The Hollow Form: What Nobody Sees From the Outside

0:01 I have spent years in conversation with people who are successful by every measure and still quietly restless, not broken, not lost, just aware somewhere underneath the noise that there is a version of their life that feels more honest, more grounded, more genuinely theirs. This podcast exists for those people, for the ones who are done performing and ready to go deeper. My name is Dr. Doug. Welcome to Inspire Vision. I am glad you are here. Chip, welcome back to the show. Dr. Doug, it is so great to be here. I can't believe you've asked me back. I know. We had such a good conversation the first time.

0:46 It was such a great conversation, and we didn't even get to half of the stuff that I felt like would be such value for the audience to hear about, you know, from the standpoint of your wisdom and your experience. So, Real briefly, give the audience again, for those that may not have heard the first one, a little bit about yourself. Author, speaker, craftsman, and I'm just, that's about it. I'm doing a lot of writing. I'm in the middle of, in fact, I just finished a chapter on the new book that's coming out next year. But I'm just, I'm having a ball. Executive coach and a lot of other things. Well, and as you talk about executive coach, is that personal development challenges or is it more of a business related?

1:36 Yes, I'm an executive coach, so I'm not a life coach. Every time I hear life coach, I kind of get the shivers because it drives me a little bit nuts. But no, I deal with business issues, personnel, strategy, that kind of stuff. So yes. I laugh at that. You know, I actually, you know, when I moved to Utah years ago and started working on working with people and so forth based on behavioral analyses and so forth, everybody in the networking groups were life coaches. And it's like if they lost a job, they became a life coach.

2:16 And I thought to myself, oh, my goodness. So I appreciate what you're talking about there. You will never find me going on a date with anybody. Have you heard that about life coaches? They tend to go on dates with people. I think there's been about at least 25 or 30 TV shows that have a life coach in them and it's somebody that's lost a job or somebody that can't find meaningful employment anywhere else and they call themselves life coaches. So we've just pissed off all the life coaches that are listening to us. We have and Our apologies, but hey, that's the reality of it. And there we go. So your next book, what's the name of the next book that's coming out?

3:02 It's called Handoffs. And it's a fictional story. It's first time I've written fiction, first time I've had to write dialogue, which was a real trip. But it is about a family logistics business, because I know a lot about family logistics businesses. And I'm The 82-year-old guy who runs it is not willing to let go. The 54-year-old son really wants to take over, and the old man won't let him. It is so much like just about all of the businesses that I deal with. In fact, I sent it to a bunch of people to get endorsements for the book, and just about everybody came back with, did you write that about my family? You know, so I love it. Yeah, I know it was a ringing a little bit too close to the truth. But I use the five C's framework in that to to get the family out of the crisis they're in.

4:02 OK, and let's let's get into that. You know, there's a couple of things that since our first chat I've seen, you know, we became friends on Facebook. I see that you, you know, have an incredible talent and. Here's what's interesting to me. I think about it all of the time. So often things have been taught in parables. You know, Christ taught in parables. And so often I don't think we realize that there are so many things in our lives that occur or that we do that if we sit back and really develop that sense of curiosity about it, that we can realize that there's a life parable in that.

4:46 And I appreciate the fact that, you know, you have talked a little bit about that. But tell the audience a little bit about why you're a craftsman. What is it that you do? And then let's talk a little bit about the parable that comes from that or the parables. That's a great question. You know, one of the things that I don't consider myself a craftsman or did not consider myself a craftsman. for a long time. I think we talked a little bit about the stroke the first time we talked. Coming out of the stroke, my wife bought me a lathe and it transformed everything. It opened up all kinds of neural pathways that I didn't know existed.

5:35 It might have been the body movements or it might have been getting out of the way of a 30-pound chunk of spinning wood. It taught me so much, and it's taught me so much about craft. It's taught me so much about life. Because wood is an organic object, and it never stops moving, just like relationships never stop moving. We can be great friends one day, and then something happens, and we're not, or something happens, and we're even greater friends. So the wood never stops moving. The people never stop moving.

6:17 That's one thing we know about finished pieces. In fact, I had a platter that I gave to a friend of mine in Florida. And going from the less humidity in North Carolina to Florida, which has a lot of humidity, all of a sudden the thing started warping. And I never could have, yeah, I never could have seen that coming. But, uh, um, you know, he called, he said, is the, is the platter supposed to be round? And I said, no, it's not, but thank you for letting me know. And I'll go ahead and send you another one if you, if you would like, because you know, it, it doesn't stop moving. Um, the other thing is, uh, um, craftsmanship. So there was a, uh, a chapter in, um, Every Dog Has Its Day that came out in March that talks about hollow forms. And I don't know if you've ever heard of a hollow form, but a hollow form is like a vase or could be, I think there's one of them, that thing that's sitting behind me on the shelf back there is a hollow form.

7:28 And in a hollow form, it has usually a small hole in the top and then is hollowed out on the inside. And it's done with a tool. And you can't see what you're doing. You know, you can feel. You can feel by the way the tool bites. Or you can feel, you know, you turn off the lathe and you feel inside. But you can't feel it otherwise. And for the most part, it's hidden. So, you know, nobody's really going to see it. Or nobody's really going to feel it. I mean, it's just, you know, it's kind of like the inside of an iPhone. You know? Nobody's ever going to be in the inside of an iPhone, but Steve Jobs wanted to make it beautiful. And the story in Every Dog Has His Day is about my wife.

8:18 I've been married almost 42 years. We've had our ups and downs, as every married couple does. And our marriage is a lot like... a hollow form, you know, because nobody sees the work that it takes. Nobody sees what it's like to be inside it. Everybody sees the public persona or the, you know, the one going out with friends or that kind of stuff. And so, you know, it's just being a craftsman means you care about what it looks like on the inside.

8:58 Well, and as you talk about that, I think so often, We really don't know what's going on within a person's soul, within their heart, what's going on in their mind. And we see certain behavior, and we can either choose to react to that behavior or, as you say, just start to feel it. And the way that we do that, obviously, is in a conversation, in a communication, what's going on, tell me a little bit about what's happening. And as we seek to be transparent with ourselves and seek to have those that are important to us become transparent, I think that conversation all of a sudden comes out to, well, I'm starting to feel this, or this is what's happening to me, or here's the emotion that just came up because of this event, or maybe because of something you said.

9:55 And and i love i love the concept the parable of that that sometimes we can't see it but we can feel it and if we get in and dive in a little bit more we start to get a sense of what's really going on so I think that is such a cool parable that you just shared. Well, do you consider the podcast a craft of yours? You know, I do. It's interesting. One of the thoughts that just came to my mind as you were talking is here you are, an executive mentor, an executive coach, whatever you want to call it, and you've been doing this for years. And you have the stroke, you come out, and your wife obviously is inspired to give you a gift that somehow she knows is going to become so valuable for you.

10:58 And I think about the fact that, and as I've done my own personality, my personal portrait on myself and others, And I recognized as I went through my own that, you know, being a dentist really fulfilled a very specific aspect of who I was. I'm very left-brained. I'm very both, you know, up and down. So I'm very much focused on a very specific thing. And my dentistry gave me the ability to really focus on small little details and do all of that. And so that was That was really great. And then, you know, as I shared with you, all of a sudden, I can't do that anymore. And for a few years, I'm trying to figure out this.

11:49 I become, you know, I go back to business school and I'm working with small businesses and so forth and doing okay, but not feeling totally comfortable anymore. And all of a sudden the podcast opportunity comes up and I start doing that and I'm enjoying that, you know, and it really was business tips and trends. So I'm still doing the business stuff. And I may have shared this with you, but my dad passed away at 93, 92, 93. And we went back to Chicago. He had a memorial service done by the university students that had been his, that were then professors in music. And it was fascinating to me to walk away from that and realize that the message that we got from his students was so fascinating.

12:41 Incredible singers, classical voice singers, some renowned, and their message was simple. Norman was an incredible voice teacher, and they told funny stories about how he'd come to their operas and he'd sit in the corner and kind of raise his hand and do little things to try to give them a little guidance as they're singing. But their main message was, yeah, he was a great voice teacher, but he gave us the strength and power to win, to succeed, to live, and to love. And that moment, I walked out of there and, you know, my family, my brothers, my little sister, they all had different views about my dad and so forth. But I walked out of there thinking, you know what? what a legacy for him to leave.

13:33 And was it necessarily with his own kids? To some degree, yes. But more importantly, with all of those students of his, what a legacy. And I came back and I thought, you know what? I need to change the direction. What is it that I want to do? And that's when I changed my podcast concept from business tips and trends to inspire vision, making a difference in people's lives. And for you, you know, here you are coming out of your medical situation and your wife gives you a gift. But what you find out is that has become such a fulfilling role for you. And I look at that and as I went back and looked at my, you know, my personal portrait, I realized that there was a whole other section of motivators and values that I had not really necessarily been fulfilling in my dentistry, although I'd been doing some other things. But all of a sudden, this is what started to really feel real and so important in my life. And so now it is so fulfilling.

14:45 And I look at that with you. Here you are doing all the things you've done that are successful and so forth. All of a sudden, you have this lathe and you have become a craftsman. in making these beautiful pieces that you make. And I think, you know, there's another example of something that had lied dormant for a while, but life circumstances came about to where all of a sudden you found something else that was extremely fulfilling and met some of those deep values and motivators that perhaps you hadn't experienced for a while. Yeah, yeah.

15:25 You know, my mother-in-law had a lot to do with it as well. She was 12 days shy of 98 when she passed. She passed in my easy chair in my wife's arms. It was pretty incredible. But she lived with us for the last few years. And she saw the transformation with a lathe. She was my worst critic and my best critic ever. Uh, because I, I would always, you know, I'd finish up a piece and I'd bring it upstairs and, and, uh, and walk in and hand it to her and she would look at it over and, you know, feel it. And, um, she was an incredible craftsperson herself. Um, she did, um, theorem painting, which is a kind of a painting with oils and stencils. Um, she, uh, she did, you know, knitting and crocheting and, um, she did all kinds of stuff. Um, But she always wanted me to be useful. She wanted me to have a hobby.

16:28 Because up until the stroke, maybe my wife and I played golf on the weekends, but that was about it. I was traveling all the time and working and spending 200 nights a year in a hotel. It wasn't much of a life. That changed after the stroke. We bought a cabin in the mountains, in the North Carolina mountains. We started changing the way we lived, and craft was a definite part of that. Well, it's interesting. I think so often we want this, we want that, we want it now. Mankind lacks such patience. And, you know, you look at our lives and realize that, you know, the journey of our lives, and I really believe this, you know, that as we're patient, as we live, as we love, as we move forward, that the journey changes a bit from time to time, and things come into our lives that perhaps we haven't had before, that just makes such a difference for us. And For you, the same thing. And to be able to be patient and observant and curious and just watch what's going on and what's happening, what am I creating, what's being created for me, and if things aren't what we want, what lesson am I learning from that, I think becomes so important.

18:01 So let's talk a little bit about those five Cs because you talked a little bit about that, the five C framework. And let's talk about the application of that for people who are experiencing lives that they're not particularly enjoying. Yeah, yeah. The five C's are context, clarity, conditioning, choice, and character. So context is being brutally honest about where you are. And a lot of us don't want to admit where we are. We don't want to admit where our situation is. We don't want to be You know, we don't want to be serious about our careers or our married life or, you know, any of that stuff.

18:45 But it's being brutally honest about that. And whether you're in business or not, being in business, it's also being brutally honest about what your current situation is, what your cash flow is, what your customers are doing. So context is really important, understanding where to start. Clarity is being certain in no uncertain terms what you want. And the problem is that most people have no idea what they want. They can tell you exactly what they don't want, but they can't tell you what they want. And oftentimes, yeah, let me interrupt there. Oftentimes, what they want is not what they want, but it's what they've been told they should want. Right.

19:33 Right. Yeah, yeah, that's, that's true, too. You know, it's funny. And I'll ask you this question. But I ask a lot of people what their definition of success is. In other words, if you can write five or six different things that success means to you, what would it be so so I'll ask you, what are five or six things that success is to you? You asked me that last time. Oh, that's right. Okay. Okay. No, no. Has your answer changed? No, it hasn't changed. Success is my kids, my grandkids, being of value to them, being of value to my wife, being of value to the world on an individual basis.

20:20 And again, I think that goes back to the many years that I've lived and realized that there's some things more important than what I had been doing. Well, clarity then becomes an outgrowth of that. It can be as simple as, what is your definition of success? And so it's really great to understand what your definition of success is. And as we talked last time, I'm sure, it is a lifelong pursuit. So everything else gets framed within that. Conditioning is getting your mind right, is changing your mind, is what do I have to think? What is going to get me where I want to go?

21:07 in what I'm thinking. Because if you want to do something different, you've got to think differently. And how are you going to think differently? Choice is about behavior. It's about framing the behaviors in the conditioning that you've received. And my favorite story about that is six frogs are sitting on a log. One of them decides to jump off. How many frogs are left? Yeah, well, I would say there's still six because he only decided he didn't actually jump. Exactly, exactly. And I can't tell you how many people say five.

21:47 I almost did. But, yeah, I mean, they only decide. If they don't take the behavior to jump off, you know, I can't tell what you're thinking. I cannot tell what you're thinking. Right. All you can do is tell me what you're thinking or all I can tell from you what you're thinking is how you behave. Yeah. And my wife used to say that all the time. Don't say I'm sorry. Change. It's like, OK, got it. Got it. And then and then character is about personal accountability. It's about it's about purpose. It's about living your purpose. It's, it's about, uh, and you know, I, I think the interesting part about purpose to me is that your purpose doesn't have to be some transcendent thing. It is probably right there in your definition of success. So being the best husband, father, et cetera, um, spouse you can be is probably your purpose. Um, My purpose is I live to develop people, which is what I do every day when I get up in the morning.

23:01 And it's not just the coaching that I do. It's not just the writing I do. I teach woodturning. It's the conversations that I have with my wife and my kids. It's what I do. But it's also people. It's not others. I don't live to develop others. I literally develop people because I'm a people too. So that means I have to develop myself to be the best that I can possibly be so I can help others be the best they can possibly be. So it's kind of a symbiotic relationship. But character is about understanding what your purpose is and understanding that I'm accountable to myself. And don't we love working with people that are personally accountable?

23:51 Yes, oh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. And what comes to my mind is being true to yourself. And I think that as you talk about character, so often we find that we're not genuinely connected to that inner pure self of who we are. We're not really being true to who we are for various reasons. But what have you found? What have you found is one of the main causes why someone can find themselves not truly being true to themselves, not experiencing that character, as you mentioned? The big thing is when you start to believe you're the most important person. I think there's a lot that goes into humility. And I think people are extremely attracted to humility. I mean, not everybody. I'm sure there are people that are attracted to power and the exercise of power, but I think that's pretty shallow. But when you start to believe your own press, bad things really start to happen. And, you know, I have firsthand knowledge of that. And it's an interesting story. I was a lobbyist in a former life.

25:16 And so I spent 10 years lobbying on the West Coast. I was at a dinner one night and I thought it was all that. And I was at a dinner one night with my wife and a woman came up and started gushing about how wonderful it was, how I was such a wonderful person and all that kind of stuff. My wife had had just about a belly full, looked at her and said, you don't have to live with them. So, you know, I mean, talk, talk about talking about just putting me back in my place. Um, and, and that's probably why we're still married, uh, um, 35 years later, 30 years later. Uh, but you know, I, I think, I think just believing, believing that you're all that is, is, uh, um, is one of those things that gets in the way.

26:07 Yeah. Yeah. And, And also not even being curious enough to be willing to sit back and, you know, I use the word meditate, but just to sit back and ponder, you know, who am I? And am I being true to my values? Am I being true to my motivators? Am I being true to what's important in my life? And am I being true to me And I think that that is such a challenge so often. And I think we all go through that. And I think it's a regular journey that we go through. And all of a sudden it's like, okay, here I am. Am I really being true to myself in this situation? And I think as we allow ourselves to be transparent about that with ourselves, I think it can make such a difference in moving forward in a life that we're really looking forward to having.

27:08 Yeah, yeah. You mentioned curiosity. So what is your feeling about curiosity? You know, for me, in fact, there's a joke with one of my brothers who we talk very often. He's extremely bright, but we get into all sorts of conversations, theologically and otherwise. And he has a much different personality than I have. And so every once in a while, we'll just sit and laugh and I'll say, all right, my curiosity is coming up again. I wanted to call you because this is what came to my mind. What are your thoughts? What do you think? And what I find is, for me, being curious has opened up the world, has opened up the spirituality for me of understanding the purpose of life and understanding who I am, but why I've had the experiences I've had, why I've been responsible for certain circumstances that later on I wish I hadn't had.

28:16 And to be curious, I think, opens up the mind to being able to receive that understanding of self and of life. And as we get curious, we get more curious. And for me now, it's like, you know, and as I may have mentioned, I've been starting to do a lot more writing and As I've done that, I'm writing articles for Substack because that seems to be a fun place to go. And each week something happens or a conversation or somebody in a podcast says one word and it hits me. And it's like, okay, I'm really curious about that. My brother and I were talking last week and we were talking about, he said something about renewal.

29:04 And I thought the word, okay, renewal. I just wrote a huge article about the fact that we are reborn multiple times before we ever die. And, you know, and so I think that that curiosity, if someone can develop curiosity, it opens up an entirely different sense of life for themselves. Well, we reborn physiologically and mentally and experientially. I mean, goodness. Yes. Yeah, we're reborn in a whole lot of ways. You know, one of my favorite sayings is from Walt Whitman, and it's, be curious, not judgmental. So if the choice is to be curious or judgmental, then I will take curious every time.

29:51 Well, and it opens up such a wonderful opportunity for better relationships, I think, because You know, as you say, you've been married for 35 years. I haven't been. But, you know, as things come up that are sometimes a little bit difficult, being able to be curious and say, you know what, to a friend or to whomever, tell me a little bit more about that. Or even as you're in this whole political fight, if the other person is willing to Say, you know what, instead of judging or instead of arguing, tell me a little bit about why you feel that way. I'd love to understand. And as we do that, I think what happens sometimes is, yeah, we may not agree. But all of a sudden, maybe a couple of things do come up where you go, wow, you know what, I hadn't thought about that. I need to think about that a bit. Because all of a sudden, we can gain some respect and appreciation for their thought process.

30:53 And we can only do that if we're willing to be curious rather than judgmental. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. You know, um, uh, Brene Brown talks about that quite a bit with, uh, with being vulnerable or, or, you know, with judgment or blame. Um, you know, I, I, I love, uh, her, her thoughts about blame. And, um, the thought about blame is, is that it's a way to discharge, um, anger and, um, and hurt. Um, You know, so we blame other people for our lot in life. And wow, that is so true. So was character number four character number five?

31:36 Character number five, yes. Okay. Yeah, I got lost in all this conversation. You know, one of the things that hit me too is you were talking about conditioning and how the word that came to my mind is mindset, consciousness. And how important it is to truly be conscious of what's going on and develop a mindset of understanding ourselves, our events, and understanding oftentimes going back to why am I responding or why am I reacting in a particular way to a particular event? Because, you know, as I've thought about it so often, events don't have any emotion to them. An event is an event.

32:27 We apply an emotion to the event that we observe. And then the question becomes, why did I apply that particular emotion to it? And for some, it's like, you know what? I've finally learned that I don't have to be reactive to all of these things. But for others, it's like, oh, I'm angry or I'm upset and so forth. Well, why? What what has gone on in your life years ago, maybe that is causing you to respond with that emotion. And I think to be able to have the mindset to start, and then the curiosity to start that discovery process becomes so essential to ultimately a happy life. Yeah. Yeah.

33:17 You know, what, what comes to mind? So, um, Yeah, it was probably a month ago. Uh, my dog died and my dog died rather suddenly. It wasn't an accident. It was, uh, he had a tumor on his heart that we didn't know about. And, uh, um, and that got him. Um, and I, I, I had a, a very difficult reaction to that. Um, he was my buddy and, you know, I'd had him for 11 years and, and I just, um, I love the stupid dog to death. Um, He was a, he was a great, uh, a great pal. Um, and you know, what, what got me to, what just made me think of that as, as you were talking was, you know, think of all the other abandonments that you've had in your life. Um, you know, my dad died at 51. My mom died at 56. Um, both of them, my, my dad, um, died. It took about a year for him to die. He died of the treatment of cancer. Um, The cancer was all gone, but the treatment killed him.

34:26 And my mother died fairly quickly. She was, I think she took, she had an aneurysm on Sunday and she was gone on Tuesday. But those are all abandonments, you know. And you start to get the depth of some of that feeling of the abandonments. I mean, I had a five-year period that I lost my mom and my dad. I got divorced. I got remarried. I got fired from a job, and I got a new job. And I also got promoted in that job to another city and moved completely to another city. All within five years. most people would probably have had a breakdown after those five years.

35:19 And I look back on it now and I go, God, how did I make that through? But you do. You do. And yet here your dog died and subconsciously all of that came back up again. Yeah, I didn't sleep for three weeks after he died. I didn't sleep well. I was just anxious and nervous and, you know, that's, yeah, it's funny how that all comes back. So here's my question for you, because I guarantee you, those that are listening, many are experiencing deep grief, deep loss, that type of thing. As you began to understand that whole process of what was happening, how have you been able to deal with all of that abandonment, with all of that loss, with the loss of your dog. How did you deal with that? Because I'm assuming every once in a while it still comes up, which is okay, but it's not, it hasn't totally taken over your life.

36:25 How did you deal with that? That might be of value to people who are going through similar things. You know, it's, it's weird. I, I, I've never told anybody outside of my wife this, but, uh, um, I had a recurring dream probably 25 years after my dad died, um, that he showed up and he couldn't explain where he'd been for 25 years. And we had a conversation and I don't know, maybe that was what I needed right at that time or, or, you know, that's, that's why he appeared. You know, I think it's, it's mindset. Maybe I was just too stupid to be, to, to grieve. Um, I don't know. But it's mindset. Listen, if you think that everybody's out to get you, probably everybody's out to get you. And everybody's going to be out to get you.

37:18 If you believe that the world is a decent place to be, then you're probably going to think a little bit differently. So when I look back on some of those times, I mean, Yeah, you know, eventually I did see a therapist and, you know, I spent a while working everything out, but it wasn't coming from a place of I'm broken. It's coming from a place of, you know, I just need to work this all stuff out. Does that make any sense? Well, it doesn't. I think you bring up such an important point of personal responsibility, recognizing that As these things keep coming up, at what point in time do we say, you know what, I really need to take the responsibility to work through this, whether it's through a therapist, whatever way that happens to be. And sometimes a therapist is so important. But to be able to take the responsibility to say, hey, you know what, these are mine. I can't blame anybody else for them. I can't blame society.

38:31 These are mine. I'm going to take the responsibility to work through them. And as we do that, and as we hopefully find a good path to do that, and if we don't, we keep starting over and over and over again until we do find the right path. I think that becomes so important. You know, one of the interesting things, and we don't have a lot of time, but I want to get into this because you talked about the fact that your next book is stories. And And I think stories can be important. I want you to talk a little bit about stories and how they can be so important in our lives as we look at stories, as we read stories, as we consider stories.

39:15 Oh, story is so important. I've sat in enough presentations where somebody gets 25 PowerPoint slides with 42 points on each slide and reads every damn slide. And you just... kind of go a little bit nuts. Whereas they could have told a story and it would have had everybody wrapped in attention in the place. So story is just so important. It's how we relate. It's how we relate to each other. It's how we relate to ourselves and Because everybody in every story sees a bit of themselves in it. And that's the really important thing is, are we able to see ourselves in the story that you're telling?

40:03 So it doesn't matter whether I'm going over the quarterly earnings or if I'm telling a story about my breakdown or whatever. People love stories. And you know what I find interesting? And again, I go back to, you know, the stories, the parables. And when Christ was asked, why do you teach in parables? And his response was, you know, let them understand for those that can understand. And I think, you know what? Each of us, as we hear a story, we're going to understand that in a particular way. that's important to us.

40:48 And it's like anything else. You and I may listen to a story, the same story, and for me, it's going to have an entirely different meaning in my life than it is for you. And yet, the important thing is that someone was willing to share that story. Yeah. You know, when you were talking about that before, We can't control anything except ourselves. So we can't control what happens to us, but we can control our reaction to it. That's the same way with a story. We can't dictate the story. Somebody's going to tell us a story and we choose to make of it what we want to make of it. And that's the important part. You're absolutely right.

41:41 That's the important part is being able to make something out of a story. and have it reflect in our lives. Why do we enjoy listening to someone give a great sermon, and usually that great sermon tells a couple of stories? Well, we enjoy that because we can put ourselves in that story in the way that we want to, not in the way that perhaps they intended us to, but in the way we want to. And that becomes the important point. Again, from the standpoint of the storyteller, realizing that if we're gonna tell stories, we tell the story and that's all. We don't try to imprint on someone else what it should mean to them.

42:26 So anyway, yeah. Hey, this has been enjoyable. This has really been more of just a conversation this time, which I really have enjoyed. Have we been on that long? I think, have we been on only 15 minutes? I mean, come on. I know, isn't that amazing? Yeah. You know, I think about that as I do my walking meditation. I'll walk for literally close to three miles, and it usually takes an hour and 15 minutes and so forth. And sometimes as I'm either listening to a book or oftentimes when I'm listening to chimes for my meditation, which I found for me is really effective, all of a sudden, Here I am back at the house and I think, where on earth did that time go?

43:15 Well, and what I ask is, where did I go? Yeah. Where have I been? Anyway. Well, so what would you like to share with the audience kind of as that final message? And that's something I love, you know, for my guests to do is kind of that final message that might make a difference in their lives as they think about it. You know... I don't really have a great piece of advice, but, uh, um, I, I think we've had a great conversation and, uh, and, you know, don't forget the power of story. Be curious, you know, um, and, and, and I, I think, I think being curious keeps us young, you know, because, because, because I've, I've known so many people that retire and stop being curious. And, and, and, They grow old quickly.

44:10 They grow old and they become really boring. Yeah. Well, we hope we're not, right? That's right. That's right. Anyway, Chip, hey, thanks so much. This has been great. I really appreciate it. And look forward to that new book coming out. You say it's in October? Yep. Yep. Okay. And again, how do people find your books? Amazon and the audiobooks are on a number of audiobook platforms as well. Perfect. All right, Chip, thanks so much. I appreciate it. And folks, hope you've enjoyed it. This has been a fun conversation for us and hope that maybe something that we said might make a difference for you. So this is Dr. Doug saying namaste.

44:54 Namaste. Every conversation on this podcast eventually comes back to that same question, not how do I get more, but is this actually who I am? If something you heard today moved you just a little closer to an honest answer, that is enough. I'm Dr. Doug. This is Inspire Vision. Until next time.