Interview Those You Love (Before They're Gone)

How do you honor people? You know, if you got loved ones who you've lost, or you've got people in your life right now who you just admire greatly, who are helping you out, who are influencing in positive ways, how do you honor people? You know, in our society, especially in the Western culture, it's so much about, you know, giving them gifts or giving them pay increases or, you know, sending them stuff. But I actually want to talk about a different way that you can honor people that a lot of people from our audiences who. Who know the story always find really meaningful. And I think it's something. If you could do it, it would be so phenomenal for an experience for your family members and for you in the future. And maybe you know the story or maybe you don't, but. In 2009, on Mother's Day, my dad was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. Now, he had been pretty healthy guy, you know, played racquetball and went bowling all the time, played golf, and he was happy and healthy. But he woke up on Mother's Day, and he's walking down the hall of the house, and my mom see him drifting a little bit, and she says, what's wrong with you? And he said, I'm out of balance, and, I don't know, it kind of hurts over here on my side. And they went to the doctor, and the doctor said, that's weird. Your spleen seems to be enlarged. And they did a bunch of tests, and they found out that he sure enough had acute myeloid leukemia, which is the kind of leukemia that you definitely don't want. You don't want either of them, but, you know, that one's the one that tends to take people's lives quickly. And so dad went through a couple rounds of chemo, and unfortunately, they weren't helping. And after, you know, they wanted to put him on the course of the third treatment, it was pretty clear it wasn't going to work him, and that would decimate his body. And he made the choice to go home and be at our house in hospice care until the disease took him. And so from diagnosis to death, we had 59 days with dad, and that was it. And I feel very lucky for those times. I had an amazing relationship with my dad, as did my family. I love him so much. And it was, you know, something. It's taken this many years for me to shoot a video about it because I used to not be able to control any of my emotions, and I didn't speak about it that much on stages for A very long time. Because it was just. It was such a huge emotional toll. Like I said, this was 2009. But one thing I was very happy about, that I was able to do during that time is when we knew it was bad and we knew we might lose him. I happened to be away, traveling. I was teaching a seminar to a couple hundred people, and he called and let me know that the second course of chemo hadn't worked. And they didn't know how long he was going to have. They were literally telling him. They were constantly saying, you have a week left. You have, you know, a week, ten days, you know, three days. They just. It just took his body so fast. Because what happens is the body starts. The stem cells aren't creating white cells correctly, and the white cells start, you know, basically hampering the body's ability to function. They. They're kind of mutated with leukemia, and it really takes over your body that fast. And so I didn't know if I was going to get to see him again, if I could get out there fast enough. And so I asked him, I said, you know, dad, can I call you and interview you? I want to ask you some questions and I want to record it. And he was in the hospital at the time and just recovering, having gone through the chemo. And he said, sure. I just didn't know if I was going to get out there fast enough. So I called him back and I used a free conference calling line. You can Google them and find a free conference line and allows you to record. So I called him and I record him. I asked him 30 questions or so about life. And I've gone ahead and posted the link to those questions below this video. And I've formatted in a way that you could ask anyone in your life these questions. And it's just about. It's about just getting to hear them talk about what's important in their life. And what did they learn when they were young and adolescence? And how did their mother or father influence them? What did they learn from their parents? What did their grandparents want them to carry on? What do they want you to know after they're gone? What do they want your brothers or your sisters to know after they're gone? What values they want to teach? What do they want you to remember when the times are dark? I mean, just advice from this person that you love. It was my dad, and he gave unbelievable advice. I mean, unbelievable advice. And, you know, I would say, out of everything I own in my life now, this is the Most treasured thing I have is this recording of dad. And it's just him talking about life. And it took me a long time to be able to listen to. I still listen. If I listen to, I still, as you can imagine, completely get emotional about it. But at the same time, I find it, you know, empowering and inspiring, and it connects me back to him. And it's meaningful to me, too, because while you're watching me on video now, or you're listening to me in whatever format, you know, I grew up, my dad, his generation, we just didn't have any video. I mean, I literally don't have that much existing video of my father at all outside of, like, a wedding. So this is one of the few remaining recordings I have of him. And, you know, it's a two or three hour conversation. And it really inspired me. One of the things he said in there is the reason I'm shooting this video. One of the things he said to me, I was asking, what do you want us kids to always remember? And we were talking a lot about it, and he just said a few things. These seven things he was always telling us in some way or another throughout our lives. And he was demonstrating, and he'd say them, but he just kind of strung them together in this thought. And I keep returning to it over and over and over again. And his seven sort of legacy statements for us were, be yourself, be honest, do your best, take care of your family, treat people with respect, be a good citizen, follow your dreams. And those seven things, which are really his values and who he was in so many ways. And he said a lot of amazing things on the interview, but those things I carry with me and I've perpetuated over and over and over. I tell his message to all of my audiences. I've shared that on a little quote card on my Facebook page before. And it literally got 40,000 likes. 40,000 likes in, like, a week. You know, I don't know how many times it's been shared now, but, you know, literally hundreds of thousands of times been seen by millions of people. And it's something that, like, it stunned me and it reminded me that one of the best ways that we can honor somebody is to carry forth their values, but to communicate them. Not to just live them, not to just have them, but to share other people. Maybe you had a grandparent who inspired you, and you should tell people about that grandparent and what they told you about life and how to live a good life. I think there's not a lot of Conversation amazingly, in our culture broadly and. And at an individual level about what does it take to live a good life? People don't talk about that as much anymore. You know, personal growth in terms of an industry seems to be declining because now people can just get something for any time and everything's so immediate. Less people reading books in that genre, less people engaging, it seems like. And I'm blessed to have so much, you know, of a wave in this area of personal development now with this YouTube show being so successful and my Facebook show, you know, Facebook thing taking off and my. My email list, you know, exploding in these last couple years. But I can share you. It's like, what makes those things meaningful is trying to share meaningful advice with people, meaningful insights. And I think you can do that. And I think there have been people who've inspired you. And the more that you tell their story and tell people explicitly and directly, this is what they taught me. The more we carry forth the legacy of those before us for future generations, the more we become standard bearers of what a good life is. Because if no one's talking about it and if no one's communicating values as much anymore, we start to lose that. And I think what's happened is generation after generation has sort of, you know, failed to hold the line of high standards in humanity. You know, we're getting more and more lackadaisical with anything's okay and celebrating idiots on television and celebrating angry people and celebrating the smart, bitter comment that jabs somebody versus talking about, you know, what's it take to be a good person? What's it take to live the ideal life? And obviously I've dedicated my life that this whole thing is about living your charged life. What would that feel like? Well, one of the things to live a fully charged life, to honor the people in your life. Now I encourage you to interview them. Go ahead and completely steal my interview form down below and call somebody you love and interview them on that. I think you'll be surprised at some of the things you'll learn and some of the tidbits they'll give you. You can remind yourself, I carry them on my wallet. You know, I think about these things because they give us sort of a guidepost of behavior every day to live up to, to live into your highest self, to live into those ideals and. And those values. But, you know, there's lots of ways to honor somebody if they're still with you. You know, sometimes just literally, it can be as simple as calling them, take them out to lunch and just sitting them down, looking them directly in the AI and say, you know, I just wanted to spend a few minutes with you sharing how you've impacted my life. I just want to spend a few minutes with you telling you why you made such a difference for me. I want to share with you the values that I just. Maybe you never told me, but I just see them in you. There's some. Your strength and your positivity or your hope or your belief in me. You might not know it, but it carried me through days that I didn't think I could make it through. You know what you have told me, I'm going to carry forth what you helped me do. I'm going to go help more people do. It's in that perpetuation of goodness that we hold the line of the best that is in humanity. And I encourage you to do that. It could be as simple as writing a letter to someone and just professing to them, this is why I love you and care for you and admire you. It can be as simple as shoot a video and send it to them saying, hey, you know, I just wanted you to know the impact that you're making, and I'm going to carry it forward. The number one way to honor someone is to carry their voice and their values forward every day through your behavior and explicitly through stories and advice and guidance of other people. I think that is the ultimate way to honor people. More than the fanfare of a fancy gift, more than the fanfare of if you got a great employee of just giving them a raise. But to really celebrate somebody's words and their noble character and what they have to share with other people, that is a magical way to make a difference, to perpetuate the goodness in humanity and. And to celebrate and honor somebody who's made a difference in your life.