's true. So when I was, um, in the therapy office, I would watch couples come in. And start pointing the finger, right? And one would say, well, you did this, and the other would say, well, you did this. And I'm pretty sure they would track it back all the way until when they first met, if they were allowed to. And that never gave a path forward. It's kind of like if you decide to go on a trip and you're going to drive by looking in the rearview mirror rather than looking at the road in front of you. It's not going to go very well.

Hmm. That is quite, quite insightful. So Daniel is asking again, Dr. Bookum, having seen life at its edge in the hospital, how do we engineer a relationship infrastructure that stays focused on what matters when the pressure of 2026 tries to pull us apart? That's probably the experience of many people listening right now.

Yeah, and it's a great question because, um, one of the things that some people think I'm saying is you've got to spend 100% of your energy on the relationship. That's not it. So let's back up a minute to why marriages get into trouble. It is not the external things. In fact, marriage can be the buffer for dealing with all the life things. The reason is because the pause button in their relationship— and we hit the pause button because we think we've got this, right? So let's— we'll track back one step further. Couple falls in love, they spend all of the, you know, when when couples are, are falling in love, they're spending all of their energy focused on each other and, and all they can do to be with each other and, and, and broaden that out. And at some point they say, hey, let's get married. What's interesting to me about that is people saying, hey, let's get married, and it's not that people don't know the, um, uh, the statistics on marriage survival, right? I mean, we're all going Toss the coin is kind of what the statistics are. Let's do this. Let's sign up. And the reason is because they think they've built a relationship, a love that will beat that. And the problem is they don't recognize that that feeling they have will shift. And part of what shifts it is because they kind of get back to— get back to life. I'll put that in quotes because they're actually missing the opportunity here. So they hit the pause button going, we'll get back to us when the kids are— name the stage, because it's a creeping thing, right? They'll go like, okay, we've got kids now, we got to be parents. When they're out of diapers, we'll get back to us. When they're in school, we'll get back to us. When they're in high school, when they're in college, when they're out of college, when the grand— and on and on it goes, right? Or when my career is here and they get close to that and they go, well, when my career is here. Oh, and my career's here. And so they get into a pattern. So back to that systems piece, they get into a pattern. Their system they've have, have built is about being paused, about not spending time on their relationship. They're spending time on everything else going on.

Wow.

And when they do that, they remove the connection between them that is what nurtures a relationship. So when, when they pause that, they often confuse what they're doing. So I, years ago, I remember I said to a couple, hey, you, you're, y'all are so disconnected, don't spend any time together. I want you to do one thing this week. I want you to go to dinner together without the kids. And they came back the next week and I said, how'd it go? And they said, oh, we, you know, we talked the whole time. And I said, what'd you talk about? Well, we talked about the kids and we talked about what stuff we need to do around the house. And all of it was routines of life and talking about these other things. I said, did anything about the two of you where each of you have your dreams, your hopes, what's important to you? That's what I want you to talk about because that's what's not happening. That's what got paused. And so, um, when couples, uh, pause their relationship, they're creating a disconnection habit.

Wow.

Rather than intentionally setting up habits of connection. And that's what we, we need to kind of focus on. So, um, that, uh, that structuring is going, what is important to me? So when people look at what their priorities are, a marriage is often one or two in what they say.

Yes.

It's where you look at where they spend the time. And you see it's way down the list. Where you spend your energy and your time reveals your actual priority, your actual priorities, not what you claim to be. And you can rearrange those, but you've got to rearrange the other blocks of that, right? You've got these blocks that are around you, and you're like, you know, wherever you spend your, your energy. And the problem is sometimes those blocks compete with each other, and then we've got to say which one is going to carry right? Which one are we going to stack higher? And if it's our, uh, relationship, then we spend time nurturing that. We give our energy to that rather than wherever else. I've noticed that many times when people are out together, I'll look at a couple and they're both doing this.

Yes.

And, and that's fine sometimes, as long as they have built in the places where they do connect, that they have the connection. And this isn't the, the way to avoid connection, which it often is for couples. So when they hit the pause button, saying, hey, we need to get to us, is the start of that. And then to ask, how do we want to do that? What are the pieces we want to do? How do we want to reconnect? Generally though, one person starts that process because one person It's always, you know, the science fiction movies, you know, they put them in the, um, the spaceship that's going to some distant place and they put them in suspended animation, fly off, and then they awaken wherever they are and it's just like they came back to life. That's what people kind of think is going to happen. Now, if you take most of those movies, what happens at some point is there is a malfunction and somebody wakes up and then there's a crisis. And that's what happens also in the relationship. Somebody says, wait a minute, this is not what I want. I don't like what I have. And they may say to the spouse, hey, we need to reconnect. And the spouse is, is still dozing, still in suspended animation. They may say, hey, we need to reconnect. And that spouse is already thinking of another place of connection. And I don't mean just an affair. It could be somebody else, but it could be investing overly in a job. Or kids or hobbies or friends or anywhere else, instead of saying that our primary relationship in this house is the marriage. So that's the beginning point of building those out.

Now, I've— doing the research for this podcast, I've seen a lot of your work where you ask, can you save your marriage alone? That's quite an interesting question. Uh, no, I guess just give us the, uh, summary of that because that's quite intriguing. Mm-hmm.

Um, can you finish the process?

No.

Can you start the process?

Yes.

Yes. Um, every—

ever—

so many times I'll be some— with somebody and they're going, you know, it takes two to tango. And my response is, you're already dancing. The question is whether you want to change your steps that you're in or whether you just want to keep on with this dance where you're dancing apart. How do you want to change that? And one person can change their steps now. Um, that's my whole thing is can you start the process? So if, if you say it's not where it needs to be, I am going to do what I can to change that. Yes, that begins a process instead of going, well, there's nothing I can do, they're not interested. And so, so then I have people who come to me and say, okay, if you can guarantee me 100% that I can save my marriage. I'll do whatever you tell me.

Yes.

And my response is, I can reverse that for you. If you don't put in the effort, I can guarantee what comes out of that because you're already on that trajectory.

Right.

So the only way of figuring out what's possible is by taking action, by trying. And that is what often makes the difference, to the surprise of usually both people.

Wow.

That is very insightful. Thank you so much for sharing so much wisdom in just the short amount of time we have here. That's incredible. Let's talk about emotional discipline for just a moment. You've emphasized emotional strength over emotional reactivity in your work. One question I have for you is, how can leaders build emotional resilience before crisis hits rather than trying to develop it midstorm?

So we build those muscles throughout our life. And unfortunately, a lot of times people have avoided it until it's something big. And that even starts in how we parent our kids. Can we allow our kids to struggle through things that when they don't matter rather than when they hit the big thing? So this is a parenting question too. But if we don't take on the small things and say, hey, that was my role, that was my bad, then we have a harder time when it's a bigger thing and we're dealing with that. Because if we don't learn that young, our immediate knee-jerk reaction is always going to be, it's out there. The problem is out there. This, this is not me. And part of resilience is being able to say, what do I do from here? Right? What is, what is the role I can take from here? And, and that starts with the small things. Um, if you're hit with the big things, you know, it's, it's just a higher climb. It's a tougher climb. It doesn't mean you can't do it then. It just means there's a bigger shift that happens. Uh, whenever I, I, and I get through it, I'm going, okay, I've got some more strength here now that I didn't have before. And, and sometimes I'm like, where is that going to come out later? You know, what's coming down the road? That I need to be prepared for. But the fact is, there are going to be things down the road that we got to be prepared for. Life is just going to be tough sometimes. So the small things build to the bigger things. Um, you, you may kind of raise the military kind of question, and isn't that kind of the thing? You know, as you're— you start in lowly where you have no say-so, and then they give you a little more and a little more and a little more and a little more, and you're building up your skills of choice and your skills of responding based on that, based in the live action. So the other thing that military doesn't do is they don't put you in front of harm's way until they've gone through the simulation of that, so you have some muscle memory on how to deal with that, right? That's— first responders are always, uh, trained on simulations first because our brain kind of kicks in out of gear unless we have the muscle memory. So you showed a picture of me in jiu-jitsu. Same thing, right? Jiu-jitsu is training you in a calm environment. And there it is. And in case you're in a bad situation, your muscle memory is able to kick in. And so we would go through repetition after repetition and in doing it in ways that simulated what would happen. Now, I don't think many of us in that class were hoping to have a fight. There are a few, I think. But we were still doing the same thing, you know, prepping for when we responded on muscle memory. And the muscle memory is true for also our values. You know, if we are used to responding without our value base, when a big thing comes along, we're going to respond without our value base. If we make choices and small things along the way based on our values, our values are the structures we rely on when it gets time for that.

Yeah, I guess throughout my Navy career, one thing we definitely do is we train like we fight. This way, when the real fight comes, we've already prepared. We've gone through this hundreds of times, and it's kind of like muscle memory. So we've highlighted some of your work in the Thrive Principle book. One more question I want to ask, and it's mostly, I guess, I am in two worlds right now, the military and cybersecurity, high tech. Both of them, very, very stressful. It's almost as if the switch never fully turned off. So the question I have for you is, maybe for people who are in the military or in high-tech who really operates in environment of ambiguity and sometimes fatigue and moral pressure, what does thriving really look like in environment where the stress never really fully turn off?

Yeah. So, um, part of my thing is if we're, if we're not able to kind of step away from that at times and refresh, we're, we're not going to thrive in that. If we're constantly, um, if we've lost the ways of doing self-care, even in the moment, like deep breaths, right? Yes. That, I mean, sometimes a micro adjustment, um, sometimes in the middle. So let's go back to, uh, a marriage session where both couples are stressed out in that moment. And I could just say, mm-hmm. Hey, let's just practice that breathing, right? Some deep breathing. How long does that take to take a few deep breaths just to settle your automatic response system down a little bit so your adrenaline is not flowing? Those are some techniques that are out there already. And so that's an important piece. Another important piece that we've hinted at is both of those careers are often tied to minutia. Of things, like you're doing these little things and you forget the bigger reason you're there. So if somebody is in cybersecurity and they're having to do a little coding and these minutiae, they can get caught up in that and miss the fact that there's a purpose for that. They're trying to keep something from happening. I spent a lot of time doing coaching and therapy with pilots, and it was the same thing. They would often come in and say, you know, I'm just a glorified bus driver. I'm like, you're You're not. You're delivering souls from one place to another. And those souls have a purpose. Some of them are going to weddings or funerals. Some of them are going to new jobs or new opportunities. And you're transporting them from one place to another. That's a purpose. And if you lose track of that because you're having to just mess with the dials, and a lot of the time there's nothing going on, you know, they would often tell me that's the same thing soldiers feel and probably cybersecurity, that it's days of monotony with moments of terror. And so the same kind of thing. But they're— when they lose track of why did they get into this and what is the purpose behind it, it's easy for those pieces to wear them down. If they're coming in every day going, I've got a mission, I know what my mission is, the minutia of what I do furthers that mission. That's what drives it along.

Wow. So many insights. Thank you so much. Let's talk about your other book. Forgiveness process, a little book on forgiving and letting go. I think some people have a lot of misunderstanding about that. So it's a theme in your work, and I think it's often misunderstood. What does forgiveness not mean for leaders, and why is it essential for integrity?

So forgiveness is not letting the person off the hook. In fact, a lot of times the other person doesn't even know that something's got you, right?

That's—

they're off somewhere else or died or whatever. They're not even there, but you're holding on to it. Forgiveness is not that. Uh, forgiveness is not a, a process of forgive and forget. I, I don't know how many times people say, I know I'm supposed to forgive and forget, and I'm like, no, you're not. If you can forget something, it's not a big thing for you to forgive. The big things in life are the ones that need forgiveness. And, and so I, I tie two things together because what often comes out of, uh, our childhood is you have to forgive. You know, there's a mandate.

Mm-hmm.

I talk about this in the book, my brother and me face to face after having another scuffle and my father saying, you have to apologize, say you're sorry.

I'm sorry.

And the other person going, I forgive you. We weren't feeling it. We had to do that. That's not the same as getting to do that because I don't want to carry this around. That's what we do when we don't forgive. We keep carrying it around. Now, can we learn lessons from all that? Sure. But lessons is not the same as controlling me. It's not the same as holding me back. So when we don't forgive, I think of it as putting a rock in the backpack and carrying that backpack and it gets pretty heavy. It's not affecting the other person. You're the one dragging that around. The question is, what does it take to let that backpack fall? And that's what the forgive process is about.

Wow, that's really, really powerful. Really, everything you teach, it definitely works within the confines of a marriage relationship. But I believe also with teams and organization and just people. It's really, really powerful. Thanks so much for sharing that. So, we have about 15 minutes left. Let me get into our last segment where I try to get into your head and see, you know, all of the leadership lessons and principles that you've learned that have really helped you be as successful as you are today and maybe inspire my audience. So first question I have for you then is, what do you think is the greatest lesson you have ever learned just in life, in leadership in general?

Um, it's all about that sense of purpose. If I have a sense of purpose, uh, Viktor Frankl talked about if you have a, he, he talked about having a meaning. If you have a why, you can go through any what, right? You can go through anything. And that, so I, sometimes people think it's just finding meaning in something, um, because that's kind of what Frankl talks about. I think it's broader of having your purpose, finding what it is. So if you can find what you're here to do, that's the mission, right? That's the mission. And that's true in relationships too. So if my purpose is building a strong relationship that I can reverse engineer that, right? I can ask the question, how can I back up and get to that point? What does it take? And so a purpose is always a good starting point. When somebody comes to me for coaching, I'm asking, what is it that you want? You know, where are you trying to get to? And I think that's a powerful question for us to ponder because, you know, your purpose can change too. And that's another piece that I, frequently tell people is you've got to have an experimenter's mindset. I don't have to say a purpose when I am 12, because I would probably be— I don't know, what would I be? Probably I'd still be a magician, I guess, when I was 12. But, you know, that outgrew that at some point. And whatever I thought when I was in my 20s, because I've transformed several times what I thought I would be doing, that's okay. Each time I had a purpose. It's just that our purpose changes as life comes along. So having a purpose, not a purpose that drives you from cradle to grave, but a purpose each point of life is important. And that purpose drives what meaning you take from it. It also drives how you do relationships, it drives how you do leadership, it drives how you do everything in life, just because that purpose is what drives us.

Wow, that is really, really powerful. So let me ask you this. When we look at your life and your work, right, you've been extremely successful. Looks like you were a magician, a chaplain, a therapist, and now I believe American number one marriage coach and in academia as well. So what do you think is the secret of your success? Why are you so successful?

Curiosity and stubbornness.

Yes.

So I was fortunate that my parents nurtured my— I'm a natural curious person. And I really like— so scuba diving. I took scuba diving lessons and probably after about 4 or 5 months of that, I turned to Ray and said, hey, how do you become an instructor? You know, what's the piece? So it wasn't ever enough. It wasn't enough for me to go, oh, I like to do a few magic tricks. It was like, can I get on stage and do magic? And so I have a curiosity that is often an encompassing curiosity. And so I'll start with something and I'll chase it down until I have it into what I think is a direct and simple kind of thing that's helped in the writing to simplify. But I'm also a very stubborn person. I'm dyslexic, so school was not super easy for me. Reading it here, I've written a bunch of books and I don't like to read. I read it because there's a purpose to it.

I don't.

I don't like to read novels because I get no enjoyment. I listen to novels.

Really? Okay, that's surprising.

Yeah, well, um, I watch my wife, right? And she loves to read. She gets enjoyment out of it. I read and I'm like, ah, I have to read. And so if somebody says, here's a novel, I'm like, oh, I have to do that. Or I could listen to it and let somebody read it to me. That's great. Yes, I read because I need to. So there you can see the books behind, and this is just a fraction of what I— when we moved, I got rid of thousands of books. And it wasn't because I love to read, it was because I need to read. And so my stubbornness came out of that experience of having to figure my way through that. And so when I was at some point, somebody— many people have said to me, in fact, you must be really smart to get a PhD. I'm like, just really stubborn. I just stick with the process.

Yes.

And so the same has been true with success. I'll keep pushing. Now, that doesn't mean I don't change. I'm also capable because of the curiosity of going, I wonder how this is working. This stubbornness can get in the way.

Yes.

Or I can say, you know what, this isn't working this way. Let me pivot here and I'll be stubborn in that direction too. So it's just kind of a process of curiosity and stubbornness that keeps me going.

Quite insightful. So, Dr. Burkham, what are you learning now?

So I have spent a lot of time working with authors lately. And so I'm really learning more about the kind of what's going on with authors when they get that book. One of my favorite questions, what are you going to do with that book? And what surprises me is people going, what do you mean, I wrote a book? I mean, that's, you know, that. And so my process now is to focus on helping them follow a path. I built a business off of a book, and that is where I spend my time. In fact, just started a new podcast just because I wanted to be thinking about that, right? So I still am constantly trying to learn about how people thrive. I'm a big learner for life. If you're not learning, you're, you know, Ray Kroc's quote, you're either green and growing or ripe and rotting. Yes, that's kind of a motto. Can I keep on being green, right? Can I keep on taking it in? So I keep learning about relationships and study what's coming out in research about thriving and also how authors can capitalize on the message that they have for the world.

Wow, that is really wonderful. So what about failure? How has failure shaped your life?

Um, I think of— let me say, at my better moments, you know, when you have a failure it stings. But in reality, failure is feedback. It's information. And how we use that, how we take that in, is the important thing. We all have things, and, and this is where humans are, um, ashamed of the reality of what is. The fact is, if you're alive, you're going to have failures. I always think back— this is kind of the image I have— my kids when they were just starting to walk, they fell repeatedly. And not once did I have a child say, well, I can't seem to do that, so I'm going to quit. Yes, they kept doing it and found better ways, found what would hold them up, and then they started running. You know that. I mean, it's the nature of life for us to take difficult moments and move forward until we start feeling ashamed of what's not working.

Wow.

And we say, well, I am a failure rather than, well, that failed. What now? What can we do from here? That's information for me. So if I can take the failure and transform it into information, then I can take the next step of growing and find a different way forward.

Wow.

Failing forward. So powerful. All right. If you could choose 3 people to have dinner with, they could be alive, dead, or even mythical figures. Who would you choose and why?

Uh, so Viktor Frankl would probably be number one on my list, right? And, uh, Jack Canfield, I've had dinner with him, so, but that would be another one. I, uh, that's a great book. Um, and, uh, if I would probably choose my grandfather as the third. Um, he died when I was, uh, I was 12, almost 13, and, uh, and yet he was a big influence on my life because he was unconditionally loving towards me.

And you've written so many books. So already when it comes to books, I want my listener to definitely get Five Principles, but I think the Forgiveness one is a great book as well. But also The Immutable Laws of Living. Wow. It's really wonderful. Now, let's talk about the book that is not yours. So we mentioned Viktor Frankl a couple of times. Man's Search for Meaning. Why do you think my audience should read this one?

So if there is a, a challenge to somebody's, um, belief system, I would say a concentration camp would be it. And so what people think is that he wrote the book because he was in a concentration camp. The reality is he had already decided that the central thing in life was having a meaning and purpose. He was writing the book Now he was writing the book that never made it because— yes, the guards ripped it up in front of him. They pulled it out of his pocket and ripped it up in front of him. So what came out of that was tested in that experience. Um, if you can make it through that experience and have a sense of what purpose is instead of losing all sense of meaning and purpose, if you can come through that, you you probably have put your finger on something pretty important. And he talked about the people who survived that experience, and without exception, the people who survived that experience were the ones that had some sense of meaning in their life. The ones who, uh, they didn't necessarily— they weren't the healthiest, but they had a sense of purpose in how they were moving forward.

That's, that's powerful. So you mentioned, uh, Jack Canfield is one of my mentors as well. Co-author of Chicken for the Soul, but there's also this number one New York Times bestselling book, The Success Principle. Love this book. Why should people follow the work of Jack Canfield?

Yeah, so one of my favorite things from that book, in fact, is his equation, um, E R O, right? Yes, the event plus your response equals outcome. Now, there are two mistakes that people make on this. One is that they think any event that's coming at them, that is going to shape their life. The others are the ones who think that they are the sole creators of their life. They're— that's— so it's the event, what's external to you, your response, that's the R, equals the outcome. And to hold those in tension, I get to choose my response to what's going on around me, and that leads to the outcome. And so what he says is, if you're not getting the outcome you want, You don't control the events that come to you. You only control the response to that.

Yeah.

So that equation in itself is worth the book.

Yeah, it's so simple, but doesn't mean that it is easy. But, uh, yeah, it makes perfect sense. Wow, powerful. So, uh, let me ask you, we have about 5 minutes left. Uh, if you had one and only one day to live, what would you have liked your final contribution to be?

Oh gosh, final contribution. So people have asked me, like, do you want a bestseller? I'm like, you know, I've always thought it'd be fun to be in an airport and look over and see my book in someone's hand, right? But in reality, names fade. We have this illusion that we're going to leave a stamp on the world, that our name is going to outlast us. It doesn't. I mean, you— I'm with people that go by some building that's named after someone, and their question is, who is that? It doesn't matter anymore. But the legacies we leave behind and the lessons that we teach our kids, people around us— so in reality, I mean, that's my thing, is wanting to leave a legacy of people saying, how can I live a more thriving life and have more thriving relationships? It's not about me at that point. It's about what legacy we leave behind.

Powerful. And, uh, if you had the magic wand and you could solve any problem at all. What is one problem you'd like to solve first thing tomorrow morning?

I mean, I'd go with, you know, world hunger and conflict, but those are the big ones. I think it would be that people get stuck into two things: self-blame that holds them down and blaming others that holds them down. Those two things, if we could reverse that and ask the question, what do I do here and how do I accept responsibility that would solve probably hunger and conflict anyway.

Yes. All right. We are getting toward the end of the podcast. What can my audience do to provide value back to you?

Yeah. So, I mean, I always love to hear from people about what they get out of my book. So that's great. Grabbing a book is great. You can listen to my podcast. I've got the Thrivology podcast at Thrivology Podcast. .com or the Save the Marriage Podcast at SaveTheMarriagePodcast.com. Or the one you've got out is my latest one. Um, that's the Book to Business Blueprint at BookToBusinessBlueprint.com. That is specifically for authors who are asking the question, how do I take this message to a bigger place?

Yeah.

Just, uh, started, uh, that new, uh, podcast. It's, uh, uh, after the book to talk about my experiences and what I've learned from that process. But there's a whole lot more material there to help them.

Yes. Wow. Thank you so much for sharing that. So many resources. I think your legacy should be, I guess, settled now because you definitely have a lot of great material that's really gonna help a lot of people. So let me ask you this. If you could go back and give a piece of advice to your 17-year-old self standing at the edge of this incredible career you've had, What would you say to 17-year-old Lee?

Uh, be okay with who you are because that's what matters. I was not the popular kid, I was the nerdy kid. Uh, a little secret, I started the magic club at my high school, and if you want to be nerdy, start a magic club at high school. So, and, and even then, I mean, I knew that wasn't gonna make me popular. I didn't worry about that, but to be secure that one day that's not going to matter much, that's That's the big piece for that 17-year-old. Yeah.

Be okay with who you are. That is powerful. Okay, to end, it's going to take less than a minute and a half. We're going to do a lightning round, rapid fire. So don't take too long to think. Whatever comes to your mind, I want to hear it. One word that defines great leadership. One word.

Resilience.

Okay. Morning routine or practice that keeps you grounded.

Gratitude.

Book or quotes that change your life.

Man's Search for Meaning. We'll go with that.

I thought so. So who inspires you most today?

Um, truthfully, um, probably my parents and my wife.

Yes. All right. Uh, a leadership habit you refuse to compromise on?

Values. Driven from values.

Okay. The question every leader should ask themselves frequently?

What are my priorities that I actually am living out? How am I living them out? And do they match what I say they are?

So what did you want to be when you were a kid?

A magician. I mean, it was— it depends on when you asked me, but probably the big one that I actually activated was being a magician. Did that for a number of years.

Wow. So you actually did what you were planning to do. Very good. 3 adjectives describing you as a kid.

Uh, stubborn, curious, uh, and, uh, pretty affectionate.

Okay, as an adult, that hadn't changed. Oh cool. All right, so I like to leave on a high note. So what is something you are feeling optimistic about?

Um, I watch people learn every day and try to better themselves, and I'm optimistic in the future of of people. Moments scare me, but overall, the arch of history always shows the power of humans.

Wow. And for those who recently got married, like you say, they are thinking they've built that relationship and they are going to beat the odds. What is your number one advice for them?

Be a team.

Be a team.

Wow.

Okay. This is it. The last question I have for you, sir, is what is one word that represent our shared experience on this podcast today. And thanks again for your time.

Oh, this has been great. It's been a blast. I always love to have that. So great. That's the word.

Thank you so much. I am always very, very grateful. That's Dr. Lee. Welcome, everyone. Thank you so much, Joe. All right. Thank you. Wow. Okay. This podcast is one for the books. So I really hope this adds a lot of value to you. And I know we talked about marriage. But it does apply, I believe, organization, teams, and just life in general. And I'm hoping these leadership principles are gonna help you become better leader and also have a greater impact. So I want to remind you guys that I'm gonna be back here tomorrow, Saturday. We're gonna be studying the book of Proverbs, ancient wisdom mentoring from the book of Proverbs. This is not religious, it's just going to an ancient school and really looking for ancient wisdom and leadership lesson. So we're going to be doing it throughout the month of January. Tomorrow is the 17th, so we're going to do Proverbs 17 tomorrow, and we're going to end at the end of January 31st. Again, it's something I used to do when I was a teenager, I think 12, 13 years old. Every year I would go through the book of Proverbs in January, and when I got married, I did it with my wife. So this is the first time I'm doing this publicly on the podcast. I hope you can join me. And then on Sunday, I will have the great pleasure of speaking with Major Chris Slinegar. US Army. He's a mentorship-driven change agent, and we're gonna be talking about his life experience, his story from Eagle Scout to field-grade officer in the most powerful army in the world. And this book, Search, A Man's Search for Meaning, has been recommended at least 12 times since last year alone. It's one of the most recommended books. So I highly recommend that you all get this, and I want you to also get a copy of Five Principles. And also Forgiveness, I think that is so important, but people don't think it's that important, but it can definitely change your life. And then, The Immutable Laws of Living and many other resources and books and programs that Dr. Lee Buckham has available to improve your life. Okay. Thank you so much for watching. And we're going to see you tomorrow. And I am very, very glad that you were here with me for this special edition of the Leadership and Success Podcast. Bye for now.

Thank you for tuning in to the Leadership and Success Podcast with your host, Coach BZ. If today's episode added value to your leadership journey, be sure to subscribe, share, and join us again for more wisdom nuggets on how to lead better and achieve greater success. Remember, leadership is the most critical skill of our time. The world will always need leaders to inspire others, drive innovation, and execute meaningful strategy. So why not count yourself among the bold leaders shaping the 21st century? Until next time, stay inspired, stay committed, and keep leading with excellence.