82 - The Power of Inclusion: Key Virtue for Successful Leadership with Amy Chambers

Welcome to Listening with Leaders. I'm Doug Noll, lawyer turned peacemaker. I teach executive leaders how to listen to emotions rather than words so that they can become the leaders everyone wants to follow. And I teach those same leaders how to be authentically present, available, and connected to their families despite being insanely busy. I have learned that we are 98% emotional and only 2% rational. Learning how to listen to emotions is, in my experience, the foundational skill of life. Stick around to the end of the show and I'll reveal how you can be on our next guest in 15 to 20 minutes. So let's get started.

Amy Chambers, welcome to Listening with Leaders. You are a former Chief Operating Officer of major federal credit union. You've been— you were in the financial industry for many years. But left 18 months ago to pursue a new career in executive coaching. And you can be found at AmyChambers.com. Welcome.

Thank you, Doug. It's so great to be here.

So I always like to start off by asking you a little bit about your backstory. You're a, you're a Notre Dame undergrad, USC MBA. Tell us how that all came about.

Yeah, so, uh, Notre Dame happened as an accident, which is how a lot of things are in life. We went to— we're from Buffalo, New York originally— went to Cedar Point, which is in Sandusky, Ohio, realized while we were there— it was around my junior year— Notre Dame was just another couple of hours. So we made the trip. And then when we were looking more seriously when I was a senior, what we realized was that Notre Dame was the one campus we were on where if we were walking and we had the map upside down and we were confused as to where we were going, people, lots of people repeatedly would stop and ask us if we needed help and then offer to take us there. And these were students with backpacks and, you know, probably only a year or two older than I was at that time, but they were very eager to serve and get involved and hear our story. They were proud of the campus and they would almost give up exactly what they were doing to go and show us the way. And that really resonated with us. And so at the end, when it became decision time, that, that stood out to us, picked Notre Dame, loved it. And then after that was working in DC for a major bank at the time, M&T Bank. I went through a management development program, realized that I wanted to go back and get an MBA, but I also wanted to work so that I could take lessons I was having at work, bring them to the classroom, lessons from the classroom I could bring them back to work and experiment and test and try things. And so I ended up moving to Los Angeles to work for Wells Fargo and and do my MBA at USC at the same time. Hard when you're from Buffalo, hard to turn down sunshine 11 months out of the year and really nice weather and beach water. And so I stayed.

Well, I have to— being a native Californian myself and having grown up in Southern California, I can— and having gone back east to school to Dartmouth, I can appreciate that. But you have had this year a very gloomy spring. I was in Santa Barbara last weekend for my niece's graduation from UCSB, and everybody was telling us the first sunny— the only sunny day of the year so far was on Sunday.

I do feel this has been— I've been here 16 years now. It's the worst I can remember. But the man in my life says, you say this every year. So I can't tell if it's true or not. But this does feel to me, it's the worst I've seen it. So it shines out today. I think we're moving into summer, though.

There you go. You don't have to shovel the fog, though, right?

No, that does itself.

So tell us about your career path. You were— you worked for a bank in Washington, D.C. after school in their management training program. You come out, you come out a couple of, I presume, a couple of years later out here to California, SC, working for Wells Fargo. What happens next?

Yeah. So I, I over time, as I began to work and become more of a professional, what I figured out was that it's very important that an organization that you work for has values that align with your personal values. And as I bounced around between a couple of companies— after Wells, I went to US Bank, after US Bank, BofA— I started to feel that I just hadn't quite found the right alignment where the organization has these values, they live them every day, they're breathed and talked about with its employees every day. The customers or members notice it as well, and that they mirror my own. And so I made my way to the credit union space and there found, at least for myself, that what was preached about and on the walls was really practiced and lived in real life. And for me, at least in financial services, it's this idea of we are here, we exist to help change people's lives, and we start by doing that financially. Making a profit, driving revenue, all those things are secondary. We're here to serve the community and really help people. And I wanted to feel that that was what was being discussed in meetings and on conference calls. How's our experience? What are our customers feeling? How are we really listening and demonstrating empathy with them? And so I made my way to a credit union and there found some of the best leadership I had ever seen and experienced. And followed that, that boss. He became a CEO for another credit union and I went over as his COO. But yeah, my moves through various banks and through a couple of credit unions were really driven by, do I feel connected to what we're doing, what we're saying, and what we're talking about? Wells Fargo, by the way, B of A, US Bank, they're great institutions. But again, I was on the prowl for something that really aligned with my core inner values.

I understand that completely. What moved you from commercial banking to a credit union?

Yeah, you know, it's a funny story. Maybe not that funny, but it's the true story. I did leave B of A for some personal reasons. My uncle at that time, the time that I left, was dying of ALS, terrible disease. And one of the things he observed, I was in a district manager role overseeing about 15 branches at that time, 250 employees. He observed that when I was coming to visit him during these final couple of years where we knew he was sick and he had limited time, that I was spending a lot of time on my BlackBerry. This was back when BlackBerrys were a thing. And he said, gosh, you know, it's like Saturday or Sunday and you still have emails to respond to and, you know, communications that you're sending out and getting ready for Monday. It seems like you have a lot going on at work. And, you know, I'm about to die. And one of the things I've noticed is you have not completed several personal goals that you've told me you have, traveling to Europe, writing a book, running a marathon. And I'm wondering if that's happening because your career is just such a central part of your life. And I thought about that and took his feedback, for lack of a better word. I left my job, kind of went on a sabbatical. I did travel to Europe. I had an art gallery opening for some of my photography. I wrote a book. It's not the one I published recently, but I decided that this book was very kind of cathartic for me. It was sort of my coming-of-age book. And I did become a marathon runner. And I kind of did this as a tribute or an honor of him. But at the time that I had sort of finished, it was maybe a little under a year that I did all that and was kind of looking, okay, I'm going to go back to work now. Out of the blue, ConnectTheFederalCreditUnion, about a $5 billion shop, gave me a call. They found me on LinkedIn. That time I thought, credit union, I don't know, this is way too small for me. I'm used to these 300,000-people organizations, multinational global organizations. But I thought, well, you know, I'm just curious to hear what they'll say. And I went through a couple of rounds of interviews. And by the last day, which was sort of an all-day thing, I met with about 8 different people. All I could just walk away with was how proud everyone was to be working there and how they talked about the employee and the member nonstop. It was all about the people they were serving. And I just felt comfortable, at peace, and at home. And a few people that I'm still connected to today made these statements about, you know, if you really want to have an impact and have a seat at the strategy table, this is the place to do it. This is a much smaller organization. You'll get to weigh in on almost everything here. Decisions get made very quickly. We don't have a lot of bureaucracy. Something sounded intriguing to me about it, and I went and would never go back. It's been, for me, the perfect place in financial services was kind of the mid to small kind of credit union space. So— Yeah, those were a few things that were happening at that time.

So what caused you to leave financial services altogether and strike out on your own?

Yeah, another great question. I, I, in the last few years, probably about last 5 or 6, I've developed a personal vision and mission statement, and I've done a lot of soul searching, a lot of, um, book reading, um, and what I've realized is that at my core, my calling, if you will, or the reason I feel like I was placed on this earth, is to help other people with their choices, how happy they feel, their ability to take control over their lives, achieve goals. And I was getting to do a lot of that as a COO. But what I realized is that I wanted my job to be 100% that. And so I had a very open, transparent conversation with my boss, said, I have kind of this crazy dream of writing books, being a motivational speaker, being an executive coach, a business consultant, but one day ending up on stage talking to people about how they can make and build greatness in their lives. And I think I need to try it. If I don't, I'm going to regret it. And he was very supportive of that. So really came from a burning deep passion within, but I wouldn't have quite identified it if I hadn't gone through the steps and taken the time to write a personal vision statement for my life.

And how, how's it worked out for you?

Wonderful. I got to tell you, when you're doing something you love and something that feels that it aligns with your natural gifts and talents. You wake up each morning, you have things to do and work-related activities, but you're eager to get to them. And I have had several clients say to me, wow, you've changed my life. And of course, my response to that is always, no, you changed your life. But it's nice knowing that they implicate me as part of the cause for that and that I have some small piece in that. It's very meaningful for me to go to bed and say, Oh my gosh, I made a difference today. People are doing better because of their involvement with me. That really brings me a lot of fulfillment and satisfaction. So it's going wonderful.

You just answered my next question. What is it that makes you excited every morning to get out of bed?

Mm-hmm.

Serving others.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think also doing challenging things that scare me. I was very scared to start my own practice. It's tough to walk away from a stable, secure job with an income that pays the bills, especially when you have a boss you love and a culture you like. To a great deal, but I did feel that taking the chance to explore what else I might be good at was really important. And so one of the most gratifying or fulfilling things is knowing how hard it was to leave and to take this chance, but being proud of myself for having done it. So that really inspires me as well. I think I've seen in your background that you and a lot of your followers subscribe to a growth mindset and I'm not sure if that's related to Carol Dweck's book and her work with mindset, but I absolutely am in love with all that material. I read that work for the first time 6, 7 years ago, and I realized, ah, that's it, you know, doing things that scare us, not feeling like I have to be good at things, being able to try something new and to have to work at it and put effort towards it. And so that's been a big major driver in my life as well, is that framework and those ideas and concepts.

Yeah, always hold a beginner's mind.

I love it. I love it.

I always try to be a beginner at something. Yeah. And it keeps me humble.

Absolutely. Yeah, 100%. For the longest time, I didn't want to do that. I only played the games in the bars that I knew I could win. I would avoid the darts and the billiards, but there was a foosball table there, which I'm a little better at. I'd say, oh, let's go do that. And now it's really nice to each year take up something new and say, I'm starting from scratch at this. And absolutely, it does keep us very humble. So, yeah.

Your, your first real book that came out, what, a year ago?

It came out February 1st, so just a little over 4 months ago. Yeah, still fresh.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

I know that feeling. Tell us, what's the book about?

Leadership. It's, uh, the book is called The 7 Virtues of Exceptional Leaders. Virtues is an acronym, and so each of the 7 letters all are different parts of the framework. And, um, this is a book all about helping engage other people, involve other people, excite other people to step up and do great work. And it's very personally important to me. The stories in it are based on 20 years of working in corporate America and observing and then also practicing components of this book, testing and trying it out and seeing what really resonates with people and what doesn't. So yeah, very proud of the book.

If you think of your 7 virtues, which one would you say is the most— they're all important, but which one's the most important?

I'm happy you made the qualifier there because that is my first answer is They, they all work together. It is a framework. You can't separate them. Personally speaking, I'm probably most attached to the second one. It's the I, and I is for involving others. It's all about having dot dialogues, not monologues, asking people what they think, getting them involved in the decision-making. Sometimes when there's a difference of opinion saying, you know what, we're gonna go with what the team thinks, even if I, the leader, am a little nervous about it because, um, You know, there's no harm in making mistakes and one of us is gonna learn something from it. But really putting people that you lead in the driver's seat and giving them a vested ownership stake in, in what's going on. I think all too many leaders act more like managers or even drill sergeants and feel like I gotta have the answers. These people need direction from me. That's not it at all. It's you're really creating an environment where everybody shares the road. And so number 2 probably is the one I think by itself makes the biggest difference in teams stepping up and caring about what's going on at their, at their work.

In your experience, have you run across many leaders that are really good at involving their people in decision-making and collaborating?

I sure have. And the recent couple of leaders that I've had that probably one influenced me to write a vision statement, to think about what I really wanted out of life, that put me in positions of great authority and trusted me were those kind of leaders. They absolutely were asking questions, getting to know me, working really hard to allow me to experiment, explore, try things out. And because of that, I, I grew tremendously under them and, and with them. And then that got me prepared to do everything I'm doing today. This— you didn't ask this, but as a sidebar, I've also seen a lot of leaders that are not very good at that or don't believe in it. And that happened much earlier in my career. And over time, I found myself repeatedly leaving them or leaving those organizations because Although I couldn't have articulated it then the way I can today, something just didn't feel right about that. But I am very fortunate to have gotten to really, really great leaders that practice this well at the end of my career.

What do you observe? I presume as a leader yourself, you practice these principles. What do you observe in your teams and your direct reports as you did this?

Yeah, I hope I practice them well. I got a lot of direct reports and former colleagues of mine that are reading the book. No one's messaged me yet and said, this isn't you. This is not what you did. So hopefully, people find that it's congruent. As I led this way, what I saw is that people were wanting to step up more and to get involved. People that were once quiet or reserved, if I put a question out there when I had started leading the team, I would have to almost pull teeth to get answers. There would be silence in some of these meetings. I looked back at those teams a year, 2 years later, I'd put a question out there, hey, what do you guys think we should do about this? Does anyone have any ideas of why this is going on? Anyone got possible solutions? It was almost like people were tripping over each other to chime in and give their ideas, build upon what other people had said. I wasn't having to find all the solutions myself. People would call me up, text me, message me, say, you know that thing we were talking about the other day? I have an idea. And they did that on their own. And so that was the biggest difference I noted is it wasn't so much me pushing or pulling them, but they began to push themselves because they really wanted to be there. They knew that they were valued, that they were intelligent, that I appreciated their contributions. And when people feel that way, they're eager to step up and make things better. And so I saw people come alive with loyalty and engagement, which was, I think, what we're all looking for.

So as you reflect back on your career and you think about where you are today as a coach and an author and an inspirational speaker, what's unique about you that separates you from everybody else?

Gosh, that's a really great question. Um, that's a tough one to answer. I feel that so many people out there have so many different components of what I have. These are some of the people I've learned from. Maybe it's just the way that I put it all together. It's kind of like the Virtues Framework. It's saying, you know, there's a lot of things going on here. We talked about this earlier. You know, there's humility, this quest of saying, I'm not afraid to be wrong or vulnerable or admit when I don't know something because what's more important is this desire to get better. And I can't do that if I think I have all the answers. There's a tremendous passion and desire to help other people have great lives. If they're in positions of leadership, to help their organizations and their teams flourish. There's a lot of years where I feel I was doing it wrong, and then I was able to identify and learn from those mistakes. So there's all this wisdom, I guess, that comes from the experiences of I was screwing it up a while ago, and I'm not afraid to talk about those. I actually really enjoy talking about that. I like to teach people that it's okay to be afraid. Courage is not the act of having no fear, but it's the act of having fear and acting anyway. I, I think I work really hard to tell all of these personal stories, kind of tell on myself. This is a theme in the book, tell your worst stories for the sake of other people's learning. I will tell you that from clients and then past employees I've had, Everyone says, gosh, you're so different because you're so authentic and transparent. You're not just trying to look good. It's just the real deal. And I never feel like we're on stage. It just, it just seems like whatever's on your heart is exactly what comes out of your mouth. I always know where I stand with you. So I guess those are some things people have said about me. So that's a tough question for me to answer, but I think that's the best stab I have at it.

Yeah, I think there's a lot of meat there. Okay. So now you're Now you're into executive coaching. Who's your perfect client these days?

It is definitely because I have a range. The perfect clients are those that have dropped the ego. We all have ego. Anyone that says they don't, I mean, that's probably the sign of them having a very large one. But most of us have this desire to kind of be right and to feel good and like we're making good decisions. But the perfect clients are those that have dropped that enough to say, I need to learn more. I don't think I've got it just perfect yet. I'm not sure I'm liking how I handled that the other day. Maybe it's my fault. Maybe I could do better. They're actively engaged in trying to figure out how to grow. I do have a few folks that are resistant. I tell them that. So this is nothing I haven't said to their face, but they ultimately are looking to sort of prove hey, you know, my intentions and what we're trying for here, that's enough. The ideal client is one that stays in their circle of control, not their circle of concern. And they're really, again, trying to figure out how can I take more accountability, more ownership, more responsibility? How can I almost make it my fault? Because if it's my fault, then it's something I can work on. Then it's within my power and control to fix. So these people tend to be very curious, very open-minded. They're open to reading articles. They're open to being influenced and having their mind changed. And that allows for a tremendous amount of growth and reflection. And so, to be honest, they're the ones that are having the most success. They have the most advancement and forward progress in where they were whenever I met them to where they are today. Wow.

Terrific. So this show is called Listening with Leaders for a specific reason. As a lawyer turned peacemaker, I think listening is a foundational skill of life. What has been your experience about listening in your whole career?

It's very exciting that someone like you with all of your experiences has described it as a foundational skill. It, it's probably the most foundational skill that I can think of. So it was neat to realize how invested you are in it. It is what disarms people. It's, um, when people feel listened to, they feel appreciated, heard, valued. I think they feel much more free and secure and safe. To do all of these things I've been talking about, to admit when they've made mistakes, to look at themselves with humility, to be curious, to learn. They feel sort of taken care of. And so when we ask questions and we really dig in to find, you know, how is someone feeling, and we let them know, hey, I've heard you, that makes sense, I understand you. It's so amazing with that out of the way how quickly people can get to solutions. And so it is absolutely, I have found to be probably one of the most important things we can do when we're interacting with others.

When you were in financial services in the corporate world and you encountered people who are not listening well, how did you handle that?

Well, I think first there's a few things. The short answer is try to as gently and respectfully as I could call it to their attention. Now, I hesitated when you asked this question because someone that's already not working hard to listen doesn't always want to hear even that feedback. So again, a few things at play. Number one, you know, if you can almost model and lead by example as to what listening looks like for them. And so you can start by listening to them, seeking to understand, finding out almost why they're not listening. That's useful. As part of that, figuring out what their goals are and what their objectives are, and then being able to say, hey, you told me that you have a goal to be a better leader or make progress on this project or have a better relationship with this person. If I can give you some feedback, I think one of the things that would help you to do that and to get to that goal that you said was very important is to listen more. Here's just kind of some observations from my perspective that I've seen or have. Does that make sense? Can we talk about that? You would actually see a little bit of an openness to take the feedback. I do believe that things like this, you know, someone's not listening, what do you do? They work best when you've already built a really good relationship with someone. So if they know that you care about them, you value them, there's trust there, then you can get a little bit further in saying, my sense is that listening is not a skill or a talent that you're doing very well or that has been demonstrated well right now. Can we work through that together? I'd like to help you with that if you'd allow me. People can be opened up. Opened up to, my gosh, yeah, I'm really not listening well. And so I've had that experience a few times where I've been able to help someone with that. But it always starts with trust, openness, asking about their goals, modeling the way for them.

My students are always amazed that listening is a skill that has to be learned and mastered. It's not something that we do automatically.

It's definitely not.

We, we learn how to listen to words when we're young, but that's not really listening. That's, I guess we call that hearing, but not listening. And listening is when we're able to really reflect the words, meaning, and emotions of the speaker in a way that they, to your point, feel deeply heard. And what strikes me, and I think you mentioned this before, is that many, many, many people, I would say the vast majority of people in the world, have never felt deeply listened to.

Yeah.

And what, what is that? What is an easier, simpler gift that's priceless and also costs you nothing to give than to take time just to listen to them?

It's so true. I just want to add, and I think you've basically said this, it's a skill that we can practice.

Oh yeah.

And the more and more we do it, the better we get at it. Uh, it kind of goes back to the mindset comment around, um, are you naturally born with it? And are traits permanent and fixed, or can we learn new skills? And listening is absolutely one of those things we can change about ourselves. And what's exciting is when we try to practice it and we do get better at it, we can actually see the positive benefits and effects of it. You can see, to your point, conflict between partners in a marriage go away, conflict on teams at work go away. It's sort of a simple thing. It doesn't mean it's always easy. But to really just listen for meaning and intent and feelings, to deeply understand, okay, what is this like for this person? What is it, you know, what are they saying it is to walk a day in their shoes? It's funny, once you know that, it also just kind of changes how you behave and how harsh or gentle you might be with your feedback. And sometimes you'll say, you know what, I had a solution or I wanted to make progress. Today's not the day we're going to be able to do it. Today I just need to hold space for this right now. We're not ready for that yet. And so it actually changes. Kind of our next steps too, once we really know where someone's at. So I'm so happy you're saying all of this.

Well, thanks. Yeah, no, the promise I make to my students and clients is that once you learn my skills, you really learn how to deeply listen, you will never have another fight or argument again in your life.

I love that.

No more fights, no more conflict, no more nothing. It's over with. And, and the beauty of it is it only takes 6 to 8 weeks to really learn how to do it. It's not just— yeah, you practice as a lifelong practice, but the actual skills. Once, once they're— once you figure them out, they're counterintuitive and counter-normative, but once you figure them out, it really changes everything.

You're right.

I spent the last, what, 13 years working in maximum security prisons here in California training lifers and long-term incarcerated people how to become peacemakers and stop prison violence. And the first skill we teach them is how to listen. And in fact, I was just spent— but just before we got on today, I was reviewing our, one of our last big training manuals that we use in the prisons. It's amazing how powerful it is.

This is such meaningful work, and I really feel that you're starting a movement, and anybody can do this. Obviously, maximum security prisons is a great place for this to take place, but all of us can, you know, have this take place in our Thanksgiving dinner tables, in time with our friends and family, and in our jobs every day. I've never been in an organization where there's not at least 2 departments that are sort of feuding with each other and pointing the finger at each other. And almost always you look and kind of dig into what started all of that. And there's very little listening going on. There's a lot of talking, but very little listening. Sometimes there's some hearing, but it's not the listening that you're talking about. And so I think any of us can practice this, get better. It's really cool to see that someone like yourself is putting this out into the world. It's a game changer.

Thanks. Yeah.

Congratulations for the work you do.

Well, thank you. I mean, just look at the political polarization that's around us. You know what that all is? It's just people not willing to listen. Not listen.

I'm with you on that.

You know, you can have a calm conversation with any politically polarized person if you know how to listen. And so, yeah, that's why this work is really important. And schools, teachers fighting with parents, the school board meetings, all this stuff that's going on right now. It's all— it's completely unnecessary.

That's right.

Completely unnecessary. So where's the future for Amy Chambers?

A few things going on. So the first book, all about leadership, leadership of others. My second book is almost finished. I'm about to move into the editing process. And this is a book about personal leadership. And so it felt equally important for me to help people lead in their own lives. So that has taken a lot of time, been working on it for the last 6 months or so, a little before the first book came out. I continue to work with coaching clients one-on-one, but I'm in the process right now of designing— I've got several built, but working on more— some curriculum and classes for organizations that could be taught for people at the leadership level or even individual contributors. And that's important to me to have material out I'm also working on designing workbooks for both the first and second book so that people have sort of a guide or a journal or a tool that they could use every day to practice the concepts. And so those are some of the things I do when I'm not with, with clients. And I'm always taking on new clients. I've, I've got over a dozen clients, but I'm not room for a few more. So yeah, those are, um, that's kind of where I'm at. And, and you're obviously not, not regretting at all the decision that you left to leave corporate and go off on your own and serve people in a completely I will tell you that I heard that, well, first of all, the organization I left had a wonderful year last year and paid max bonuses to everyone. They were at stretch goals on everything. And then I also heard they gave very generous raises. This is an organization that cares about people. So gave raises that were almost in line with the annualized inflation rate, which was kind of unheard of. And probably at that one moment when I knew all that was going on around what would have been bonus time, I thought, Darn it, I kind of wish I was still there. And then I reminded myself of how I followed my heart and how much fun I'm having now. And I sent a couple of texts to people congratulating them. So that was probably one day where I wouldn't have been able to answer. But no regrets. Very happy with my choice. I do believe that when we follow our hearts, it's hard to have regret. It's hard to regret what you truly feel in your heart.

So that's so true. I left the practice of law in 2000. I gave my partners a week's worth of notice, walked out, left $10 million on the table, and opened up my peacemaking practice and never looked back.

Yeah, so great.

Best decision I ever made. Don't make as much money, but I don't care.

That's right.

Following my heart and serving people every day. I serve more people in a week than I served in 22 years as a trial lawyer.

I, I wish more people had, um, the courage to make these decisions themselves. Um, some of them are sabotaging themselves. They're very wrapped up in the fear of the unknown Well, what if it wouldn't work out? And then what would I do? And the part of the work I do with some people is to help them take some calculated risks and some chances and to even just identify what do you really want to do and what would— where are you happiest and where do you feel your best? And once someone can actually say that out loud and identify it and then they've got some support, you know, it's nice to see people kind of go that direction. But I'm not surprised at all to hear that you haven't looked back. You did what you knew your calling was, and that's great.

One more question, I'll let you go. I know you're a busy woman. Of course. What's one thing about you, Amy, that we would never know about unless you revealed it to us?

Oh, wow. That's a good one. I was going to say that I'm an avid runner. I've ran over 212 half marathons, a handful of fulls, but you probably wouldn't know that because my background behind me, lots of medals and running bibs. I am an only child, and I did see that you have dealt with your eyesight. I am considered legally blind. At a very young age, I was 20/20. My eyes are so bad I'm not a candidate for LASIK. I have very thick lenses and glasses and kind of special contact lenses, but it's been corrected. But I spend a lot of time in my optometrist's office. Looking at nerves in my cornea. But because it's, you know, we're working with it being fixed, I can see. And so most people, that's probably the best thing I have is most people don't know how severe my eyesight problems are.

You know, it's really, you know, I grew up, I was born with a lot of disabilities, including bad eye. I was 2,400.

Oh gosh.

Pretty bad. Pretty blind. And there's something about the pain of all of that and learning how to cope with it and overcome it, that if you can do that, and I've been pretty successful at it, you've obviously been successful at it, it sort of teaches you lessons that people who are born into perfect health with everything working really don't appreciate, right?

I can't say that any better. At my uncle's funeral, his best friend who gave one of the eulogies or speeches talked about how— and I'm not going to say this just right— but pain is one of the greatest teachers and instructors of all time. And so as our hearts are breaking, we can figure out how to grow and learn and love from that in even a deeper way. And it was as we sat there all kind of dealing with grief and pain and loss, There was a lot of hope and meaning I found in that statement, even though I'm sure I'm butchering it. But I have found it to be true when you go through struggle, adversity, challenge, you come out of it on the other side with a great appreciation and gratitude for everything you do have, but also the struggle and the challenge itself because of what it taught you. And maybe it was resilience or strength or the ability to push on, but it's something that people that don't have those struggles, they don't get to learn. And so I do feel very grateful for all of the adversity that I've had in my life. You seem to feel the same. It's, you know, hey, thank goodness for that, because now here I am today, probably not in spite of those things, but almost because of them. So I, I couldn't agree more.

Well, I think that was a beautiful note to leave this conversation on. Thank you so much, Amy.

Thank you. It's been wonderful talking to you, Doug.

Doug Noll here. Thank you so much. Or listening to Listening with Leaders. If you are a successful executive leader who would like to be on this program, please visit podcast.dougnull.com/podcast. If you got something out of this interview, would you please share this episode on social media? Just do a quick screenshot with your phone and text it to a friend or post it on the socials. If you know someone that would be a great guest, tag them on the social media to let them know about the show and include the hashtag #ListeningWithLeaders. I love seeing your posts and guest suggestions. We are regularly putting out new episodes and content. To make sure you don't miss any episodes, go ahead and subscribe. Your thumbs up ratings and reviews go a long way to help promote the show and mean a lot to me and my team. Want to know more?

Go to my website, DougNoll.com.

Noll.com, or follow me on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. That's @DouglasEnoll. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you on the next show.