Heroic Chat with Jim Huling: Using Joy As Compass

Hey Heroes. Today's episode features a mastery level chat with one of our friends and world class experts sharing how they show up as the best version of themselves. This heroic chat with Brian was recorded live in front of a virtual audience of heroic community members and coaches. To learn more about this series as well as how you can join Brian's daily live coaching sessions at 1:01pm Central Time. Plus get access to a ton more to help you move from theory to practice to mastery and express the best practice, most heroic version of yourself. Head to Heroic Us today and if you like this episode, please leave a positive review and hit the subscribe button wherever you get your podcasts. Now here's your host, Brian Johnson.

Heroes, it is 1:01pm Central Time, plus the seven objectives of basic training. A little late today we were in the kind of green room, whatever you want to call it here at Zoom with Jim Hewling getting ready to come on and his audio would not work. So we tried a few different things and the heroic gods blessed us with an opportunity to practice our philosophy. I let him know that we just got off of a 3 hour, 2 hour and 45 minute kickoff call with our heroic ambassadors. Hundreds of people from around the world joined us, which was amazing, and that we'll take it as a wink from the heroic gods that it was time to reschedule that call with him. So we're going to coordinate our calendars and figure out when he can come back and join us. I'm seeing the chat. I got to keep the chat up. This is how the cool kids keep track of the chat. They keep it up on the right hand side. I'm a little slow folks, but 100 days in a row of these and however many prior Zoom calls, I just figured that out. We recorded our ambassador kickoff call and excited to share that with you. We'll be sending that out and everyone who is there for that, bless you, you're amazing. And our thought is I'm three hours into the day with that. That's, that's, it's good work. Let's come back to Jim Hewling the 40x when we do sometime soon. And you know it's hard. We were going to just say go watch that. That'll be our session for one on one, which perhaps it should be. And now Michael, even as I said and I'm like, but I want to.

Connect.

So let's, let's enjoy a breath together and then we'll kind of, we'll play it by your Kimmy's already got her hand up. Nat did we have ours? We didn't RSVPs for today because it was a 40x master chat. I got it. Let's take a breath and connect to that stillness, that silence as we flip the switch.

Sam.

Isn't silence wonderful? That's our meditation for today. Kimmy, what do you got? I see Tim D as well. We're going to play this one by yours today. But what do you. What do you got?

Kimmy?

Hi. Okay.

Long time no chat. I mean what was it like 10 minutes ago? Let's go.

We're fresh. So there you have, you have plus ones and, and philosophers notes that say to have one wildly important goal, right? Like the 40x guys say have one and when you have two, then you're splitting up your attention and you are less.

They actually don't. So they actually.

Someone else.

Yes, they actually say that. No more than 1, 2. Maybe they say 3 on that. Formatting's still weird for me, by the way. I, I downloaded the new app Michael, and I'm still getting the weird formatting. They actually don't. You can't have more than. Let's see what they say. I'm gonna lose it here. 1, 2, 3. But it's not more than that, so. But go. Go where you were going to go. But it isn't. So the one thing is that, but again, even that oftentimes authors and we are hyperbolic to make the point. The point that we're trying to make is not you can only have one thing. The point is don't have a hundred things. So even in our energy, our work and our love, we have, I have anyway some really important long term goals, some nearer term goals and some immediate term goals. Energy, work and love. And then of course, within any one of those aspects, you're going to have things that have a relatively high level of importance. But the basic theme here is not that you can only have one or you're doing it wrong, but that don't have a hundred. And it's the metaphor of the magnifying glass being held at a point that if you want to make something burn, you can't be moving it around willy nilly. Yet of course there's going to be nuance and complexity to life. Anyway, just to frame it up.

Yeah, that's super helpful, thanks. So the specific personal situation, as you know, is, you know, I'm all in for heroic coach and that's a really important part of my life. And I have a coaching business and I make Income from that. I also use a lot of my time, energy and money in acting as, you know, and, you know, just so everyone knows, like I. With Michael Singer's the Surrender Experiment, I really feel like that describes my experience with the avenues that I've taken because I wasn't someone who said as a young person, oh, I really want to be an actor. Not at all. Like, I arrived in Hawaii and I stumbled upon, you know, newspaper ads and radio ads for Magnum PI the show. And so I started that way and I've. I've really made big gains. And, you know, to me, I experience plateaus in a way, but I'm. I'm a working actor. I let. I make a lot of, you know, I make a good living off of just the after part. And so when I read some of the things, I experience a lack of peace, I think, because there's a big part of me that says, oh, I really want to do that. And I really want to do that. And I, you know, I have this to do, get to do list, you know, for certain things with being a coach and also being an actor. And so the lack of peace comes from, you know, the drive. Kind of like what I talked about in Ambassador, right? Like, I want to do all the things.

I'll just play ping pong with you here. It's your game. You get to make the rules. I mean, this is indie re, right, One of Alexander's favorite artists. Just do you. I don't know if that's the name of the song, but someone help me find that search. Just do you. Indie R E. If it isn't the name of the song, it's something like that. It's your game. You get to make the rules. So some things that we talk about will be more relevant to you at different times than others. But you need to trust yourself and know when you know, you need to focus and when you need to enjoy your life. And at no point do we want to suffer through it. And there's no absolute truth. There's no this fits all situations for all people at all times. And again, I try to stress that, that there is no the way you figure it out, but you're crushing it. And then you go Singer style on it. Here's Michael Singer's formula for success. Do whatever is put in front of you with all your heart and soul without regard for personal results. Do the work as though it was given to you by the universe itself for one simple reason, because it was. So then we want to use the structures that we have right to create a certain level of structure and a certain amount of spontaneity, not allowing it to become chaotic and not allowing it to become rigid. But your version of that's going to be different and that's beautiful. The surrender experiment of, well, I guess this is what the universe wants from me now. You need to find that rhythm. But you got it. What would happen if you allowed yourself to enjoy everything and then practice your philosophy, which is being present to the moment? And again, it's Ralph Waldo Emerson, trust thyself. And even as an example, on Monday I had a team call in which we strategized different things. I said this, this and this. And then we did what we did. And then I did my thing, shut down, complete hour long meditation. And it was very clear that I was wrong, that the strategy was actually not what I had said on Monday. It was something related, but different. So then I really told the team when we got together that I am going to practice my philosophy. Ralph Wato Emerson says, speak what you believe in hard words today, even if it contradicts everything you said yesterday. You need to bring a thousand eyed presence to this moment right now. And if you don't, it's like you're dragging around a corpse. He says behind you. So trusting ourselves is the essence of it and you're not trusting yourself enough to put it directly. What would happen if you trusted yourself that you actually did have your own idiosyncratic philosophy and you're able to take what works within the frameworks that we've explored and you've explored and let go of what doesn't, knowing that that's super dynamic. And it's all to go back to Ralph Waldo Emerson, one big experiment. And the more experiments, all of life is an experiment. The more experiments, the better is how Emerson frames it. But I would encourage you to tap into that beautiful blissful joy you have. And if you're a Singer fan, then he's got a pretty good formula there that seems to have worked pretty well for him. But remember, what he didn't compromise were his spiritual practices. So if you look at his three laws of let's go to Singer and his PMs. So Michael Singer is an amazing example of an insanely disciplined guy who allows life to flow through him. It's a wonderful apparent paradox, but it's not so. Read the three essays on universal law that he wrote 50 years ago, almost, in which he talks about the three universal laws of karma, will and love. And then read his untethered soul and living untethered and feel the connection between the discipline. But the discipline is there to allow you to spontaneously respond to what is present, not to lock you into what you think you needed to do. Even if you had clarity two minutes before. It's exciting for me to imagine you moving from theory to practice to mastery on that. I can feel where you are in that unleashing of your untethered soul within the constraints of what we're doing. Final, final, final thing. Those invitations from the universe to do acting, to do coaching, to do whatever are not distractions, as Gio Mattis says. There's a re. They are the reason for the protocol. You do the non negotiable such that you can respond fluidly to what life gives you. I'll leave it at that. What do you got?

Yeah. Thank you so much. It's. It's been an important question for me for a long time. I'd say more than months. You know, and I, they, they do work hand in hand together. And, and I do think it's a question that is very common among a lot of us heroes here because we have multiple interests and, you know, we want to combine the two, you know, two or three things that we do or even more. And I, I do want to. I, I don't know if I've said this to you specifically, but for example, the day before yesterday we had a 12 and a half hour day. And that, that's just work hours. So then there's also the commuting time and me getting camera ready and all of that. And so, you know, out of 24 hours, it's not heroic. However, I'm going to call you on that.

That's just not true. That's not true. So that's another example of you using a rigid mentality. So I traded text with a dear friend who's a military officer. Right. So he is doing some things that are very, very important to preserve our freedom. Right? Now, let's say he doesn't get his eight hours of sleep, which he won't most nights when he's doing what he's doing. Was that not heroic or was the fact that he practices what he can the definition of heroic within his idiosyncratic constraints? And if you cripple yourself with, you have to do this, and if you do that, you lose. Then you're, you're losing your own game. So, Kimmy, love you, bless you. And. Are you kidding me? So when I get up in the middle of the night to take care of Alexandra because she needed me to take care of her and be there with my kids. Was that not heroic? Goosebumps. What in the are we doing if it isn't to be able to flow with what life gives us? And if you have chosen as the hero of your story to be a professional working actress and that sometimes demands that you do things that, that are what you just described. Again, we can give countless examples of the late shift nurse or the welfare attorney who needs to be up for certain times. But the most important thing for me that I want you and everyone to feel is it's your life, it's your game. What do you want? If you decide you don't want that, then continuing to do that would be unheroic with asterisks. But if you've said let's go hero, I'm all in. Now what am I going to do to ride that wave? Because, wow, it's really hard to get adequate self recovery when I'm working 12. Boy, I'm going to rub my hands together and figure that one out. But it's your game, it's your playbook, it's your overall awesome essence. Tell me what you're feeling and what kind of felt unlocked in that moment.

Yeah, I appreciate you so much, Brian. Thank you for, for catching me on that. I'm crying because, you know, it's, it's challenging.

Right?

The, the.

We got Jim Hewling showing up. What is this? We gotta go.

Sure.

Jim.

We were just running this show. We were just doing the normal programming here. We didn't know we'd be blessed with your experience.

Oh my gosh. Can you hear me? Can you actually hear me now?

Jim, we can hear you.

Oh my God. It's a miracle.

40X. Let's go, hero. Are you ready to roll?

I have to say that the only thing that could have been more disruptive is to have a technical problem and then come barging in five minutes later, you know, and say, I got it.

I got it, I'm all in. Well, you know what? This is such the perfect embodiment of what I was aspiring to teach with Kimmy, that we're going to go there. So Kimmy, let's come back. So we're going to, we're going to. We're going to be fluid again. The whole point, Jim, of our work is to help people get their energy up so they can focus it on what's important now. So you and I, you know, literally there's no stress on that whatsoever. For me, it was, you Know, heroic gods blessed us. Cool. We'll pivot now. We'll pivot back. But the reason why I got a good night of sleep last night, meditate in the morning, is to be able to be adaptive, to be flexible, knowing what my wildly important goal is, which is to be my best self. That's the ultimate goal I have. And then I'll do my best to respond proactively. But if you're up for it, we'll just get straight to work. You feeling good?

Hey, I feel great. I feel a little embarrassed and I feel like I've disrupted what was already a great meeting by coming back in. Are you sure you don't want to answer that wonderful question that was right there on the cusp before I jumped?

Well, you know, we were. Kimmy and I were going back and forth. We've had so many great connections. Kimmy, do you want to kind of put a bow tie on that or do you want to come back to it? What's your. What's your ideal?

Yes, I would just like to say, especially since Jim and I have communicated on LinkedIn, so I really appreciate that. Jim, it's good to see you here. So, Jim, we were just saying how acting. The schedule I said was non heroic, and I'm, you know, the, the length of time that we're on set.

Yeah.

And, and Brian, you called me out and said, well, no, that's, it's, it's what the job demands. And so I just want to say, Brian, that everything and everything that we do with heroic allows me to show up on set. And when it's when the weather, you know, we're shooting on location in Hawaii and it starts to rain and we have to literally pause for an hour and that costs tons of money. And then there's, you know, you look over at me and I'm there, happy and calm and grounded. And I'm not thinking of, you know, oh, I can do this, and that I'm there and centered and I believe that that's my, like, my special power on set. And, and I just, I really appreciate that. And so thank you for making it okay for me to want to split my talents and gifts in different ways.

Bless you, Kimmy. My goodness, you are such a radiant exemplar and such a great human being and such a gift to everyone that interacts with you. And it's so exciting. Let's continue our chat just of really owning the fact that it is our game. We get to make the rules, take what works, let go of what doesn't bless you, love you, appreciate you and. All right, Jim, we've got a party to have here with the 40x. So rewinding and thank you for flowing and flexing. And we like to say that obstacles make us stronger. So our coaches have to run a spartan race, which is an obstacle course in order to graduate our program because we learned to eat obstacles like energy bars. And I appreciate you eating them with us, Tom. But everybody, Jim Hewling. He connected with Michael not too long ago in our coach program, gave a masterclass on 40x. We're going to revisit it from my perspective. Have a great chat. The four disciplines of execution. Jim, as I said in the our little prelude, when we weren't able to connect both via audio, we got Kimmy holding it up. Fantastic. We run our business, you know, essentially on the 40x. Absolutely love your work. As you know, I've been a big fan for a long time, and I just discussed it in depth because we just launched something called our heroic ambassador program, in which we're empowering a team of people that believe in our movement to go out and help us catalyze that movement as kind of our special forces recruiting department and all that stuff. So I literally describe to them our while the important goals, our lead measures, our scorecard, our accountable accountability kind of factors, and encourage me to consider doing it. So there we go. That's Jim. And how you doing, Jim?

Well, I'm better now. I have to say two things real fast if I can. And now I realize time is truly of the essence. First of all, I have been a fan of yours way longer than you've been a fan of mine. I mean, I go all the way back to the original, you know, paper philosopher's notes, and I think I had one of those original lifetime memberships, like 20 years ago or something. I can't remember. But. But I've been following you way longer than you've been following me. And then I was just about to have the most crushing moment of my professional career when the. The one broadcast I wanted to be on was with you. I can't get my microphone to work. So thanks for being so. It was good.

Yeah.

Oh, I've been a fan of yours forever. And your work and you just. The things you do to make the world a better place and the way you make great masterworks so digestible and accessible to everybody. I mean, I don't know if you have a fan club, but I would. I'd nominate myself for vice president, at least of that fan club. So it's. It's. This was. This was a crushing moment. The one day I wanted to show up for somebody that I really love and admire. I had a technical problem, so I. I did everything but smash my own computer to bring it back up, and apparently I. I resuscitated it. So, anyway, now I've disrupted everything. Thank you for letting me even come back in the room, Brian.

Oh, my goodness.

Give me a starting place. You know, how can I be helpful and somehow make up for all the disruption I've already caused? This great meeting today. It's. Help me get me started somewhere. What can I do to add some kind of value to Jim?

I'll tell you what. I had no idea. I remember you commented on a YouTube video. I'm like, that's really cool. We got Jim, you know, years.

Oh, my gosh. Yeah. No, no. If you go all the way back when you used to keep records on pencil and paper or whatever it was, you'll find that I was one of the first subscribers to Philosopher's Notes. And. And I won't bore you to tears, but, I mean, I've really been looking forward to today. You know, you and I haven't really had a chance to meet in a. In a. In a big way anyway, and. And I wanted to do a great job for you today, and maybe I still have a chance. I don't know. But help me get started.

This is.

This is all time Top Masters chat right here, right now. We're practicing our philosophy, and I need to make sure that we're connected. We'll have the team if you're up for text buddying up. I can't wait to connect offline and.

Sure. Oh, it'd be an honor. It'd be an honor. Absolutely.

Means a lot to me. Wow. All right. That's how it's done. Making my day. Well, let's. Let's just step back. Let's hear more about you. So I want to get into the 4 dx, but I'd also love here, you know, the theme with these, as you know, but to frame it up real quick, Heroic chats with Masters. So the first person I had on was my beloved coach, Phil Stutz. The second person I had on was John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods, two of my biggest inspirations and mentors. And I've just been having these chats where I want to talk about your philosophy and the 40x and all these things, but I want to hear more about you and your hero's journey and Kind of who you are and what got you to this point. And ideally, we'd hear a thing or two about the dragons you face, the challenges you faced, and how you got to a point where you're here with us today.

Oh, my gosh. Well, thanks for starting with a softball. I'm not sure everybody on this broadcast wants to hear all of that. If you just look at my age, Brian, you would think that's going to be a long story, but I think maybe I can net it down into some ways that are meaningful, and I'll start in a particular way, if you don't mind. I have. I'm working on a book of my own now, outside of the Franklin Covey organization. So I've got this idea in my head, and I want to lay it out and see if it works as my own framework. So, Brian, I really have come to believe after all this time and all the things that I've done in my career, that there are really three significant stages to the life of any person who is seeking to have an impact. And by the way, if you don't agree with this, I would love to hear your version, because I'm still in the business of trying to learn from a lot of smart people, and I. I have no doubt I'm looking at a lot of smart people right now. But here's the way I think about it. There's a first stage of life that's kind of the stage of achievement. And, you know, in that stage, when I was the age of many of you, you know, you work really hard, you do everything you can. You read all the books, you put in, the long hours, you. You do the extra work. You know, you just try to make everything happen. But your primary focus is to demonstrate what I am capable of doing. Right. So. So the very first stage of life, if you don't mind me speaking like an older guy, which I. Brian, I. I clearly am the oldest person on this broadcast. I've gotta. I've gotta talk to you about your demographic.

The.

By the way, I'll be 70 in a couple of days, so how nice for that. But. But first thing. Yeah, how about. Right. And I went to CrossFit this morning, and, you know, I'm still doing all the things, but. But back to this to see if this is helpful to anybody. So stage one of life is just personal achievement. You just do everything you can, you grow as fast as you can, you learn everything you can, and most of your energy is directed toward demonstrating what you are capable of doing. You Know, it's a great stage of life, and the, the fire in the furnace burns very hot in stage one, right? But then you come to stage two, and stage two is when the world sort of flips on its head because now what you can do as an individual is not so highly valued. What's really valued in stage two is what you can get done other people. And, and I don't know if anybody here can relate to this, if you can, you know, maybe nod your head or something. But let me tell you, this is not a happy passage, this Rubicon from, you know, I was the star athlete to now I need to be the star coach. And by the way, everything that got me here won't take me into this new arena. What do you mean? You don't want me to solve the problem myself? You want me to teach other people how to solve the problem? What is this? You know, I made my whole career on being the person who could solve the problem. What are you talking about? This is a, this is a terrible passage for most people in the beginning because it's, it just upends everything you thought was the key to success. Now the things you can do as an individual are not so highly valued because everybody wants to say, well, what can you do now through others? How can you lift up others? How can you teach others? How can you empower others? Can you. You know, the classic business word for this is scalability. You know, as a unit of one, maybe Jim was pretty good, but how is Jim? How's 2.0, Jim? Is it scalable? You know, and, and for some of us, it isn't. For some of us not. But it requires this huge shift. But what happens to me in that shift? And, and Brian, I, I say this, I believe this with all my heart, but I say it with the humility that somebody on this very broadcast may have a better idea than me, for goodness sakes. But what really happens then is you genuinely care about those people you're trying to get things done through. So you have not only a crisis of technique, individual to scalability, you also have a crisis of the heart, you know, because two ways to get people to do things right. You can have compliance, you can tell people what to do, and you can make them feel afraid that if they don't do it, you'll fire them. And, you know, you pretty much get a low level of performance, but you get a solid reaction if you build a culture of fear and you do it that way. But if you do it the other way, you try to build a culture of commitment where people know that you care about them and you've got their back and they've got your back, and we're all in this together, then that's a whole different level of that kind of scalability. So you may pass, you may fail at this part of it, you know, or you may. If you don't like the word fail, maybe. What's that thing about you either you either succeed or you learn? Maybe that's a way, a positive way.

Winner, learn, baby. But you learn, right?

Yeah, And I'm all about that. Done plenty of both in my life. But that's phase two. What are you scalable? What can you do through other people? And then there's a third phase, and I'll tell you, just about the time you think you've mastered phase two, the. The phase of scalability, the. The phase of significance, in a sense, here comes another passage. You have to go into stage three, and stage three is, what have you. What can you do that will outlast you? What can you do that will live on when you're not here? What can you do? What can you build in such a way that. Jim, if we pluck you out of the organization unexpectedly one day, everything would pretty much carry on exactly the way we want it to, right? Because it turns out that people who succeed in phase two, building for scale, aren't always happy at building for legacy. Legacy is. Is what we really need to be after. But legacy is that part where we have to work hard to make ourselves unnecessary by strengthening the people around us to such a degree that, you know, one day they'll say, hey, boss, we. We got this. How about you go find something else to do, you know, because we're all pretty good at the stuff you're, you know, you can let that go now. We got it, you know, and then, you know, as a person, you're like, oh, wow, now how do I add value? So this is my idea, Brian, that I'm working with these days. Phase one, two, and three, individual achievement to scalability to legacy, those three phases. And here I am, over in the legacy phase for sure, right? I mean, unless I'm going to live to be 140, I'm over in the legacy phase of this whole thing. And my own career mirrored that journey. And I'm trying really hard. You know, I can tell a long story, and I don't want to do that to you guys today. I just want to make it meaningful, Brian. But I. But my own life kind of mirrors These three stages. You know, I started out in it and when, when there were no personal computers, they hadn't been invented yet. You know, there were all those old guy stories. I have all those stories, punched cards and everything. And I made it all the way up through the ranks to be a CIO of two multibillion dollar global corporations. So I, I kind of went about as far as I could on the, on the IT track of my life. I couldn't get hired as a programmer today. It's so long ago, but I, but I did have a good, you know, 12, 14 year span where I made it up through those ranks, and I learned a lot about leadership and about technology. But then I had this opportunity to go be CEO of a technology company. So kind of the pinnacle of that phase was to say, can you take what you did in IT and can you do it on a broader scale, kind of like a version of phase two? So I had a chance to join a wonderful company in Atlanta, and I was their CEO for 11 years. And we had a great run. We had over 400% cumulative growth across 11 years. But four times in a row, we were named one of the 25 best companies to work for in America, which is my, really, my proudest accomplishment of that whole time. And I had that whole, that whole journey. If you've. I don't know if I'm doing a good job or not, Brian, but if you take that whole segment that I just gave you, you might think, as most of the people who knew me thought, that I was kind of riding a wave. You know, I mean, I was CEO of a really successful company, and I occasionally was on an Atlanta magazine cover or something. I interviewed by people like Brian Johnson sometimes, you know, and I, And I really felt like, what a moment. You know, I think a lot of people would have said, what else would you ask for? But nine years into that CEO journey, which was 11 years, so nine years in, something shifted. And I really felt this calling. I don't. I wish I knew better language. If any of you, if this language is a little too prosaic, I hope it's not offensive to anybody. But all of a sudden being a CEO just wasn't. I didn't feel like it's what I was supposed to do anymore. I feel like it was time for a new chapter. But can I just be real vulnerable for a minute and say I didn't, I didn't want to turn the chapter? You know, I liked what I was doing. I sort of like the cachet of being a CEO, I certainly like to check. I cashed every one of them, you know, so, yeah, I was resisting it. And then here's one of the great lessons I would offer to you and beg you not to go through it. Just listen to my story and avoid it is I tried to hold the old chapter open while the new one was waiting to be birthed. I just tried to hold on, you know, So I felt this calling to be a teacher. I felt this calling to talk to people about things that really use whatever skills I had to write or to speak, to be influential, make a difference in that way. I didn't want to just have this predominant profit drive anymore. I really wanted to be one of those people like Steve Jobs said, you know, to leave a dent in the universe. But I tried to resist it really hard. And the more I resisted it, the more miserable I became. And, you know, for a little while I was writing a book, I was doing a few speeches on the side, still trying to run a big organization. And, and I think the last person to realize I wasn't doing a good job at multitasking was me. And so I came to a pinnacle moment, you know, where we're in a, in a good way. The board of directors that I work for said, hey, Jim, we love you, but you got to do one or the other. You can't do both. You know, we need a full time CEO. That should not be a surprise to you. And you seem to want to at least part time, do the, do all these other things. And what they gave me that day was a great gift, Bram, because they said, you just need to choose. Now, the universe had been saying, you need to choose for about two years. So I don't want to portray myself as this person who had it all together and saw all the signs and followed all the, you know, I, I was miserable, failure. I could just, you know, whatever forces in the universe there, there are that you believe in, they were all shaking their heads, saying, God, will this guy learn? You know, but finally I came to that moment where I had to choose, and, and so I did. And one of the things I think, you know, I, I have three things I'm really proud of, Brian. One, I've been married to the love of my life for 42 years and still going strong. And then two, I've raised two of the most remarkable human beings as my kids, who are all in their late 30s now, to go out into the world and do great things. And the third thing is I said yes to my Calling. I mean, that's number three on my life list as I said yes to the thing that was calling me. And I. So I left, you know, I left and walked away. And then to finish that story, which is already far too long, five days later, I got a call from Franklin Covey and Frank could come. He said, hey, we hear, we hear you might be available, you know, and. And I went. I drove over that afternoon because they were here in Atlanta, had a great meeting with them. And when the sun set that night, I was a member of Frank and Covey's team. And I mean, I tell you, if you ever, if you ever need to hear a story that when you say yes to the right thing, that's calling you, the universe responds. That's a story. I was, I was in between for five days and, and on the fifth day, I drove to that office and I left there as a member of the team at Franklin Covey. And that one shift in my life changed everything. And if I wind this up, which I'm sure Brian is ready for me to do, is I went on then to be 14 years. I was at Franklin Covey. I was the global managing consultant for all Franklin Covey worldwide. And I got to write two really fine books that I'm awfully proud of. The two books became number one worldwide bestsellers for two and a half years on Amazon. It was the number one best selling strategy book on Amazon. And now it's translated into 16 languages and available in a second edition. And still one of the proudest accomplishments of my life. But if I finish that story, and the only way there is to finish it, is to my great surprise, I came to another passage. I came to another point where I just thought. And I was. I never saw this coming. This is the end of this chapter. You know, in the south we say things weird, you know, Brian, like holy moly. But I said to myself, holy moly. I got to go through this again because the four disciplines in the role it had played in my life was, had reached its zenith. And my part in that long story, which continues to this day, my part was coming to a close in that story. And all. The only thing I can tell you that I'm not bragging about because I had to learn the lesson in such a hard way, is that this time I handled it better. This time I said, yes. I said yes, I will go. I don't know if I want to go, but I will go. I will reinvent myself one more time. I will accept a new focus. I will strike out boldly into a new arena. And at this point, I was 68 years old. So at 68, I said, I will. I'll step out here, I'll do this. Because I remembered the lessons from the last time, and this time I wanted to say yes, I wanted to do it right, you know, And I don't know if I'll ever get another chance. So I also was thinking this might be my last chance to get this right. So I got this right and. And I became a coach, you know, I really became a coach who helps people essentially define what their purpose in life is and then align their daily actions and their investments to be consistent with that purpose. And in two and a half years, I've taken more than a hundred people through my coaching process to find their purpose, get their life on fire. And. And it's been unquestionably the best chapter of my life where I went from regularly giving a speech to 10,000 people now working one on one. And sometimes I'm working with a CEO who has a big strategic problem. We're trying to figure that out. And sometimes we're working. I'm working with a person who's really successful at work and not successful at all at home and can't figure out how to bring the parts of their life together or needs to make a courageous decision or whatever it is. But this one on one, intimate, close work, I think, Brian, I know you're all gonna laugh. I say this, but I think this is what I was born to do. I just had to live 68 years of my life to find what I was really born to do. But everything did before this has prepared me for this role. So. So that's where I am today, still proudly an emissary of the four disciplines, still giving a speech or two here or there, but really channeling my life force now into helping people discover their purpose and then get their lives in alignment with it. Was that horribly too long? I think that's too long.

I'm sitting here saying to myself, if I ate popcorn, I'd just be grabbing the popcorn and just put myself on mute and listen to you all day long. Between your beautiful Georgia lilt and your humility and your incredible storytelling and wisdom, I'm seeing all the heads shake. Are you kidding me? Lucky us. Let's go.

Thank you so much.

We can talk about there. So I'm going to look down now. My iPad that I use to look at the camera there just blinked out. So now. Oh, good.

Thank goodness you had a technical Problem now I don't feel so bad.

Exactly. Right. Yeah, we're even. I was telling Jim when we were having the audio challenges, I feel great right now. Finally. It's not me running into the obstacles. It's usually. Bless you.

And do you mind if I just throw. I throw a thought in there because I saw somebody's chat. Is that all right, Brian? If I.

Can I be interactive, as I like to say. This is your show. You go, I'm gonna put myself on mute. You just.

You're so kind. You're so kind. Is he this kind all the time, or is he just being special today? He's like this all the time, right? He's like my hero. You know, I've been. I've been following him for, I don't know, more than a decade. So here I am today. But, you know, if I. If. If I wrapped that story, I hope in a way that made everybody might possibly have some effect, is you probably got some signs right now. You probably got some hints from the universe right now. You know, you read a book, you watched a movie, you heard a podcast. You're like, man, I. I'd like to do that. That's what I would. You know, and. And I don't know if you'll. If you're all. Any of you would take advice from a guy my age, I hope you would. But I would say, don't do what I did do. Say yes. Say yes to the thing that calls you. And I'm not saying leap off a cliff and try to build a parachute on the way down. I'm not. That's. That's crazy. You don't have to do that. But. But in an intelligent way, say yes. Say a little yes every single day. Follow that calling. Because then the signs just start coming from everywhere. You know, they're. They're all around you. The things that. That are there as compassionate guideposts to say, here's where you need to go. Here's what you need to do. Here's what you need to say yes to. And if you watch the things where your energy goes, I'll tell you, the things you love are not random. They are not. And if there's something you're doing, I don't care whether it's baking bread or giving a speech or helping kids or whatever lights you up. That's not random. That's not accidental. That's a clue. And if you follow those clues, in my own vernacular, I like to say joy is a valid compass. Follow the joy. Follow your Energy. Follow where it goes. You know, And I'm not saying be blind, you know, say, okay, no matter what, I'm going there. I'm not saying that at all. Be smart. Be intelligent. Have a plan, you know, But I am saying say yes to the thing that calls you and watch where your energy goes. Because the things that excite you truly are not random. They're there for a purpose. They're actually mileposts on a roadway trying to get you to the very place you actually want to go. But. But the people I coach, Brian, will often say to me, you mean I can just follow the energy of the things that bring me joy? Like, you've got to be kidding me. It can't be that simple. I'm like, well, I'm not saying it's easy, but it is simple. It is simple. Follow the energy. Follow where your joy goes. If you. If you're writing down anything that I'm saying today, I hope you're writing down. Joy is a valid compass. It took me two thirds of my life to learn that, and it really is. Yes, have a pro con list. Yes. Read all the books. Yes. Go through every philosopher's notes 23 times. Do it all. But remember that the real compass that will take you where you want to go is joy. And let joy be in the lead. Use your mind to serve where you're going, but let your heart speak up as well in terms of the GPS of how you guide your life. Anyway, I just felt really that that was an important thing for me to say for some reason. Brian. I hope that was all right.

Jim. I took myself off of mute simply to allow you to continue sharing your insanely great wisdom. So, you know, I'm a big fan of Joseph Campbell. I got him on my wall because I got my screen shared. But you know the idea. Follow your bliss as an ancient spiritual truth, as a jumping off new enlightenment. And again, with all the beautiful caveats with which you shared that, you know, yeah, there's the bliss, there's the grunt, there's all these things. But to have joy as a valid compass. What a beautiful frame. And everything you described with your own journey, the achievement, the scalability, the legacy.

Let's.

Let's do a. Let's do a philosopher's note before the book is out. What's our book called? And then let's continue to drill in here. Let's go deep on.

Oh, you're so kind. I will gladly talk about my book, which will be out till next.

So we have a working title before.

We leave that though, can we. Can I butcher a Joseph Campbell quote? Because I'm not smart enough to remember it word for word. But I want to. I just want to add into what you said because I have told lots of my clients that the Joseph Campbell quote that personifies my life is. Is his quote. And Brian, please help me. If I say this so badly, will you help fix it that sometimes you must give up the life you've created in order to have the life you were born for?

Yep.

I just got so emotional when I said that. I felt my. I felt my heart just fill up, which is that. That's that energy we're talking about. You know, that's. That's how you follow your. I just said something that would. Must have been really true for me. And then that. Look at the times I've had to do that. You know, I had to give up being a CIO to go to the next thing. I had to give up being a CEO in order to become teacher and a speaker, and I had to give up being a speaker and a little bit of a celebrity in order to become a powerful one on one coach. The other side of the giving up. You know, when you're on this side, all you see is everything. You're letting go of everybody. Is everybody with me on this? You know, the only thing you can think about is, well, I won't be able to do that. I won't be able to do that. I can't do this. I won't make as much money. But as soon as you cross the Rubicon and you get on the other side, there is nothing over there but joy. I mean, the universe is not out to trip you up. It's not. But we have to have some skin in the game. So when you cross that, if you feel you have this calling and you step forward in it, in other words, in Joseph Campbell's words, you give up the life. You've just finished creating this chapter. You're going to be scared. Of course you're going to be scared. It wouldn't be a hero's journey if you weren't scared, for goodness sakes, you know, but when you get on the other side, everything makes sense. Everything makes sense. And I don't know if any of you are fans of the Alchemist. My. One of my very favorite books, I even have these signed leather bound editions is how important this book is to me. And he says kind of the same thing. When a person begins to pursue their dreams, the whole universe conspires to help them. If you don't know the Alchemist, by the way, you should read that book. And I know Brian would back me up on that. But there's. That's the same thing he's saying, the same thing Joseph Campbell did. And so all I'm saying in my repetitive, Southern boring way is I. I would urge you, I get on my knees and beg you, pay attention to the signs and follow the ones that seem to be leading you somewhere. And don't be so scared, because it's all going to turn out great on the other side anyway. I'm probably going on too long, Brian.

So you can quit apologizing because I'm seeing the chat. I don't need to see the chat to know that. And by the way, I just learned how to read the chat, so, you know, the cool kids have been looking at the zoom on the side. I'm like, oh, shoot, that's really cool. Yes. I will hesitate from repeating myself. This is just so beautiful. Someone said I can listen to Jim talk for hours. Yeah, me too. We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, created, created, that is waiting for us. So this is. Again, you all know, we got Joseph Campbell companion. We've got a number of notes on Campbell. I literally just encouraged our ambassadors. Go back into, you know, Joseph Campbell. Watch, find Joe. Joe, Joe.

Awesome.

Yeah, please.

And then. And then if you don't. Did you mind me plugging the Alchemist a little bit, too?

Are you kidding me? I mean, whatever. We'll go to Quelo. So I've read, you know, one of the things that Campbell says is when you find an author who grabs you read everything they've written and everything they read. So I read. Yeah, goosebumps. Like, Paulo Coelho is one of the first authors that I read. Everything he wrote, just his beautiful style. His just passionate embrace of life and the hero's journey. Huge, huge fan of Paulo. If you haven't read the Alchemist yet, that's an absolute must read from my vantage point.

Thank you, Brian. Thank you, brother. I'm so glad you said that.

I'm putting myself back on mute. Continue. What else?

Oh, my gosh, no. You know, every time you talk, I wish I would shut up. That's how good you are.

They get to hear me talk all the time.

I have this fear that I'm never going to be invited back here because I've rambled around and not done the right job. But. But if you take the three things we just said, isn't that kind of interesting that. That Campbell says some version. Brian, you said it better. We. Sometimes we have to give up the life we planned in order to have the life we were born for. That's. That's directionally accurate. Go look up the real quote if you want to get. I can't remember exactly the word, but then Paulo Coelho says the almost the same thing. You know, he says, when you step out in the direction of your dreams, the whole universe comes in to conspires to help you. In other words, Dr. Covey used to say this thing about how many leadership books there were in the world and how many things in those leadership books were so similar. And isn't that a great truth? I mean, I read at least one leadership book every three weeks or something, or on purpose or something like that. And yeah, they all do say a lot of the same things. But Dr. Covey said to me once personally, he said, jim, the reason that's true is because we're all dipping our buckets in the same well. The people we're serving need a different message. And I thought, gosh, isn't that. No Wonder he was Dr. Covey, you know, isn't that a profound way that we are all dropping our buckets into the same well of wisdom and principle and timeless things that we know are true, but when we bring the bucket back up and we. We carry it out into our field of service, the people who we are giving the water to have different needs, and they need it in a different style in a different way. And that's why we need so many leadership books in the world. Even though when you read them, you say, oh, I've read all this before. Well, sure, but it's serving a different well. Maybe that's your version. Maybe. Maybe just hearing me say that is, you know, somebody sitting out there. You. I just know it. You've got this pull on your shirt, you know, like, need to write a book. You need to write. You know, it's like, come on, Jim, you know, please. And then you're. You're like me. You're over here like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe next year. I've got that in my plans for next year. You know, I can put a little more money in the bank. I want to get one more promotion in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You get to be on the other side. I promise you this. You will say, why did I not do this sooner? You know, my. My sweetheart loves to say, if not now, when. You know, I think you're going to have that Will you please remember that one day Brian brought this old guy on the broadcast and he said this. And then you're. You'll be there and you'll be. You know, that was right. Why didn't I start this two years ago? You know? But of course, no matter when you start, it's fine. It'll all turn out perfectly. The thing is to start to follow the. Follow where your energy is going and, and live a. Live a life that you, you know, that you, you didn't just visit the life you had. Don't. Don't be a person who just dropped in occasionally on the kind of life you really wanted. Be a person who lived the life you had. Brian, I heard this. Just this week. I heard someone say, I'll probably butcher this too. That one version of hell. Is it all right if I say hell on here? Sorry. One version of hell is the moment you die. You meet the person you could have been. Have you ever heard that?

So, Jim, that is actually the way that I get people to wake up to the reality that this isn't a dress rehearsal. So we actually. That is the first exercise I give.

Oh, my gosh.

In our basic training, which I also have a plus one on. I forget where I heard that.

But, you know, can you think of anything more haunting? I'm just telling you that haunts me, that idea that I'm gonna. One day somebody's gonna say to me, hey, Jim, welcome to wherever it is I end up after this life. And then to say, hey, by the way, you see that guy over there? And I'm probably going to go, yeah. Who is that? They're going to say, that's who. You could have been so scared. You hadn't been so tired if you hadn't. If you'd taken better care of yourself, you'd stayed on target. That's who you were supposed to be, buddy. That would be literally the worst moment I could ever imagine.

Right. Right at the way I love it. And I literally have people do a time traveling exercise. So there's so much, so many parallels here. Stephen Covey was the first book I read, 7 Habits. Raised in a conservative Catholic upbringing, as you may know, recruited by the old Arthur Andersen, went to a leadership event at 20 years old, was introduced to 7 Habits. Wow. I can proactively strive to create my own life virtue. This is amazing. And then when I did my first coaching 20 years ago, the first exercise that I had my clients go through was the eulogy exercise with his rocking chair exercise. And I've Adapted it to the quick trip to hell and then the eulogy exercise. But the way that I frame it is.

Oh, my God.

You. You imagine that moment, and I put them on their deathbed. So you're on your deathbed.

I like it better that way. Yeah.

In walk someone into the room, who the door opens and you immediately recognize that it's goosebumps.

You.

The version of you you could have been. Now the hell inserts itself because it's too late to do anything about it.

Yes. Yes.

Right at that moment, you can't do anything. So then by doing that negative visualization stoic style in feeling pain today, knowing that the greatest motivator is loss aversion. Right. Not a gain, but not failing in something, you can do something about it. So wait, this isn't a dress rehearsal. I. I love you. This is so great.

Good Lord. I was gonna say that. You expect me to follow what you just said? You. You literally think I'm gonna come in with my southern drawl and follow you? Come on.

Yes, I do.

That was brilliant.

I'm just following your shadow here. What are you talking about? I'm just keeping pace.

Hey, hero. Have you heard the news about Brian's book? Activate your heroic potential head to Heroic US Book to learn more and get your copy as well as check out exclusive content and bonuses. That's Heroic US Book. Now back to today's episode.

Gosh, so many ways I want to go here. I admire you for a lot of reasons. The fact that you have been with your beloved for 42 years. So I've got a target I hit every day. As you may know, we've distilled our app into helping you recommit to being your best self. Identity, virtues, behaviors. The very first target I hit every day, and I'll do it again in my mind, is recommitting to being with my wife for 51 years. So your 42 years deeply inspires me. I want to be best friends with my adult kids. Mine are 10 and 5. But your celebration of your. Your kids means a lot to me and just who you are, you know, and just your presence. And you're playful, humble, insanely wise in equally humble presence. Just amazing. Do you know Tom Morris?

I don't. The name sounds familiar.

You know, Dave Valente.

We'll.

We'll text Buddy up. I'm going to connect you with Tom Morris because I saw someone say you are my new uncle. Or can you be my uncle? Someone said in our chat to you, Jim.

Absolutely, absolutely.

Tom Morris, dual PhD from Yale. Philosophy, Religious studies. John Mackey told me I had to read everything he's written because he loved it. Anyway, professor at Notre Dame. He's got his own southern draw, I think from North Carolina. You two are brothers and my new uncles.

So I'm not sure I'm smart enough to hang out with either one of you. But I would love that connection. And thank you, brother. I'm so honored you'd even think of that and point me some direction. Tell me, what can I talk about that would be of some value to the amazing faces I'm looking at right now?

So we'll continue the discussion and then what's your outer time? I know we've already gone the hour.

I have no time. I have nothing this day that's more important than being on this broadcast. So it doesn't order. We can put on our pajamas, order pizza. We can go on into the evening.

I'm going to need to sit down at some point because I have now been officially standing for four hours. I said you should, you should sit down. Let's go. I'm earnest in. What's your book called? Do we have a word?

Yeah. Oh, I almost forgot. So you won't be surprised after you kind of heard me a little bit that, that I feel. I feel right now.

Wow.

I feel called to people who are going through the motions of their life. I feel called to them. They're my people. And they might have a good job and they might have a good career, and they might have a nice car and a big house and make money, and they might have a number of things which are all, by the way, quite honorable things to do. But inside. I have a client the other day, Brian, a coaching client, senior executive who came to me for his first session. And his opening line was, from the outside, I look great, but I'm hollowed out from the inside. I have not ever heard anything quite as dramatic as that. So those are my people. Those are the people who, who, who don't necessarily have a bad life. In fact, most of the time they have a great life, they have a good life, but they don't have that sense of. I know exactly what I'm here to do, and I am in the process of doing it. You know, they can have. They have. They have achievement but no significance, you know, and, and we, we've. We've all. I don't know. You all look so young to me, but, but every. Of course, everybody looks young to me now, Brian, but, you know, you've, you you get the difference. Probably even already that achievement runs out of gas. It just does. It's great when you're. It's great to get a big raise. It's great to have all the things that money can buy. And by the way, just so there's no confusion, I, I think money's awesome. I think you should all have all money you can earn, you know, and do good things with it and build a great life. And that's all great. But, but if I'm going to be your gray haired Gandalf today, I'm going to be the one saying there comes a point when success is not enough. You, you're going to start hungering for significance. You're going to say to yourself, is this really making any difference? You know, so I'm going to hit my, my quarterly goals one more time this year. Every quarter. I'm gonna, I'm gonna get one more promotion, I'm gonna get one more raise. I'm gonna get one more set of letters behind my name. I'm going to get a little bit bigger off the. I don't know or I'm gonna. Whatever your version of a little bit more is. There's a point where what used to satisfy you doesn't satisfy you anymore. It's not enough. But it's not that you're hungering for more achievement, it's that you're hungering for meaning you, you want it to matter. And, and I, I've always believed this. Brian, I'm gonna have to watch your face when I say this to see what your reaction is. But I believe the definition of midlife is the very day you realize you will not live forever. That's the midlife begins. Now, for some people, that day comes at 65, you know, and for some people, that day comes at 35. I don't know. But the moment you realize you don't have forever is when you start thinking differently. And somewhere around this idea of midlife is when this, this whole bigger question starts to come into people's minds of I've done some good things and I'm proud of what I've done and I'm certainly grateful for all the things I've had. But has it really mattered? Now? This is my new client who is 61, CEO of a big company. If I said the name, you would know the name of the company who says to me privately, in the confidentiality of our office, I'm hollowed out from the inside. And he said to me, I don't think anybody knows it. And that's where I, I got to be Gandalf and say, I'm so sorry to tell you this, but it's likely everybody knows the last person to know is you. Because nobody's that good of an actor, you know, nobody's that good to, to embody fulfillment when you're actually, as he said, hollowed out from the inside. So what? What? So what he and I started working on is really what my book is all about. So my title right now, Brian, is Find your fire, which should surprise anybody after that build up. Maybe it was too much of a build up, but find your fire and then, and then the subtitle is five critical practices for awakening your passion and deep purpose. And I'm just going to have five. I couldn't have four for obvious reasons because, you know, the Franklin Covey people would say, wait, that's too close. Okay, that was a joke. I think you might got that joke. But the. But I'm going to have five critical practices that are designed to awaken your passion and your sense of deep purpose. And you know, the, the book like that is so much like me, Brian. I'm. I'm really a narrow and deep guy. So I'm honestly not good at a lot of things. I just happen to be pretty good at a few things and that feels right to me. I can get better and better at the few things I think I have a chance of, in your words, kind of maybe mastering. I don't know if I'll ever get there, but that feels better to me. And then some people are. Some people are born to be adventurers and try new things all the time and in a constant state of discovery. And they're all great. The world needs all those kinds of people. But for me, I'm a narrow and deep guy to the point of tedium, honestly of. So I like having five things so I could really go deep on and try to give people some very practical ideas. I hope the book is very low on philosophy and very big on things to do. I don't know if any of you.

Philosophy, Jim, let's be fair. Philosophy, so good. Philosophy is moving from theory to practice. And now to the extent you're open to sharing your five critical practices, that was going to be my follow on question of. Okay, cool. What can we do specifically?

Again, we're all about, oh, I love that.

Yeah, to practice, to mastery together. So to the extent you're open to giving us the. Oh my gosh, come on, are you kidding?

I'm stunned. I'm stunned. I had no idea you would let me share that much of, of that. You had me. Hello brother. I'm glad to do it, you know, so, so let's just take this simple idea and, and by the way, just a small disclaimer over to the side and Brian, if this is not right, please edit it out. But, but I have been for the last two and a half years I have posted on LinkedIn and Instagram and Facebook every single day. I haven't missed a day in two and a half years. And every day I put out some micro dot of something I think might be helpful to somebody. I have yet to put out a self promoting post. God help me, I hope I can keep that record intact. You know, but some, there's, none of it is about come coach with me or come buy my thing or I don't, I don't care about any of that. I'm, I'm really, I'm really sending out, you know that old expression about put your throw your bread on the water and it will come back to you in many days. Another thing I've just butchered. But you get the idea. That's how I think of those. They're my, they're my little micro boats on the water of a thought, a good thought or an encouragement or a piece of wisdom or how to do something. So if you're interested in me at all, you can, you can find all that stuff for free every single day. And there's two or 300 of them out there on LinkedIn already over the last couple of years. But one of the things that's gotten the most, the reason I said all that is that one of the things that people seem to respond to the most is my idea about finding your purpose seems to be different than everybody else's. And I'm not saying that to be sizzling, you know, I, I just, I just get a lot of comments back about this is not how you do it. And, and I always tell my just a little bit that there's so many people who think they have the only way of, you know, finding your purpose. I don't know. But here's my way. First of all, I don't believe there is any finding your purpose. I don't believe that's the right language. Your purpose is not lost. You know, it's not like your car keys. It's not like hey honey, do you know, have you seen my purpose? I had it, I had it yesterday. It's over here somewhere. I might have left it in the bathroom. You know, I mean, the whole idea of finding your purpose is a false starting point. So. And of course, you're all free to believe whatever you want. Just. Thanks for allowing me to say it. The way I think of it, I don't think finding your purpose is the way to approach this. And I don't think it leads you anywhere. In fact, I think it leads. Don't, you know, people who are frustrated about this whole purpose thing and they're. And they're tired of trying to figure out what it is, and they're like. And everybody says something different. You know, that's part of that. Because you're starting from the wrong. You can't. You know, you'll never see a sunrise if you travel east or. I got that backwards, didn't I? Yeah. Travel west. You never travel west constantly. You never see a sunrise. So I think purpose is not something you find. I think purpose is something you build, and you build it like a rock wall. And if any of you are connected to me on LinkedIn, this is exact post I wrote yesterday. But I would like. If you give me three and a half minutes, I'll tell you my whole approach to this.

Jim. I am popcorn. You got 33 minutes. Let's go.

Okay. All right. Are you kind to everybody that comes on here?

Yeah. You make it especially easy to be. So true. Dude, let's go.

I'm having a great day. I don't know about all of you, so. So I want you to think of it like. Like a rock wall. So that every element is like a stone. And you lay that stone down, right? And when you lay it down, it's solid, it's on the ground, and you can put other stones on top of it. Excuse me. That's the metaphor I'd like you to hold so I can tell you a little bit about my approach to this subject. And I promise you it'll be different than probably anybody else's that you've heard. So the first stone you lay down is the stone I laid down in my CEO office at midnight in 2005 because I was incredibly unhappy. And I had everything everybody could ever think they might want materially in the world. And I was sitting there alone in my office at night, and I was so unhappy. And I realized that I didn't have the language I have today to describe it to you. I had poor language in those days, but I had a rough idea that this is not how life was supposed to be. Shows you what a genius I am. Yeah. And So I sat there in my office and I. And I sort of said to myself, well, when have you ever been happy, Jim? You know, can I give you a little clue? You know, if you're talking to yourself and you use your first name, that's a next level conversation. Isn't that true? It's like when your mom would call you by name, you know, so. So I literally sat there in my office and said, well, okay, when have you been happy, Jim? And I realized I didn't know the answer to that question. So Even though it's 10:30 at night, the cleaning crew is out in the office building, there's nobody there but me. And I'm not going home until I find some kind of answer to why I can have so much and be so unhappy. And the first question that came to me was, well, when have you been happy? So the very first exercise I ever did, and it wasn't even an exercise, it's a desperation plea for me, is I started making a list of all the times I could remember. And in this case, I'm speaking professionally because certainly marrying the love of my life and the birth of my children and all that would be in another category. But. But speaking professionally, I started to go backward in time making a list of when I had been happy. Now, there's a punchline coming to this, and I hope, I hope you're going to enjoy it because it certainly was a punchline for me. So I make this list, and I'm sitting there with, like 20 memories. Now, if you're going to do this exercise, the only thing I would, I would encourage you is don't be generic. Don't say, well, there was the fall of 1986. That won't help you. What I want you to do is to say, September 7th of 1986, I had a chance to present a paper to the board of directors on a critical topic, and it went incredibly well and everything was right and I lost all sense of time. And when it was over, I thought, man, I wish I could do this all the time. I wish this was my. My job. That that's the kind of moment I want you to remember. And you just make an inventory of your happiest moments, your peak moments. You might even say, you make that whole list now. Now, if. If the camera went off right now and you went and did this, you would, you would think I'm smarter than I really am, because that just making that list is a profoundly impactful thing to do. But on the list, then, once you have it you start to think about each individual moment. Now, if you have, if you have 20 of these, that's a workable number. If you have 50, first of all, God bless you. You don't even need to be on this broadcast today, probably. But, but if you have 50 of these, you may, that may be not workable. You may want to get the biggest 20. But 20 is kind of a number that you can work with, at least in the times I've done it. So, so you have this list of 20 things and then you start to ask yourself questions about those moments. So you say, what was I doing in that moment that made it a great moment? What, what was I, what was the activity that I was doing? What was the, you know, what was my focus? What was my energy investment in that moment? What was I doing in this, in these happy moments? And you note that down for each moment. What was I doing writing, speaking, teaching, creating, designing, curating, you know, building. What was I doing in that moment that made me happy? And then the second question is, who was I doing it with? And the third question is, what was I doing it for? In other words, what, what impact did I really want to have? So I'm going to, I want to say those questions again because I'm doing it fast and I might not have done it well. What are my moments? What are my, what's my inventory of the best moments professionally I can ever remember? Let me get a list of them. Now I want to ask myself the question of what was I doing in that moment? And a sideline to that is maybe what strength was I using? What talent was I using? Which of my gifts that I've been given was I using? So, so the, it's a what question. What was I doing in that moment that played such a part in it being one of my best moments ever? And the second question, and I'm going to say it in my Southern way, I'm always so self conscious of, I hope it comes across the right way. But the language that works for me is to say, who was I serving in that moment, who was I helping? In other words, who are my people? You know, who are the people I'm drawn to, to use my gifts for? So if the first part is what, what was I doing? And that includes my gifts, the second one is, the second one is really the humility question. You know, we're not architecting a life that's all about me. We're architecting a life where one day I can say I have a life. Well, Spent. I did what I came here to do. I'm, you know, I made a difference in the world. We're trying to architecture a life that brings us that. So the second one was, who was I? Who was I serving? Who was I drawn to? And the people I work with now, it's amazing, you know, sometimes they're drawn to midlifers. Sometimes they're drawn to kids in troubled situations. Sometimes they're drawn to go to other countries and other places. When they get deep in their heart, they find out there's all kinds of stuff down there that's just been waiting to be unlocked, you know, and you never knew. You know, one of my clients said the other day, who really feels called to go over to Africa, where I've been eight or ten times? And. And we were just talking about that kind of feeling. And she said, every time I see a movie that's about people in Africa, I cry, and I don't know why I cry. Why do I cry? Well, we got to the place where we both said, you know, that's the part of you that's locked in a prison of your own making. It's. It's down there. It's just crying because it can't get out. So it sends you up a burst of emotion to say, hey, I'm down here. You know, now other people will have this if they're writing something or if they're speaking or if they're, you know, baking bread. I mean that. But you've got to look for where that energy is. So that. That's really the second part, and that's the humility question. Who am I called to serve? And then the third question is the legacy question. How do I want to be remembered? What impact do I want to have? And this is back to. You know, Brian and I are both students of Dr. Covey, and he was really the originator in my mind of this idea of. Of what do you want people to say when you're gone? You know, when it's too late to do anything about it? It's a powerful idea. I have my 2023 version of that. Brian, with great humility, who. Who wants to paraphrase Stephen Covey of saying, how do you want to be remembered? Because someday some people are going to stand around, you know, at a. At a break room or a lunch or something, and they're going to say, hey, do you remember Sarah?

What do you.

I remember. She was so great. Every time I had a problem, I brought it to Brian. He would help me with it.

Do you remember that?

Do you remember how patient he was? You know? Well, well, what about Barnabas? Whatever. Every time I brought Barnabas a problem or a question, I asked him to help me. He would, he'd say, sure, I've got time for you. I'll make time for you all the time. I worked for Kimmy, she was such a great boss and she was always committed to helping man, helping me grow. And she never made me feel like I was competing with her. She was like she was here to help me, you know, I mean, I could go all day on this, just giving you sound bites to illustrate. But when I do those sound bites, don't you feel something? I mean, I do. And I put him right. Now I feel like, like, man, I hope somebody can say that about me. So, so, Brian, my 2023 version is, I like this idea of how do you want to be remembered? And if we're all having a big, you know, Irish pub gathering when I'm gone one day, maybe one of you would say, you know what? This is wild. I was on this broadcast once and Jim was on there and he really talked too much and he, he used too many words and he was long winded. But he did say this one thing and it really helped me, you know, well, okay, that's how I want to be remembered. So that's the third part now. Now let's go back. Middle aged guy sitting in his office, midnight, by now with these yellow legal pages all over the desk. Of all these things that I'm now remembering, and I'm remembering why they mattered, and I'm remembering what I was doing, and I'm remembering how I felt when I was doing it. And I had 20 happy moments in my career at that point. Now this is 2005, so it's a little while ago. I had 20 happy moments. Would anybody be willing to take a guess how many of those moments were as a CEO? You may hold up your appropriate finger. Yes. Yeah, I mean, it is. It is. This is hand to heart and this is not a good story about me, but I had not one happy moment as a CEO on this level. That's not saying I didn't have good days, and that's not saying I didn't love some people that I worked with and valued what they did. And it doesn't mean I wasn't proud of the company or anything. I don't want you to take any wrong messages. I just want you to take the one core message that when I looked back across what Was at that moment, about 20 years of my life. Not one of those moments was as a CEO. Guess what eight of the 20 moments were? I was speaking. I was speaking to people about something I believed in, that I was passionate about, that I thought would help them. Seven of the moments I was writing something. I was writing a. I had for years and years. I had a nationally syndicated magazine column called the Business of Life. And some of my moments were about writing those articles and getting people to come back and say, you know, wow, this article really helped me. So in other words, out of the 20, 15 of them I was speaking or writing. So if I tell you that part of the story and, and is it any surprise that when presented with a yes or no, an AB option from the board of directors, you know, be a CEO or be a speaker writer, do you think I had a moment's hesitation? I know I had a little fear, but I had no hesitation. In fact, I came and do you know the funny story? I still have those yellow legal pages today. I have them right here in my office. I'll never. They should be in the Smithsonian, I suppose, you know, but. But I. I was so alive with my sense of what I was here to do. And it had come from that inventory and those questions that when the, when the threshold moment came, I wasn't so scared. Now I was a little scared. I'm not trying to. I don't want you to have a false story. But I wasn't. I wasn't all that scared. I had. I had more pull than I had push, you know, I had more desire to move forward than I had reluctance to just hang in there and stay the same. And so I did on that night. You know, I made that decision. And then now you know the rest of the story. Frank. Five days later, Frank and Covey and. And now that's a whole chapter of my life. And all that led me to somehow get to know a really important person named Brian Johnson and end up on a. On a webcast today. So. So those are my. That's my way of going at it. Remember those moments. Investigate those moments like you're. Like your life depended on them. Get a sense of what. What it was about those moments that made them good. But get a sense of who you were serving, what you were there to do, and then distill all that down into, now, how do I want to be remembered? That's my simple little recipe. I've. Now, I think I said this already, didn't I? Brian, I've got almost 200 people in the last two years. I've taken through that very process step by step. And. And many of them are out there right now just pursuing their dreams and living the life they were born to live. And. And, you know, it's a funny thing. You get to the end and you. This phrase is often so misused. But. But, you know, this idea of, is it possible to live with no regrets? Well, if you don't mind, Brian, I'll just say a word about that. I hope it's all right with you. The. I'm not sure it's possible to live a life where you would say, there's not a single thing I would do better if I could do it over again. I'm not sure I believe people who say that, you know, or I want to say, what, did you just sit in a closet for 40 years? You know, I don't know. What did you do? You know, how can you do that? So I don't. I don't ever say that I want to have a life of no regrets. I don't think I can do it. I don't think I'd be capable of it. But I do think it's possible to do this. I. I lived a life where I ultimately said yes to the things that mattered most. I think that's my version of no regrets. So. So when I stand there one day and I look at that version of Jim, who. Who is. Has a trimmer waist than I do, is more, you know, is a smarter, sharper guy, all the things I could have been if I'd tried harder. The one thing I'm not going to look over there and say, oh, my gosh, there's a guy that said yes, and I'm this guy that said no. That's not going to be part of my story, because I'm going to look at him and say, hey, hey. You and me, buddy. We did it, didn't we? We said yes. We walked toward joy, even though we were scared, you know, we had the courage to try to move in the direction that the universe seemed to be nudging us toward. I'm going to look at that guy, and that part of me is not going to be missing that part now. There will be other parts. You know, should have stayed on his nutrition plan better. Should have done all those things. There'll be plenty of those, but that part won't be. Never pursued his dreams. Was too afraid to answer. The calling that was on his life was we didn't believe in himself enough to even Take a shot that I won't see that. So that's my version of a life with no God. I'm so emotional. I've just got tears running down my face. That's my version of a life of no regrets. I said yes to the things that called me. Even if you want to say, I ultimately said yes because the universe is going to say, jim, we had to call you 19 times before you answered, you know, But I ultimately said yes. Yeah. Walk towards joy. Even when you're scared. Even when you're scared. On the other side of fear is. Is often the most beautiful thing that you've wanted all your life. And it's. And you just had to put a little skin in the game to be able to have it. And the skin in the game was you had to take a step forward. You know, I mean, I, I had to say, I'm going to choose. I'm going to choose door number two to my board of directors. And then they very kindly said, well, today's your last day. And so that was not a bad thing, you know, that was like, get out of jail free. And I'm in the car calling my wife, saying, well, honey, we're starting a new chapter this week. And of course, you know, thank God I was married to somebody who, who said, it's about time. They were all. My whole family was so happy for me when that moment came. But. But I. If I hadn't done that exercise, I wouldn't have been ready for that moment. I guess that's my long winded point. The exercise got me ready, got my mind in the right place, got me clear about what mattered to me, and I was really starting to have that legacy feeling, too. Like, how much time do I have left? You know? And so all that coming together, that's. See, when you asked me a question, Brian, about. Tell us a little bit about your story, you end up being sorry you asked that question, don't you? Because an hour and a half later.

We'Re like, yeah, I'm reading the chats, Jim. My God, this is the best heroic chats with Masters ever. So I'm, you know, I talk all morning. I just get to sit here and soak you up with everyone. This is unbelievable.

Awesome. Happy moment for me.

Yeah, well, a shared happy moment. Five critical practices. Was that the first one? The practice of doing it, or was that. Yeah, that's so good. I seriously cannot wait.

Did you hear the.

In his voice, though, everybody? I heard it. Did you, like, is that. That's the first One.

No, no, in. In the sense of not. Not that. I can't believe that you just went off on that, but. Oh, my God, there's four more doors we get to open here.

Yeah, yeah.

Four more rings here.

Jim, you're so kind. I appreciate. Thank you for, you know. Thank you. I. I can't wait. You know, I feel like I want to get this down on paper so that, you know, that legacy idea. I'll be gone one day, you know, sooner than any of you. I'll be gone. And, And. And I'm leaving some things behind. I'm leaving a trail behind me that somebody else can follow if they want and then make it better, you know, find a better trail. I'm sure. I'm sure somebody will say, oh, my gosh, he missed number six and seven. He'd only wrote about five. That'll be true, you know, but at least I got the five down on paper. That's. That's really how I feel about it now.

Unbelievable. So then I would love to allow you to connect with an individual or two in our community, if you're up for it and if anyone wants.

Are you kidding? Really? Yeah.

Cool. Let's go. Yeah, we often. Great interactions and again, we could pull those threads and go through the other four, which.

Oh, no, no. We should have done this a long time ago. I would have loved this. Please, please, let's do this.

Let's. Let's go. So if anyone wants to connect with Jim and ask him a question, raise.

Your hand, fire away.

And yeah, again, so good. Charlie, good to see you.

Hey, Charlie.

Okay, I'm very nervous because it's my first time actually speaking on heroic.

Me too. I'm nervous.

Too monumental. But I. I work in the IT cyber security field. So like, Nice.

Said your story.

I was like, oh, my God, that's the path I'm on.

Right?

Because like, yeah, yeah, I want to be a cto.

There's.

There's certain beautiful name right now. And like, I want to be a sales, you know, a solutions architect, and then be there like helping the C level stuff. But I'm like, absolutely. Am I on the right path now? Now you got me questioning, but I have a prior military background. Right.

Retired.

Nice. Nice.

Always gotten fulfillment from helping others. And I've always attracted people into my life that are just like, looking for stuff. And so I'm always clawing at the bits, looking for this knowledge of wisdom, not for me, but to pass on to others.

Yeah, I love it.

You know, I love how Brian always Says with, with the Buddha that life is suffering. And it's like, dude, what can I do to reduce just the overall suffering?

Exactly, exactly.

And that I connect through in life.

Yeah, yeah.

So to hear you say this, it's like, it's things I've been thinking, but now you're like, you're speaking.

That's right. That's right. And I can't give you this one thought. Charlie, I just love, I love your authenticity, man. It just, it just leaps out of you when you start talking. I don't know, you, you should not be nervous because you, you're natural. But, but to offer everybody two thoughts about this, and I do talk about this with a lot of people. I think it's important, especially when somebody like me tells a story from the Legacy place. You know, Remember I was in your place at one point and I had the mortgage and the car payment and the kids and you know, I had all the stuff. So I haven't always been in the Legacy place, but sometimes I. I talk too much about that part. So let me. You've given me a chance to come back where you are. But two things that come to my mind really. Well, first of all, I believe this with my whole heart. Every job is a privilege. If you can do it from your heart. Every job is a privilege. Every job is honorable. You can do it from your heart. So. So if you're drawn to technology, which I was, man, oh man, I was, I was in love with all that stuff, you know? Yeah. But the key is can I find the heart in what I'm doing? So can I, Can I be a technologist? Be a world class? Goodness knows, we all need help and we all need people to pave the future for even what's now. Look, a guy. I'm 70 years old. I'm trying to learn chat GPT. We know right now we need, we need people like you who, who clear the path for us going forward. So technology is an honorable, wonderful field, but I would, I would only add in as your. Your Gandalf influence for the day and you find a way to do it from your heart. Can you. Can you find a way to be a technologist who uses his ability in service to others and greater causes? Can you. Can you find a way to deploy the things you know how to do that only you can do in a way that helps this, make this world a better place? You know? So in other words, every job can be a privilege if we do it from our hearts and if it is your calling. I Would say, stay with that, so long as you still got your heart in it. And then remember what happened to me, you know, midnight in 2005. I loved being a CEO for nine years, but for the last two years of that time, I didn't. My heart wasn't in it anymore. So if you come to a place where your heart's not in it, then that's a moment to start asking some really good questions. But nothing any more or less honorable in the world than being a technologist at the moment. Does that make sense the way I'm saying it, Charlie?

Yeah.

Yeah, I. I actually, I've experienced all that in my. In my 20 years in the service. I did go through all the three phases you were talking about, right? You're building, you know, serving.

And then.

And then it's like, okay, I gotta pass it on to these guys, these young guys, 17, 18, 19, reaching them. And then finally, I wasn't getting fulfillment for other reasons, right? I wanted to get into field that I'm in now looks like, oh, shoot, am I getting another hump? Like, am I gonna hit these waves?

Yes. And then now you. Now you get on with this old guy who says, oh, get ready, buddy, because you can have three or four of these big cycles, you know, Right?

Ride the wave.

And I don't know if I've said it well, but I hope I have in a sense that if I. I think sometimes we don't have answers because we don't ask. You know, it's an old saying. I'm not trying to quote an old saying, but I'm really telling you I think this is a truth. And what happened to me that night in 2005 was I really started asking with some urgency, you know, why am I so unhappy? Why was I happy a year ago? I'm not happy now. What am I supposed to be doing? All those questions I started asking in a. In a deep way. And then the. Charlie, the crazy thing was the minute I started asking, I started getting answers, but the answers weren't going to fall down from the sky and smash me in the head. You know, I had to ask, I had to want those answers. And that's where I got myself to. And be smarter than me. Get yourself there faster and less painfully than I did. But get to that place where you're saying, what am I supposed to be doing? Is this what I'm meant to be doing? And if not, I hope it's all right with everybody. I say it this way. Show me a sign. Show me. Give Me, there's signs everywhere. Give me a nudge one place or the other. Ask for help and help will come. If you ever find that you have questions about a life in it, but a life of greatness and service and impact, you can do all that in the one thing for sure.

Yeah.

I appreciate it.

Thank you, buddy. Yeah. Thank you. Hey, both my son and my grandson are active duty guys now, so I have great, great respect for your service as well. Thank you, brother. Thank you.

Amen.

Thank you, Brian.

Yeah. Bless you. Great, great stuff, Charlie and Jim. And just last week, by the way, Jim, we had a woman named Lisa Miller who is the world's leading scholar on the science of spirituality, in which we talked about synchronicities and there's the science. I mean, just, you know, forgetting where she is. Columbia. Super. Just amazing. She wrote a book called the Awakened Brain. When we connect. I'll send you the note.

Oh, please. Smarter just from knowing you today, Brian.

The feeling is mutual. Hey, what's good?

Do you mind if I just add one quick thing? I'll feel better if you'll let me say it real fast, is that, you know, it's never. It's never my intention to impose any system of belief on anybody. That's not my job. I'm not even qualified for that job, so. But I. When I get passionate, I tend to talk about things in the way I experience them. But I'm just asking everybody, please extend me the some grace, if you will, that I'm not saying you should believe the same way I do or that I hold any particular system of thought that I'm trying to impose on you. I'm really not. I'm really just using the only vocabulary I have to express some things that are hard to put into words sometimes.

So anyway, Jim, you're a humble human being. You do not need to qualify your. Your wisdom any further. But I do appreciate the humility with which you do. So we are 100 aligned, and you are just a good soul.

Thank you, David.

I would love to connect with you. Been enjoying your presence here today, and I'm not sure if we've had a chance to connect yet in one of these sessions. And I just had my third costume change of the day, by the way. I started out in a great T shirt. Swept out of that because I just got off the trail. Put on the black T shirt. This is the fourth black T shirt. Hello, Our swag shop here, so this is ridiculous. We're ready for you now, David. Now that the AC has officially Frozen me out.

Well, I appreciate your providing us this platform and for Jim to. To shine the way he has today.

So thank you.

Bless you both. And Jim, is your birthday in two days? May 13.

Mine. Mine is in November.

Oh, yeah, I heard about your birthday in a couple days.

Never mind. Oh, no, no, no. So I'm just rolling into that. That big seven zero.

So forget that. Okay, well, so you've touched me on a lot of different ways. Some of the things you said in building your purpose. And then I wanted to maybe have you discuss. If you could touch on. You mentioned earlier, hearing your calling, when you start to hear your calling and then building your wall of purpose, like this transition that might occur and you should just say signed, ask for help. Which was a big crux of, you know, the answer already, which happened after I wrote the question, but maybe touched.

A little bit more on.

Oh gosh, David, I'd be honored to do it. Yeah, I'd be honored to do that. You know, the. Because I'm a Southerner, because all my grandfather and great grandfathers were all Irish, I have this way of speaking I can't seem to break out of. So sorry if it's a little prosaic, if calling is a prosaic word for anybody, I don't know, but it means something to me, you know, but, but if I, if I, if I looped back to something I said earlier, which I believe really strongly, David, is follow your joy. You know, where. Where do you feel lit up? Where do you, you see, other day I was asked to do something. I was asked to. I was asked to coach 26 entrepreneurial women who have all left their corporate jobs and are all starting their own businesses. And they formed a collective and they invited me to be, and get this now, to be the only guy in the program and for like six weeks to coach them on, you know, how do you found a business that will be what you want it to be because you know the stakes are high when it's your business, there's no boss to complain about anymore. Any of that.

You know, it's your.

So. So when I got asked to do that, I thought about the same idea of, Are you. Are you following? Are you drawn into the current of where your joy is? Do you light up? So when they asked me to do it, in fact, I was sitting at the exact desk I'm at right now, David, and the. I got off the call, you know, and I was like, oh my God, yes, I'll do that. Yes. Can we start tomorrow? I'LL do that tomorrow. You know, I mean, and it wasn't a pro con list. There was no algebra to it. You know, there was no, well, here's four good things about this opportunity. Here's three bad things, you know, click, click, click, click, click. Am I going to do it? Yes or no? I. I had none of that. I had. I would have. I would have exploded if I'd not said yes. I had so much energy, like a geyser that just came up, you know, And I don't know if they realized it or not, or if they thought I was creepy or not. I don't know what. But I. But, I mean, I couldn't even contain myself. I was. And that was. That was, to me, was a megawatt. Yes, that was a divine. Don't screw this up, Jim. Say yes. You know, it was like a hundred million watt voltage of, yes, I'll do that. Oh, my gosh, what would I rather do than that? You know? And then I had the same experience a year ago when I was asked to come up with a little small system for a group of grade school kids that would be around the four disciplines. So. So you think about now. I've been spent my whole life speaking to executives and leaders and implementing the four disciplines around the world. And I got asked, can school children do the four disciplines? You know, and I had. David, I had the same experience. It was like, oh, heck yes, I'm working on that. That's awesome. You know, and then I'll have other things. Somebody might ask me to come and do something. I was. I'm not trying to name any names or, you know, brag about anything, but I was asked last month to join the board of directors of a company. You would know. And it was. And I've never been asked to join the board of a company before. It was a very prestigious thing, and I was honored to be asked. And. And if we're all just being real, it was a whole lot of money for not a lot of work either. I mean, it was. It was like there was nothing about this offer that was bad. Nothing. And I got the biggest no I've ever gotten in my life. I mean, it was like a rock hit my chest of, this is not for you, Jim. This is not for you. And everything in my brain, you know, that little voice in my brain. But what about the money? What about the thing, whatever. Then would that be great on, you know, put that on LinkedIn, you're gonna be able to tell everybody you're on a Board of directors. There's a little voice that won't shut up. You know, what about this? But it was like, it was like somebody hit me in the chest and said, that is not for you. Yeah. And so thank goodness I'm at the place I'm @ now, because 20 years ago, you know, Jim would have done his algebra and said, well, you know, I know I don't feel perfectly good about this, but I think I can learn to love it. Isn't that an awful phrase? I think I can learn, you know, which really just means I want the money and I'll figure everything else out. That's what that means. So. But thank goodness I said, I said no. And I know that was the right answer. So I'm, I'm you. I'm only using my little way of illustrating things to say, if we're watching, if joy is our compassion, if, if things that light us up becomes like the lighthouse on a hill for us, we can navigate toward joy and it won't lead us wrong. There's nobody out there trying to trick us. You know, it's only, it's, it's just trying to give us the opportunity to follow the breadcrumbs but have some skin in the game. So if we just, you know, keep, we just keep moving toward that, toward the things where you feel the energy, where you feel some joy. And by the way, you know, I'm a big fan of discipline and I love all that stuff. I go to CrossFit four days a week. I'm. I love discipline. I love the grind. I love, I love all that way of thinking. But I, I try really hard now to say to everybody that, that discipline, though, is not a substitute for joy. Discipline is a tool for implementing things that bring you joy, but it is not a substitute. And there's, you know, it's easy to get confused nowadays if you listen to every. I love the. I love, you know, you know, all these people, I don't. Shouldn't name their names, but, but they're influential, you know, get up at 3 o' clock in the morning and if you're serious, you know, I love all that, but I don't use it. I don't do it. Instead of joy, I follow joy first. And I use my discipline to enable me to execute on the things that take me toward joy, for sure. But joy is my compass, you know, or energy or using all these words, David, I hope to say the kind of the same thing. Does that, does that make sense? The way I said it, beyond.

It hit home and rang in me. And it's a. It's a good virtue to live by. Joy as a compass is just something that you're. You're right that that is the prompting we should follow into.

Joy.

So. And then quickly, just. I did make a film, those who Serve, I think this was brought up, you add, like, what is it that I'm serving? So I was taught earlier to serve those who serve. So I love.

That. I love.

That. I love that, brother. I can feel that coming from you. I can feel it. And, and you know, the thing if not trying to, not trying to tell everybody how to be, but, but if you can feel when you're with a person whose life is all about them, you can feel it, can't you? You don't have to be psychic. You're. They're the big actor and you're the little bit player in the movie of their life. You have this small part to play. You can just feel it when you're with them. Right? But. No, but they act like they're all about you, you know, in other words, they've learned the technique of appearing to be a person of service, but they don't have the heart of a person who lives in service, which you seem to have. And, and if, if this touches anybody, I tell you, this is, this is the way to live is to say, what makes me want to help that person, what makes me. Who am I drawn to? What talents do I have that I can donate or help or, or use in my work? You know, to, to help the, you know, help meet a need? I, I've heard people say, find what the world needs most and look for where that intersects with what you do best. And you've got a pretty simple formula for a great life. And I still think as a simple formula, that's a very. That's a very good one. And David, it just seems to shine right out of you all the.

Time. I'm going to quote Brian here. Goosebumps. I just got.

So. Jim, thank you again. You're welcome. I love you, brother. Let's all quote Brian Johnson every day. At least once a day. Let's quote him somewhere because what a. What a person, impact. What a guy of impact.

Man. I just quote you. I just quote you and other people I admire, Jim, but thank you, David. If I'm going to say anything that's worth quoting, it would be that. But I'll tell you what people wrote down in the chat, what I wrote down that is one of the coolest Distinctions of discipline vis a vis joy and connections of discipline and joy I've ever heard. I think you said, this may have been something you've said before. It might have been just totally.

Sponsored. It all runs together at some.

Point. But you said, you said discipline is the tool for implementing joy is how I wrote it.

Down. That's.

Right. Discipline is the tool for implementing joy. I mean, what a beautiful connection to quote.

You. Thank you, brother. I really mean that too, I think. I mean, gosh, I wrote two books on discipline. You know, I have to love the subject. But. But today, you know, that subject has a greater value because I see it as the. The implementation vehicle for a life of purpose and joy. It's how you get that done. Right? Because if you're. If you're full of purpose and joy, if you're sitting in a cave on top of a mountain and you're the most purpose filled, joy filled person in the world, but you're all alone in the cave on the mountain, you're probably not going to be remembered in any particular way that would let you think you made a difference. Right? So we need implementation. We need ways of taking what we feel and bringing it out into the world. And sometimes that requires discipline. Right. Discipline is a great thing, but it's just not the thing. It's not the compass that leads you somewhere. It's the thing that enables you to follow that compass. At least that's. That's how I see those.

Things. I hope that this is not to play with that for a moment. So the first thing we had our design team create for the app was our virtue compass. So for me, it's wisdom, which is kind of that. That sense of what the ultimate game is is how I frame it up. Right. So you showing up as your best self in service to something bigger than yourself, we need to start with that. Then you need to have the distance on the self Master is word we use in order to do it, along with these other virtues. But bless you, we are now almost two hours.

In. Oh.

God. I feel like. I feel like we need a part two. I feel like we got to figure out a time if you're up for it for coming.

Back. Are you kidding?

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. We're going to. We're going to close this thing up. I know we got hands up. And I'm going to celebrate myself for setting a record for six hours straight of standing. We're going to wrap this one up. Jim, I appreciate you. I am so happy that we went where we went in that we talked about the work that is so alive for you and I am just. I am now your biggest fan. I appreciate in the intellectual and analytical and practical framework but I've really fallen in love with you and who you are. As I know basically everyone here. I think I can speak on behalf. So bless you. I cannot wait to become text buddies. I cannot wait become your nephew, my uncle Jim. I look forward to.

Celebrating. I love that brother. I love that. Can I say. Can I throw one small thing out as a way of saying goodbye is since I can't wait for that next thing. If I interrupted you, I didn't mean to. Did I. Did I step on.

You? This is your show. I'm gonna make a request. Sorry. After you share what you share here. If you can give us like a moment of stillness. I've had many of our masters kind of just bring us through your own.

Guided. I'll do it. I. I have a way that I do that. I have a personal technique that I would love to give you and I almost never feel free enough to share it with anybody. So I'll you what an invitation. But if I can say this really quick so one anybody who feels incomplete today, if I. If I raised your expectation and I didn't deliver on it, I'd love to finish the job. And all you got to do is just connect with me. I'm on every platform there is and it's all the same name. J I M H U L I N G J I M H U L I N G Jim Hewling and it Instagram, LinkedIn, everything, it's the same name. It's the only way I can remember it is to keep it the same on everything. So I invite you to connect with me so we can keep our conversation going. And, and you know, and then if I, if I, if I raised a question in your mind but didn't get to answer it in the words today, ask me the question on, on a direct message on any of those platforms and I'll. I'll promise you I will answer. I may not be instantaneous because I'm a little bit busy, but I will get back to you. I won't. I'll be faithful. If you ask me something, I'll answer it back to.

You. Jim, you are so good and I'm actually going to use this as an opportunity to share something I didn't in the midst of you sharing.

Before.

Before. So I don't know how much you know about what we're doing with heroic, but the basic vision is creating an answer to the social dilemma. So we're creating a social training platform. And as you were talking, you know, I'm the prototypical and principal guide as it currently exists. We've had 10,000 people go through our Heroic Coach program. They are guides for people in their community. But then there are people I admire, like you, who I see as guides. So I feel, and I'm so excited to create the platform through which you can help us transform as one of our principal guides. So I'm excited to talk to you more about that. But as you. Your other social profiles, I say yes to all of that. John Heroic. This is where we're going to deal with each.

Other. Thank.

You. Sorry if I interrupted you. No, you didn't give us the. The book ended, you know, connection to our best selves on the way.

Out. Well, you know, I'd say I can give you two things that I think about almost every day of my life. And the first one is this. If I believe with all my heart, if we become anything left than we are, than we were born to be, we may have a good life and we may do good things, but there will be a part of us that will always feel unfulfilled. Now, I really believe that. I don't. We might have a good life and we may have done good things, but we'll be, you know, in our quiet moments with a glass of wine on the back porch or whatever, we're going to have that. You know, there's something I was supposed to do, and I just. I've just not found it, you know, so if we become anything less than we were born to be, we may have a good life, we may do good work, but we will always have a part of us that will feel unfulfilled. And that's my loving nudge to do the work. You know, do the work, get out there and do it. And then. And then, last of all, I. A lot of the work I did for Franklin Covey, I did in Africa. I got to go to Africa probably a dozen times. And it was a shaping experience for me. I went to all the many different countries in Africa, but I came home with an African proverb that this very day symbolizes for me in the deepest possible way. I don't know if I'll deliver it well, but. But what I learned from my friends in Africa was this ancient proverb that says, if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. And today, God, I'm just so emotional you get. You gave me a chance to go far because I was able to be with such great people today. I just can't imagine the world all of you are going to create. So thank you. What a privilege.

Brian. Bless you and very beginning. You're a good one, man. Love you. Appreciate you and very much looking forward to continuing our dialogue via this context and all the others we're able to create together. I deeply appreciate you. Thank.

You. Yes, sir. Same here. Be well.

Everybody. Yeah. All right. My goodness. All right, Jim, catch on the other side team. I don't know how we get any better than that. Gev, I think you're here. Gav, are you here? And my apologies to those who did not get a chance to ask their question. We will definitely come back on the other side and see if we can pick them up. I don't know about you and if you kind of have reached your max, give me a sign of just visual hands. You want to have a chance to connect with one another after this, would you like Gavin to split you up? Well, we'll give you the choice. If there's only a few of you, that's a few of you. Gava, if you can, please do your thing and usher us to the connection and break through rooms. As Monica beautifully said, I really appreciate each of you who are here today for so long. And then many of you are here for the 2 hours and 45 minutes before the 2 hours here. I don't. I cannot put into words how much it means to me to be able to spend the day with you. And day one happens twice tomorrow. 10:01 and 1:01. Let's go. Heroes. Love you. Appreciate you. Here's to going.

Far. Hey, hero. We hope you enjoyed this heroic chat to learn more about this series as well as how you can join Brian's daily live coaching sessions at 1:01pm Central Time. Plus get access to a ton more to help you move from theory to practice to mastery and express the best, most heroic version of yourself. Head to Heroic us today and if you liked this episode, please leave a positive review and hit the subscribe button on your platform of choice. Have a fantastic.