You Need a Fool in Your Life, But Not the Kind You Think

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0:41 Denzel Welshon, Welcome to Inspire Vision. Our sole purpose is to elevate the lives of others and to inspire you to see. Paul Welcome to the show. Thank you, doctor Doug. I appreciate being here. Well, I'm looking forward to this. You know, I had a chance to listen to your ted X talk and it was really fascinating and you obviously went into some interesting topics. But what I'd love for you to do is share with the audience kind of your background and I know that will bring up the whole story to a little degree, and then we'll get into that maybe a little bit further. But if you could do that, I know you do a lot of different things, and if you could share with the audience what was your journey that brought you to this point, I think that would be interesting.

1:22 Absolutely well. For thirty years, I was a practicing federal trial attorney in the city of Chicago, practicing labor and employment law. I took a detour. I became a convicted felon, spent five and a half years in a federal prison, got out, and because I could no longer practice law, I decided I was going to take my life experiences, including the concept of surviving, of failure and recovering, and turning it into a coaching platform. I've been an executive coach since two thousand and one. I now have a national coaching practice. My largest client's billion dollar privately held company.

2:10 That's my trajectory. In about thirty seconds, it covers seventy years. Okay, So as you work with these large companies, what's your main focus with them or is it kind of in general? I know when I was working with very small companies as a consultant. I was finding that I'm really focusing on the organizational aspects of it and kind of going through a whole process of marketing and all of that type of thing. What's your focus with those companies? Well, I bill myself as the NOBS workplace performance coach. I work with the executive suite, and it's all about improving leadership of the leaders. I actually my tagline is challenging the best to become better, and I work exclusively in taking those leadership skill sets and making them much better.

3:02 That's it in a nutshell. I wish it was more complicated, but it's not. I take my experience plus the experience of being a coach now for thirty years, and I turned that into some valuable actionable input. Okay, And you know what I find fascinating as I worked with individuals, and like I say, not to the degree that you do by any stretch of the imagination, but while I was doing that, what I found was there so often that whatever skills you were teaching business wise were literally skills that they needed in their own lives. Because each one of us really needs to be a leader in our own life. Is that not true? Oh? Absolutely? The concept of trying to By the way, this is a new concept. I absolutely agree with you.

3:50 But leadership prior to the pandemic, especially was compartmentalized. You left your personal life at home. Leaders did not like the concept of sharing. They didn't want to be vulnerable, they didn't want to be authentic. They felt that that made them look weak and ineffective. The pandemic changed that people stopped being willing to accept this division of your one thing outside of work and you're another thing at work. You're not. You're a holistic person. You bring that bagage wherever it may be to the workplace, but you also take it home with you. So yeah, you're actually you're spot on with us. My context of coaching is about their life, not just about their work.

4:37 Okay. And you know, I listened to your ted X talk, as I mentioned, and and you talk about the fact that everybody needs a fool in their life. And we're going to get into that, Okay, but that's going to be maybe near the end of what we're going to talk about today, because one of the things I want to talk to you about, because you had mentioned them, is these blind spots that we have and briggers that activate them. I in fact, I found a quote that I found interesting and I want to share it with you with the audience because I think it's pertinent to what we're going to talk about. Is from Carljng and what he says is, until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate and yeah, spot on. And what I find is that so often we don't realize that our literal experience in life is a result of that unconscious subconscious, those those triggers, those blind spots as you refer to them.

5:38 And so I'm going to ask you a very transparent question. You were You were an attorney in Chicago. By the way, I grew up in Chicago, so I love Chicago. But you were an attorney in Chicago you ended up going to prison. Why? Ego? Ego? Yes, and let me tell you that ego was my blind spot. I think it is the blind spot for many. And yes, my ego led me to believe that I was tell you I was, I was the smartest guy in the room. There was never any room that I was in that I didn't truly believe that I was extraordinarily successful as an attorney and a smart guy, but stupid when it comes to relationships. And because of that ego and the desire to belong. I came from a broken home and I strived to find stability in my life, but I also needed acceptance. I always felt like I was an outcast. I was a loaner. I did not join groups, and the clientele that I represented was morally reprehensible. However, I was fascinated by them, and they really wanted me to join their group, because having a smart lawyer to defend you when you commit a crime is a plus.

6:59 And I wanted that group. I wanted to belong and they gave me the opportunity. But there's initiation fee to belong to any group, and that initiation fee was obviously to commit those morally reprehensible tasks, the things that you did, and I did that with I did that willfully. I don't I make no bumps about it. I absolutely deserve to go to prison. However, so those two blind spots for me, the ego and the need to belong, allowed me to be triggered by the way people recognize your blind spots even though you don't. And then if they're not good. They'll take advantage of them.

7:40 Absolutely, they'll manipulate you by pressing triggering those blind spots. Okay, So one of the things that I've observed in myself as well as others, and as we've talked on these podcasts for years now about this topic, is fascinating that we literally create our life, We literally create our experiences, and oftentimes we don't realize initially at least that those experiences are a result of those limiting beliefs that we have a subconscious type of things. Oftentimes it's not even conscious. Oftentimes it's actually built in our DNA, and we don't realize that the epigenetics of that is causing us to do certain things. But my question for you, and you had mentioned a little bit of it, but let's let's do a deep dive, because I think for the audience it would be really fascinating for them to understand what you discovered in a deep way about your previous life as a child and your subconscious imprints, and you call them blind spots that triggered you to do the things that you did that ultimately now you are very sorry that you did, and obviously you have changed your life but what were those things talked about needing to be accepted?

9:02 Were there others that you wanted to be a part of a group? What was it that actually literally caused you to make those decisions and at the time feel like it was okay. Well, first, just you're correct about these mind spots are with us from birth. They they're there. We don't see them, but we also can't get rid of them. It does not matter how hard we try, they continue to exist. It is our ability to recognize them and exert control. So at the time, because first overconfident, very successful, ego driven one and more, by the way, trial trial lawyers are adrenaline junkies. You know you're not a trial lawyer if you don't enjoy the high and I did. My problem was between trials when I wasn't actually in front of the jury and in court in front of the jumb engaged in that verbal combat with a worthy opponent.

10:05 I was bored. I didn't like that, and I saw it. I sought out adrenaline inducing opportunities. And by the way, this group that I speak of, my client base, offered me that they offered me acceptance, They offered me the adrenaline high. They offered me the ego stroking that I craved. I needed to be told that I was good. I needed to be told I was exceptional. This came from again, I go back to my childhood. A broken home leaves that indelible impact on you. You never feel like you're completely first, You feel like you may have caused it. You don't know why adults do what they do as a kid, so you make those assumptions. And I assumed that it was something that I did. I never found that out, obviously because it wasn't true. But it didn't mean I didn't believe it. I did believe it. And because of that, I was always offering from imposter syndrome.

11:02 Even though I would tell you I was the smartest guy in the room, I was never sure that that level of doubt continues to permeate every action that I took. So I craved that. I craved all of the stuff that I got from people who realized my blind spots and decided to take advantage of them. Well, and you know that's true, and unfortunately you know whether it's people. And like I said, I grew up in Chicago, so I get what you're talking about. But you know, people that are not necessarily good will obviously identify those type of things and take advantage of those. There are others that will take advantage of situations that will empower them. For instance, when you get into abuse, whether it's physical or mental or emotional, whatever that happens to be. So often people find themselves continually in those same relationships because they've never been able to figure out internally and subconsciously what they were, what was really going on, what was causing that type of thing. Now I want to disagree with you on one thing, and okay, and it may be worth thinking the same thing, and there is no disagreement. But my belief system, and as I've studied it, what I find is that there literally is a way to change neural pathways. So do we ever totally overcome those imprints and get them wipe from a memory.

12:32 Absolutely not. But I believe that as we consciously, with a mindset and emotional intelligence, start to observe what's going on and literally allow ourselves to recognize reframe those because as you say, it's really perception from childhood all the time, or at least a lot of the time, and be able to change the neural pathways to where you don't totally eliminate the neural pathways, but you've moved to the side, to the point that if you were really in a conscious situation, when those emotions start to come up, you immediately moved them to the side because you're now more conscious and you've created a stronger nearrow pathway. What are your thoughts.

13:14 No, first, I don't disagree with you at all. I think that for most of us it is extraordinarily difficult for us to do that on our own. That's why we'll talk about the concept of the pool. That's my crunching. But let me tell you that the seminal event that allowed me the opportunity to do exactly what you say was going to prison. If I had not gone to prison first, I wouldn't have survived. I would have been dead long ago. That experience forced me to understand these blind spots, and with the help of a support system, I did exactly what you said. I started to change the way I looked at my life and how I behaved, but only under that amount of direct It took me going to prison. And let me tell you how wrong we embedded these are I stood in front of a judge who was getting ready to sentence me to seven years of incarceration and two things. First, I had practiced in front of this judge, and the judge said, as he prepared the sentence me, you're one of the few people that I wish I could give more time to, but he couldn't under the sentencing guidelines. And he offered me an opportunity. He said, I'm going to reduce your sentence by twenty percent if you do only two things. First, I'd already been found guilty. It was my second trial.

14:35 I'd been found guilty in the second trial. I was going to go to prison. Yeah, there was no way around this. He said, you must accept responsibility for what you did, and you must agree to cooperate with the prosecuting attorney to concerning those people that committed the crimes with you. Now, listen, is a no brainer, isn't it? A twenty percent reduction in prison time? Lets me go home a year year and a half early. And I said no, and. You probably would have been killed in prison. Maybe let's be honest. By the way, I have to admit I had an insurance package that we don't need to talk about that.

15:16 I don't think that would have happened. Second, you could be very selective about information. But the reality was that I didn't do that out of fear, I tell you truthfully. I did it out of the the need to still be a part of this group that would have that could cut me loose in a heartbeat. Right, there is no honor among thieves. And if you think that someone is going to support you when you get in trouble, you're wrong. They run away from you. But that's how strongly embedded my needs were, my blind spots were. It took going to prison, and it took two years of incarceration before I started to understand the need to do exactly what you said, reframe my life and start to have this this opportunity to see it differently but also to behave differently based on this different perception.

16:06 Well, and you know, you talk about something fascinating. So this is nothing I thought we were going to talk about. But let's talk about prison for a minute, because you know, so often people come out of prison as convicted whatever, and they have a real struggle in their lives to be able to you know, generate income, to be able to get a decent job and so forth. Obviously that didn't happen to you. But my question is this, and I think it may be important for the audience to understand if this is what happened in prison, did they offer you some coaching, Did they offer you anything for you to be able to finally get into where you were able to analyze what was going on as you were talking about or was that all on your own by just reading and doing those things.

16:51 The prison is not about rehabilitation, it's warehousing. No, they don't offer any opportunities to change your life. Prison. It's just not what it's The system is not structured that way. So no, I did this on my own, and I'll tell you. I'll tell you this seminal moment. I spent the first two years of incarceration engaged in revenge fantasy. I was going to get even with everyone who put me in prison. I accepted no responsibility for having myself, destroying my life, leaving my family destitute, and spending five and a half years, at age fifty in prison. The thing that the thing that happened was at the end of year two men that I had seen in prison when I got there, started and got and been released started to come back, and that shocked me, and I suddenly realized that if I did not put in the effort to change who I was and how I behaved, how I thought that I was going to be a career criminal, that was going to be made. I was going to lose my family and continue to get out, commit the same crimes, maybe the different fashion, and returned to prison. That shock started me on this transformation journey.

18:06 But no, prison doesn't do any of that for you. I'll let me relate to anecdotes. Because I was never of service. It was never a part of my life to be of service to anyone except myself. Until I went to prison and my wife and I reached a compact. I had asked her to become my fool, the person who would help me transform, and she said no. She said, I know you, I love you, but I know that if I say something you need to change or that you're wrong, We're going to end up in a debate. She said, I'm not going to drive five and a half hours one weekend a month to spend two days with you and fight, so I'm not interested. Shocked me.

18:49 I was like, oh my god, it's a person who loves me the most, and they're not going to help me. I said that I need to do this, and she said, so she loved. Thirty days later, she comes back and we had this discussion and I said, okay, let's talk about how we can make this work, because I have to do this. If I can't do this, I can't do it on my own. And she said, all right, I'll tell you what the rules are. She said, every month, the last hour of our visit, I'm going to give you three things you need to work on, and when I come back a month later, you better tell me what you've done to work on them. She said. The first time you don't do that, I'm done so with that force, and I mean it killed me to hear that, because at the end of every visiting session for four four years after that, the last half hour she would, by the way, she never she never lacked for things to tell me I needed to change.

19:40 So I can't. Imagine, oh, yeah, I I destroyed her life. I mean, seriously, if the fact that she stayed with me is crazy, she and she would give me the three things, and all I could say was. Thank you, Yeah, let me let me ask you this question because you know, you talk in general about after two years you decided you needed to really do that. What caused the AHA moments for you to suddenly sit back and say, you know what, I've got to change or my life will never change and I'll be back here again in a number of years. What was that AHA moment for you? Because what I find so often is people go through lives and many of them never have an AHA moment. They just continue on and continue on, whereas other people something happens that gives them that AHA moment that says, you know it, I've got to do this introspective work. What was it for you?

20:32 First, I'm going to disagree with you. Everybody has an AHA moment, you just choose to ignore. It, right, Okay, you're right, you're right. Well yeah and so so yeah, and again. I saw guys start to come back to prison, and it just was it was like, oh my god, that was it. That was the lightning bolt that shocked me up. Until that time, it had never occurred to me that people would ever come back. Don't you learn your lesson? So at that point I realized that I was not learning my lesson. That I was exactly like them. And again self esteem came into this because I was in prison thinking I'm an educated guy, I've got the every opportunity when I get out, And then I certainly realized probably not.

21:16 If I'm not different, life will not be different from me. Why would it be. This was just an interlude. If I didn't do something about it, it would just be a repeat. So that was it, And you know, I wish I could tell you that was a specific thing, but it just was suddenly realizing and being shocked by the fact that people would come back to this place that I was find so hard to get out of. It just realization, you know, and and I wish again nothing else. The interesting thing was when I talked to my wife, that was that was That was actually when you want the aha moment when she said she was not going to help me. That you're a spot on. Yes, The aha moment was not this realization about what I needed to do. It was the realization that the person who loved me the most was not going to help me to do it. And that was the turning.

22:09 Point because of who you were as far as she understood up to that point. Absolutely, yeah, which I find me. You know. So you talk about fool, and you defined it very well in your ted X talk. But I like for you now, because we're going to talk about this, you say you need a fool in your life, talk a little bit about the background of that, because most people, I'm sure are not going to get it. Nobody gives it. Let's that's why I was a But I started trying to pitch this Beepore are like, You've got to change the title. It's not no one's going to understand any No, I'm I'm a reader. But in prison, I was a voracious reader. Right, there's so much time, and I read about the concept of the medieval king who was appointed by God, and the concept of the fool that was the counterbalance to infallibility. The deal was that the king, because he was appointed by God, was infallible.

23:07 Anyone who challenged the king his behavior, his actions committed committed treason and would have their head cut off. However, the exception to that was the fool. Now, when we see the fool in a picture or in a movie, we look at him as an entertainer sitting at the foot of the throne. They're dressed up in that weird garb. They jump up and they sing a song, they tell a joke. That wasn't the function of the fool. The function of the fool was because they were viewed as being crazy, they had the psychological safety to tell the king they were wrong. So the fool actually was a trusted advisor to the king, which was that counterbalance to absolute power. I loved that concept. I read it and I said, you know, first I said, ego, I'm the king, right, I didn't say I was. I said, I'm the king.

24:01 I need to find the fool, all right. So the concept was at was backwards at the beginning. But as I worked my way through this concept with my wife, who was my fool, became my fool and gave me the gift of truth. And I look at coaching as a calling because of my experience. I bought that with me and I developed a coaching process based on my being a leader's fool. So many leaders live in echo chambers. They only hear how good they are. The psychological safety we talk about it a lot, right, the safety and the freedom to tell someone the truth. Well, we love to think that that exists in our organizations, but it doesn't.

24:50 People are afraid to tell leaders the truth they know something bad will happen to them, or they're afraid of will. So as an independent contractor a coach, I said, well, that's my job. I will tell leaders the truth. And that's been the basis for coaching. So that's the process and the concept of the pool. And I believe my Ted Talks says it, everyone needs a pool in their life. If you don't have someone to tell you the truth about you, you will never be able to overcome those blind spots, even recognize them, avoid those triggers and start to reach your full potential as a human being. Well, and you know, I believe that's true. And whether we call them coaches or you know, if the psychologists or whatever you want to call them, or you know, your personal full But here's my question. Obviously, quite frankly, you were very fortunate that your wife, ultimately, when she decided to do that, had the ability to do that.

25:52 I've worked with some people just kind of more as a friend than anything else, and I know sometimes that's where you get your fools. But as I've worked with a few people, and one that comes to my mind particularly they also have other friends that literally, in my opinion, in my professional opinion, are leading them the wrong way and are supporting them in their idiocy and not really and in their ego and all of those type of things, rather than telling them the truth, maybe because they don't know the truth, or number two, because they don't really have the courage to tell the truth because they're afraid that it might ruin the friendship or whatever. So as you talk about finding that fool in your life, how important is it and what guidelines do you need to use in order to make sure that whoever that is, that's your fool, that's your coach that's there to help you, is really doing it in an appropriate way.

26:51 First, it is difficult. Most people don't want to Most people don't want to be a pool. By the way, is an uncomfortable position to give the gift of truth because the person that you're giving it to is going to be resistant to it. So the first thing that I tell everyone is you need to find someone who cares more about you than they do themselves. If if that's the groundwork, then that works. They also have to be wise enough to know how to communicate with you in a way that doesn't create additional resistance. There's built in defensiveness when someone tells us we're wrong, So they've got to want to do that.

27:33 But they have to care enough about you to be willing to do this hard thing. That's why doing it with friends extraordinarily difficult. I believe why the friendship is at risk. If you tell someone something they don't want to hear, may very well damage the friendship. That's why I look at coaches and I look at mentors as the place to go to find that person who cares enough about you but also cares enough to tell you the truth. That's too different caring. And by the way, you mentioned something, why don't people want to do this first? They may in the business world, people don't want to be your fool because they're after something from you that.

28:19 They don't want you to be different. They want you to stay the same. So yeah, and they'll feed that ego and develop that echo chamber, so you have no desire to do anything other than listen to them tell you how great you are. So that's why coaches and why mentors have so much value in the leadership process. Also, I love peer groups. I think the peer groups provide an opportunity, if they're appropriately put together, to have that psychological safety to tell someone the truth about a situation. But that requires a lot of honesty in a group setting. So there's a limitation to that. So back to the coaching, I look at coaching as okay.

29:01 So so so here here's the other question. I have you know, the whole concept that you you are the average of the five people that you surround yourself with. And again, as you're looking about talking to coaches, and believe me, I I understand how this works because I've seen a lot of coaches that I'm going, oh my goodness, okay, And so how do you how do you determine that that individual? Do you need to look at their lives and because if they're if they're in the same boat you are, then you know and quite frankly, a lot of the times our friends are in the same boat we are, and they are the worst people to be our fool and if they are that, they are we're very foolish. So so what what do you do? How do you how do you determine someone is going to really be a good mentor a good coach for you?

29:58 Are are there some red flags versus green flags that you can share with the audience as they think about maybe doing this for themselves and finding someone that they can ask about and question in order to really make sure that they're getting someone a value, or as they start the process, are there some red flags that might come up that they can say, you know what, I don't think this is the right fool for me. Well, first I tell everyone I'm not a life coach, and so I'll tell you the basis for my coaching is a client of mind gave me a testimonial. He said, Paul is a shirpum. He will get you to the mountaintop, but he will not carry your pack. And to me, that's what you're looking for in a coach. If you want a coach to carry your pack and they agree to do it, that's not the person that will help you for transformation. So when you look at someone, they have to be hard enough to tell you what's wrong, to give you the gift of truth, then help you create that action plan, whatever that may be. It's got to me that the concept of helping someone change is you can't just talk about it. You actually have to put together a plan. So they can do it, and then you become their accountability buddy. Your obligation is to make sure that when they say they're going to do something, they do it. And if they don't, then you have that serious conversation about is this process working? And am I the person for you if it's not?

31:30 And how important? How important is it you talk about making that plan? How important is it for the individual to make the plan rather than the coach. Absolutely, I can't. I can't tell you what you want? Why why would I want to do that? I can tell you at some point if what you want has value, so we can have that discussion. And by the way, I don't believe the coaching is for the small things. If all you want someone to make you a better speaker, well you can find a speaking coach for that. But that's something that I don't look at as being a part of what I want to do. I want it to be meaningful for myself. I want to feel some satisfaction out of helping someone along their journey of transformation.

32:14 By the way, coaching, to me a leader is about legacy. You can't just coach for today. You should be coaching for the legacy of this person. This requires that deeper introspection about who they are and what they're accomplishing, and that action plan has got to be moving them forward. I find we do an awful lot of naval gazing gazing, and I don't see it as being beneficial. If you enter into a coaching relationship, you've got to be willing to do the hard work, but the coach has also got to be willing to hold you accountable for doing the hard work. And that dynamic has got to be there in every conversation. You have a conversation where nothing is happening, where you're not moving forward, where you're not taking an action that's beneficial.

33:01 Well, and how often do you find, as you're working with these leaders that you make a suggestion, you tell them the truth, and what's the percentage of them that say, oh, okay versus you know you're full of it? Well, first, eighty percent of the people that are referred to me don't do business with me. I don't. So I've got a twenty percent of the people who referred become clients. And I'm absolutely okay with that, because it is hard work if you're going to transform people. And by the way, we've got ourselves caught up and how easy life is supposed to be. And if I say I want to do it, then that's like doing it. No, this is a hardcore thing. And I use my own example of it took me four years after I had decided that I needed to change to be able to transform where I felt I was different. You said it rewiring.

33:51 Reframing had to take place, and it takes place slowly. Both success and failure rewires our brain. And therefore we've got to be aware of that. We've got to be able to take action so it doesn't derail us. So again it's a concept of first you got to feel it. And I know that sounds that sounds like Nave unclazy. I think that I pretty quickly can find out I've got a pretty good bullshit antenna, and so I can tell what somebody's prepared to do the hard work. And I don't engage in the relationship until I feel it. That's certain, and if I don't feel it, I'm not going to do it. The same thing on the other side, if you're looking for someone who is just going to placate you and support your bad habits, they're all over the place. You don't need a coach for that. You need to have someone who's serious about your transformation and you have to be serious about it. It's a it's reciprocity.

34:45 Well, and that's so true. And like I say, I have one friend that I work with just because he's my friend, and every time we talk, I'm saying, look, this could ruin our friendship. Are you okay with that? It's like, yes, is it okay? So anyway, but you know, you use the word failure, and I think that that's an area that I'd love to chat about real quick, because so often we, you know, we fail, and that brings about a sense of guilt, of shame, of all those type of things, and you know, and re emphasizes the imposter syndrome if we happen to have that, which for the audience means that you never really believe you're good enough and can be successful, even though it may appear that you are. So when we talk about failure, how do we reframe that into something that is positive that we can express gratitude for rather than the opposite.

35:38 Well, I you know, I I do courses on failure because I tell people I'm a subject matter expert. I have absolutely failed to the degree that most people fortunately aren't going to. The recovery process from that is based on reframing failure as lessons to learn, because every failure truly has a lesson to teach us. First, we have to accept the responsibility for it. That's one of the big things. And the reason that it's a big thing is most of the time when we fail, we're trying to escape it. We want to ignore it, we want to move on from it. We don't want to examine it. And by the way, I don't believe in embracing failure.

36:20 I hate the concept of failure. I hate to fail, but I understand its importance. And so when we understand the importance and we reframe it as a lesson to learn, we turn it into a positive. You know what Thomas Edison said, I haven't failed ten thousand times. I've just found nine hundred nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety nine ways that it doesn't work. Does it work? Yeah, you can't. In Winston church yarll, success is stumbling from failure to failure and not losing your enthusiasm. That's truly where we're at with this First, you are going to fail. It is inevitable. I truly believe it's fifty percenter of our life. The question is are you going to do something with the experience. I did something with the experience. I tell every leader when you fail, it teaches you a couple of things. First, there is a lesson to laurn, so you don't do it again. Second, it teaches you humility and escaping hubris is a great thing for a successful person.

37:21 Otherwise it will cause you to It will cause you to fail harder than anything else. Okay, Yeah, And as you talk about the leaders, let's talk about individuals. We all experience failures in our lives. And that's kind of the same concept, isn't it That if we after those failures and can sit back and say, Okay, what am I going to learn from this and do that with a sense of humility and a sense of gratitude and allow the ego to be pushed aside, that then we start to learn, and therefore we start to not make those same mistakes. Well, and you're yes, and believe me when I talk about my failure, not only did I fail as a professional, I fail as a father. I fail as a husband.

38:08 I mean, I just failed across There is nothing I didn't fail at in my life at that point in time. And yes, you do have to come out of that and go, okay, how about first, I'd have to be willing to accept a different perspective, a different point of view, and I have to make sure that the person my wife, had the psychological safety to do that. So you frame it, You put together a structure that allows those conversations to take place, because without the feedback from the other people that have been impacted by the failure, you're not going to be able to do something different, You're not going to learn the lesson. That feedback is so important, once again, the gift of truth. So no, it's your ability to say, I accept responsibility for my part in this failure, whether it be personal or professional, and I am going to make sure that the people that I have impacted are in the process of allowing me to learn the lesson.

39:07 And that's wonderful. And you know what, I think you hit a show on the head that communication to those that have been affected, the communication of being able to honestly take responsibility and say, hey, you know, if you happen to have an argument with your spouse or whatever. It's like, Hey, you know, I learned this and I thought it was funny because when I was going through some coaching certifications, one of the comments that was made was, you know, this is something that if you ever get in an argument with your with your spouse, you should be able to say. But don't you dare ever say it, or you're going to really get in trouble. And that was honey, what emotion came up in your mind when this happened. But the point is is that if we do that for ourselves and say, you know what, I just got angry, but what caused that emotion to come up?

40:00 And me what was that anger emotion and what triggered that? And if we take responsibility for that and to start to communicate that, all of a sudden, those relationships change in a very positive way. Yes, you're yes, they do. And what you just said is absolutely true. And by the way, once again you mentioned the trigger right. Whenever you overreact to something there's a reason. Rather than ignore the reason, explore the reason, find out what it was, and you can do that through someone else. You say, hey, I know how I just sounded to you. Tell me, let's discuss that. Let's have an exchange of why that happened, because I truly don't want to do it again. You see, we also have to be willing to say I'm trying not to do this. You know how much graverification you get out of being angry with someone. You get to turn around and walk away and you just feel like, oh my god, that was a good thing. It's not a good thing.

40:59 You ruined a relationship, right, And. You know, one of the things that came up in one of my discussions was, you know how how keia would be to step outside of yourself and really, now you're getting into that mindfulness, into that consciousness of stepping outside and said, okay, Doug, you know I'm over here talking to me and saying why why did you get triggered? Was what was the trigger that did that? And if you can step outside of yourself without any emotion and start to have that discussion with yourself, all of a sudden, you start to really gain insights into what's going on. And I think that's so important. So as we close today, can you believe that time has already gone by? I'm sitting here looking to the timer going, Oh, my goodness, But what would be a message that you'd like to share with the audience.

41:51 Well, I think we've pretty much had the message throughout this conversation. You've been very good at making sure that I've been able to deliver my message. You're responsible for yourself. Don't try to give that responsibility to someone else. We often do that. We want someone else to be responsible for who we are, where we're going, the journey we're on. Don't do that, And you've mentioned it without saying the words. Become self aware. Take the time to know yourself. This is a difficult journey, but you can do this and find someone that you trust and that cares about you so that you're able to have discussions like we're having that will give you the information you need to transform.

42:35 The concept of transformation is a lifelong journey. It's never over if it's over your dead. So think about the transformation that you want, think about the legacy you want to leave, and start to structure your own path. Someone said, if you think you know the path you're on, you're on the wrong path. All right, Well that's insightful. Thank you for that. That was a great message. That is a great message. So how do people find you? Or maybe once more important, depending on what you'd like, how do people find your ted Talk? Which which do you think would be most important for the audience today? I would tell you to go to the ted talk seriously.

43:17 The TEDx is where my message was given with as much emotion as I could muster, and it is it explains everything we talked about in a different perspective. And by the way, the last, the last remark of my ted talk is if you don't think first. I believe that if you have a pool, you have to become a pool, and if you're not willing to do that, then you don't understand the value of having a fool. Yes, so yeah, I love that. So what do people google in order to find your ted Talk? Ball Glover, ted X and Paul Glover? What Ball Glover and his and tedxx All Glover will take you right to it? Great?

44:02 All right, well, Paul, thank you. This has been fascinating. Doctor Doug. I so much appreciate top for you to talk to you. It's been It's been invigorating. I love the conversation and I love the opportunity to be in front of your audience. Everyone have a blessed day. Well, and thank you so much, and folks, thank you for listening. I hope you're getting some insights on this. And like I said, I watched the Ted Talks. It's fascinating, So get there and watch his TEDx talk because I think it'll give you some great insights. So anyway, this is doctor Doug saying thank you so much and no mistay