Why You Need to Say It Now Rather Than Regret It Later | Walter Green - EP 773

Summary

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Passion Struck with John R. Miles

Episode 773: Why You Need to Say It Now Rather Than Regret It Later | Walter Green
Date: May 28, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this moving and profound episode, John R. Miles sits down with Walter Green—entrepreneur, mentor, and founder of the Say It Now movement—to explore the urgent need to express gratitude, recognition, and love to the people who have shaped our lives while we still can. Building on a month-long theme of "Forged in Adversity," this conversation delves into Walter's personal journey through childhood loneliness, grief, and mental health challenges, as well as the transformative power of intentional relationships and acknowledgments. Together, they unpack what it means to truly let others know they matter—before it's too late—and why this practice can be life-changing for both giver and recipient.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Human Need to Matter (07:18 – 09:39)

• Walter’s Early Realization: Losing his father at 17 taught Walter the unpredictability of life and the importance of letting people know what they mean to you.
  • "My entry to the mattering arena came through the importance that certain relationships had in my life...My dad died at 53. I'm 50. I should be acknowledging these people who have been really important to me." (07:47 – 09:39)
• Childhood Loneliness & Moving: Grew up moving frequently, lacked stable friendships, compounded by family health crises and a quiet, emotionally restrained household.

2. Formative Challenges: Grief, Silence, and Mental Health (10:16 – 16:16)

• Family Trauma: Both parents faced serious health issues; household became emotionally subdued out of concern for his father’s fragile health.
  • "Our dinners were silent. We didn’t want to upset him. So my mother was a powerful figure...But the real impact on my life came from my father’s health, not my mother’s." (11:53 – 13:36)
• Struggles with Mental Health: After college and losing his father, Walter experienced severe depression and was hospitalized. He attributes later empathy and compassion to surviving this period.
  • "I ended up in a mental hospital for two months...like most pain, if you can survive it, you will be stronger for it." (15:54 – 19:16)

3. Professional Success and Leadership Lessons (27:46 – 37:27)

• Building a Career: Walter worked a variety of jobs, eventually co-founding and leading a successful conference center company.
• Leading Under Pressure: Took over a nearly bankrupt company at 33, learned the value of committed teams and innovation.
  • "Good times don’t necessarily lead to great times, but tough times can lead to great times." (29:51 – 30:06)
• The Loneliness of Leadership: Relied on external peer groups (e.g., Young Presidents’ Organization) for authentic connection and support.
  • "Ultimately we had 1400 employees...It was the vehicle that I could use to process things that I couldn't talk about in the company." (33:50 – 34:57)

4. The Power and Practice of Acknowledgement (37:27 – 53:29)

• The 50th Birthday Revelation: Walter honored five friends with heartfelt acknowledgment, realizing the mutual power in expressing gratitude.
  • "I went one to one about what they had meant to me and their impact on my life. Well, that was like wow...It was also a tremendous sense of joy to be able to acknowledge that I had those relationships." (40:42 – 41:32)
• The Say It Now Pilgrimage: For his 70th birthday, Walter traveled to thank 44 individuals who impacted him, often in person across multiple countries.
  • Inspired by seeing tributes at funerals and realizing the honoree never gets to hear them.
  • "It makes no sense to me that we will spend so much time and wait till a person passes to let them know what they mean. That is our culture. That is the way most people live." (46:01 – 46:28)
• Cultural Habits & Missed Opportunities: Most people reserve deep acknowledgments for eulogies, missing the chance to impact lives in the present.
  • "What if the whole world woke up this morning and said, I am going to reach out to at least one person...and be very specific with them — I just want you to know, John, how much you matter to me." (49:33 – 52:43)

5. The “Say It Now” Movement: Mission & Ripple Effects (53:29 – 68:53)

• Movement Growth: Over 15 million expressions in 85 countries; now in 80,000+ schools.
  • "Once it's discovered, once people do it...it changes your life and it changes their lives." (53:29 – 55:32)
• Gratitude Changes Lives: Even if the recipient doesn’t respond, expressing gratitude is always meaningful for the giver.
  • Example: A woman who wrote her father a letter — he didn’t react, but she felt profound satisfaction.
  • "I have never, John, in my business...heard anybody say, I'm sorry I acted on that expression of gratitude." (65:19 – 68:53)
• School Integration: Focuses on teaching children who aren’t constrained by adult cultural habits, facilitating enduring ripple effects in families and communities.

6. Knowing Me, Making Me, Becoming Me (69:12 – 73:28)

• Life Evolution Framework: Walter frames his journey in three stages: “Knowing Me” (self-discovery), “Making Me” (career/family), and “Becoming Me” (living in alignment with his core gifts).
• Intentionality: Stresses importance of intentional choices, collecting relationships, and doing only what’s aligned with personal purpose.

7. Immediate Takeaway: The Call to Action (72:01 – 73:28)

• "Think about one person. Just think about one...Ask yourself, 'What difference did this person really make in my life?'...put that flashlight on the relationship. It’s more than saying I love you. They already know that. They have no idea how they have mattered." (72:01 – 73:28)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Missed Opportunities:

  "It makes no sense to me that we will spend so much time and wait till a person passes to let them know what they mean. That is our culture. That is the way most people live. The movement that we'll talk about later, Say It Now, is breaking that custom."
  — Walter Green (46:01)

• On Expressing Mattering:

  "Most people know how you feel about them...They have no idea of the impact they've had on my life. And only if we can be specific can we add power to the mattering message."
  — Walter Green (55:45)

• On Overcoming Stigma:

  "I ended up in a mental hospital for two months...for 40 years, I never talked about it. Now there are so many young people struggling that when I have my mentees, I just want to put them at ease and I tell them the story."
  — Walter Green (15:54 – 19:16)

• On Ripple Effect:

  "One act of recognition can alter how someone shows up in every single relationship after that."
  — John Miles (64:21)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Why Matter Now, Not Later? - 07:18
• Childhood Loneliness & Loss - 09:39
• Mental Health Struggle, Early Career - 15:54
• Turning Around a Company - 29:51
• Building Meaningful Relationships - 37:27
• First Say It Now Experience (50th Birthday) - 40:42
• Say It Now Pilgrimage (Age 70) - 44:14
• Changing Cultural Norms Around Appreciation - 49:33
• The Ripple Effect in Schools - 60:19
• The Framework: Knowing Me, Making Me, Becoming Me - 69:12
• Call to Action: Express It Now - 72:01

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Recap and Final Reflection

This episode delivers a heartfelt reminder: we are surrounded by opportunities to let people know they matter, yet so often wait until it’s too late. Walter Green’s life and message challenge the cultural norm of posthumous appreciation, advocating for intentional, specific acts of recognition today. The rewards—deeper connection, personal healing, and transformed communities—ripple endlessly outward.

For listeners, the call is simple and profound: Identify one person who’s made a difference in your life, reflect on their impact, and express your gratitude now—in whatever format feels genuine.
Find resources at justsayitnow.org.

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“It doesn't matter how, but put that flashlight on the relationship. It's more than saying I love you. They already know that. They have no idea how they have mattered.”
—Walter Green (72:01)

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Transcript

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[John Miles]

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[Walter Green]

if the whole world woke up this morning and said, I am going to reach out to at least one person or all those that are really important to me and be very specific with them. I just want you to know, John, how much you matter to me. When you did that and that suggestion and that support was a really tough time in my life and I'll never forget what impact it had on my life. And you're thinking to yourself, I don't remember it. You can't believe how many moments of mattering in people's lives the people who provided it had no knowledge of welcome to Passion Struck.

[John Miles (Host Narration)]

I'm your host, John Miles. This is the show where we explore the art of human flourishing and what it truly means to live like it matters. Each week I sit down with change makers, creators, scientists and everyday heroes to decode the human experience and uncover the tools that help us lead with meaning, heal what hurts, and pursue the fullest expression of who we're capable of becoming. Whether you're designing your future, developing as a leader, or seeking deeper alignment in your life, this show is your invitation to grow with purpose and act with intention. Because the secret to a life of deep purpose, connection and impact is choosing to live like you matter. Hey, friends. Welcome Back to episode 773 of Passion Struck. Today's conversation brings us to the final interview of our May series, Forged in Adversity. Over the past month, we've explored what it means to endure hardship, recover from pain, and transform adversity into growth. Earlier this week, Eric Zimmer and I explored the inner work of sustainable transformation, while lasting change is built less through dramatic reinvention and more through repeated small choices, self compassion and learning how to return to ourselves as after setbacks. And in many ways, today's conversation feels like the natural culmination of all of the themes. Because eventually adversity raises a larger question. What do we do with what we've learned through suffering? What if the ultimate purpose of our wounds is not simply personal healing, but contribution? That's why I wanted to bring Walter

[John Miles]

Green onto the show.

[John Miles (Host Narration)]

Walter's story is extraordinary, but not in the way most people define success. Yes, he built and led one of the most successful conference center companies in the country. Yes, he spent decades mentoring leaders and entrepreneurs. But what moved me most about Walter was the realization that emerged through his own life experiences. So many people move through life without fully knowing they mattered to someone else. What followed from that realization became the foundation of the say it now movement, a global effort encouraging people to stop waiting until funerals to express gratitude, appreciation, and emotional truth to the people who shaped their lives. In today's conversation, Walter and I explore childhood loneliness, grief, mental health struggles, leadership, intentional living, and the profound emotional impact of helping another person understand the difference they made in your life. Walter shares openly about losing his father young, struggling with depression early in adulthood, and spending decades discovering what truly gives life meaning. But this episode is really about something much larger. It's about the human need to feel seen, to feel remembered, to feel significant to another person. And I think this conversation arrives at an important moment culturally because we're living through a crisis of disconnection. Many people today are surrounded by communication, yet starving for genuine acknowledgement. They know they are loved in the abstract, but they rarely hear specifically how they mattered. Walter's message is deceptively don't wait until someone is gone to tell them what they meant to you. Don't wait until regret forces the conversation you could have had while they were still here. And what struck me most is that this isn't just healing for the other person, it changes the person expressing it, too. Before we dive in, if this show has ever made a difference in your life, please share it with someone who may need it. Leave a rating or review on Apple podcasts or Spotify and subscribe on YouTube for full conversations and weekly clips. And lastly, you can grab the workbook for today's conversation at my [e-mail] now let's dive in to my conversation with Walter Green. Thank you for choosing Passion Struck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life that matters. Now let that journey begin.

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[John Miles]

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[Walter Green]

What is this your first date?

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[Walter Green]

Yeah, the bird looks out of your league.

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[Walter Green]

Liberty. Liberty. Liberty, Liberty.

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[John Miles]

I am absolutely honored to today to welcome Walter Green to Passion Struck. Walter, it's so great to meet you.

[Walter Green]

It's a pleasure to be here, John.

[John Miles]

Thank you, Walter. I've heard you describe your life in three evolutions. Knowing me, making me, and becoming me. And that's how I want to explore today's discussion. But I've heard you say something extraordinary. So many lives are lived without knowing they matter. When did you first understand that was true?

[Walter Green]

A wonderful question. I know the issue of mattering has come front and center in recent years, but my entry to that my door to the mattering arena came through the clarity and realization of the importance that certain relationships had in my life. So my entry space was losing my dad when I was 17 was a wake up call that you can't count on life being very predictable or long. So in a sense that branded me very early in My life. And then I moved around to try and give you a capsule response. By the time I was 29, I think I'd lived in 13 different cities as a kid. I never lived long enough to make any friends. So really it wasn't until my 30s that I began to build long term relationships. So when I was 50 was the time that I said, my dad died at 53. I'm 50. I should be acknowledging these people have been really important to me. And I put on a really special weekend for five of my very dear friends, their spouses, my family. And it was at that moment that I expressed to them the deep impact each of them had in my life. And that's a whole story by itself. That experience and what that meant to them and what that meant to me was probably the first iteration of mattering. But there's been a whole three and a half decades since that time that I've built off of that foundation.

[John Miles]

Thank you for sharing that. And I want to come back to your 50th birthday in a little bit. I want to go back to the knowing me phase of your life because I want to go into something that you shared that for much of your childhood, you grew up not having friends until you reached high school. As I understand it. How did that lack of friends shape the questions that you carried about yourself as you were going through that phase of knowing me before you hit the making me phase?

[Walter Green]

Don't want to overstate it. I was uncertain. I wasn't even absolutely understanding what I was missing when I was missing. It came a little later when I realized I never had it.

[John Miles (Host Narration)]

Yeah.

[Walter Green]

And when I had it, I then realized even more importantly what I missed. Yeah, the first phase. Family had some. My dad was a dreamer and he bought a ranch and went bankrupt when I was three years old. So we had some financial challenges. We moved her out. And he had a heart attack when he was 47, and it changed the game. I was 11 years old at the time. So all these things created this uncertainty about where am I? Who am I? Who's important? And so the relationship jewel never really got developed. It was only later on that I fully understood what I had missed.

[John Miles]

Unfortunately, around the same time that your mom was diagnosed with cancer, I think you were around nine years old, if I have my research correct.

[Walter Green]

Yeah.

[John Miles]

Unfortunately, my nephew learned his mom had pancreatic cancer at the same age. And unfortunately, she passed away a few years later. But I remember the profound impact that it had on Miles and still has on his life. In addition, to not having those friends at that stage in your life and being so close to your mom. Remember that period of time and what it was like to hear the news that she had cancer and how that

[Walter Green]

impacted you to this moment. Have this image of my aunt in our kitchen. Now, my aunt had never been in my kitchen. This is one of these childhood blazing men. And I walked in, I said, what are you doing? I'm nine years old. What are you doing? And she described that my mother had an operation and she'll be fine. And fine is an interesting word because back then it wasn't like it was today. Back then it was five years usually. And they didn't just do. They did radical mastectomy. So it was a very disfiguring process. My mother was a very attractive woman. She was 38 years old, married to a man who appreciated her beauty. But as a child, my mother was really strong. She was an exceptional woman and there was no victimization. And where my father's heart attack silenced the family. We were from 11 on. Our dedication was to taking care of our father so they didn't have another heart attack. So I had a brother a year older. We never fought, not because we loved each other all the time, but we knew we couldn't fight and make any noise in front of our father. Our dinners were silent. We didn't want to upset him. So my mother was a powerful figure. Lived until 93, 94, actually. Extraordinary woman. But the real impact on my life came from my father's health, not my mother's.

[John Miles]

That's really interesting. Well, and two things I want to talk about here is not only did you grow up without friends, but then you lived in a house where you were kind of being rewarded for your silence. Or that's the decision that you guys had to make, you and your brother. And I just think about that. And that's. And that's very difficult because you don't really have an outlet from a friendship standpoint. And then you can't really voice how you're feeling because you're worried about your father too. So it seems like for you, that was a huge double whammy.

[Walter Green]

Huge.

[John Miles]

Walter, understand we have something in common, and that is a deep appreciation and love for the maize and blue.

[Walter Green]

Oh, absolutely. Yes. I went to school at University of Michigan, but to be really honest with the audience, it was really a struggle for me. I went to high school in Jacksonville, which was rather mediocre. The school was disaccredited the year after I left. And I'm Reading disabled. I never knew what that was. But reading was very difficult. And I was with a bunch of smart people in Ann Arbor. And candidly, if it wasn't for Dr. Losh's astronomy class, I probably would have dropped out or flunked out.

[John Miles]

I only bring it up because my grandparents, my parents, my aunt to my. My entire lineage all went to the University of Michigan. And I grew up my entire childhood going to Camp Michigania off of Lake Walloon up in the top of the Lower Peninsula.

[Walter Green]

It was a fine school, fine professors and really smart kids, and very difficult for me.

[John Miles]

Well, I understand that after you got out of college, one of your first jobs, you were excelling at that. I think you were 22, 23, and you had this point where you really liked your boss and admired your boss, but the people above your boss said, if you keep performing the way you are, pretty soon we're going to be able to replace your boss with you. And I understand when that happened, it caused a real monumental moment to happen in your life.

[Walter Green]

Well, you're not starting with any soft questions, John. Get right to the heart of the matter. Well, let me set the stage for that. Graduated from University of Michigan, spent six months in the military, went into the reserve, had no idea what I was going to do. I went to the business school. So I was an accounting major as well as a liberal arts student, but had no idea my father had passed away, didn't want to go back to Jacksonville. And my fraternity brother, father, who knew me from Thanksgiving holidays because I didn't have enough to go fly home to Jacksonville. He said, walter, I'll get you a job. And the job was Industrial Textiles, major company. Industrial textiles is a fancy word for rags, shop towels that they use in various manufacturing facilities. So I didn't have any other offers, so I said, where do you want me to go? He said, well, we can use you in Pittsburgh. I'd never been to Pittsburgh, so I went to the ymca. After two or three nights, I saw a notice that there are three guys looking for a roommate. So I called them up and I say, hey, I'd like job. I'd like to have a roommate. Like to have a place to live other than the why. And I started. I think I was no more than a couple months into the job. And we had a national sales meeting. So the national sales meeting, this wasn't just my supervisor, this was the owner of the company who got word to me that I was doing really well. And I had spent two months with this. I Thought he was an older gentleman. He was probably maybe 60s. I don't know how old he was, but to me as a 22 year old, he seemed like an older man. And they told me how well I was doing and just as soon as I learned the territory, they were going to have me replace him. Well, I lost my dad and the idea that I would do that was unbearable. I actually went back to Pittsburgh without getting too much into the details here, found that I could not get out of bed the next day. And so began. Now, this is a guy. I was president of my fraternity at University of Michigan. I was president of my high school fraternity. I've always, for some reason, been older and a leader in the groups that I'm in, but this guy couldn't get out of bed. He went home. Nobody understood. They didn't understand what mental illness was. I didn't understand understand what mental illness was. I ended up in a mental hospital for two months. Yeah. And the next two years, through therapy and whatever, got to understand myself. And like most pain, if you can survive it, you will be stronger for it. I credited it with a lot of my empathy, compassion and focus on human beings. But it was a very punishing time of my life. And candidly, for 40 years, I never talked about it. I didn't want it to interfere with my personal relationships, my professional relationships. But now there's so many young people that are struggling that when I have my mentees, I just want to put them at ease and I tell them the story. And I hope that there's a listener that maybe has a child out there who gets a little encouragement that you can survive this, you can prosper from it, but it's really real and you can't see it.

[John Miles]

Well, you and my father are pretty much the same age and he was also in the military. He was in the Marine Corps. But he did the pattern opposite of you. He went into the Marine Corps before he went to the University of Michigan, and seems like he went into the army afterwards. Right. But the point of it is, I know for most of his life, he has internally held a lot of the trauma that he faced. And so growing up, observing that, when I faced combat trauma myself, I did the same exact thing. And I suppressed a lot of that. And after a while it caught up with me. And I'm saying this because I'm wondering, when you look back upon that period that you were hospitalized, do you think it was more to do with replacing that gentleman or do you think it was more you hadn't dealt with the loss of your father and it was this built up of pent emotion of built up emotion. And that's what happened. When you think back upon it, what do you think caused that to happen?

[Walter Green]

Straightforward answer would be yes. It really was probably even more than that. This is a kid that moved from city to city, never really had any real connections, illnesses of parents, very unsettling father going bankrupt when I was a small kid, the first experience having no idea what I'm going to do with my life. I didn't think I went to University of Michigan. No offense to rag salesman's salesman, but I didn't think I went to University of Michigan to get a business degree as well to become a rag salesman. Then I failed at that. So it was a whole cumulative series of life events that contributed to a really lost soul. Even though when you met me at Michigan, modestly for a moment, these were really good guys that wanted me to be the president of the fraternity. So I was always. I always looked good and I always was verbally pretty adequate. I think it made up for the fact I couldn't read that I had to figure out I better learn how to speak. But to your point, it's never usually a singular activity. It could be pivotal, but not singular.

[John Miles (Host Narration)]

Before we continue, I want to thank all of you who continue supporting passion struck and sharing these conversations with others. One of the biggest themes in today's episode is that significance grows through recognition, gratitude and connection. Small moments of acknowledgment can alter how another person sees themselves and sometimes even change the trouble direction of a life. The idea sits at the center of the work I explore in my upcoming book the Mattering Effect, which releases this October. The book examines why so many people today feel unseen, disconnected and emotionally exhausted, and how rebuilding mattering changes not only individuals, but relationships, workplaces, communities and culture itself. If you want deeper reflections, companion exercises, and weekly tools to help you live more intentionally, you can join us at my [e-mail] Now a quick break for our sponsors. Thank you for supporting those who support the show.

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[John Miles (Host Narration)]

You're listening to Passion Struck right here on the Passion Struck Network. Now back to my conversation with Walter Green.

[John Miles]

Walter, the reason I'm exploring this like this is because I never know who the age of the listener is going to be. And a lot of times I do have a younger generation of listeners to the show. And so what I'm trying to point out to them is oftentimes a person can seem perfectly fine on the outside, but inside they're struggling and maybe even struggling far more than they even realize they're struggling until it catches up with them. And I know that's exactly what ended up happening to me. It happened to me later in life, I than it happened to you. I wish it would have happened earlier because then I would have dealt with it earlier and probably moved on from what was troubling me. But do you think that was the point where you started to know yourself or do you think it, it took a little bit longer from that, that. Or was that an opening of the door for you?

[Walter Green]

No, that was probably the real moment of serious introspection as to who is this guy. Yeah, that was, that was a really important chapter. It lasted for a couple years and then I made the best decision of my wife. I got married when I was 20. Oh Lord. I think 24. Yeah, yeah. Still married. Happily married. Going to be married 63 years. She probably was a stabilizing influence as well.

[John Miles]

Speaking of getting married, what did that have to do with multi level marketing? Because I understand there's a connection.

[Walter Green]

Actually one, you know, we all think we're planning our lives and everything's going to be very. So here's this guy, he goes to liberal arts in Michigan. He thinks he's going to be an accountant, but really doesn't really like accounting. Sorry to the audience, but for me it didn't work. I know there are a lot of people that love the accounting profession. For me, I needed more intense people relationships. In any case, I was struggling. They paid, I don't know, I think about $350 a month in accounting. And then I had a job selling mutual funds in the evening. Then I learned My brother who lived in Jacksonville, I'm living, I'm actually living in Cambridge and to be clear, I didn't go to Harvard after Michigan, but that's where the mental hospital was. That's how I ended up. Gayfords. Just want to be totally clear at this stage of my life. In any case, I was looking, he was a year older, one year older and skipped a grade. And he told me he made a thousand dollars part time selling something called nutribio was Bob Cummings who was this movie star with seven kids who looked half his age. And he made a thousand dollars. I was making $650 from two jobs. He made it part time. I said what are you doing? How do you do it? He says, it's in multi level marketing. I said, well, I'd like to be in it. I don't know if I had the $500. He might have had to lend me the 500 to get in the business. But when they arrived, my 300 square foot apartment was filled with these boxes of vitamins and minerals and I knew I had to get a sales organization quickly so I could have a place to sleep. So I went to the laundromat, wrote out a sign, if you'd like to make money in your part time, give me a call now. You can't do that today. I'm not prescribing that for anybody, but back then you could get away with it. So I got a call, took my little audio visual kit and the person was very excited about it. She told me later she really was excited more about the guy than the business. So that's how I got my wife. So the business was closed three weeks later. But I made the best investment of my life so that worked out well.

[John Miles]

And so from there you went still a little bit from job to job until you found yourself, as I understand it, in the conference event space. And that's where things really reached a different inflection point for you. Can you talk about that transition and how you became the CEO of that company?

[Walter Green]

So one of the things that for the younger people that are listening, every single job I had, I learned something. When I was a kid I sold men's clothes, women's shoes. I was a did CPA for a while, three years. I was a financial person in a food service company and a hotel company. But all of these were really valuable because I honed my skills because I actually got really pretty good at what I was doing. And I also learned what really didn't excite me. So this Warm up. There's a whole story behind this. But three years after we married, had a set of twin boys. So it was time to figure out what I was going to do. And I saw that I had been in the food service, hotel business, financial that, and there was a startup company. And I actually always loved education. I never did go into education, but I think if I reround it, I probably figure out I'd want to do that. Any case, the idea of creating an alternative. Love the idea that had never been done before. That's a pattern of everything I've done. Find something that hasn't been done before, deliver it with excellence and make sure it's aligned with what you're in. It works every time. Any case, this is a startup operation. The idea was to provide an alternative to hotels with folding walls and stack chairs and mediocre food. And we were just going to dedicate ourselves to corporations that wanted an ideal place to take their executives for residential meetings, their guest rooms, dining rooms, meeting rooms, recreational facilities. They were really gorgeous. It was never really done before on a national basis. And so I joined it in a financial capacity. And yeah, our twins were one year old at the time. It was high risk. I made a small investment for a very small investment in the company and the rest is history.

[John Miles]

Well, is it history or did the company almost go bankrupt and you were brought in to resurrect it?

[Walter Green]

John, it seems it's ironic, but I've noticed that a lot of times, good times don't necessarily lead to great times, but tough times can lead to great times.

[John Miles]

Yes.

[Walter Green]

And so I joined this company because I thought the idea was great to build this national network of high end conference centers. Never been done before. Boy, this. We had ultimately thousands of corporate meetings at our 10 facilities around the country. But the chairman and the president maybe did some things that weren't in the best interest of building the company. So the board made a change because it was close to bankruptcy, there was almost no hope for it, and I was the last man standing. It wasn't a big company at the time, but I think I was 33. And I ended up taking this almost bankrupt company and operating in three states, 400 employees. This was a big deal. And children, boys, my sons were at that point 5 years old, so it was high risk, but I had some wonderful people. The concept was terrific and ultimately became a successful company. And that's. That was very gratifying professionally and financially.

[John Miles]

Well, when you think back at that time, you're 33, there's a tremendous amount of pressure on you because you've got to support your family and this company's in major difficulty. You must have felt a lot of pressure then. Like, what was it like going through that? And then how did you know that you were on the way to turning it around?

[Walter Green]

Well, I never really thought of it until you asked this question. But connecting your earlier connection conversation with this, I never got into the fear mode that made me ill. I just thought about the pressure was enormous, but it never put me back into the mental state that created depression. I never thought of that because there were 400 lives counting on this thing succeeding, including my own with my kids and my wife. I really worked hard, was really committed to it. Got some people who really cared about doing it. And it took in, yeah, a few years before we knew we were actually going to prosper. Well, first survive, but then prosper, and

[John Miles]

then you end up leading that company for a few decades.

[Walter Green]

Yeah, 25 years.

[John Miles (Host Narration)]

What are you.

[John Miles]

What are some of your fondest memories during that time?

[Walter Green]

Oh, I love that question. First of all, it's a people business, so always with interesting people. We were probably the largest network of executive training in America, really. We ran 6,000 meetings with 150,000 executives, ultimately at our centers. That was pretty gratifying. We constantly worked on innovation, which was fun. We had a healthy alternative food program. And we really concerned ourselves a lot about how do you make these meetings work? Meetings generally are a waste of time. Sorry. Most of the people are highly unproductive in meetings. We really got a lot of satisfaction out of building a model where meetings really worked. That really was cool. And then, of course, it worked and it was successful. And so that's very satisfying.

[John Miles]

Now, Walter, I've been the CEO of a few companies myself, and one thing I've learned about the position, and maybe you had a different experience, but for me, it was one of the loneliest roles I've ever been in at times. And I learned that there was a real difference between being admired and being seen. Did you ever feel that yourself being admired?

[Walter Green]

Well, I'll leave the admiration assessment to other people that you can ask that question. I won't answer whether I felt admired, but I want to drill down a little bit on this issue. I do think when you're at the top of an organization, ultimately we had 1400 employees. It wasn't a small business that you really do need somebody to dialogue with without the implications that it be one of your colleagues. So I joined the Young President's Organization Very early and have got involved in a forum group which were 10 guys we made for 22 years together. Since that time. I've been in three of these for 90 years. Probably attended 900 sessions with three groups of presidents. So I know everything about them, they know everything about me. And it was the vehicle that I could use to process things that I couldn't talk about in the company.

[John Miles]

Now that is a great avenue to have because that is something I didn't have. When you're in that position, if you have doubts, you can't really share them with your subordinates because you don't want want them to know that you have doubts. And oftentimes you don't want to share it with the board because you don't. Maybe you have that board mentor who you can go to for some advice. Unfortunately, in many of the companies I was in, none of the board members were playing that role. And if I would have shown any weakness, the fear for me was they'd throw me out on the street. I was always looking for kind of that outlet outside of the company that I could talk to people who'd been through this themselves or were living it themselves that you could talk to about these struggles and these impossible situations you sometimes find yourself in where you see a revenue source that's going to dry up and you know you need to, to switch, but you're struggling with like how do you make this pivot without creating a disaster by your decisions and bouncing ideas. So it's great that you had that form. It's something I always wish I could have had.

[Walter Green]

So I actually was, as I'm sure you were, I was fairly open with my colleagues. But there are some things that they had no experience in. We did some really interesting and essential refinancings. They really would know what that's about. Sometimes the issue I had is with some of the key people, I can't talk to my key people about my key people. So those are the kinds of issues that you move outside and. Yes, and I also said that one of the things I love being a resource to the other presidents. So it wasn't just a singular. I go for whatever. I got enormous. And to this day I'm still involved in two groups. Just came back from a three day meeting with one here in San Diego. The idea that one can create, whether it's from an organization like the Young President's Organization or even on their own. My son actually has put together a forum group. He's not in YPO and it's Very important. It's a life group. It is not a work group. It's a life group. And looking back over how I feel like I may have contributed over the years, I would definitely put those 30 men in the category of people that I made a difference in. And they made a difference in my life.

[John Miles]

Walter, I want to go back to your 50th birthday now. So on my 50th birthday, which wasn't too long ago, unfortunately, it happened to be during COVID So this big 50th celebration that I was hoping to have and put on a party and everything was never able to occur. But my wife, who was my girlfriend at the time, did something pretty remarkable for me. She went out to a whole bunch of people who I didn't know she was doing this and had them each create short videos for me about how I had influenced their lives. And to this day, it's one of the most valuable things that's ever happened to me because I never realized up until that point how much I mattered to them or made a difference to them in their lives. You kind of did this the opposite way.

[Walter Green]

Yeah, I guess I did. And congratulations to your now wife for actually being an advanced person on what ultimately now is known as the say it now movement, which we'll talk about later. But going back to the 50th birthday, I was so remember, I kind of. First of all, it's nice to get back to a happy time. That childhood was a hard conversation, but I wanted to be authentic with you because in order to be helpful to your listeners, I think to package it any other way other than being authentic is not as useful. So I'm happy to get now into the 50th birthday. I'm now feeling really good. I'm into the time in which I wanted to celebrate them. It was my 50th birthday. Maybe counterintuitive, but Lola's always supported all the events, put on many spectacular events over the years. And I said on my own mind. I said, I don't know. I'm only three years short of 53, which could be the end. And so I brought these, as I mentioned earlier, five good friends, their spouses, my family, and we lived on the east coast, brought them to New York City and treated them royally. I didn't have a lot, but it was so important to me that we went to the opening week or opening month of Phantom of the Opera. We had great dinners. It was an.

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[Walter Green]

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[Walter Green]

Trust me, it was a really special affair. But what I most remember, I got chills. What I most remember is when I had the opening reception and I looked at these five fellows who had been oh at that point over 10 year relationships for me and I went one to one about what they had meant to me and their impact on my life. Well that was like wow. So it was important to them to hear that they had made a difference. But it was also a tremendous sense of joy to be able to acknowledge that I had those relationships, I had those blessings and if I did die in three years, they now know how they feel, how I felt about them.

[John Miles]

It's just a tremendous thing for people to hear because I think it's something we, we fail to do so much of the time. And I found in my own life I have had very few very close friends and as I look at things, I've had a lot of people who I would consider to be more acquaintances than when I think of a really close friend who is something that you can tell pretty much anything to and you don't have to worry about them not wanting to associate with you or not be willing to go deep. Unfortunately for me, three of the people I, I have been closest to have all now passed away for different reasons. And once those people do leave you, it's very difficult to get that relationship back. Especially if you've known these people for decades.

[Walter Green]

Yeah, no, it saddens me at your age that you would have lost three of them already. That's tragic. All five of mine are gone, but I'm in my 80s and I think I was the youngest of them. But to lose them in your 50s, all of three is a powerful loss and I think the message there is that just tells you we can't count on the predictable, the same message I mentioned earlier, we just don't know. And I've made a habit of making younger friends. So every friend of mine is basically younger except for my older brother. I have one or two older friends, but a lot of closer younger friends. And we haven't talked, I don't know. But by the time I was 70, there's a whole couple decades in there of appreciation of relationships which ended up with really special year when I was 70. So it kind of started at 50, it built at 70 and found its maximum fulfillment in my 80s. But it's all the same theme.

[John Miles]

Well, unfortunately, Walter, I lost those people before I was even 50. So one of them died and we were both in our late 30s from colon cancer. Another one when I was in my early 40s from unfortunately suicide and the other one from cancer a few years later. So it, yes, it makes you really wake up that you know, you've got to live for now because you don't know how long it's going to last. Yeah, well, Speaking of your 70th, I understand you ended up going on a year long journey to visit. I think it was 40 or 44 people during that, that journey. What were you really searching for?

[Walter Green]

Oh, another happy time. Happy. Not happy, but meaningful happy. There's a little difference, a meaning and is always leads to happiness. For me. I never look for happiness. I always look for the way to get happy if I never look. In any case, I had been working on these relationships. Once I started and found out they're so valuable, I actually mined more of them and became even more intentional. If there's a word that I would use for my life, I am really intentional. And when I woke up to the power of important relationships, I just kept on collecting them like people collect art or wine or cars. I collected really neat people. So I'm thinking now I saw. I don't know if you remember, you're too young probably, but there was a moderator of Meet the Press called Tim Russert.

[John Miles]

Of course, he was incredible.

[Walter Green]

Best moderator in his 50s, had a heart attack and died.

[John Miles]

Yeah, I remember. I remember it vividly. I was a regular watcher. I watched him every Sunday.

[Walter Green]

There you are. Yeah, well, I don't know if you remember. His funeral had 1500 people there. There were astronauts and presidents and the tributes to him were unbelievable. And that's where I really got this oh my God moment. The way these people felt about Tim paralleled the way you felt when your friends told you what they meant. Now there's One big difference in this comparison. You heard it, Tim. Never heard it,

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John.

[Walter Green]

It makes no sense to me that we will spend so much time and wait till a person passes to let them know what they mean. That is our culture. That is the way most people live. The movement that we'll talk about later, say it now, is breaking that custom. But back to the 70th. I'm now 17 years past. This time I thought I'd be gone. I'm thinking, oh, my God, I'm still here. So I asked my wife, I said, listen, there are a number of people have been important to me. I'm not going to want to bring a party together and bring every. I want to be able to sit down for an extended period of time, usually at least a couple hours. And I had very specific things that I wanted to tell each one of them about their impact on my life. And I asked my wife, Lola, for a year because I couldn't do it quickly. I didn't know how many people. I didn't know it'd be five or ten. And I hope your audience doesn't get turned off by this. It ended up being 44. I don't care if it's one or two. The message is the same. Don't wait. So I ended up at that point saying I wanted to go visit them personally. So I traveled around the United States sometimes I was able to see two in the same area. Ended up going to Kenya and Kenya, Canada and Mexico, a lot of places in Southern California where I had made relationships over the last 25 years. And I sat down with each of those people and told them specifically the impact they had on my life. It was an unbelievable experience. What it meant to them. We can only assume. Most people I know that are fulfilled know that their life had mattered most. People that are frustrated and uncertain about why they're here, it's generally related. They don't think they matter. Well, everybody on my journey knows they really matter to me. That ultimately became a book that was another coincidence. I never planned any of these things, but it seems like the universe will line up if you're really clear and intentional and patient and passionate.

[John Miles]

Yeah, I love the story and I wanted to. I'm not sure if you've ever heard of a researcher from Cornell named Tom Gilovich, but Tom studies the regrets of people in their third trimester and probably someone that. That you should look into because his. He has interviewed thousands of people. And what he has found is very similar to what Bronnie Ware, who wrote the Five regrets of the dying found as well is that people regret not ever becoming the third phase that you talk about becoming me, becoming their best self. Like showing the people in their lives how much they matter to them, really understanding how much they under. They matter to other people. And so when people are on their deathbeds, that's what they tend to talk about the most. Why do you think we postpone that for most of us until our funerals?

[Walter Green]

Well, if I had to answer one, I just think it's a custom. It's a habit. It's a habit. It's the way things are done. And there hasn't been enough evidence that there's any other way to do it. We're changing that. But 20 years ago, that was the way you paid tribute to somebody, was you would just wait till they passed away and really delivered a wonderful eulogy. That's. That was it. It was okay. It was such a missed opportunity. John, I don't want to overstate it. I don't know your audience, but I literally think I found gold when it comes to an aspect of human relationships. I now we've influenced over 15 million people. We teach the program in 85 countries. Schools are teaching. Say it now. We're changing that. We're having a lot of people realize. I know there's a lot of conversation. I respect deeply those that suggest that we have a life that matters. I got it. As a matter of fact, that's critical. You can be wealthy, you could be physically fit, and you could be very unhappy because you just don't seem to matter. So you can work on mattering, but here to me is the biggest undiscovered aspect of mattering. The whole nature that we don't tell anybody that they matter. What if the whole world woke up this morning and said, I am going to reach out to at least one person or all those that are really important to me and be very specific with them. I just want you to know, John, how much you matter to me. When you did that and that suggestion and that support was a really tough time in my life. And I'll never forget what impact it had on my life. And you're thinking to yourself, I don't remember it. You can't believe how many moments of mattering in people's lives. The people who provided it had no knowledge of it. And we are the people that have that gift. And if we don't give it, it's like having a gift in your closet that you never give. And say it now is about Getting that gift, putting a flashlight on a relationship, because I have one I'm doing next week with a terrific guy and a surprise. It's going to give me a chance to put a flashlight on that relationship. Oh, I know. I'm very respectful of him. I admire him. He's a great guy, done a lot. I want to be able to review specifically what he did in my life. To him, that's putting a flashlight on a relationship. That's what say it now is about.

[John Miles]

Walter, thank you for sharing that because it's really profound and it's actually a core of what I explore in an upcoming book that I have coming out in October 6th called the mattering Effect, where it really goes into to what you're talking about. What you're talking about is actually the mattering effect. It's I believe we can change the world if we start doing things like you're suggesting, which don't take a lot of effort, but they significantly change your relationship with yourself and your relationship with others. And I believe once you pass it on and you share that with someone else, it creates a natural ripple effect where they express that gratitude on to someone else in their life. And that's how it begins.

[Walter Green]

We started this movement five years ago and we're over 15 million expressions. Once it's discovered, once people do it, you make a couple points. I just want to underline them. Number one, it doesn't take much time. I take out my legal pad, which I'll do this week, and I'm going to list what difference did that person make in my life. Now I'm going to put the flashlight on that relationship. What? It'll take me half an hour. Now the question is how you do it. That's up to you. Some people want to write a letter, some people want to go visit, some people want to do a video, some people want to do it with a group. It doesn't matter how, but it does matter. Now we cannot wait. We do not know how long the person will be there. And I have to also add it's free, it doesn't cost anything, it doesn't take much time and it changes relationships, it changes your life and it changes their lives. I'm reminded of a story was interviewed the author of the book called the In Between. It was a hospice nurse and I I love this story because it just highlights the problem. In the last six months it's along the lines of what you just spoke about. But in the last six months of these people's lives, they have this Hospice nurse, take care of them and make the transition. And almost everyone has this sense. I wish my life had mattered. I'm just sad my life has not mattered. Then out of respect, she would go to the funeral of these people and the people would all stand and talk about what that person had meant to them. Can you believe that we're going to change that, John, that cannot be part of our long term society. Can't do that.

[John Miles]

Walter, I want to ask you a question. Do you think being told how you mattered to someone's life is simply, is different from simply being told you're loved?

[Walter Green]

Oh, I, as a matter of fact. Thanks. That is, I didn't make it as clear as I want. The question allows me to be clear. Most people know how you feel about them. I don't think they're surprised when something. Because nowadays people say I love you. I say it to my guy friends. They kind of know that they have no idea of the impact they've had on my life. And only if we can be specific can we add power to the mattering message.

[John Miles]

It makes me think of a teammate that I had in high school who I've never really told this to. So I probably need to pick up the phone and call Keith because we haven't spoken in years. But he was my teammate and he ended up becoming state champion runner, ran in at a collegiate level, was an all American, missed the Olympics by hundredths of a second. But he really took me under his wing when he was a junior in high school and I was a sophomore and he really taught me to care and because he cared a lot about becoming a better runner. And at that point I was kind of going through the motions and he brought the rigor and the pride and the esteem and in subtle ways kind of made me think I could be a better person, I could be a better runner, I could be, I could work harder, I could develop more grit. And I've never really shared that with him. And that kind of carried on with me through the rest of my life. But it's moments like that that we need to tell those people those things because they probably never even.

[Walter Green]

John, I want you to do that and I want you to send me an email afterwards and tell me what that experience is like and I'll tell you a similar story. And I know how powerful it is. There was a driver of a person who took me to the airport, this goes back a couple years. And he says, what do you do? And I said, well, I'm actually trying to get people to awaken to the power of acknowledging people while they're alive, not waiting till they're dead. He said, oh, that's interesting. He said, I don't know. He must have been in his 30s, I'm guessing. He said, I had a basketball coach comes immediately to mind. He taught me so much about life, I got chills again. I said, really? Is he still alive? I said, yeah, I don't see him, but he's still alive. I said, well, it's up to you, but it probably feel pretty good if you told him the impact he had on your life. It'll feel good to you. Probably feel good to him next time. I drove to the airport, he said, I just want you to know I reached out to my coach. I said, really? What was that like? Because there is no income in this, John. I have no business, or I was done with business 25 years ago. There is no profit motive in say It Now. The book. Profits that I had go back into the say it now movement. I have a book coming out next week. Profits all go back to the say it now movement. I have nothing to sell. There is no earnings from this. So these psychic stories, that's why I asked you. I want to hear about yours. Psychic stories is when he tells me. I said, what was it like? He said, hey, coach, I haven't seen you. Well, I'd like to come see you. Why don't we meet in the basketball. Wherever they used to play on the court. So he goes, there. The coach has a basketball. I said, coach, I didn't come to play basketball. I said, well, what'd you come for? He said, I want to want you to sit down on the bench. I want to tell you how my life differed because of what you taught me when you were my coach. Powerful.

[John Miles]

Very powerful. Walter, I'm really curious. Getting into schools is extremely difficult. The bureaucracy that you have to go through, the hurdles, all of this, extremely difficult. And I know this personally, because we can talk about this in a second. But I wrote this children's book because, as you explored earlier, so many youngsters today don't feel like they matter. In fact, 35% of kids 4 to 8 don't feel it. And we've got growing levels of sadness and hopelessness and everything else in over 40% of our high school students. So there's a real need for this message to get to a younger generation. So it excites me that you have found a way to do this.

[Walter Green]

Yeah, well, first the question was, how

[John Miles]

have you gotten into 80 80,000 schools.

[Walter Green]

I will answer that, but I want to talk to you about why did I go to youth? So this year will be the year of corporations, but this is fifth year. The first four years, I said, what is the most important age group that I want to influence? The older people have lost many of their friends. They're gone. They have a lot of regrets. They know what the pain is. We'll talk to them, but not as a primary market. It's an important market. Your age group. They've got parents still alive, in some cases, children coming along. Good opportunity, great opportunity. But I'm going to have to unlearn something for your group, too. The younger people, they don't know. They don't know about this custom. So I wanted to teach them, practice them, have them have the joy from the experience without having to unlearn the fact that you might have done this or not done this later in life. So not wanting to build another large organization, not at my age, I developed a strategic relationship with an organization that I had worked with the founder of the organization for 25 years, and he was excited about my message. He had spent the last 25 years developing educational materials for schools around the world. He and I have developed a relationship with him which allows say it now to be taught in all of the schools. As a matter of fact, I am so excited this year that we. That the story is told on a documentary. It's called the say it now documentary. You can get it on YouTube, get it on my website. I have nothing to sell in the first five months, has been viewed over a million times. There's a lot of messages there. Mentoring. How did this idea come to pass? The whole question you asked is, how did you get into schools? It's covered in the documentary. That documentary will have a learning guide, a teaching guide, a study guide sent to all the schools so that they will view the documentary, they will learn the principles from it, and no promotion here. This is coming out next week. This book is designed for nine to 90, and it's a fable. I just saw your book. This is a fable. This takes you on a journey, on a train, and by the time you get to it, you can see it's not a big book honoring people out there who may not like to read big books. This has a big message. You go on the journey, you will understand the expression of gratitude. And a little different book, which was this is the Moment, which was a story about how did I come up with the idea of going to visit people? What did I Say, how did I do it? This was more of a let me help you do your own thing. And let me tell you about mine. This says, do it whatever way you want. I just want you to understand the concept.

[John Miles]

Well, you and I are kindred spirits because you told me that what you have always been trying to do is to live an intentional life. My, my first book was how do you build an intentional life?

[Walter Green]

Love it.

[John Miles]

And then this next one, like we talked about, is really how do you make other people feel like they matter? And so doing so, it makes you feel like you matter more in more ways than you can possibly even comprehend.

[Walter Green]

I admire your focus. I support your focus. I'm pleased to have had the chance to share our respective priorities in our lives.

[John Miles]

Yeah, Walter, One of the ideas I've been exploring is something that I call past the ripple. And it's a challenge for youngsters like 4 to 10 year olds. That significance doesn't stop with one person. It propagates. So what? The whole premise of this is to give a platform. There's no cost similar to you. I didn't do it to make any money. But what it's supposed to do is to encourage people to do acts of gratitude. Because I think youngsters, as we've been talking about, need to realize that one act of recognition can alter how someone shows up in every single relationship after that. How does your initiative build that out? After someone watches this documentary, they get this additional coursework. What have you seen as the ripple effect that then happens afterwards?

[Walter Green]

In the classroom, there's specific assignments to express gratitude to somebody who's been important. That's the teaching guy. The outcome is not just to educate them on the idea. To me, frankly, if we got a couple hundred thousand people who are listening and saying it's a great idea and that's where it stopped, that would not justify my time. If we inspire people to act on the message in whatever way they want, that's where it is. That's the only measurement that we do. We do not do. How many people have we inspired? We count how many people have acted on it. I think it's built into the class and those people who have read the book, the people I've met over the years, this thing works. It. I have never, John, in my business, with 6,000 meetings here, I guarantee you we made mistakes and things didn't go as we hoped. In all of my time on this subject matter, I've never heard anybody say, I'm sorry I acted on that expression of gratitude. Can you Imagine not one. Now I'm going to tell you a story. I don't know if we have the time. I'll tell you the story. I thought I was going to have my first one two weeks ago because I've been waiting for somebody to come up to me. Walter, it's a great idea. But it didn't work. So she. Somebody I've known for 20 years, she read my book. She said, did I ever tell you about. I say it. They now use the word. Say it now. That's pay it forward. I want everybody to say, have you done a. Say it now. That's it. Have you done a. Say now. She said, did I ever tell you about mine? I said, no. She said, well, I decided to do it for my father. He's getting older. And I decided I would do it now. I would guess she was late 50s, and maybe her father was 80. And there was Father's Day. So this was last Father's Day. She said, I decided to do a say it out for my father, but I thought about him, and I couldn't think of anything that I'd want to say. I said, oh, my God. Here we go. Fasten my seatbelt here. I'm gonna get it. She said, and then I said, I began to think about my childhood. I began to think about how much he had to do with the childhood that I had. And I started. I wrote a letter about the things that he did to make my childhood the way it was. And I put it in the Father's Day car, and we went over to his house, and I said, dad, there's a card, but there's also a letter. He read the letter. I said, what was the reaction? He didn't react. This is it. I said, my initial reaction was to say, oh, my God. This is the first time somebody's really had a disappointing experience. But we all know it's much better to answer. Respond with a question before you give an answer. So I said, what was that like? With some empathy. She said, it was one of the greatest days of my life. I said, how's that? She said, I got to tell my father all that he had meant to me. I'll never regret having not told him. And she said, I would like him to have responded, but he's a very private person. And so he chose not to respond. But I was so thrilled that I did it. So I'm still waiting for the first.

[John Miles]

And, Walter, I have two last, I think, fairly quick questions for you. We started off the interview today talking about the first phase of your life was knowing me. The second phase was making me. You call this phase that you're in becoming me? Who are you still becoming?

[Walter Green]

Well, that's a wonderful question. That's a whole discussion by itself. But I think if we go back in our lives from the very early days, I still remember being a controller, 27 years old, teaching finance to housekeepers and maintenance people. So you'll see a teacher in me, right? You'll see somebody who only seems to be attracted to doing things that haven't been done before. He likes new things, entrepreneurial things, different things. There's a pattern. There's also a pattern that it has to relate to people. So it starts to relate to people. Then I made this kind of discovery of the power of expressing gratitude. I think I am the person I was always meant to be. And it took those early chapters, the experiences and my clarity. I am really clear. I feel like the kid who's been given extra time on the test. I was supposed to be out of here many years ago, so I became really intentional. I describe my life as I walk up escalators, but I always know where I'm going. I am really great at deciding what not to do. That's why it looks like I do so much, because I don't do a lot of the things that don't get me to where I want to be. I am in my sweet spot.

[John Miles]

I'm so glad to be able to have the opportunity to talk to you because I can't tell you how many times I have spoken to people who are in their third trimester of life. And let's say that third trimester starts when you're 60. Just to give it a number. Who tell me, your book about intentionality and how to build a life of significance would have been great when I was in my 20s, maybe even my 30s. But it's irrelevant to me now. And I. I just look at them and say, every minute that you have is a minute to shape someone else's life and to grow as yourself. So I always think, I hope when I reach 60, that's not how I feel, because I feel like I have two or three chapters left in me that I want to do. So I'm so happy to see how passionate you are about this, how passionate you are. Passion struck, I would say, to be influencing so many lives that you are. It's a remarkable story, Walter. I want to end with this. For someone listening or watching today who has someone they need to thank, forgive or honor, what Would you want them to do before today ends?

[Walter Green]

Yeah. Oh, thank you. First, I'd like them to think about one person. Just think about one. Maybe more. Take out a pad, ask yourself the question, what difference did this person really make in my life? Create some bullet point responses to that question and then ask yourself, how do I want to do it and I don't care. As I said earlier, now they have technology. You could speak into a video and send a five minute video to somebody. Could be life changing. You can write a letter where they can look at it again. I have letters all over the place. Every time I look at the letter, I relive the relationship. You can go sit down with them in person or any combination of it. You could gather a group of people that feel the same way and really add some more power to it. It doesn't matter how, but put that flashlight on the relationship. It's more than saying I love you. They already know that. They have no idea how they have mattered.

[John Miles]

Well, we will end there. Walter, thank you so much for joining me today. It's been such an honor to have you on Passion Struck.

[Walter Green]

You're very welcome. And if they want any further help, they can go to the website justsayitnow.org we'll give them some help if they need it. But it's pretty simple and it's very powerful and I thank you for your really good work in this arena and I appreciate the opportunity to dialogue with you today.

[John Miles]

Thank you so much, Walter.

[John Miles (Host Narration)]

That brings us to the end of today's conversation. And honestly, what stayed with me most is how many people may be carrying uncertainty about whether their lives truly matter to someone else. Walter shared something profound during this episode. Many people spend their entire lives influencing others in ways they never fully realize because nobody ever tells them. Sometimes a single conversation, act of belief or moment of encouragement quietly shapes the trajectory of another human being for decades. And yet our culture often waits until funerals to express those truths. What Walter is challenging us to do is radically simple. Say it now, not someday, not eventually, not when. It's too late now. And I also think this conversation reveals something deeper about human flourishing. People don't simply want achievement, status, or success. They want evidence that their existence carried meaning inside another person's life. That is part of what creates belonging, emotional resilience. And I increasingly believe it's part of what heals the growing disconnection so many people feel today. Next week, we begin an entirely new monthly series I'm calling the Connection Crisis. Why we feel so Disconnected and how we find our way back to each other. Over the next month, we'll explore why modern life increasingly leaves people feeling isolated from themselves, each other, and the institutions meant to support human flourishing and what it takes to rebuild trust, belonging and authentic connection. We begin with entrepreneur and author Eric Reese for a powerful conversation about how good companies lose their humanity, why institutions drift away from the people they're designed to serve, and what it means to build organizations rooted in trust, purpose and human centered leadership. I think it's one of the most culturally relevant conversations we've had this year and I can't wait to share it with you.

[Eric Reese]

And most organizations, frankly, are lying about what they're all about. They have a mission statement that sounds very lofty, but if you read their legal documents, they have a legal purpose that is something different. Quite often they have a lofty purpose. Like I tell the story of Silicon Valley bank. That was my bank before it collapsed. That's why after it collapsed I wanted to know what happened. They had a lofty mission that was mission statement that was like to advance the innovation economy or to move the innovation economy forward. Something wrote it really good. It made me feel proud to be a customer. Oh yeah, that's exactly right. But you, their bank, their legal papers are all public and you can read in the documents it says that their legal purpose is to maximize shareholder value. If you have this divergence between mission and purpose, eventually the hypocrisy becomes too great and the thing collapses. That's what we see over and over again.

[John Miles (Host Narration)]

If today's episode resonated with you, share it with someone who may need it. Leave a 5 star rating review on Apple podcasts or Spotify and explore more at my [e-mail] until next time, remember the smallest expressions of recognition and create ripple effects that last for decades. I'm John Miles and you've been passion struck.

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[Walter Green]

Hey, everyone.

[John Miles]

Check out this guy and his bird.

[Walter Green]

What is this, your first date?

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[John Miles]

Yeah, the bird looks out of your league.

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[Walter Green]

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