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- [00:03]
Dr. Henry Cloud
Welcome to It's a Good Life, the.
- [00:05]
Brian Buffini
Podcast for entrepreneurs where it's all about.
- [00:08]
Dr. Henry Cloud
Growing yourself and your business. Here's your host, founder of America's largest business coaching company, Brian Buffini.
- [00:17]
Brian Buffini
Well, the top of the morning to you and welcome to It's a Good Life. I've really been looking forward to today for some time. There are very few people I admire, lots of people I've learned from, but people you admire. And to me in our world today, you know what produces admiration? There's a lot of fame and there's a lot of people, social media stars. And that has its own gift. But to me, we don't ask the questions anymore. What have you done? How have you lived? Today I have Dr. Henry Cloud and Henry's been a guest at our events for the past 15 years. I've read so many of his books that have blessed my life and blessed so many people's lives. But who he is, how he lives and what he's done, you know, we're a world that's drowning in information, starving for wisdom. Dr. Henry Cloud has wisdom. He's a clinical psychologist, he's a leadership consultant. He's written I don't even know how many best selling books. He's over 20 million copies worldwide. His book Boundaries, which is his world famous work. And we're going to talk today about a new book called called Trust. And it's knowing when to give it, when to withhold it, how to earn it and how to fix it when it gets broken. Obviously this is a brilliant business book. This is a life book, this is a personal book. But today we're going to unpack some wonderful aspects of a wonderful man's work. And I recommend it to everyone here today. It's been a fabulous read. Henry, it's a privilege and a pleasure. I've enjoyed our friendship over the years, but I'm a fanboy. I hate to admit it, but I am.
- [01:50]
Dr. Henry Cloud
You know, most people get over that in about five minutes, but I don't know what, you must be thick headed or something. It's taking you a while.
- [01:58]
Brian Buffini
Oh, I'm Irish. Andrew didn't like. Is that synonymous?
- [02:02]
Dr. Henry Cloud
Yeah, well, we do go way back and it's. I've been looking forward to this too. It's gonna be fun.
- [02:07]
Brian Buffini
Great stuff again, you know, you have a great way of communicating, you know, abstract concepts to making them concrete for people is the gift, right? That is the gift and you have it. Before we dive into the practicalities here, what is your definition of trust?
- [02:22]
Dr. Henry Cloud
I Call it the fuel of life. You know, we. Everybody throws around the term trust, but when we say it, you know, he said, you know, you'll be talking about somebody do a deal with or whatever maybe they're referring somebody do business with. And what do you trust him and. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I trust him. And what they mean by that, Brian, generally is people just kind of gets narrowed down to ethical and moral sense, you know. Yeah, he wouldn't lie to you. He wouldn't steal. You can believe the numbers, but there's a lot of people that we've worked with that wouldn't lie, cheat, or steal, but we don't ever want to work with them again. And so when. When you talk about the definition being the fuel, over the years, I'm working with, you know, lots of businesses and leaders that you don't get called into these situations without pretty soon, whether it's performance problem or results or just wanting to grow, pretty soon. You find when you lift up the hood, you find some way in which trust has been broken or it's being hampered. And you got to fix that, because trust, we can't scale anything without trust. We can't go through the day without trust. Right now, you and I are talking. You've been breathing a. I hope for a while. Why? Because the algorithm inside of yourself has been testing the air and vetting it and lets you forget about it. And you've trusted and you've invested well. We have an algorithm inside. When we're hiring somebody or investing or doing a deal or trying to win a customer, that algorithm gets important because it's either going to say, invest, move forward, let's do this, or whoa. And the book is about what runs that algorithm, because some of our trust muscles are really broken. We trust people we shouldn't, or we don't trust people we should, where we can scale and we'll micromanage. So it's a big deal.
- [04:23]
Brian Buffini
Yeah. I talked to a gentleman the other day. He's got a real big vision. He's got an operation going on now. And he started his meeting off with. Cause he came to a place where he felt he was ready to scale, he was ready to grow, going globally. And then he goes, you know, he finds out things are not quite where they are, where they should be. And he goes, man, I just don't trust anybody. And I said to him, well, okay, that's a tough one. I understand where that comes from. But I said, how do you plan on scaling that? You know, how do you scale mistrust how do you plan on doing that? And it's interesting he thought about it. He said, well, I got AI and I've got technologies. And I go, what? So you telling me you trust AI? But you know, AI only works when you put information into it. What's going into it, who's handling it, where's it going?
- [05:11]
Dr. Henry Cloud
And the, the overseers of the AI too.
- [05:14]
Brian Buffini
But you know, it's interesting. It was like. And I think that's where a little bit of, you know, where we've gotten to culturally. Like, I have six kids, which seemed like a great idea at the time, and they're fabulous. I gotta be honest with, they're fabulous people. Young adults, 33 down to 22, 23 year olds. But they've grown up in a world, you know, during COVID it was informative years and so on and so forth. And we reach out and like, our house has always been the hub, Henry. Like we would have a hundred kids at our house on a weekend and now that they're all college graduates, like their high school buddies are still showing up at our house, you know. But what I found is, by the.
- [05:47]
Dr. Henry Cloud
Way, Brian, I'm going to interject something here, all of you, you know, we always hear how, oh, the teenage years are coming, you parents out there, if you, if you got teenagers. First of all, it's the most fun I've ever had in my life having teenagers. But secondly, if you can make your home the hub, like Brian just said, where all the kids want to be you, you will prevent so many problems you won't ever have to deal with for a lot of reasons. I don't want to interrupt you, Byron.
- [06:15]
Brian Buffini
But no, you're right there. I mean, you know, you talk about trust like it's interesting as a sidebar. Not only did it create that dynamic, but the parents trusted us. They knew when their kids were coming over to our house, good stuff was happening and it became a safe place for them and their parents. And it was something they encouraged. I walked in my house the other day, one of my kids, high school buddies who's now 27 years of age, is sitting in my living room with his feet up, he's drinking a soda out of the fridge. He goes, hey, Mr. B. And I go, hey, how are we doing? Like no one's in the house. He goes, hey, Mr. B, how you done?
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Dr. Henry Cloud
I'm doing great.
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Brian Buffini
He goes, yeah, oh, Alex is coming over in an hour. He said, I just got work early. I said, great, well, enjoy the game.
- [06:53]
Dr. Henry Cloud
That's Great. That's how you want it, right? Yep.
- [06:55]
Brian Buffini
Yeah, it is.
- [06:55]
Dr. Henry Cloud
Now, think about you talking about scaling. Think about this. Those kids, parents trusted you. They could send their parent, their kids, to your house. Guess what just got bigger. Their lives. They get to go out that night. They get to do whatever. Their lives get bigger because of this dynamic called trust. And they can be careless at night worrying about the kid. And that whole thing about I don't trust anybody. I was. When I was doing the research for this book, I was on a plane and, you know, I'm. I'm looking at something and guy sitting next to me says, so what are you doing? I said, well, I'm. I'm researching trust. He goes, I don't trust anybody. I said, really? He said, absolutely not. I learned a long time ago you can't trust people. He said, I only trust myself. And I go, well, yeah, I'm a psychologist, and you're crazy.
- [07:52]
Brian Buffini
He goes, trust that. Trust that.
- [07:55]
Dr. Henry Cloud
What do you mean? I said, you're crazy. I mean, you, You're. You're absolutely crazy. As out of touch with the reality. You are crazy. So what are you talking about? I said, dude, look out the window. You're at 40,000ft. Did you get yourself up here? Don't tell me you don't trust people now. My hunch is, and I got time, I'd like to hear the story. But you, you've been really hurt along the line somewhere, and especially matters close to your heart. You're very reticent. And if you tell me this story, I can show you it's understandable, but I can show you what it's cost you.
- [08:30]
Brian Buffini
That's brilliant. We have a system that we teach the people we coach and train on how to become the trusted advisor. And in a world that right now is struggling with this. And that's why I think the book is timely. You talk about five essentials of trust. I'd love to kind of go through them with you one at a time. And, you know, I know you have a lot going on, but I'd love to go through this. You started with just trust me.
- [08:53]
Dr. Henry Cloud
You just trust me.
- [08:54]
Brian Buffini
Why? That's the understanding. The first essential of trust.
- [08:57]
Dr. Henry Cloud
When I remember I was going up the line was, I'm from the government. Just trust me.
- [09:01]
Brian Buffini
Yeah, right. Reagan, right?
- [09:04]
Dr. Henry Cloud
Probably, yeah. You know, that's what people want us to do, whether it's a deal or selling you something or this and the other. But, you know, you said some earlier, you said there's all this abstract theoretical Stuff which is very, very important. I mean, it's behind everything we do. You, the coffee stays in your cup there because of some laws of physics that at the deepest levels neither one of us would understand, but we all understand that it's got to sit there, right? Well, the thing about trust is we've got to make it simple. But it is profound that there is literally an algorithm that's running inside of every human system, down your spinal cord, through your gut, in your heart, through all of your senses, running an algorithm 24 7, asking one question before anything else. And that question is, am I safe? Am I safe? Am I safe to open my mouth in this team meeting? Am I safe to disagree with my boss? Am I safe to push against my client a little bit who wants to do something stupid? Am I safe to write the check? Am I safe to hire this person? And so we, we don't understand that there, there are some factors that have to load in all that before the button hits green. And so what I tried to do in the book was take all of that, all the physics of this, and get it down to a simple little GPS that people can look at and say, what are the main factors that I got to check off the box in order to be able to say yes and that people need to be able to see in me in order for them to trust me. And so that's, that's kind of what it's about.
- [10:57]
Brian Buffini
That's beautiful. What a great question. You know, old covey seek first to understand before being understood. I think one of the dynamics, especially for myself, like I'm a high energy guy and so on and so forth, that's a great question for me to have as I approach meetings and conversations. Does this person feel safe? Right? Do they feel safe to tell me what they think is all the oxygen being sucked out of the room? You know, that kind of thing.
- [11:18]
Dr. Henry Cloud
You asked the right question. Because here's what we do and this is what people have got to learn. If you're ever going to drive anything big, especially get somebody do something big, we ask that question, do they feel safe? And we think maybe not. I better convince them and talk them into why they're safe. Okay, you're, you're done at that point, you, you have just missed it. They are not understanding what you are telling them or selling them or persuading them. They're not understanding what you're saying until they feel understood by you. That's why, you know, I'm a person of faith and one of my Favorite proverbs, it says, he who gives an answer before he listens, before he understands, is a fool. And then another one says, a person's heart is like deep intentions, and the person of wisdom draws those out. So the first thing you've got to do, you know, when Covey said, seek first to understand, which you know, comes as ancient wisdom from Francis of Assisi, I think, who's accredited with it, and others where that's a simple little statement, seek first to understand. But the neuroscience behind that is what's fascinating, because when somebody just feels listened to and you're able to show them, when they understand that you understand, we say, gosh, that sounds painful. Or. Yeah, that's, that's, that's really a good question. That's really difficult. Just, just they know they're listened to. Here's what happens. Brain systems begin to let go. Defensiveness begins to come down, and they start to lean towards and move in just by starting the process with understanding them first.
- [13:16]
Brian Buffini
You know, it's interesting. I. I have. One of the departments at my company has like 70 people in it. We'd just gone through some remodels inside the organization, but it became apparent to me that the people didn't feel hurt. And I created a mechanism for that. And I have this thing called a magic meeting. And I empowered my leaders to get into it and I got into it myself, and so on, so forth. And we just had a meeting yesterday. It's been 60 days. And the transformation is extraordinary. Like, extraordinary. And the production and the performance, we didn't focus on production. We didn't focus on performance. We wanted. Look, hey, I want you to know you've been heard. We really have heard what you said, and we're going to take action on what you've heard. We're going to prioritize your feedback and we're going to set up this channel going forward. These people are ready to run through a wall for me. And 60 days ago, they were all.
- [14:02]
Dr. Henry Cloud
Getting burned out and you've removed the walls that they were running through. So now they can go and do what they know how to do. You know, Brian, think about this. You're talking about that, that listening at that level, by the way, it's probably still up there. Last day or two, there's a great article in the Wall Street Journal about Jamie Dimon, who, I mean, this is the biggest finance CEO in the world. Every year he gets on a bus and he drives to local branches all over the country and goes in the store and talks to the people and the customers. He said the first time he did it, they came back with a to do list of a thousand things to fix that they never would have known. But when you're. When you're, you know, you're talking about listening at that level to find out how does your brain know to take your hand off of a hot stove? It's the fingers that had to tell, you gotta listen.
- [15:00]
Brian Buffini
I've been burned there myself. You know, one of the things that I think is a big deal, we get a lot of people who, because of whatever trauma they've been through, whatever difficulty, they know it's not a healthy thing to have distrust. And also because of that, then they're finding themselves struggling with people trusting them. And so people talk about this ability to trust. And one of the things you talked about in the book, how motive shapes our ability to trust. I'd love you to talk about motive a little bit.
- [15:28]
Dr. Henry Cloud
Yeah. When you stumble at the, you know, just the dashboard. The first one is they gotta feel understood, and they have to feel it. Just because you understand somebody doesn't mean you understand them. You understand somebody when they understand that you understand. And that's a loop you gotta close. But the second one is motive. Um, I tell a story in the book about. I had a couple of knee replacements in the last few years, and I was looking for the surgeon. I go in, you know, this is the guy. You'll see the guy, right? And so I go in there and. And the first one didn't even listen to anything. So I fired him and went to the second one. The second was really good listener. And he understood and understood my pain. I felt, oh, Dr. Feelgood, you know, he's on my team. And then end of the exam, he goes, hold on a second. He says, guys, come on in here. Come on. And so three residents walk in that he's training, and he turns his back to me. He says, see this knee right here? And he's moving it. And he says, see how. See the muscle? And what's going to happen when he moves it? That's what our research paper we're presenting next week is on. This is. This guy will be a perfect subject. So what we need to do, we need to get all of his data and we need to. And they're off on planning their research. Well, all of a sudden, Dr. Empathy, he flunked number two. What's his motive in this? Does he even. Is this all about him? Certainly we have self interest, but it started to feel like my Whole thing is about him and his research. I need him to want to care about what's going on with me, too. Now, that's different than understanding, because predators understand, but their motive is bad. The motive is somebody feels. Somebody feels that you are interested in them doing well. And then the doctor actually chose was one that he started. When I called him and we started talking, he said, yeah, I know about you. You're a competitive golfer for life. And, and I got to get you back on the golf course, man. And you got a couple of kids that are going to be having grandma. And we. He starts. He's so happy about the prospect of me being able to walk again. I'm going, oh, man, you're, you're my guy.
- [17:42]
Brian Buffini
Yeah, for sure. He's interested in you. Smu, right? Is that what you play golf?
- [17:47]
Dr. Henry Cloud
Yep.
- [17:47]
Brian Buffini
Yep. Well, my son graduated from there. You're the second most famous golfer out of smu. I think Bryson gets number one, but you're number two. And we appreciate, I don't know, pain. Stewart was pretty good.
- [17:58]
Dr. Henry Cloud
Pain might have. Pain might have been. There's been a few others. Yeah, I, I, I went there and then I had a hand injury and I really had a lot of. Really hampered everything I struggled with.
- [18:11]
Brian Buffini
Well, God had a different plan for you, brother. You could have been a great golfer, but 20 million people wouldn't have been blessed in the same way with you writing all these books and doing all these talks. Well, Henry, we are so fired up not only to have you today, but I'm really excited to announce to people that you're going to be part of our kickoff for 2026. And we do this Buffini Coaching Live series, which is absolutely free for people to attend. But ultimately, we had 25,000 people in August on this. And so we're kicking off the year with a personal growth and development aspect, helping people really launch their year. You know, get their goals set up, get their calendar ready for the year, but then also get their psychology right. And so we're excited. Ken Coleman from the Ramsey Organization that you know well, is going to host an interview, and he's going to interview you, the great John Acuff, and then I get to be a part of that as well. And it's really about understanding the psychology of success and how people can tap into their internal psychology to really unleash that clinical part of themselves to go and achieve their goals and have a spectacular year. So it's January 22nd for anybody who's listening, absolutely free to tune in. You're gonna get a chance to ask questions to Henry and John and myself and then also we'll have some VIP seats available if you want to come in person and sit there and meet the guys and connect with them at our mixer and everything else would be great. But so excited to kick the year off. Henry Cloud, one of my heroes, John Acuff. Just a man who's become a great friend, but great insights on his soundtracks and how to change the inner language in your head. And then whatever I can offer is how to be a goal getter. That's what we're going to be talking about. So I'd love to have you join us. Great. So if you want to register for free, go to it's a good life.com BCL BCL stands for Buffini Coaching Live and you'll get to tune in. It's absolutely amazing if you haven't done it already. Amazing technology, amazing interaction and you get to ask a question. So itsagoodlife.com bcl we're going to kick the year off right in our business. You know, people talk about trust and they have this happen. The most devastating thing to realtor I'm telling you right now, they could go through bankruptcy, they could be sued, they could have a hundred things happen that are horrible on everybody's list. But the one thing that is the gut punch that they can never recover from is Aunt Millie goes, yeah, I decided to go another realtor. They're brother someone close to them chooses another agent and they're just devastated by it. And they go, they just, they don't trust me. How is it they don't trust me? And we've been teaching for years. And again back to covey. We built our whole marketing system around this, but character and competence. And we'll teach them, hey, they trust you as a person. They just don't know if you're any good. And then there's people who are all about how good they are, but they don't make the connection. Character and competence. We provide the marketing every month for 25,000 agents goes to 2 to 3 million homes every month in America and Canada. Get the marketing we provide. And so the resources are built around character and competence. So sometimes it's hey, here's how to protect your family from identity theft. And hey, here's the competence. Here's how to raise your credit score. So we provide marketing resources. Our whole system's built around this. So that's why you can imagine. I read your book and I'm like, hallelujah, baby. That's why this is so perfect for our clients. Talk about this character competence piece and how it works together to form trust the Henry Cloud way.
- [21:49]
Dr. Henry Cloud
You know, a lot of people where they. When they hear the word character, they'll think of, like we mentioned earlier, you know, the guy's honest or the woman's honest, and they're not going to lie to you. And they got good character, good moral character. But when I think about character, because I got to think of it in the human performance terms, it makes life work. And character is really our entire makeup. It's got a lot of components. There's the moral, ethical. That's the foundation. If you can't believe what somebody says, I mean, there's permission to play. We can't even. You know, we can't even go there. But when you talk about makeup, there's a lot of other components to it. You got emotional regulation. Can you deal with a hothead? Can you trust a hothead even though they're honest? You know, impulse control. Are they ready? Aim, Fire. Are they fire, Ready, Aim. And you get in all these ways of how somebody's makeup is. Is made up. People are going to feel that, well, the. So the character piece, you're exactly right, because that's how we're glued together. And the. In fact, the listening piece is. Is a part of character, because we all know characters in a movie, somebody tries to say something, they go, well, shut up. I want your opinion. I'll give it to you. And, you know, others that, you know, people start to trust because they. So this character thing's big. But then you get in the confidence part. You know, I mentioned the surgeons, and the second guy that I called, he was. He was the one that passed the understanding. You know, first thing he said was, I looked at your mri, said, how are you walking around? Tell me about this pain? When did it start? So he's listening, and then he says, I gotta get you back on the golf course. Well, now he's got my ear, so I'm. I'm ready to go with him, Right? So what if at that point, Brian, think of this. At that point, Dr. Empathy, Dr. Wanting me to play golf. I'm going with you, Doc. And what if at that point, he goes, that's great. I can't wait to do your knee because I'm an OB GYN and I've never done one of these.
- [23:53]
Brian Buffini
Let's discover this together.
- [23:55]
Dr. Henry Cloud
At that point, I'm way. I've sailed through the yellow light, and I Am at red, right. I'm not going here. The competency thing is big. And what we don't understand is a lot of times that we, we, we can trust somebody in one context. You see this all the time. Friends or friends for 10, 20 years. Their spouses love each other. They go, you know what? We should work together. We should start a business. Let's open up something together. And they trust each other with their life, but they've never trusted them in that context for the competencies that are going to be needed. And then they get six months into it and one of them goes, oh my gosh, I have made a big mistake. Because it's like the, the had a friend of mine call me. He said, I need some advice. I said, well. He said, my daughter's boyfriend called me and asked me to go to dinner. He said, I know what that means. He's going to ask for my, for her hand in marriage. How do you have that conversation? I said, well, I know what I'm gonna do. He said, what? I said, I'm gonna tell him, yeah, I'd love to. I think I know what you want to talk about. I said, I want you to bring your last two years tax returns and, and your credit report. And he goes, yeah, right, like you're going to. I said, I'm dead serious. I'm with, I got two daughters. I'm going to do that. He said, that's so intrusive. I said, I said, look, he can white out the numbers. I don't care about the numbers. I just want to know if he can find them. Do they even exist? I said, because, and here's what, you can trust him as a boyfriend, and he's caring and got good motives and listens and cares about her. But the job description of a husband is way different than the job description of a boyfriend. She's joining her life to his life. I want to know if he can run a life.
- [25:48]
Brian Buffini
I'm laughing hard because you don't know this part of the story. Henry spoke at our Mastermind Summit. You got 5,000 people there. Well, my kids are sitting in the front row. And Henry tells this story about asking for the credit score. So my daughter brings home this 6 foot 8 basketball player and I'm, you know, the first thing I did, by the way, I measured him because the program said he was 6, 9. So he walked into my house, I got out a ladder, I'd get them. I get my little tape measure up and I go, you're six, eight. We're not starting on the right foot here. You say the program says you're six, nine. And he goes, you know, Amy told me to have my tax returns. I didn't realize they were really gonna dinner.
- [26:27]
Dr. Henry Cloud
Oh, my gosh.
- [26:29]
Brian Buffini
So my kids were listening, Henry. My kids are listening. Yeah. But it gets back to that track record, right? And that's one of the things you talk about in the book, you know, the character, the competence. You gotta have that track record, and you gotta be able to articulate it in a way that's beneficial to the customer, beneficial to the client. What real estate gets caught up in is, oh, thump, my chest. I learned this lesson very early on in my real estate career. So I was a rookie of the year for a company in the whole country. My first year in real estate. So I'm off to this great start. I sold 52 homes, which the typical realtor sells, like six. So I put everywhere. I sold 52 homes last year. I can help you right now. What I'm trying to articulate, I'm good. And I'll never forget this the rest of my life. I go to this one little old lady's house. She's referred to me. She trusts me implicitly. Her pastor has referred me, who I've sold him and his wife the house, you know, and they're like, you couldn't have got a better endorsement. I walk in the door and she goes, I just have one concern, and I was a young guy, and I'm like, oh, here comes. I've heard this before. She goes, I'm just wondered that you're too busy to take care of me. And I was promoting myself based on my competence. Look how much business I'm doing, which is a very common practice in real estate. And she goes, are you going to have time for me? From that day on, I never, ever did anything like that in my real estate or my current career. Because I said, I'm going to help you like, you're the only customer I have. And 30 years later, actually, 40 years later now, and 30 years in the coaching business. I met with all our coaches yesterday, and I said, I started this business 30 years ago. I don't care how big we get. We've got to coach everybody like they're the only client we have. So you got to find a way to present your track record in a way that's not bombastic and boastful, but it's. How does it benefit the other person?
- [28:12]
Dr. Henry Cloud
Well, that. That's why the order of this. This algorithm, I'm talking about is so important. Understanding where they feel, listen, the. The bonding chemicals start. And now that. Now they're ready to listen to how competent you are because you've laid the pipeline. But if you start to lead with I'm the greatest and you know, all that kind of stuff, it's water off the duck's back. And you're right, it actually can scare some people because, you know, they have a gap if they're hiring, if they're looking for the superstar. A lot of people think, well, you know, you're above my pay grade. You only want to deal with the. And so what the listing does is you're coming down to where they perceive themselves. They could be right or wrong, but they perceive themselves. And now you guys are on the same page. And that's really, really important.
- [29:05]
Brian Buffini
So now, Henry, you don't really beat your chest. You've helped many, many top CEOs, executives, some extraordinarily who's who type people. I'm curious because in the book, you talk about broken trust and how to repair broken trust. You kind of talk about the six step model. I feel like people at the top of the ladder, like, when you start having resources, you know, like I tell my wife, when we're invited to a party, we have two different experiences. Everybody loves her, everybody gets along with everybody. She has this great time. I'm at the party, and half the time I'm trying not to get committed to. Hey, I have a business idea we need to talk to you about. Hey, I need. Would you be on our board? Hey, we've got this giant fundraiser and I, I go to the same party and their perception, like, they all think I'm Bill Gates. You know what I mean? It's like people at the top often have this. And I think if you can learn from those guys, it can, it can trickle down all the way through some of the people you've worked with. I'm sure they've had their trust broken over time. How do you go about repairing broken trust?
- [30:03]
Dr. Henry Cloud
You know, probably the easiest way to think about that. If a doctor's gonna, you got a broken limb and doctor's gonna set your limb. Well, you don't want a doctor setting that limb if he doesn't know what a straight femur looks like and how he's supposed to fit in. So in one sense, when you're talking about repairing trust, well, what does trust look like? That's what we've been talking about. You know, we've talked about three of the five Pieces of it. What does that look like? And then when it was broken, you got to look at what in there was violated. Now, in the book I talk about. And here's a big. Brian, this is one of the biggest problems people have in trusting the wrong people and also in not trusting them, when to give them another chance. Whatever. Something big happens. You know, there's a business failure, one of your employees, or whoever it is, and they come back. Gosh. And they say, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. And they're deeply sorry. And they repent. And you go, okay, I. I forgive you. Well, people think if you've forgiven somebody, that that means we're going to go forward and trust. Remember this, forgiveness is free. That's something we give to somebody that they don't deserve, if they deserved, wouldn't need to be forgiven. Right. You forgive a debt somebody can't pay. Right? So forgiveness is something you do by yourself.
- [31:56]
Brian Buffini
We wouldn't use the word grace. Right.
- [31:58]
Dr. Henry Cloud
Forgiveness is about the past, what's already happened, and it's free. Trust is about the future and whether or not I'm going to take another step with you or what step I'm going to take. And that's got to be earned, just like the first time. So that femur's got to look going forward like the one you broke going backwards. And so the first thing you got to do when you're repairing trust is you got to sit down and you got to have a conversation. And did they understand? Did they. And you can forgive them whether they understand or not. But did they understand how they've hurt you? And does it really bother them other than guilt and shame doesn't. Oh, I'm so bad. I'm an idiot. I don't care about whether you're bad or any. I care about whether you care about how you've hurt me. See, real, real remorse is based in that they care about how they've hurt you. And when you see that kind of brokenness and concern and they own it, and they say, I'm just really sorry, okay, at that point, then now they're forgiven, and now we're reconciled. We're okay with each other. I forgive it, and you understand, and I can see you're sorry. And we're good. We're good. Well, now we're at ground zero in terms of how we go forward. And so what you've got to see is at that point, are they understanding what's required from them? They apparently didn't before, you know, have their Motives changed. Now finally, do they see? And that's going to take some time, right?
- [33:45]
Brian Buffini
What'd they say? Trust is earned in ounces.
- [33:47]
Dr. Henry Cloud
In ounces. There you go.
- [33:48]
Brian Buffini
Lost in pounds. Yeah.
- [33:50]
Dr. Henry Cloud
And so it's going to be a process. But what's important is you don't take the whole thing and compress it like a trash compactor and say, okay, I'm sorry. Let's go run my company now. And that you're sorry. Well, not so fast. And it doesn't mean I'm not willing. It just means that, you know, it's going to take a minute. And if they feel entitled to it too quickly, that's a bad sign.
- [34:17]
Brian Buffini
Right? Right. Oh, there's a powerful word. This last one here, Henry, is an interesting thing. I always like to speak autobiographically on these things. In my career, I've owned 47 businesses and 46 of them have made money. And in my formative years, one of them was a loser. And I learned a lot. And people say you learned nothing from success. I'm not sure I believe that I've learned a lot from success, but I've learned more from failure. I had this one business failing. It's 30 plus years ago. It took me a long time to trust myself again. Like in the grand scheme of things. I lost $2.9 million, but I started to doubt myself. And I said, it took me six hours to put that deal together and six years to recover from it. So one of the things about trust is I think you have to trust yourself. And how does a person develop that trust when we all know our own foibles? We're blind to some of them, but we're probably more aware and harder on ourselves than we need to be. How do you regain trust with yourself?
- [35:16]
Dr. Henry Cloud
Well, it is maybe the most important aspect of this, because you can't trust yourself if you are not aware of yourself, if you don't understand yourself. I mean, we go back to the same model. It's the same model. Do you really understand yourself? Do you know, like, let's say. Okay, let's take the first two. Let's take the first two. Understanding and motive. Look, let's say, Brian, you've been floating along, well, and doing whatever, and then. But you've never really understood. Now, I'm not talking about you, I'm just using that example. You've never really understood that you're a little impulsive and you'll jump into stuff and agree with stuff and think I understand it. Oh, I totally get this. I Know how this works. You don't have the what's needed normal capacity to ask, are there any unknown Unknowns? You don't approach things with curiosity. What don't I know about this? What do I. Who I need to talk to? Maybe I need a little advice where we're a little more humble about it. All right, so you don't know that about yourself when you're young a lot of times. So if I had that awareness, I might go into this deal. You know, I just took this assessment tool and boss just told me or my wife told me, and I'd say the person, I love this, and I love it so much, I'd sign the thing today. But I have a tendency to do something a little too quickly. So I'm going to take the minute and think about it. See, you're going to start to learn your trust yourself the more you know yourself. Well, then go to the second. What about motive? What if you felt, you know, there's a difference between drive and good ambition to win and do better and more is good in the best sense of it. Anything that's alive is growing. It's getting better. And we want that drive. There's a difference in that. And narcissistic ambition.
- [37:34]
Brian Buffini
Selfish ambition, I think the scriptures call it.
- [37:37]
Dr. Henry Cloud
Yeah, yeah. Greed and selfishness and. And I want it now and all of that. If you're becoming aware of. I need to learn the difference between what's a healthy desire for more in me and when does my. When does my greed kick in? Because that's just lust for more. And, you know, love takes time. Lust wants it now. And you learn, you know, we've been in conversations and sometimes you'll start to even want to do it for. You want to do a big deal with this guy because he's an NFL player. And I want to get this. The deal may suck, but your narcissism of wanting to have sold to, you know, somebody, you got to know yourself. And, you know, we're both golfers and. And there are shots, you know, in competitive situations, there are shots that I could hit, but I know I can hit it 70% of the time. And the whole thing's riding on this last hole. And I could lay up and still hit the great wedge shot and get in there and make birdie. If you know yourself, it's going to keep you from hitting some bad shots. And then when you know yourself, other times, I step up to that shot. You're talking about when you have confidence to trust yourself. I don't have any doubt. I hit this shot and I rip it. But it, that's why in emotional intelligence, all this research they started doing back in whenever the 90s it got popular. But good night, that's been true forever. Emotional intelligence is, begins with awareness of yourself and awareness of others and being able to read that dynamic. You know, I said I'm a person of faith. And one of my favorite verses, it comes out of the book of Hebrews and it says, solid food is for the mature. So what's solid food? Well, babies eat pav, but at some point you're eating solid food as you mature and you know, business is solid food. Solid food is for the mature. And it says who through experience and practice have had their senses trained to discern good from evil. You gotta be growing. That's why coaching companies like yours and people getting mentors and coaches, they are there. You know, your banks are one thing and your investors are another thing. And the capital infusions and all that, we need all of that energy. But if you don't have somebody in your core, you know, tiger and Rory and you go to the range, they're not there by themselves.
- [40:48]
Brian Buffini
They got a group of coaches.
- [40:50]
Dr. Henry Cloud
Nicholas, my hero. When I grew up, he had jack ground. I remember the first time I read that as a 12 year old. What? What? Nicholas has a. A teacher. Why does God need a teacher?
- [41:04]
Brian Buffini
He'd grab his hair, right? He'd grab his hair.
- [41:06]
Dr. Henry Cloud
He wouldn't move his head. That's one of the things he did. That's exactly right.
- [41:10]
Brian Buffini
Yeah. Well, we all need somebody to do that. You know, it's interesting that in our program, you know, that whole self awareness piece is the first place we start with somebody. The first thing we do with our profile is find out where somebody's gifts are. You know, we've been doing this for 30 years and in the world we live in today, the hype world, you can 10x your business and this. And we've averaged people. The average person who comes to us over the last 30 years makes 35 grand. And the average person we work with then within three years making 460 grand, same person. The first thing to validate that is actually, oh, we have this great system for working by far, all that kind of stuff. The first thing we do is help people become self aware. Here's your gifts, here's your blind spots. Let's focus on your gifts and let's manage blind spots. One of the things I like to tell the coaches all the time is they Never get credit for the mistakes people don't make because they're helping them along to avoid the pitfalls they normally have. Like you never get credit for that.
- [42:07]
Dr. Henry Cloud
You never do. And what you said about the blind spots, you know, Tiger has a great saying about his game and when he has to make changes, he says, there's feel and then there's real. And you know, somebody say to a golfer, well, you know, this time I want you to take it back and turn in this way and you do it and you feel so different. And the teacher goes, you didn't do it.
- [42:34]
Brian Buffini
You go, what are you talking about?
- [42:35]
Dr. Henry Cloud
You know, it might feel that way. And then they, nowadays they show you the video that they just filmed of.
- [42:42]
Brian Buffini
And it's like it felt like this much imperceptible. Yeah.
- [42:47]
Dr. Henry Cloud
And we do not have the capacity from the outside to look at ourselves and see all of ourselves. And that's why if you don't have some eyeballs around you that you can trust and that bring something to the party and aren't afraid to tell you the truth and aren't going to stroke your ego, you're not going to get there as fast.
- [43:13]
Brian Buffini
Well, I read your book Boundaries years before I met you and it was a life changing book. Yeah. You know, growing up in a Catholic Irish family, you know, there are no boundaries. You know, 10 of us in a 720 square feet. That was a game changer. I talked to you about your necessary endings book which has been huge in helping me make really proactive decisions. The word in there was don't make squishy deals was that I've eliminated the squishiness out of my verbiage. And then this book, Trust Cringe. Yeah, it's amazing. But this book, Trust, look, we all need it in life, but we all need it in business. And people are starving for people to trust. And I think you've laid out a fabulous blueprint the way you do. You know, it's one thing to be able to communicate it and verbally, it's another thing to be able to write it. And I think we all need help. And this book is like the jack grout to help people develop trust. And I think it's fantastic. It's called trust. Knowing when to give it, when to withhold it, how to earn it and how to fix it when it gets broken. And he's Henry Cloud and he is the most trusted name.
- [44:16]
Dr. Henry Cloud
I don't know about that in all.
- [44:18]
Brian Buffini
Of clinical psychology and this whole realm. Henry, every time we do this show. I always do this at the end. I just kind of ask five questions and it's, we've asked every sports star and movie star and business person and it's just kind of get a feel for Henry Cloud a little different way. It's a little fun if you're up for it. So here we go. What's your bank account? No, the first one is Henry Cloud. What's the single best piece of advice you've ever been given?
- [44:42]
Dr. Henry Cloud
Trust in the Lord with all your mind and lean not upon your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him and he will direct your paths.
- [44:53]
Brian Buffini
Good word. What one talent or gift do you wish you possessed that you currently don't?
- [44:58]
Dr. Henry Cloud
Gosh, that's hard to narrow it down to one. Probably people would say I'm not really that disciplined. But actually that's not true. Actually I'm highly disciplined. I mean I've written 40 something books and I don't mean that in a weird way. But you, that, you know, and I'm as a plus handicap guy, I'm there at the range and I'm, you know, I could get myself to do. So what I'm really saying, when I'm not very, I'm not very structured.
- [45:28]
Brian Buffini
Yeah, there it is, there it is.
- [45:30]
Dr. Henry Cloud
I'm kind of intuitive and I'm not that linear and it's kind of like I'm always a little bit of a mess.
- [45:38]
Brian Buffini
Yeah.
- [45:39]
Dr. Henry Cloud
And so it's just true. I'm like pig pen on the old peanuts. And over the years, Brian, I have, I've had to spend money on it, I've had to spend effort on it. I've had to get help. I, I need people to provide for me what I don't naturally have, which is a lot of structure. And I just don't, I don't, I wish I had it but I, but you know, whatever you don't, don't have, you can buy.
- [46:11]
Brian Buffini
I mean we, we coach. I'd say 40% of our people we coach. We've coached over 150,000 people, we've trained over 4 million. And I would say what you just described is probably the most common characteristic. I mean in some ways it comes in a free spirited way.
- [46:26]
Dr. Henry Cloud
Right.
- [46:27]
Brian Buffini
And with high performers, high performers, entrepreneurs. So what we try to do is co create the structure. So then it's like, okay, here's the idea. Oh, I never thought about that. And then let people then play and have freedom inside it. It's like here's the electric fences. Now stay inside there Have a good time. And then once in a while you gotta tear them down, rebuild em, because you built a bigger playing field.
- [46:49]
Dr. Henry Cloud
But there you go.
- [46:50]
Brian Buffini
I think you'd be shocked at how many people are nodding their head when you say that.
- [46:54]
Dr. Henry Cloud
It's just true. You know, when I, when I was in my 20s and I, I was a little ahead of the game because I actually started in college doing, I went to a lot of institutes in psychology as an undergraduate that were graduate. And by the time I got to graduate school, I had taken a year out and worked in a, in a hospital. By the time I was in graduate school, I was, I was kind of a little further down the road. And so I got started early and my first job as a clinician was in a leadership consulting firm. And so I was working with pretty high level leaders in business and teams and stuff. And what was happening was I'm just a natural kind of content. I'm a model builder and I see things. And then these organizations started saying, well, you got to write a book on this, this one model I was using. And I go, I can't write a book. I mean, are you kidding me? That looked like jumping over the Grand Canyon flat foot. There's no way. And I just couldn't do it. And I kept saying I can't write. I don't know, I wasn't structured enough to do it. It's basically it. And you know what happened? They said, we need this content. They hired a consultant and assigned the consultant to me to commission the writing of my first book. And that consultant gave me a structure.
- [48:18]
Brian Buffini
Same structure, yep, 40 something.
- [48:21]
Dr. Henry Cloud
I just finished a book last week. All these years later, it's that same structure that I use. And so what y' all provide in giving people structure, those can be life changing.
- [48:37]
Brian Buffini
Yep, coaching works, my friend, coaching works. 40 books later. Pretty good. You're scrolling through the channels and there's a movie on and every time you see it, you stop. What's the one movie you watch over and over again?
- [48:50]
Dr. Henry Cloud
1986 masters.
- [48:52]
Brian Buffini
Ah, you gotta be kidding me. Oh, we are so similar.
- [48:56]
Dr. Henry Cloud
Or the 1973 U.S. open at Oakmont when Johnny Miller shot six.
- [49:03]
Brian Buffini
Johnny Miller, wow. Well, I'll tell you two little golf stories we should never start. Two of Johnny Miller's best friends growing up, one of them was a great friend of mine and there were members up at the Olympic Club in San Francisco if you've ever had a chance to play it. And he said, now you gotta remember a lot of balls, old clubs. He Said he never played a round of golf with him as a junior where Johnny didn't at least hit the flag one time from the fairway. He said, every time I played with him, he did a couple of flags. He was that good.
- [49:30]
Dr. Henry Cloud
I know. And people don't know what he's showing up. A lot of balls spin, and if you're a little bit off, it's going to Wyoming. Miller, I knew a caddy of his, and he. He said. He said I'd never seen anything like it. He would hit icicles. He called them icicles because the flag's there and he had an icicle. And his. His iron game. Oh, my gosh. When he, you know, he. He used to come out in the first three months or the. Or first month of the first three tournaments of the year. They played him at that time out in the desert in Phoenix, and. And he shoot 20 something.
- [50:12]
Brian Buffini
I think he won one tournament by like 20 strokes. But you know what. What a beautiful thing, that. 86 masters. The first time. First time I remember crying as a child.
- [50:21]
Dr. Henry Cloud
Yes.
- [50:21]
Brian Buffini
1986, I. I was in Ireland. I hadn't moved to America yet. And I sat in my living room and I wept, and I. I've. I followed that man. He. It's, you know, his family and whatever else. My proudest possession. I have two in my office. I have all kinds of people I've met, and you're. Your picture's up on my wall, by the way, but I have Neil Armstrong and a letter from Jack Nicklaus, and that's as good as it gets for me. But it is great to get inspired by stuff like that. Last but not least, Henry, I'm gonna let you go on this. What does the good life mean to Henry? Clown. When you hear that phrase, good life, what does that mean to you?
- [50:55]
Dr. Henry Cloud
There's a lot of different ways, you know, we tend to. You'd have to think about different contexts, because I think of life as a pie. Three big slices. We have a clinical piece, which is how we feel. You know, it's hard to have a good life. You're depressed and stressed and afraid, and you can have everything else and how you're thriving and feeling. You know, that's a big piece if you're in pain or not emotional pain, whatever. So we have a clinical life. The second big piece is our relational. The relational piece of the piece. Marriage, family, you know, friends, extended family, customers. So we're all relational beings. And. And it's hard to have a good life while your relationship side right and the third piece is performance. We were all designed to have gifts and talents that we exert energy into that end up with some kind of fruit. At the end of the day, it could be avocation, could be, you know, somebody in their garage building furniture, it could be building the company. But, but we've gotta, we've gotta be able to, you know, feel good about what we're producing with our talents. Well, then get into the good life. Well, it's hard to have a good life with one of those pieces is broken. But a lot of people say to me, because I know I'm a Christian and the Christians will say to me, oh, where's the spiritual piece of the pie? And I, I go, there's no peace.
- [52:32]
Brian Buffini
The whole, it is the pie. Yeah.
- [52:34]
Dr. Henry Cloud
Because if your spiritual well being is not affecting how you feel clinically, it's, you're down, something's wrong. If it's not affecting how you relate and love people and experience people, something's wrong. And if it's not affecting you, you're getting better in your performance, something's wrong. So to me, I guess when you say what's the life? I would say that it's having a relationship with God and with others that make all three of those arenas work well.
- [53:04]
Brian Buffini
So good. So many people confuse religion and faith, right. I say the guy who's religious, he's in church and he's thinking about fishing and the guy with the faith, he's out fishing and he's thinking about God.
- [53:14]
Dr. Henry Cloud
You know, a lot of people don't understand. I just wrote a book about this actually.
- [53:18]
Brian Buffini
Okay.
- [53:19]
Dr. Henry Cloud
I've written 30, 40 something books on, in my field and I try to stay in my lane. I don't write about, you know, selling houses, but I've got so many friends in the business world and all that, Brian, in personal life that, that know I'm one of those weird Christian guys, but we've never talked about it. And somehow they, but they, they think that is a bunch of stuff that it's not. And I finally wrote a book, why I believe. And it's a book I wrote to my friends in business and in life about. Okay, I know, you know, I'm one of those weirdos, but this is why I believe this stuff. And it's filled with my life story of why I can't not believe because of miracles I've seen and because of a bunch of other reasons. But the, one of the points I was going to make about that is talking about religion. The people don't understand that what the. What the story actually teaches is there was no religion in the beginning. There was a relationship of people with God and with each other. Then when we abandon that relationship, religion came in to substitute for it and rolled the clock forward to the final story. Jesus pretty much did away with the religion, and he said, look, you take all of that stuff and sum it up in two things. Love God with all your heart, mind, and soul and strength, and love each other as yourself. It's about relationship. And what does a relationship do for all of us? It changes us. It helps us get better. And so that's why I say the good life is, you know, having a good relationship with God, and he'll help the rest of the pie to work better.
- [55:33]
Brian Buffini
Well, it sounds like you're coming back for with the release of why I Believe. I'm excited to have the second part in the series here, my friend. The first part was today, talking about trust. And this is a man I deeply trust. He's given me counsel and advice and wisdom, and I'm glad to call you a friend. And I'm thankful for you today. It was amazing. I normally spend 30 minutes on these. We spent an hour together today, and I could have spent four. You're the real deal. The book is called Trust. Get your hands on it. And it sounds like there's a new one coming out very soon. And I'm gonna finish up today the way I have for all of the last nine years. Henry. For the last nine years, my mom finished off with a little Irish blessing. She went home to be with the Lord here a few months ago. And so in her honor, I. I continue on the tradition. I don't do it as well, but it's heartfelt. So I'll finish our time together with this little Irish blessing. May the roads rise up to meet you. May the wind always be at your back. May the rain fall soft upon your fields and the sunshine warm up upon your face. And until we meet again, I hope we all know that God has us all in the hollow of his hand. We'll see you next time.