Episode 111: Living “In Awe” with John O’Leary (Encore)

Welcome to the Unstoppable Profit podcast. Wherever you are today, if you're starting with nothing or are well on your way to the success you desire, with the right people, processes and promotions in place, you will be unstoppable. And now I'd like to introduce your host, Mike Stromso. Greetings. This is Mike Tromson coming to you live from the Living Agency Laboratory. And today is a special day. In fact, every day is a very special day. But in doing this podcast, I can't think of a more special day than the one today, because I have the incredible honor, the pleasure, deep, deep gratitude to have Mr. John O' Leary on the podcast today, a man who changed my life forever. And I'll share a little bit about that with you in just a moment. John, good afternoon. How are you, sir?

Mike, what a pleasure, man. I'm thrilled to be your friend. I'm thrilled to be back on your show.

Oh, no, no, thank you. And, you know, for everybody who doesn't know the whole story, I will tell it short in the short version. We had the opportunity to see John speak in 2014 at an event outside of our industry. And my teammate who I sitting next to, I said, if we ever have the opportunity to be able to bring that man to one of our events, we are going to do it. It does not matter the investment or anything else. That man, we know changes lives. And believe it or not, once we made that commitment, the very next year, John was with our Unstoppable Nation crowd in San Diego, California. And that's where the beginning of the beginning of John Larry's influence and effect on not only my life, but the life of my family, the life of the people in the Unstoppable Nation, my teams and everybody around me began to take effect. So, John, thank you for continuing to change lives.

No pressure, man. Let me tell the listeners now, lower expectations for the next 37 minutes, man, because that is going to be a hard bar to cross. But what I have learned, Mike, in life is that I can barely change my own life, but I can, you know, I can stay focused on my next step, my next word, my next prayer, my next thought, and then my next action, which is going to drive results. And we try to love the one in front of us. We try to encourage the ones in front of us. I try to share some of the stories from my past to remind people that in spite of their challenges, their best days are in front of them. But ultimately, the people get to do with that information what they choose Right. And some people might yawn and go back to bed. Some people might say, well, that was a fun pep rally. And then there are the rare folks like you who say, wow, there was something in there that I want to utilize to change my life and then also change the lives of those that I love. And so I'm just grateful that you heard something, that you did something with it.

Yeah. Well, I'm going to share with everybody exactly what that was. But, you know, when I met you, you shared with us your first book. You were kind enough to bring a supply of that to the crowd. And after learning your story, after hearing you speak for the second time live, and we met each other at the airport, and you were so engaging. We left my poor wife circling the pickup, and I had six missed calls from her because I was so engaged with everything you were saying. But, John, the big takeaway, just so you know, from that event was you have me now saying to everybody that I get to interact with. It'd be live or on the phone. Is there anything more that I can do for you?

Right on.

And that was the influence that you left on me. Because there's always something more that we can do for other people.

Right.

But a lot of people don't care enough to ask, why do you think that is?

Part of it is we're busy. Part of it is I think we don't realize that we actually can make a difference. And part of the reason I love the work that I do is because when I share stories or questions like that, I don't lean into it by saying, guys, pay attention. Sit up and take notes. Because look what I did in my business. Look how good my marriage is. Look how awesome I am physically. I'm a specimen. Look at me. That's not the way I've ever spoken or written or lived. That question, what more can I do? Was one that came out of an experience I had with a radio announcer named Jack Buck. And it's a question he asked himself every day of his life. It led to a Hall of Fame career for him, but it also led to a Hall of Fame life. He impacted many countless thousands of individuals along the way, including a little burned boy named John o'. Leary. And even though he came into my room the day after I came into hospital, and even though on the way out he was told that there was no way I was going to survive, no chance, he went home that night and asked the question, what more can I do? What more can I do for a stranger, a little boy he'd never met before. And the following day, this man comes back into my life and serves me again and tells me, hey, kid, wake up. You are going to live. You are going to survive. Keep fighting. That encouragement and the encouragement that followed over the next five months of Jack Buck coming into my life changed my life. And I think it gave me life. And he kept that encouragement going until the end of his life. And so it is just important we recognize that that simple question, what more can I do? Can, in fact, change the world. And that world begins at home. I think we underestimate the ability we have to influence change in the reflection in the mirror and in our thought processes and in the way we move forward in our business, our finances, the way we decide how we view the world and what we can do to make an impact in it. So what more could I do? Allowed you and your sweet wife to pick me up at the airport at like, 10:30 Pacific Time and eventually drive us back to the hotel. And it was a late night. But, Mike, you asked that question. You live that question. And that's why you've grown the business. You have.

Well, thank you. And, you know, I have to publicly thank you because the last part of that whole thing is you said to me, when I said, oh, crud. And I looked at my phone, the six missed calls, and you said, what happened? I said, my wife, you go, let me handle it.

And you did so well at handling it. Thank you so much.

We all need a wingman. We all need a fall guy. And I've never minded being the guy who gets in trouble, unless it's me at my own home. And then you're going to be the fall guy, Mike.

Yeah, no, I'm here for you, buddy. So, you know, one of the things that we share is the mirror of truth. And there's only one person that stands between us and success. And I will suggest your influence had a little bit to do with that. And it's just the people in the mirror, right?

It's always right.

Yeah.

So I think some people hear that or see that and they think, you know, man, I get that. But it doesn't really work. And yet the lives of those who have really overcome and really revealed grit and really changed a business or redeemed a marriage or moved through an addiction, it always begins with a reflection in the mirror. It requires grace and vision and dreams and togetherness, a whole lot of other things. But the first step is awareness. And you only get that by taking a nice, long, steady glance in A mirror, right.

Wow, Powerful words. I hope you got that one. And if you're taking notes, great. If you're not, start taking notes and go back and watch this again and write down those notes. It does start with awareness, and it's such a simple thought process, but so profound and so true. So after a period of time since we first met, your first book came out, which was On Fire, one of your first national bestsellers. Absolutely iconic. And I remember giving this to hundreds of people as a gift in and the stories of them coming back, Changing Lives. So if you've never personally had the privilege of reading On Fire, please go find a copy of that. It's also on Amazon. So John's always with me in my pocket. But John, what I wanted to share today was stories from your most recent national bestseller, which is na and I was privileged recipient of a raw copy before it got out. And this year we've had some bumps in the road in our nation, and you weren't able to get it into as many hands as you had planned because of these bumps. But I know that nothing ever stops you in your efforts to try to help people. So thank you for that. So I would like people to learn more about In Awe in the time that we have together, because anybody that mentions this podcast contacts our organization and mentions In Awe, I'm going to personally send them a copy of this if they don't already have it, because I believe in what you do and I want to continue to impact lives. So, John, thank you for taking the time and energy to write your next national best seller.

Man, I'm grateful for that. In our business, I used to be really laser focused on tightly controlling everything and holding everything with my fist clenched and found myself stressed out and I don't think anywhere near as effective as I could be otherwise. And over the last four years or so, just been trying to hold everything with my palms facing the sky and recognizing that ultimately we can only control what we can, but we got to let go the things we cannot. I can't control, believe it or not, global pandemics or recessionary headwinds or social unrest or these incredible social movements that we're seeing around us right now. I can't. So we try to hold everything with our hands wide open, recognizing that we're not able to control everything that happens to us or around us, but we can determine how we put our aura deeply in the water and how we navigate forward. And we can still touch a lot of lives, not only with the book and all that's just a part of it, I think, with the message of the way we show up in life. One of the things, Mike, I'm most proud about regarding that book already, you know, it's a book ultimately about returning to childlike wonder. And I wrote it with my kids in mind. We can come back to that in a moment. But in the midst of this book coming out, the recessionary winds are blowing. The travel market has been completely stifled. Motivational speaking is completely gone. There is no platform speaking anymore. These are all the businesses that I'm part of. And so we're struggling financially and we're talking about this as a family. And my kids come up with this idea with the book coming out, like, what are we going to do with the money from this book? What are we going to do with that? It's going to be awesome. It's going to roll in. And one of my sons, his name is Patrick, came up with this idea to give it all away. Like, just give it all away. And so it's a season of life where we really should be mindful of top line revenue and bottom line profitability, where a whole lot of the income stream just disappeared overnight. And one of the kids, and these are the kids who taught me how to lead well, these are the kids who, when they forget how to lead well, I want them to read in all so they can be reminded of what they taught me. And even in the way that we are releasing this book, we gave away 100% of the profits for all pre sales and for the first week to an organization called Big Brothers Big Sisters, which makes a difference for kids.

In troubled communities, frequently in our cities, but all over the world. And we were able to donate more than $30,000 through those sales to Big Brothers Big Sisters. And so that is the reminder that kids naturally have this, this generosity DNA baked within them and some of the fruits that have come out of that generosity and for the kids lives, for these little kids that we're serving and for the marketplace as a whole, we've had a whole lot of corporate sponsors step alongside of us saying, we want to do this too. We want to do this too. And so the multiplication effect is real and I just don't want us to lose sight of it during a difficult season for many of us, that's fantastic.

And I want to follow your lead. So I'll follow contact with your team offline on how we can further support that effort. So thank you. So how did you come to write in? I mean, it's the word that came to my mind when I heard you begin to describe it was, it's a legacy book because John. John's kids inspired him. But what else besides that? I mean, I've loved all the stories, the entrepreneurial stories within it. I'm interrupting. Go ahead.

Yeah. No, you didn't interrupt me. Right on. So I think I wrote it out of speaking frequently enough on the road in front of these large organizations and these wonderful clients like you and Southwest Airlines and Apple and Microsoft and big organizations. And yet, frequently, as a speaker in front of them, I would see people slump down in their chairs. That's before I even started speaking. And some of them never really sat up fully while I was speaking. Some of them were tethered to their phone the entire time.

So.

So that's part of what a speaker might see when he looks out there. It's a conversation. But I think frequently in the seats, we don't recognize that. And then I would leave and check into the hotel room, and they put me up with these beautiful hotels. But people were just kind of enduring the day and disappointed with the service, and the flight was 30 minutes late, and they spent a lot of time talking about how difficult everything is and how beat down their life is and how they are enduring the experience of life. And then when I am on the road, Mike, I also try to sneak into a school. So I'd leave the corporate room, I'd leave the big seminars. I'd leave the fancy hotels, and I'd make my way into school rooms, and I'd see these kids who were just lit up with life. They'd skip into the classroom. They'd smile the entire time I spoke. They'd raise their hand. 100% of them raised their hand when I asked questions. They occasionally got the questions wrong, but they were highly engaged. They were fired up for life. And watching this enough and then seeing it take place in my own home, I wonder, what is it that children have naturally, that we lose sight of? And if we return to it, what might happen? And so we refer to that as awe. Children have awe, and they begin to lose that as they age. But we believe we can return to it. And we believe when we do, it's going to change not only our life, but the world.

Absolutely. And my wife still reminds me from time to time that I have fallen back into the childlike wonders through my actions. And we won't get into those details, but bring it on, man.

I think you should. I think you should stay there.

Well, yeah.

Yeah, I'M always in a hurry. I mean, you know, there's never enough time and I've always got to get to the next thing as fast as possible. I want to jump into those senses in just a minute. But one of the things that I want to also jump into is as a result of the timing of the book and then resulting pandemic that has taken its toll, you decided to create the in awe 21 day challenge. Tell us a little bit about what it entails and the reactions you received. I know, I took it and it was awesome.

Right? So, you know, as a presenter, early March, we started getting phone calls saying, hey, we're not going to be holding that event on March 15, March 19, March 22, 23rd. One by one, the dominoes that we spent decades setting up, boom, boom, boom, boom, began tipping over. And we struggle with that organizationally. My team, you know, business is made up of individuals. Whether it's a massive organization or it's a team of eight like we have, it's just individuals doing life as best they possibly can. And so we were struggling with this. And one of the things that I was aware of stepping into this year is that I think last year, according to Harvard Business Review, 94.5% of news stories were negative. This is back in 2019 when markets were at historic highs and unemployment at historic lows. One of the other facts from last year, even though everything was good, everything was fine, no issues in the whole world, apparently. Well, 1.5 million Americans attempted suicide, that is last year, Cigna ran a study that said 56% of U.S. adults feel as if we are socially isolated. That was last year. That is not during a pandemic. That was last year. And so my team and I recognized, man, with all this heartache, all this stress, all these challenges that we face already, and with this headwind of the pandemic blowing our way, we wanted to do something to make a difference, to provide hope and clear next steps and togetherness. And so we launched a website called readinaw.com and it's still up readinaw.com and we created a free. Everyone else has tried to monetize it. We just, we wanted to give, man. So we set up a free 21 day challenge that people could step into this thing and be reminded that they were not alone, that they may be dealing with challenges today, but there is reason for hope, there is a clear next step, and their best days are in front of them. So we've had, I think, gosh, several tens of thousands of people go through this thing and everything, from this saved my life to it saved my marriage to I no longer drink, and a whole lot of other things in between. And some people just say thank you. You know, It's a great 21 days. Thank you. And so as deep as they wanted to take it as where they did, but we try to keep these little messages in the morning, like less than 60 seconds. I don't want people feel like they're reading a book each day. I want them just to get a wonderful sample of life.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And it was awesome. And it was game changing. And thank you for, you know, the short snippets that made a difference every day. And we never know what people have going on in their lives. But isn't it awesome and incredible when we are ready to receive the message, that it tends to appear right when we need it, so.

Well, that's always true. And one thing we need to be aware of is every one of us is struggling. And just like you, Mike and your spouse and me and my wife, everybody's got a battle we're going through. And we're the ones who are listening to podcasts, we're the ones running our own businesses, we're the ones in quotes on top of the world. And we're struggling. So the more we can show some grace, seriously, show a little freaking grace. Love your neighbor. Love the one across you. Love the one on the opposite side of the spectrum, on the opposite side of the aisle, even be that radical. Right. Because they are struggling. And I think we're ultimately only going to get through this struggle by doing so together.

100% agree. Absolutely. So what more can I do for you? Right, so one of the many, many, many takeaways, and I wanted to dive into this just a little bit and try to understand.

How it can impact the greater good. So as we age and you touched on this just a couple of minutes ago, many of our senses begin to fade, or we become, if you will, set in your ways. So although we have little control over our physical senses, you suggest in the book, there are five senses that we can not only maintain, but we can reignite. Tell us a little bit more about that, and I want to touch on a couple of senses.

Well, I mean, let's start with our natural senses of vision. I see you wearing glasses. I'm a few weeks behind you, brother, but I'm in line. I've got two children that already have them, and I think they got that from their father, among some other characteristics. So we Lose the ability to see as we age and hear and taste, even touch. These senses are just gifts that unfortunately, we begin to miss out on a little bit as we progress through life. But they're not the only ones. I mean, there are many, many, many senses. I won't unpack all of them for you right now, but we discovered five specifically that children have in spades. They ooze through life with these senses, and yet as they go through kindergarten and then they endure 5th grade and 8th grade in high school and college, and then they get their job and then they lose their first love and all this stuff happens and we lose out on these things. Not everybody. And we can return to them. But there are some senses that they have, and we call out in the book in awe, the opportunity of what might happen if we identify what they are and we start to reignite them. And there are five specifically, Mike, I don't know if you had one or two or five that you want me to talk specifically about, but there are five that I call out in the book.

Well, you know, because of the demand on your time, I'm not sure we have time to jump into all of them. I would like at least identify what they are and maybe talk about a couple of them. So let's start with the first and most important one in my mind. Whether you're in the entrepreneurial realm or you're part of a team, it all starts with a sense of wonder, right? I mean, what can be? I mean, okay, this is happening. We've got these challenges in life, but let's think about what can be. Tell us about your thought process on the sense of wonder. And I know you go into a specific story with each of the senses, which is fantastic, which is why it's so engaging to me.

So there's a lot there. One aspect of wonder is just this idea of first time living. If you've ever taken a walk with a person under the age of four, which should take five minutes to lap the block, one time requires an hour. And it's not because their little feet are moving slower than yours. It's because every leaf needs to be turned over and every earthworm needs to be explored and evaluated. And every cloud dancing by above us needs to be, wow, that looks like a unicorn. Look, dad, look. It is a unicorn. It is all awesome. It is amazing. It stuns them because quite literally, it is the first time they are seeing this. And we once were like that. But as we age, we lose that wonder. Not only for clouds and earthworms and rocks and leaves. But for work, for sunrises, for our spouse, for the day, for the opportunity to become far better versions of ourselves, we just lose that passion for that. And one way I think kids explore that passion and grow in that passion is by asking questions around it. And again, for those of us who have children or nephews, nieces, whatever it might be, or you've ever seen a child, their favorite question is why? They want to know why on everything. And it's not because they're being mischievous. It's not because, like we debate politically these days, they're trying to paint you into a corner. Why do you feel that way, Mr. Trump or Ms. Pelosi? No, it's not that. They are rawly, naturally curious about why things are the way they are. And is there a better way to do it? Why? Why do I have to brush my teeth? Why do I have to wear my shoes? Why is the sky blue, dad? Why? And so, as we try to not only build a business, Mike, but do life more effectively, we found through our research that the best way to do so is to not assume that you know everything. One of our clients is Microsoft. And one of the senior leaders of Microsoft said to me, john, we used to be the kind of organization that had all the answers. Now we've lost that attitude. We're the type of organization now that does not have all the answers, but we come with all the right questions. That's a cool way to go through life. Just show up with all the right questions, keep asking, don't assume you know the answer. Right.

Yeah. And I love the thought process from your friend of mine, John Maxwell. One of his books was Good Leaders Ask Great Questions. And it's great questions. And you know, another thing that I learned this week, John, and I'm sure you already know this, but the word listen, if you write down those letters from the word listen on a piece of paper, they actually also spell silent.

If we will just ask the questions and go silent and dream about and have that wonder for the answer. How awesome is that?

That is awesome. So don't confuse conversations, don't confuse speaking with the person across from you with a genuine, authentic conversation. I think it's usually two separate motivational keynotes being delivered across the coffee table. And your word right there, silence, man, that is powerful.

Well, it's not my word. It came from other publications, so. Absolutely. So that was the first sense, which was wonder. The second sense, expectancy. So when we get out of the bed, I mean, think about back when we were kids and we jumped out of bed and we expected certain things from the day and then we get older and we expect certain things. Talk a little bit more about that, right?

Well, you're kind of sizing it up beautifully because we still have expectancy in our lives. But even the way you frame that question is your voice started to drift off. I think I. And your listeners know exactly where you're heading when you're adult and you're reading the headlines and you're checking on the emails that came through and you're looking at your bank account or lack thereof and the bills that are piling up. The expectancy we have is very different than the one we have as children. Expectancy ultimately means in life you're going to get what you expect. It's kind of a fancy word for hope. And there's an awful lot of phenomenal research around it. The pharmacies, pharmaceutical companies are bellwethers of expectancy. They have found whether you give a patient a sugar pill or you give them the actual goods, either way the patient will progress. Either way they will do better. In fact, they found it to such a degree that they're trying to figure out how do we stop giving sugar pills because it's killing our test. What they really should be doing is man, how do we understand the power of mindset because it's impacting our patients lives. It is that big of a deal. And so expectancy is about being clear in what you're hoping for and then moving directionally in charge of it.

Our mindset is our skill set. That is awesome. So sense number three is immersion. So you know, again, is it time to attend to the unimportant or is it time for tea and the things that are essential. So immersion is the essential things, right?

It is the essentials Further that.

Yeah, fantastic.

And there are two ways to view that, Mike, just to pair it up quickly for you is this idea of being fully immersed in the moment, which man, that is a struggle. You use that. You used your word silence a moment ago. We're not a very silent people. We don't do very well, I don't think just sitting back and listening and being completely present in the moment at hand. Children actually are at school even they have to ring a bell to wake them up from whatever it is they're doing. If it's nappy time, dig a ling a ling. If it's history time, dig a ling a ling. If they're outside at recess or going to lunch, they have to Ring a bell? Because otherwise, the kid's just going to keep going. They're going to keep doing what they're doing. They are very present. We are always thinking, always about yesterday, the mistakes, what she said to me, what I did wrong, all the things that went off the rails or about tomorrow. Dread, anxiety. We are a nation full of anxiety these days. We are thinking about tomorrow, which can be healthy if you are moving toward goals without great aspiration and motivation. But if you are struggling about what tomorrow might bring, it is unhealthy and it is going to lead to a mental health crisis, which indeed it has. Kids are focused on the moment, so that's one piece of immersion. The other side of it, though, is this, to make sure that the direction you're moving in is the right one. And one of my favorite stories from really, the entire book, and certainly from that, that sense. It occurred about 12 years ago when I was a hospital chaplain. Walked into a gentleman's room. He was dying. What I remember most about his room mic is it was gray. There were no letters, no balloons, no flowers, and no natural light. The shades were even drawn. And I walk into this room and I'll cut the story down just a little bit. But he said to me, john, if you'd seen me years ago, you would have seen a man who was on top of the world. I had it all. Marriage was great, three healthy kids and an awesome business. And in the pursuit of everything I thought was important, I lost the things that actually were important. Then he talked about how he turned toward alcohol and other addictions. He lost his wife. He lost the relationship with the three girls. And now he's in this hospital bed by himself. And then he took a deep breath and he looked at me and Mike, this is the part that jarred me. He said, john, I've gotten to the end of my life, and I've climbed to the tippity top of the ladder only to realize that I had the thing leaned against the wrong damn wall. I made it to the very tippety top of this ladder, and I had the thing leaned against the wrong dang wall.

Wall, John.

And I left. That room changed because, Mike, I don't want to get to the end of my life and feel as if I had my ladder leaned against the wrong wall. I want to climb high. I want to touch lives. I want to really grow cool business and impact a lot of lives along the way. But I don't want to do it at the risk of losing the very things that matter most. And it was a story that woke me up as a 26 year old guy. It's a story I share in the book and it's one that reminds us about the power of being immersed in the. The things that actually matter.

Wow. I vividly remember that. And I'm glad you shared that. Thank you so much. And we gotta lean our ladder on the right wall, bottom line. And the other thing that I was thinking as you were sharing that, thank you so much for sharing that is the present is a gift and a blessing.

But mostly if we open it right? So we've got to remember to open that gift that is right before us and get immersed in it. I love that Sense number four, just because of time, we'll keep going. But it's belonging. I am the piece that never fits. Or I do belong, just as I am. We're all different for a reason, right?

Like when you write a book, it's hard because you gotta. It's like when Led Zeppelin played Stairway to Heaven. Like how do you build this song, man? And how do you wrap it up? How we try to slow build? So I try to write books that start off nice. Like, wow, that's good, that's good. Halfway through you're like, dude, this is really strong. And by the end you're like, I hope this does not end because this thing is rocking. And I honestly think our best work is in sense for that idea of belonging. Gosh, could we think of a time that is more desperately needed to understand and unpack what belonging means, where we don't have it, how that negatively impacts our lives and how to ultimately, if we can return to it, what it might not only do for us individually, which is great, that's called success, but what it might do for us collectively, that's called significance. And that's the higher calling of a life. So I love this sense of belonging.

And the example.

I mean, you know, I know this. We have six kids and now 13 grandkids. And I wish I had identified this earlier. So for everybody who might be watching this, that isn't influencing anybody's life. Everybody's watching. You have four kids that are watching everything you do.

So they are watching. And from those guys and ladies and leaders that I respect, I frequently will ask them about parenting and leadership and these types of questions. It's all leadership, ultimately effective running, managing a business, effective work in the community, whatever it is, it's all leadership. And they'll always tell me, john, leadership is caught, not taught in your marriage and your singleness with your kids, with your aging parents, with your team members, with your clients, with your vendors, with your prospects. You can't sell it. You can teach it, though, through the way you show up and the way you display yourself to be a person of character and valor and worth by serving the one in front of you. Might go back to the question you keep asking, what more can I do? But that's not you don't speak that out. You model it.

So just to make sure that I heard you clearly, because I want to fully embrace this. Leadership is caught. It's not a cost. Is that what you said?

It's caught, not taught, meaning.

Thank you. I'm glad I clarified.

I can't lecture loud enough of my kids, darn it. To make your beds, I better make my own. I can't teach them long enough raising my voice about how to treat their mother. If I myself, am I treating her with incredible respect and honor? Same with your sales teams, our entire network. It's caught. It's caught. It's witnessed. It's not taught.

Forgive the pause, everybody. This is such a writer downer. I've got to make sure that I get that one right.

To give credit where it's due. Mike Matheny is the manager for the Kansas City Royals. He's one of the most winning managers of all time with the St. Louis Cardinals. Won several Gold Gloves as a catcher and is as moral and as good a man as I've ever met, ever. He's a very good person, and he's the one that gave me that quote when I was interviewing him on why he's been so successful. And this catcher, this Major League baseball catcher said, well, John, leadership is caught, not taught. It's a valuable lesson I think we all must learn, whether you're behind the plate or you're leading the team or you're making dinner tonight at home.

Well, in honor of your St. Louis Cardinals, I wore the appropriate color shirt.

I didn't know why, man, but I loved it. I love the color red. I thought it was for the red little kite on the book.

No, it's an honor of you and all that you've done. More than you. So to wrap this up, sense number five is freedom. And before we move to the story about Jack and the magnolia tree, let's talk a little bit about freedom. And. And don't we need to know more about that right now based on everything that's going on around us? Well.

And are you free? Are you free? I mean, I think we feel as if we're free or we feel as if we're beat down. But I'm not sure either one of those is necessarily completely accurate. Freedom. You know, I like to be free from debt. I like to be free from guilt. I like to be free from shame. I found for me in my walk that my faith has informed me of what real freedom looks like. That love of a spouse, of the ability to look in the mirror and see brokenness and scars. I mean, gosh, for those who don't really know my story, I have scars from my neck to my toes, and I am missing my fingers on both hands. So I am broken. When I look in the mirror, I see brokenness, But I don't stay chained to the scars long. When I look in the mirror, through the lessons that my kids have taught me, I see freedom. I see beauty. I see redemption. I see life. I see possibility. So my question to you is, are you free? Are you truly free? And if not, how can we begin unchaining you? How can we begin releasing us from those things that bind us, from becoming the person that we are called to be?

John, I could sit here for hours just talking about this with you because you are an absolute game changer for anybody that gets to know you well or learns more about you and is able to immerse themselves in what you share. So as we wrap this up today, because of the demand on your time, I just want to encourage everybody to learn the entire story of everything that Mr. O' Leary himself just shared. Pick up the book in awe. And again, anybody that contacts us and just puts the word in awe in the subject line, we'll be happy to ship you a free copy with our compliments and hopes that it continues to impact your lives just like it did ours. And, you know, just to share a story from the book that is etched in my mind among any based on your scars and I've met you, and I know all about that, is when you were in the bathroom shaving and one of your children came up and noticed that, you know, your midsection didn't look like theirs, right? And paused and looked up in you and said, dad, I love it.

It's one of the sweetest stories. And when I was sharing this idea of freedom, and I don't know if it pops in freedom or belonging, it probably. I probably wrote about that in belonging, but it is freedom. All these things, the four senses ultimately equal. Draw a line below sense number four. Well, what do you get? Get freedom once you choose wonder, once you choose immersion Once you choose expectancy, once you choose belonging, none of this happens by accident. It's a choice. It's hard.

It's difficult.

Not a whole lot of people are doing it. Once you do it, though, sum it out and it leads to freedom and the story you brought up. My little boy, Jack, he's three years old. He's next to me in the bathroom. My shirt is off. He's tracing scars with his index finger, looks up and says, daddy, your tummy is red, it is bumpy, it is ridgy and I love it. I just love that tummy, Dad. I did not love my tummy. What is to love about a red, bumpy, ridgy belly? We have been taught in prime to think you should have a six pack till you are 84 years old, man. Have a six pack. And I may occasionally have a six pack of beer in my house, but I don't have a six pack on my belly. I got thick red scars, man. That's it. It's all I've ever had. It's all I ever will possess. But for my son to see beauty in them, it changed the way I saw my scars. And if you do that enough, if you change the way you see yourself in the mirror, it's going to influence the way you step away from that mirror. I'm not a navel gazer. I don't think we should stay there very long. Step away from it. Live your life as effectively as you can. Do it not only out of success, but out of significance. And in pursuing that, I keep coming back to this because I believe it. We can change the world itself. We do so one life at a time.

Could not agree more. Incredible. Amazing. Thank you, John o'. Leary. As a reminder for everybody, John said earlier in the podcast, read in awe. So they can just go to readinaw.com yeah, join me.

And you know, social links are there and more information about our work is there. So go to readinaw.com yeah and you.

Take the 21 day challenge. I know one of my favorites to start off my week, every week is the John o' Leary podcast. So, you know, just go ahead and Google that and you can find that as well. It will inspire you. It will put you in the right mindset. As we talked about, our mindset is our skill set. So, John, thank you. My deep, deep gratitude to connect with you again. I can't wait to get this in the hands of lots more people to share the incredible realities and possibilities that we all have before us. At this point, we need to wrap it up so you can get home and hug your wife and kids.

Well, and let me just leave your listeners with a little bit of science. I know right now it's all like, okay, o', Leary, enough. Foo foo, man. We need to do a little bit of work here. We did some research around the likelihood of us being alive. Just think about this for a moment because some of us right now are bored or we're mad at the protests or we wish they were louder. We need change now or we wish it would not come. There's all this stuff going on in our lives and we can easily feel beat down by it all and think that our lives don't really matter. That's common. It's very common. So what's the likelihood of you being here? Just think about that for, like, what's the chance? What is the chance of you being born? I think we take it for granted, the likelihood biologically, if you take your father and your mother and I won't. We won't have a birds and the bees conversation during this PO podcast. We'll have that on the next one. It'll be after hours with John o'. Leary. He'll love it. But the likelihood of mom and dad coming together at just the right point, that's going to lead to the life of Mike or John or Betty or anybody else tuning in. Right now, it's less than 1 in 400.

Trillion.

It's 2,000 more times likely that you will win the Powerball on Thursday night this week than you being born. You being born. Which means if you take this math down to what it really stands for, you're a miracle. You're this profound gift. You're the sacred item. You belong. And I just encourage you to not wish away the day, to not wish away the struggle, to realize the goodness that remains alive and well around you and also within you, and to own the fact that your best days are in front of you. But you got to fight for it them sometimes.

Yes, we do. We get to fight through them, fight through the challenges to find out what more that we can do for anybody. John o', Leary, I'll say it again, and I know you're so humble. I can feel that you really don't accept it well. But, man, you changed my life and I couldn't thank you. I am going to pay it forward to all 19 of the people primarily in our family, over who I'd have a little bit of influence to encourage them to live life in awe with all the five senses. And tomorrow I get to go share a birthday celebration with our youngest grandchildren. I'm going to take this with me. I'm going to make sure that we go through the possibilities. They might not care right at that particular point, but I continue to remain in awe of the work that you do. Thank you so much for being with us today.

Likewise, Mike. Thank you for the friendship.

All right. Hey, stay well. Stay blessed.

Likewise. God bless you, Michelle.

Thanks, everybody.

Hello.

I will. And everybody out there, thank you so much for joining us today. Remember, make a difference, be unstoppable, leave no regrets. And next time that you talk to somebody, say, what more can I do for you? We'll see you on the next podcast.

Thank you for listening. If you would like to listen to more episodes or share this podcast with with someone you care about, please visit www.unstoppableprofitpodcast.com. now go out and make a difference. Be unstoppable and leave no regrets.