Forgiveness as a Leadership Advantage with Doug Holladay, Author of Rethinking Success

Summary

Podcast Summary: Revenue Builders – Forgiveness as a Leadership Advantage

Guest: Doug Holladay, Author of Rethinking Success
Hosts: John McMahon & John Kaplan
Date: January 8, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into the transformative power of forgiveness in leadership, drawing from Doug Holladay's book Rethinking Success. The conversation explores why forgiveness is challenging yet essential, and unpacks how personal growth and reflection can unlock better leadership, healthier organizations, and more fulfilled lives. The hosts and Doug reflect on both deeply personal stories and wider implications for company culture, employee relationships, and parenthood. Memorable quotes, actionable advice, and practical stories make for a rich discussion highly relevant for any business leader or individual seeking to grow.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Why Start with Forgiveness?

• Doug Holladay opens by linking bitterness to self-absorption:
  • “When you are obsessed with vengeance and getting even, that takes a lot of bandwidth and it's very toxic.” (01:36)
  • Resentment crowds out space for empathy and caring for others.
• Quote (Confucius):
  • “Before you embark on a journey of revenge, first dig two graves.” (03:19)

2. The Burden of Resentment

• Negative vs. Positive Energy:
  • John Kaplan: “There's only two energies in the world, negative and positive. Holding that negative energy... usually doesn't come out in a positive way.” (02:56–03:09)
• Impact of Carrying Grudges:
  • Resentment is not only futile but self-destructive—comparable to “taking poison and expecting you to die.” (09:54)

3. Modeling Forgiveness: Catching vs. Teaching

• Behavior is caught, not just taught:
  • Doug: “The modeling, it can't be overstated. I think it's 95% of it. How you live.” (05:37)
  • Reflects research that children emulate parents’ actions, not words. (06:58–07:12)
• Personal Work Comes First:
  • “The best thing you can do for your kids, your employees, your partner, is really work on yourself.” (07:30)

4. Leadership: Forgiveness Sets the Tone

• Creating Culture:
  • “People follow people. They don't follow concepts... You're going to set a tone and a culture.” (10:31)
• Mission vs. Practice:
  • “The problem is not what's on the walls, but what happens in the halls.” (11:58)
  • Pretty mission statements mean nothing without embodied values.

5. Forgiveness vs. Reconciliation

• Distinguishing the Two:
  • Forgiveness is internal; reconciliation involves two people. (13:42–14:06)
  • “True forgiveness is about how I feel about another person... It does not take two people to forgive.” (17:35)
• Boundaries and Learning:
  • “You can forgive but not forget… It stores as a learning lesson.” (18:46–19:00)
  • Doug: “Forgiveness is not predicated on anyone else's behavior change.” (19:00)

6. When Action Is Not Reciprocated

• Example: Doug recounts returning money to an aggrieved business partner who never forgave him, illustrating you can only control your own actions. (15:13–16:54)

7. Personal Stories: The Cost of Carrying Pain

• John McMahon’s story of a decades-long grudge:
  • Emotionally charged retelling of holding resentment for 35 years until an unexpected encounter forced forgiveness and release. (23:03–25:24)
  • “I carried it for 35 years... it was gone in 15 seconds.” (25:13)
• Powerful lesson: Sometimes forgiveness requires circumstances to shift—and staying open can “remove a boulder from your heart.” (25:31–25:37)

8. The “How” of Forgiveness

• Suggestions from Doug:
  • Release expectations about how apologies or reparations should come. (26:19–26:30)
  • Do an inventory of your own transgressions; humility is the gateway. (32:13)
  • Work on yourself, not policing others’ readiness to forgive. (34:41)

9. Separating Person from Act

• On empathy and discernment:
  • “When I separate the person from the act, I realize that I’m investing too much in thinking I understand their story.” (41:12)
  • It's essential not to freeze someone’s identity in time—people and circumstances change. (42:48)

10. Impact of Generational Patterns

• Childhood and Generational Trauma:
  • “What you saw is what you do.” (05:18)
  • Doug references the book What Happened to You?—moving from ‘what’s wrong with you’ to ‘what happened to you’ reframes judgment as understanding. (50:01)

11. Authenticity, Humility, and Self-Reflection

• Humility:
  • Four keys to a good life (ancient saint): “Humility, humility, humility, humility.” (36:21)
  • True humility means “redirecting this force, this power you have... for good.” (36:52)
• Authenticity over Perfection:
  • “People are longing to see authentic whole people, not perfect people.” (53:33)
• Reflection:
  • “If I could do anything different at 62... I would have started reflecting at 32.” (52:03)

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• “If holding a resentment or unforgiving somebody, it's like me taking poison and expecting you to die.”
  — Doug Holladay (09:54)

• “Forgiveness, it doesn't have everything to do and very little to do with the other person. It's really the work that we need to do.”
  — John McMahon (22:06)

• “You can forgive but not forget...you remember what happened, but you don't resent it. It's a learning lesson.”
  — John Kaplan (18:39–19:00)

• “Do everything as far as it lies within you to make things right, period. You can't change anybody else. Just work on your own soul and your own, your own stuff.”
  — Doug Holladay (59:54)

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Important Timestamps

• 01:36 – Why bitterness and forgiveness can't coexist
• 05:37 – The importance of modeling forgiveness (more is caught than taught)
• 10:31 – The leader as culture-setter
• 13:42 – Difference between reconciliation and forgiveness
• 15:13 – Example: Returning money, not receiving forgiveness
• 23:03 – John McMahon’s story about a 35-year grudge
• 25:13 – Experiencing release after confronting the person
• 32:13 – Focus on self-inventory, humility as key to forgiveness
• 36:21 – Four keys: “Humility, humility, humility, humility”
• 41:12 – Separating the person from the act
• 50:01 – Generational patterns and self-examination
• 53:33 – Authenticity and its role in leadership and life
• 59:54 – Takeaways and call for self-reflection

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Practical Takeaways & Action Steps

At the end of the episode, Doug leaves listeners with actionable practices:

• Make every effort, as far as it lies within you, to make things right.
• Do your own inventory; look at generational patterns and decide consciously to break unhealthy cycles.
• Be brave enough to face your own story with honesty—self-awareness is liberating and the starting point for change.
• Model forgiveness for your children, employees, and peers—even small authentic acts have ripple effects.
• Choose not to keep score or carry punitive motives; focus on protecting your own peace.

Reflection Prompts:

• Did your caregivers model forgiveness?
• List example moments when you forgave—or were forgiven—and how it shaped you.
• Identify where you may be keeping score.
• Recall learning moments from painful experiences.
• Consider where you can serve others and what changes as a result.

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Closing Thoughts

Forgiveness is not about excusing others. It is fundamentally about freeing yourself, reclaiming emotional bandwidth, and creating space for authentic connection and leadership. Doug, John, and John urge listeners: do the work on yourself, model what you want to see, and don’t wait decades to let go of unnecessary burdens. Reflection, humility, and self-awareness are not only personal strengths—they’re the foundations of impactful, sustainable leadership.

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For more on this topic, check out Doug Holladay’s book Rethinking Success and the resources at forcemanagement.com.

Transcript

[John McMahon]

Welcome to the Revenue Builders Podcast, a.

[Doug Holliday]

Weekly show featuring B2B sales leaders and executives.

[John McMahon]

Hosted by five time CRO John McMahon.

[Doug Holliday]

And Force Management co founder John Kaplan.

[John McMahon]

The show takes guests in the barrel behind the scenes with the people who've.

[Doug Holliday]

Been there, done that, and seen the results.

[John McMahon]

Revenue Builders covers best practices for scaling.

[Doug Holliday]

And growing your business while sharing the pitfalls to avoid.

[John McMahon]

Enjoy today's episode. So, Doug, it's amazing to have you with us again. And you know, coming off the last one we did on Gratitude, which just spiked the listeners numbers and piqued the interest, you're, you're definitely a favorite of the, of the Revenue Builders listening audience. So we thank you for coming on again. And you know, just to remind people, we're going through Doug's book, which is Rethinking Success and it's Doug Holiday and Rethinking Success. And today we're going to talk about, if I'm honest, a difficult one for me, A difficult one, I think, for most people, but it's so powerful in the way that you laid it out in your book. We're going to talk about forgiveness. And Doug, when you open chapter five, you open it by saying, bitterness and unforgiveness turn our gaze inward, preventing us from caring for others. And it was interesting to me how you started it that way. Why did you choose to start the chapter that way?

[Doug Holliday]

Number one, thank you, Cap. And thank you, John, for allowing me the privilege to be in a conversation with you. But I'd say part of why I wanted to put those together is I feel like we only have limited focus. And when you are obsessed with, with vengeance and getting even, that takes a lot of bandwidth and it's very toxic and it's really hard to have any room for anything else. So that's my anecdotal take on it, but I think it's empirically true as well. I don't think you ever find the same person, somebody that is all about retribution and getting even and on the other hand, they're a loving, forgiving person. I, I think it's pretty binary in that regard. So that's, that's why I put them together. It's a matter of, of focus and, and whether you have the space in your brain and heart to deal with those two contradictory things.

[John Kaplan]

And you know, the way it strikes me, Doug, is that it's, it's a burden that you kind of carry with you. If you have resentment.

[Doug Holliday]

Yeah.

[John Kaplan]

To me it's like you're gonna strike back at the other person somehow.

[Doug Holliday]

Yeah.

[John Kaplan]

Wait, so resentment. So you're carrying this burden with you? And for me, I always think that there's only two energies in the world, like a negative energy and a positive energy.

[Doug Holliday]

Yeah.

[John Kaplan]

Holding that negative energy.

[John McMahon]

Or.

[John Kaplan]

Or it could be multiple negative energies for a really long period of time. It's got somewhere somehow, and usually it doesn't come out in a positive way.

[Doug Holliday]

That's. I think that's well said, John. I love that Confucius quote. Before you and before you embark on a journey of revenge, first dig two graves. Because, you know, it's. You are. You might think it's only harming the other person, but it's not. It's making you a more bitter, depraved person. It was interesting to even observe, you know, all my friends who know Steve Jobs and work with him, and I have a friend who did his biography on him, and he said Steve Jobs was not a nice guy. He was. I think his whole life he just really sought out the harm people. And then I one time was speaking at a thing with Wozniak, who started it with him, and it was just interesting. But I. But I did start noticing, and when he was diagnosed with terminal illness, he started really being reflective about it and how even use the term, don't be like me, a twisted, revengeful person. It just. It doesn't serve you well, you know, but sometime it takes kind of that last chapter for people to come to a reckoning. I just am kind of urging people, don't wait that long. Like that project, that Stanford project where you. Why wait till the last days to work it out?

[John McMahon]

Talk a little bit about that, Doug. Talk about the Stanford project. What is that?

[Doug Holliday]

Yeah, these are people that were incarcerated and they had terminal illness, and they were urged to write a letter to somebody that they feel like they had harmed and to get free from that. And it really was efficacious for them. It really did something to their souls. And they really, all of them said the same thing. I wish I had done this earlier in my life. Which begs the question, why? Why are some people forgiving? Is it really kind of these things where you have one group that's easy to forgive, another group that is vengeful and bitter their whole life? And I think a lot of it is what you grew up with, what you see. I'm more and more convinced that what you see is what you do. So you could have a father that is telling you, johnny, be nice, be kind, share. And if he's screaming at his wife, the whole time and throwing things and is angry. That's what you've seen. These other things are just words. So the modeling, it can't be overstated. I think it's 95% of it. How you live. I remember reading a book by a psychiatrist who was retiring at Hopkins, Johns Hopkins, and he said, he said, I've got some good news and bad news for you parents. And he said, all of my research and findings point to this. He said, all of you that think by exposing your kids, taking them to Habitat Humanity off soup kitchens and all that, that is really going to change their life. They're going to become more generous, loving people. He said, that's a nice thing, but that really is inconsequential. How you lived your life is going to be what they, what they emulate and model and see as normative.

[John McMahon]

In the book, you call it catching and, and you call it catching. What is caught and what is.

[Doug Holliday]

Yeah.

[John McMahon]

Seen. Can you.

[Doug Holliday]

Yeah, More.

[John McMahon]

This is that topic, right?

[Doug Holliday]

More is caught than taught.

[John McMahon]

Caught than taught. Yeah. Tell me about that.

[Doug Holliday]

I think, I think all of us think as parents. You know, I remember when my second son was going off to, to, to college and in New York and the president said, what's on everybody's mind? All you want to have that last conversation with your kid and say, now make sure you pay attention to this. And you know, we all think, but you've lived a life in front of them for 18 years, you know, and they kind of get, they see us coming. So, so that's the good news and the bad news. And that's why I keep coming back in. This whole book keeps coming back to the notion the best thing you can do for your kids, your employees, your partner, is really work on yourself. Become the best version of you. Do the work. Your kids will notice that. I had a small group today that I'm involved with, a group of men. And I was saying to the guys, guys, this is important not just for our souls, that we are sharing as men and doing that because a lot of men don't do that. And, and they're lonely and disconnected. But our kids are noticing. They're noticing. If, huh, what's dad doing on Thursday morning or Friday morning? Oh, he meets with those guys and they, they pick that up, that I'm doing this for me, not to fix them, not to fix anybody.

[John McMahon]

Let's, let's build on that. Because early in the book, the, one of the most powerful quotes in the book is, we do not forgive because others deserve it we forgive because it's important for our souls. And what Johnny said, and I really have remembered this From Johnny, about 15 years ago, Johnny and I had a very deep, probably the deepest conversation that we had had up until that point. And I think it changed our relationship. And he was talking to me about the concept of, like, what you said on bandwidth. Johnny talked about the negative. He taught me about the negative and the positive energy. And he said, we only have so much energy and it gets used. We have the choice about what to focus on, and the negative energy, we got to let go. And the positive energy, we have to see if we can recycle. And so he was just giving me some examples in life of where when you hang on to the negative energy, you're the one that's paying the price. And so for the first time, like, I was thinking about this, you know, and I remember the quote that's like, if you, you know, take it. What you, you said it too, Doug, in one of your chapters, taking poison and, and hope the other person.

[Doug Holliday]

Yeah. If holding a resentment or unforgiving somebody, it's like me taking poison and expecting you to die. It's kind of stupid and it doesn't work, you know.

[John McMahon]

Yeah, but your point about. Let's focus in on this, like, and for lack of better words, even for the most selfish reasons.

[Doug Holliday]

Yes.

[John McMahon]

Of taking care of yourself. You know, let's talk about, you know, why it matters. Why does forgiveness matter for, like, leaders. For, like, you know, for whatever you're leading. Whoever you're leading. Whatever you're leading, why does it matter?

[Doug Holliday]

Yeah, I. That's a great point. I think because people follow people. They don't follow concepts, they don't follow teachings. They follow people. You want to be a part of that. That. That almost goes back to an ancient text. In the. And in First Corinthians 11, the New Testament, Paul says, follow me as I follow God. Interesting. He realized that principle that people follow people. And a lot of leaders don't like that. They say, oh, I'm just this. And I'm sorry, they're going to follow you, and you're going to set a tone and a culture. You're going to create a culture by who you are. And, you know, I saw it working at the White House. I see it in these other environments with corporations. It all starts with the leader. And if they all are about vengeance and bitterness and all that, it becomes a toxic environment. And I don't think it's sustainable. I think people. People don't Know who they can trust. They feel, they look, they're smart enough, they say, well, that guy got thrown overboard, and that woman, they destroyed her. It's just a matter of time. I'm next. So. So it's it. That's why I tell my MBA students and Cap, you were nice enough to come that time. I tell them that, you know, really focus on the culture of, of what you're doing. And I said, the problem is not what's on the walls, but it's what happens in the halls. So the. If you look at mission statements, Johnson and Johnson and Goldman Sachs, you know, Enron, Enron had a fabulous mission statement, except nobody lived it. But. But the words were so eloquent, so good. And, and, but you look at Johnson and Johnson or Goldman Sachs, they're not particularly well written. They're. They were kind of somebody in leadership that said, you know, these seem to be what we. Who we want to be. You know, we want to take this seriously.

[John Kaplan]

Hey, Doug. So in. In a practical matter, I could have a fight with you or a disagreement with you, and then I can decide to reconcile with you. Yeah, but you may not forgive me.

[Doug Holliday]

Yeah.

[John Kaplan]

You know, we reconciled and I can decide that I'm going to forgive you. And I've had it in situations where I have tried to reconcile with somebody, and the feeling you get is they say, they shake your hand, they look in the eye and they say, yeah.

[Doug Holliday]

But, you know, it's not overflow.

[John Kaplan]

You could tell, like I've. I've dealt with it myself and I've forgiven the person, and I decided, you know, I can't keep that negative energy within me anymore. Go back and I'm going to reconcile with this person, and I reconcile. And they say and they agree, but I can tell that there's still resentment.

[Doug Holliday]

Yeah.

[John Kaplan]

Not gonna. Going to forgive, at least in this moment. And maybe my reconciliation will help them forgive. But there is a difference between reconciliation and forgiving. Right. I mean, absolutely is. I have to forgive inside of me and I have to reconcile and I reconcile with someone else. Does that make sense?

[Doug Holliday]

It makes perfect sense. And John, I think people get frustrated because they want it all to be kumbaya and tied up.

[John McMahon]

Right.

[Doug Holliday]

I have a problem, you know, I have a problem with Heather. So I, I go to her and she's like saying, screw you. You know, and I'm like, really? Okay, thanks a lot. You know, but you do this for your sake. All that you can do is try to do everything from your end of things. And we had A guy, Bob Woody and I, really interesting guy. We had. We had invested in a company and this guy was very well known. He was head of a big Chicago law firm and very involved with the Aspen Institute. But he had written a definitive paper for General Motors about, you know, alternative fuels for. For, you know, commercial vehicles and all that kind of stuff. So Bob and I were. Were investing in two service stations in Dallas that were doing that because the government had said, fleets have to be on this alternative thing by, I think it was, you know, 1995 or something. So we went to this guy and he loved the idea and he invested and. But I should have known. I went to a good friend of mine who was the head of Pepsi, and I said, you got more vehicles than anybody in America and are you going to. You're going to do this, aren't you? He says, no, we're not going to do it. And all of a sudden I realized they were going to ignore it. Well, it was really interesting. This guy invested, Bob and I invested because it didn't progress the way we thought. We eventually sold the thing for about 40% on the dollar and he wouldn't speak to us again. And I'm thinking, here's the expert, and he really knows a lot about this. So Bob and I kind of puzzled over this, and we said, you know, all we want to do is be clear from our standpoint. So we took our distribution, both of us, and just endorsed the check and sent him the whole thing. But he went to his deathbed, never talked to us again. Wow. And I don't know what else we could have done, John, but we tried, and he was the knowledgeable guy and, and we were kind of shocked that. That he kind of put the blame on us. But that was okay. We just said, hey, we'd rather do everything we can to. If he thinks we, great, take the money. It doesn't matter.

[John Kaplan]

He still held the resentment.

[Doug Holliday]

Yeah. Yeah. And this is the big one for me. There's no more we can do. We just wrote him and said we're sorry. We. Best of our knowledge, we told you everything we knew. And our doubts and concerns and wonderings about the market.

[John McMahon]

For me, forgiveness that your book helped me with this and Johnny, you helped me with this years ago on the bandwidth piece. And the way I look at this right now is it's about me. I don't mean I'm not trying to be selfish, but I do everything in my power to square myself away, period.

[Doug Holliday]

Yes.

[John McMahon]

True forgiveness is about how I feel. Feel about another person. It does not mean what I want about the relationship and what's going to. Because there takes two people to do that. It does not take two people to forgive. It takes two people to reconcile a relationship and to move forward. But what I found in my life, and this is really powerful for me, is that I've also, without doing the work on forgiveness, I've moved to reconciliation and, and I never forgave. So my whole self isn't in the relationship going forward because I still have a piece of negativity. So really, for me, forgiveness, it really is not a lot about the other person. It's about what I do with it, how I feel.

[John Kaplan]

There's another level here too, where I can. You can forgive but not forget.

[Doug Holliday]

Yeah.

[John Kaplan]

And you could, but it doesn't. You could not forget and still not resent.

[Doug Holliday]

Yeah.

[John Kaplan]

You know, you've. Meaning you've dealt with it. You forgave the person. You, you remember what happened, but you don't resent it.

[Doug Holliday]

Yeah.

[John Kaplan]

Like a learning lesson. It stores as a learning lesson, meaning.

[Doug Holliday]

It'S a learning lesson. And for example, if somebody, you know, screwed you in business a couple times and you forgive them and you clear it from your end. But yes. Am I going to do business with him again? Of course not. Doesn't mean, doesn't mean I don't wish the best for him, but it's not doing good things for me. I've learned from that. So I think forgiveness is not predicated on anyone else's behavior change 100%.

[John Kaplan]

Right. It's all about you.

[John McMahon]

That's, that's powerful to you.

[John Kaplan]

Reconciliations between you and someone else. Forgiving is inside of you.

[Doug Holliday]

Inside of you. And the problem. And I think we all grow up, particularly all these people in this podcast, hard charging, really get it done kind of people. And, and there are things that we know we've harmed people or we've been harmed by. And what you want to keep going back to is what. How do I become the most evolved person I can be? And part of that is just letting go of these things. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. At the end of the day, what you just want is, is to really be a peaceful soul, a person that, that you know, you wish the best for everybody and, and you just don't like trying to get even. I just think that's not a good way to live. It just destroys you. I think it destroys you physically, emotionally, and in every other way. But there are people that are, you know, you're not going to trust again and all that. But it was interesting. I don't know if you guys have ever been in Charleston, called Mother Emanuel Church. That's the small African American church in Charleston where Dylann Roof went in and killed all these parish black parishioners. He was a white supremacist. And I met with some of those parishioners that at the sentencing hearing, they didn't rehearse this, but the judge gave them a chance to stand in front of Dylann Roof and say whatever they wanted. And all of them said the same thing. You took something so precious for me.

[John McMahon]

I.

[Doug Holliday]

It. You wounded me terribly, and I hate that. But I want to tell you, God forgives you and I forgive you today. And it was like unrehearsed, but they were all saying basically the same thing. And it was like that led to Nikki Haley, who was governor then, taking the Confederate, you know, symbol off of the South Carolina flag because it was such an act of such contrition and humility and unbelievable love that just. And, you know, I'm sure Dylann Roof is so, so scarred. I don't know if it even computed, but that. That had to be a moment for him if he had anything normal in his brain, you know.

[John McMahon]

So when we bump into this conversation, we've kind of established that forgiveness, it doesn't have everything to do and very little to do with the other person. It's really the work that we need to do. So let's talk a little bit about kind of the how. Because I've had. Actually this year I had two major. Two major opportunities for forgiveness which were. Which were deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep and old and painful and, you know, believing that I was going to pick that rock up and carry that rock for as long as I had to carry it. And I went to a reunion, 1985. The. They honored the. The undefeated team for Bowling Green, which was rated 20th in the nation at the time. It's the.

[Doug Holliday]

Oh, that is pretty good. I forgive you for that.

[John McMahon]

Yeah, it's probably the best. It's probably the best team that. That they've had in, you know, certainly since, you know, since the 50s or what have you. But so there's an. There was a person there that I even, you know, I'm just going to be a little bit authentic here. I wasn't going to go. If this person was there, I wasn't gonna go.

[John Kaplan]

You still had carried resentment, Mr. Cat Deep.

[John McMahon]

And I didn't believe. I'm 62 years old and I didn't believe that I would be able to control myself physically.

[Doug Holliday]

Oh, wow.

[John McMahon]

If I saw that person. And I just didn't want to embarrass myself. I didn't want to embarrass my teammates. I didn't want to. And so I carried this around.

[Doug Holliday]

Boy, that's taken up a lot of headspace and. And your life. Oh, totally.

[John McMahon]

And I just want it. So this is a little bit. We're moving into the how. God didn't give me a choice on this. I called the day before and said, this guy's not going to be there. Right. And they said yes. Well, I get to the dinner and he's there.

[John Kaplan]

Ooh.

[John McMahon]

And so I didn't really have a choice. And the amazing thing to me was how it. Where it just happened.

[Doug Holliday]

Yeah.

[John McMahon]

And I probably. It wasn't me that was forgiving. It was like. I think I was kind of in a captive audience. And the experience that I had. I'm sorry, I'm rambling a little bit, but it was so amazing. I carried it for 35 years at least. And I thought I was going to punch this guy in the throat. And when there was no way to escape in this small room with 150 guys, this guy made a beeline right to me. My whole body tensed up and I think, this is it. I'm punching him right in the throat. I've been waiting for this for 35 years. And it's. I don't want to get in with the details of. Because it's very personal. But it was gone in 15 seconds.

[Doug Holliday]

Wow.

[John McMahon]

35 years now. I didn't have the choice. I was in a room. The two guys standing next to me were 6, 5, 2, 80. I couldn't even move.

[John Kaplan]

And.

[John McMahon]

But I will tell you if we could move into the how part because I'd like you to help people with that. I got lucky.

[Doug Holliday]

Yeah.

[John McMahon]

I had a boulder removed from my heart because I had no place to go.

[John Kaplan]

Well, hold on. Did you reconcile with him and then you forgave or what specifically? You don't have to get into specifics, but because we're talking about forgiveness and also reconciliation.

[John McMahon]

This dude came up to me and said, I know you hate me. And I just wanted to tell you I been following your career for the last 15 or 20 years, and I. It's just unbelievable what you've done with your life. And I just wanted to tell you that.

[John Kaplan]

Allowed you to reconcile with him because of that.

[John McMahon]

I think it's the Holy Spirit without. That's a Whole nother conversation. We can have a whole nother podcast.

[Doug Holliday]

I think also there's something here that we are expecting a certain language to come. Like you would have preferred if he would have said, it would have been.

[John McMahon]

So much easier if he put his.

[Doug Holliday]

Fist together or if he said, and Cap, I want you to know I really wronged you and I'm so sorry, but he didn't do that. But remember, language is funny. He said that, but not with words. By his presence, by him approaching you. So I think we got to stop looking to try to find magic words where somebody, our partner, our kid or somebody's going to say these things. You know, all of us when we've been wrong. If somebody came up to us, said, doug, I just want you to know I was talking behind your back and trashing you. And that was so wrong. I don't know why I did it. I'm so sorry, of course I'd forgive. That's never going to happen. So I think what we have to do is get over these expectations. So I think that's the first step, is not have any expectations to do everything. The second thing is to do everything in your power to do an inventory and say, okay, what is it? From my side of the equation, I've done wrong. And, you know, I find that true with my kids. Like, I had a. I had something recently. My boys are. They do music scores for films and they're doing one with Adam Sandler right now, which is a big opportunity for them. And he's a big Knicks fan. So I'm talking to my boys. They're unlike their father, who has a million ideas. They just do the work. Well, all of a sudden, Knicks fan, I said, oh, I know Bill Bradley. He's one of the most famous Knicks and two time champion Rhodes scholar senator, won two national championships, hall of Fame. I can get Bill to autograph Jersey. So I call them and I could tell the hesitation, it's like. And I'm rolling them. I'm like, I've got to do this. I'm shaming them. This would be unbelievable. Come on, guys, get with the pro. And then I slept on it and I went back to. I said, I just gotta ask your forgiveness. That I'm just trying to impose my M.O. on you. And that was wrong. Would you forgive me?

[John McMahon]

Very relatable.

[Doug Holliday]

And. And they, they basically, dad, we know you. We love how you show up. We're just different. I said, great. I thank you and thank you for forgiving me.

[John McMahon]

So, so the how. Let's let's come down to this how thing. And. And I'm going to expand on this a little bit. So before I saw this guy, the team had invited me to speak. So the current team, not the older guys. So I go to speak to the current team, and I can talk a dog off a meat wagon. Anybody heard me on this podcast? I can talk a dog off a meat wagon. I'm ready to go and have a conversation with these dudes. And this is amazing what happened to me. This is 30 minutes before I know, I find out that this other guy is 30 minutes away at a dinner that they drove me to. Then I had to go to a dinner. So the coach says, hey, John, come on up and talk. And I got up there for the first time, I would say, in my adult life, I went blank. Wow. For the first time in my adult life, I went blank in a professional setting.

[Doug Holliday]

Yeah. Yeah.

[John McMahon]

And, Doug, listen to what happened. What happened was I forgot what I was going to say, which meant I must have been still. I had that boulder, those boulders were.

[Doug Holliday]

You were. Well, you were processing what you. Which you had just experienced.

[John McMahon]

No, that hadn't happened yet.

[John Kaplan]

Oh, that hadn't happened when you were going to experience.

[John McMahon]

When I was going to experience. But check this out. It's amazing to me. So all that I could think of, and I say this, and it ties into the. How I said to the kids, I said, if I go back 30 years, and I told them I'm going to go see my buddies, because there were some other things that I wasn't so proud of that I actually was feeling I needed for some forgiveness for. For some of my teammates. I wasn't the easiest teammate back then. So what I said was, if I could. If I. If I could do it over in my life, sitting in the chair that you're sitting in now, you're getting ready to go, you know, compete at a very, very high level. I would have focused more on what am I learning in this moment versus what I'm feeling in this moment. And this is the message that I left to them. And these words were just coming out of my. My backside, because I don't know where they came from. But I said, if I had spent more time thinking about, okay, what am I learning right now? And not what I'm feeling, because what I'm feeling, I'm going to take with me for the next 35 years. What I'm learning will be so much more powerful. And then. So what happened to me is the rest of the Story is, when that dude started walking towards me, the first thing I thought of is, what are you learning right now? Because if I had focused on what I was feeling and I said, what am I learning? I was saying, why the hell is this happening?

[Doug Holliday]

How.

[John McMahon]

How did I just have a conversation 40 minutes ago to the current team, and now, okay, what am I learning? And I tell you, Doug, the only thing I thought was, open, be open. He's walking to me. I'm not walking to him. He's walking to me. So listen. Open.

[Doug Holliday]

Yeah.

[John McMahon]

And it was clear he had intent to address me. If he had intent to raise his fist to me, that would have been easy. But he didn't. He had intent to address me.

[Doug Holliday]

Well, he's obviously been troubled by it, and it's probably as good as you can get, but it's a moment you can put that behind. The other piece that we're all hovering around, which I really want to focus on is other people's actions. Yeah, they affect us. We've been harmed at all. I'm learning more and more that the focus needs to be, where do I need the change? Where have I screwed up? So if you have an interaction with somebody where, you know, some objective person said, well, that was. 90% of that was John's fault, and 10% was you, I don't really care. I've got to go do the work and try to go, and then eventually go back and say, john, I can't believe it. I was late again and interrupted you and did all that. I'm really sorry. And that was wrong. You don't forget what they've done. So I think that makes life easier when the only thing I need to do is do my own inventory about my thing. And I learned that lesson in an interesting way by hearing this amazing story about Abraham Lincoln, who was in back in those days, the White House was really accessible, and people would just show up and hang out and do all this crazy stuff. Well, the equivalent of a press conference one day. You got to remember, Lincoln was not out of central casting. He was gangly, awkward, not articulate. The. The orators of the day would speak for two hours. His Gettysburg address was what, 20? I don't know. It was. It was like 40 words or something. So it was just so different. He was not. Didn't go to the elite schools in the East. All the presidents to that point were from Virginia or Massachusetts. He was from Illinois. Schoolyard, was a wrestler. I mean, there's nothing about this guy that should have been present. So so they were up there and the press, what's funny, we think the press is, press is kind of crazy today. You read those old press art. They were, they called it yellow journalism. It was brutal. So in the equivalent of a press conference, one of the, one of the reporters said, Mr. President, you have been vilified and called ugly and stupid and, and inarticulate. And you don't know what you're doing, you're incompetent. What is your response to that? He just paused and said, I'm so much worse than they could ever know. And I thought, wow, when I start feeling self righteous and I'm so much worse than anybody could ever know. And so I think that's got to be the starting point of doing our own inventory and just trying to get our own house in order. And that makes life so much easier. And it's also very humbling. And that gets to your other point, John, about humility. I think it takes real humility. It's easier to blame, it's easier to be vengeful, it's easier to point fingers, but to be humble enough to say, golly, I am. A guy I know wrote this book called Wounded Healers. He said, we're all wounded, but our wounds can be used in the service of others to heal others by looking at our own wounds. So, so I think, I think, you know, it's, it's simpler on one hand because if I felt like I had to police others and try to gauge, did they forgive me adequately? Did they say the right word? That's a fool's errand. All I can do is try to be as sincere as I can. And I think that requires humility. There was a 4th century saint and they asked him once what. What are the cardinal virtues of being a good soul, a good man? He said, there's four Humility, humility, humility, humility. That's the whole ball game. If you're humble and, and see, humility's gotten a bad rap. There is. The New Testament was written in something called koine Greek. So Koine Greek was not classical Greek, it was street Greek. So a lot of time you, you, you've heard this thing about when you were in Sunday school or whatever, Jesus, meek and mild and all that kind of thing. Well, there's in the Sermon on the Mount, it talks about blessed are the meek, which are the humble. But you look at, what is that in the original koine Greek, what does meek mean? It's the same word that's used for breaking a Wild Stallion. It's taking all that energy and channeling it for a positive good. That's what it means to be meek. That's what it means to be humble. When you are humble, you are redirecting this force, this power you have. But for good. You're not using it in destructive ways. You're using it for goodness. But that is really powerful. That is really powerful.

[John McMahon]

I like it. You know, the humility part for me, I'll just put a bow on this one for me personally. Immediately, when that person helped remove the boulder by their act towards me.

[Doug Holliday]

Yeah.

[John McMahon]

The only thing that was left was what I owned.

[Doug Holliday]

Yeah.

[John McMahon]

He took what he owned. And the only thing that was left is what I owned. And I tell you, I went back to my hotel room and I sat up a long time that evening, and where I came to was at least 50% of that scenario was my issue.

[Doug Holliday]

Yeah, I brought.

[John McMahon]

I brought my own stuff to that table. And I'd never been willing to really look at it that way because it was easier for me to.

[Doug Holliday]

Yeah. But he gave me the answer. You know, I'd say the only additional thing you might want to do is jot him a handwritten note and just say, that meant so much to me that you approached me. Forget who's wrong. Right. What percentage. That's true. It meant a lot. It was a game changer. But you don't have to go into all the reasons. Just thank you for showing up like that.

[John McMahon]

100%. 100%. And I have been thinking about it. I'll report back to you in 30 days. I've been thinking about it.

[Doug Holliday]

I've been thinking about it now, this thing. But it doesn't minimize the hurt. That's the thing. These things really hurt when you're betrayed or talked about or. Or whatever. But I think so much goes back. I grew up in a very forgiving family. And I remember in the 90s, I had a horrible thing happen where I was lumped into this situation with some of the top people on Wall street who were involved with this charity. And all of a sudden, an article came out that said I was a part of getting these people into this charity, which was untrue. And I kind of like. It just devastated me. And so I wondered for years how this crazy thing happened. And then one day a guy called me in New York and said, will you meet with me, Have a sandwich? So I was in New York having a sandwich with him, and he said, you're probably wondering how you got pulled into that thing. And he said. He said, I've always resented you and been jealous of you, and I tried to really hurt you, and I want to. I'm here to ask your forgiveness. That never happens in life. It happens in the movies. So the question is, how did I respond? And I think it's because of my background with a forgiving thing. First thing I said, I said, brother, do you know how rare it is that somebody would do what you're doing? And. And I just want to thank you. That's amazing. And number two, of course I forgive you. Thank you.

[John McMahon]

So your point on the. How is be open to what comes your way, and when it comes. And somebody is. So it's different when somebody asks for forgiveness.

[Doug Holliday]

Yeah, that's easy.

[John McMahon]

Yeah, it seems easy.

[Doug Holliday]

The tough one is when you see. When you've been harmed and then you see this person continue continuing to harm others, and you say, holy crap, this is a train wreck. And I know where this is going because it's going to harm this person the way it harmed me. And, you know, these are. These are tough calls about what you do about that.

[John McMahon]

What I. Like in your book, Doug, is that you talk about separating the person from the act. That was so. That is so powerful for me, because when I separate, even in my own situations, when I separate the person from the act, I realize that I'm investing too much in trying to think I understand the person's story. I remove that and I just look at the act. It minimizes it in some way, and I say, okay, well, I need the bad person back in there. And so what it meant to me was I can't truly understand. And this is over the period of my life, everybody's got their own crap going on. So, like, in this example I'm giving you guys, when this guy showed up, he's 30 years older, he looks old. He's like. And, you know, I would have gotten in big trouble if I even, you know, raised my voice to him versus, you know, so for me, when you say in the book separating the person from the act, it was powerful for me because when I put that person over there and I realized that if I think that they're in the same situation when that act happened. And I want to be very careful because I know people listening to this have personal things that happened to them when they were children. I myself have childhood trauma. So I'm not. I don't want to minimize anything. Go do the work. It's powerful. Please keep doing that. When you look at these and you Assume that time just stands still from where that person was when the offense occurred. That was my big reality. The, you know, I'm not the same person, and there's no way that person's the same person a year later, two years later, three years later. It doesn't make. It doesn't make the act. Okay. But harboring something about who this person is today versus who they were when I had the problem, that was a big learning for me.

[Doug Holliday]

In your book, I think vilifying, it's easier to kind of paint with bold colors, black and white. So you take this guy recently, this Afghan that shot killed one officer. Another one is in critical condition. This guy worked with the CIA, with special ops in Afghanistan. He was a hero. He pointed out stuff. So. So how do we make sense of this? Well, you look at his life. You read about his life. He came over here. He didn't fit. He didn't know how to fit in. He didn't have a job. He was frustrated. He probably had mental illness. He probably had all kind of things. But, you know, people that wasn't available to him, you know, the military help with some of his mental illness. So. So I'm not. The problem you got to get is say, are you saying Doug, it excuses it? Of course it doesn't, but it explains it. A lot of the behavior we see in people, you understand it when you know the story. When you. When you know the story, everything fits, everything makes sense. That's why it's so powerful to understand the story and how things shape people and, you know, just mind boggling to me when I start seeing. I was meeting with a former student of mine yesterday, and he was just telling me about. He has all these job opportunities and different things. And he said. He said, my wife cares about money a lot. And I said, okay, tell me more. Said, well, her father died. He was very wealthy, and the mother then squandered all the money. And then the mother has stolen money from us, had put in credit cards in my wife's name. And all this. I said, okay, you just told me a lot, brother. So this is not on a rational level. So you can't try to talk your wife out of what she feels right now. She feels that the. The most important people in her life betrayed her. Her father by dying and not being there to protect her. And her mother then keeps betraying her by stealing money and racking up, you know, doing these credit cards in her name. And. And I said, that is the main show. It isn't which job it's like, what are you going to do to make this wound of hers better? And I would suggest part of it is not trying to argue her out of it. Explain it. I would go tomorrow and get an insurance policy for $2 million in her name and just say, I know what you've gone through and how money it matters. It matters to you and I boy, I appreciate this is a little thing, but I just want you to know I, I got this policy. Just so you know, whatever happens, you, you're taken care of. This is her love language right now. Is that. And you can't explain it away, can't argue it. You can't say, well, you shouldn't feel this way. This is not good. This is, who cares? This is her felt need. And, and I think a lot of time we don't respond enough to that felt need with people. But it all fits into this kind of thing because you know when somebody's wounded like that, you could, he could tell his wife all day, get over it, she is what she is and all, but remember, this is a five year old girl who's gotten betrayed by the two biggest caregivers you've got. You can't preach to her. You just got to somehow step into that void and try to be helpful.

[John McMahon]

Johnny, he's a deep, these are deep. Johnny on the golf course. Johnny and I have been having some killer conversations along these lines.

[John Kaplan]

These are deep understanding when it's the. When, when you know you're ready to forgive, right? Because it's not going to happen. And what struck me when Doug said that it's not going to happen at that moment, like he's not going to say, I want to get the Bill Bradley jersey. Oh, shit, you know, I'm sorry, you got to forgive me. A lot of these things take a little bit of time. And when you feel like you were wrong, like you were, you know, you don't want to carry that. If you start to carry in the weight and starting to carry the resentment, dude, like, you got a problem like that. They don't have a problem, you got a problem.

[John McMahon]

And also what's coming out for me is this bandwidth perspective. We almost, we only have so much bandwidth, we only have so much strength to carry stuff. Why would, you know, why would, why would I carry that boulder for 35 years?

[John Kaplan]

And I believe, you know, like you and I have spoken many times on the negative and positive energy and I believe if you harbor a lot of negative energy for a long period of time, get sick, it's going to come out. You're going to get sick. Yeah, yeah. It's got to come out somewhere. It's either going to come out and rage.

[John McMahon]

Don't I know it, brother? Don't I know it?

[Doug Holliday]

Yeah.

[John Kaplan]

Like Bill Burr, the comedian says, you know, I've taken a lot of my emotional stuff that I should have dealt with. I put it in a jar and I stuff it down. And who is the loved one that's around me that's really going to pay for this at some point? So when Doug was talking about, you know, with his sons in the Bill Bradley jersey, it struck me that whether we ask for forgiveness or we forgive somebody, it does take some time and. Or perspective to say, you know, I must have done somebody wrong and now I need to go back and ask for forgiveness. Or, you know, I'm tired of carrying this weight and this resentment in this anger or some other negative emotion. Yeah, I have to put this in perspective, and I have to go. I have to either go back and reconcile with the person, but more importantly, internally, I have to forgive because it's best for my health, because it's a negative and positive energy. And I believe the longer you harbor negative energy, it's going to come out some way somehow. Like, there's a comedian, Bill Burr, and he always says, you know, I have a lot of negative emotions, and I take them, I put them in a jar, and I stuff them down deep. And I always wonder which one of my loved ones is really going to pay for this in the future. And, yeah, yeah, look out. Gotta deal with it.

[Doug Holliday]

I have a book here.

[John McMahon]

I've been.

[Doug Holliday]

Reading called what Happened to You? With this psychotherapist, Dr. Bruce Perry, and Oprah Winfrey. It's really interesting. It changes the paradigm from what's wrong with you to what happened to you. So when you understand what happens to people when they were younger, you look. I find it particularly interesting when I talk to my students about who grew up in a scarcity mentality where you didn't have enough, and that'll explain what they're chasing and others that don't have that. And so these things of what happened to you, if you saw a father that would never forgive, if at Thanksgiving, your two aunts 20 years ago never reconciled, and there's a lot of families like that. What you've seen is going to shape you. So this generational poison, you've got to cut it off. You've got to do the work. Step one, I always think, is when you're lost in the woods. First you got to say, I'm lost, which is hard for men to say, I am freaking lost. And then second, you got to figure out, okay, let me do a deep dive and try to understand those patterns that have been generational, because you can see them. You can see them. And then you can start to look at your own life and say, God, now I get why I show up the way I do, why I do this stuff. And so a lot of that, you know, it's the Socratic idea when he said the unexamined life is not worth living. It takes courage to examine your life. And I mean, I love doing it, because then it becomes kind of a game. You're just like, wow, isn't that weird that I value that so much? Or that thing matters to me, or this. And so much of it is what you've seen, what you. What. What you were told is really valuable. You know, that kind of thing.

[John McMahon]

Yeah, buddy. And I would just encourage people. Give me the name of that book again that you just.

[Doug Holliday]

This book is called what Happened to you.

[John McMahon]

I love that. Not what's wrong with you. So I would encourage people listening to this. Just going through my own experience recently, the last few years, thinking that I ain't going back to whatever time that I think a problem occurred in my life, because that's some scary crap. I don't want to deal with it. I don't want to. And I would just tell you just from my own experience there, it's never as bad as you think it is, and it's also never as great as you think it was. And so my. My takeaway. I think I said this to your students. I'm no longer afraid of my story. It's just a story. There's not a hero in it. There's not a victim in it. It's just a story of a series of events. And I spend the majority of my life, if I'm lucky, getting perspective about those events. And that's what I love about your book so much. I love about these conversations. I love playing golf with you, Johnny, and having these conversations. Because if I could do anything different at 62, if I could do anything different at 32, I would have started reflecting at 32. 22, absolutely.

[Doug Holliday]

And the point is, in the. In the male. Particularly the male culture, we're. We're kind of taught not to really be reflective. That's a soft thing, and that's not a good thing. But the point is, this affects every part of your life. The more human you become the more accessible you to become a better partner, you become a better parent, you become a better leader in your company and wherever else in your community. It's just that people are longing to see authentic whole people, not perfect people. Authenticity. You're drawn to authentic people, aren't we? You know, when they're. When they, you know, you just love people that are not given phony apologies and all. When they make mistakes, they tell you. And it's just.

[John McMahon]

I think that's a big state of the world today, Doug. And I think it's a big state of the world with young people. And I've always said this to my own children and to younger people when I get a chance to address them, is that they have a heart that is torn by hypocrisy. I believe that these next generations are very aware of hypocrisy. And the reason is because there's so much lack of authenticity in leadership. And so people, they're actually, you know, we can see it in government, we can see it in churches, we can see it in families. We can see it's just the human spirit. It's the human condition. So I embrace. I try to tell people, don't get so worked up about, you know, the brokenness is there. The hypocrisy, I think, also comes from the reality of trying to invest too much in the person. If you set yourself up for a leader, not the principles, but of the person is the leader.

[Doug Holliday]

Yeah. When you start lifting them up, you know, I gotta read one quick thing. We have a minute. I could read a couple. Okay, this. This is so interesting. So I went to this African American church, historically this Sunday, because my friend Tim Shriver, who's chairman of the Special Olympics, wanted me to go. So I went there. It was really interesting. It was so interesting. But what really struck me along the line of what you're saying is you go into most places and you say, am I good enough? Do I belong? All this. Let me read what they have in the bulletin. When I picked up the bulletin, listen to this. It says, we extend a special welcome to those who are single, married, divorced, gay, filthy rich, dirt poor, Yono, oblates. English we extend a special welcome to those who are crying newborns, skinny as a rail, or could afford to lose a few pounds. We welcome you. If you can sing like Antonio Bocelli or like our pastor who can't carry a note in a bucket, you are welcome here. If you're just browsing, just woke up or just got out of jail, we don't care if you're more Catholic than the Pope or haven't been in church since little Joey's baptism. We expand stand a special welcome to those who are over 60 but not grown up yet, and teenagers who are growing up too fast. We welcome soccer moms, NASCAR dads, starving artists, tree huggers, latte sippers, vegetarians, junk food eaters. We welcome those who are in recovery or still addicted. We welcome you if you're having problems or you're down in the dumps, or if you don't like organized religion. We've been there. If you blew all your offering money in the dog track, you're welcome here. We offer a special welcome to those who think the earth is flat, work too hard, don't work, can't spell, or because grandma is in town, wanted to go to church. We welcome those who are inked, pierced, or both. We offer a special welcome to those who could use a prayer right now, had religion shoved down your throat as a kid, or got lost in traffic and wound up here by mistake. We welcome tourists, seekers, doubters, bleeding hearts, and you.

[John McMahon]

Wow.

[John Kaplan]

Very.

[Doug Holliday]

Well, I thought. I thought, isn't that great? I mean, it's like if there's any doubt that you belong and then, you know, during my. I go to an Episcopal church, but I grew up, my father was an atheist, as I told you guys. But. But it's interesting, they have something called the Peace in the Episcopal Church. It's kind of a real formal hello, peace. This thing went on for 20 minutes. These people were hugging, laughing, telling jokes, and I was like, holy mackerel. This is the craziest thing I've ever seen. It was so much fun, but it was real. It was authentic.

[John McMahon]

Yeah, I love it. So, Doug, at the end of the chapter, what I love, folks, if you haven't got the book Rethinking Success by.

[Doug Holliday]

Doug Holliday, I'll hand it through the thing.

[John McMahon]

Yeah. Thank you.

[Doug Holliday]

Thank you.

[John McMahon]

I love. At the end of each book, you have these take action section. And I'm just going to read the things that you talk about, the exercises here, and then maybe you can kind of bring us home with some energy and some spirit on actually kind of focusing on this. So at the end you talk about, you know, reflection, did your caregivers model forgiveness, list examples when you forgave and how it shaped you. Identify people you may be keeping score against, recall moments when you were forgiven and identify five ways you've served others and what changed in you are there. So these are Some takeaways. Is there.

[Doug Holliday]

Yeah.

[John McMahon]

Is there, you know, is there anything else that you would leave us with to like something that we could contemplate after reading this chapter, hearing this podcast with you, a takeaway that you would share with our audience?

[Doug Holliday]

Thank you. Thank you, Kat. I'd say, simply put, when we cut through everything, because this can seem overwhelming, but I think if I want you to remember something would be do everything as far as it lies within you to make things right, period. You can't change anybody else. Just work on your own soul and your own, your own stuff. That's one, I think. The other is do the work. Look at the pathologies in your parents, your grandparents, your siblings. Try to understand where is that coming from. Some of it's genetic, some of it is just generational. It keeps being passed down. And you've got to make a decision, am I going to cut the cord of that generational dysfunction or not? Because this goes on and on and on. And so I think that's an important one to be brave enough to look at that. And a lot of us want to pretend the scenario. If you ask me, how are your parents? Oh, they were great. And when I cut through everything, I'm going to say this, and everybody probably will say this. They did the best. They did. They did the best they knew how to do with what they had. Great. But they still harmed you. They still, they still showed up. Their patterns were destructive. Sometimes they screamed at you when they shouldn't have. They, they belittled you. They did all kind of things, but all they were doing is what they had seen. You know, you see people that hit their kid, guess who, what they were hit, and probably a grandfather hit them, and it goes back and back. So I think this self awareness to start to see the only way you can change this is having the bravery to look at your story and start saying, okay, this is what I saw. I don't want to withhold emotional care and love for my kids. My father never told me he loved me, so I can't tell my kid. No, I'm going to stop that. Where does it say I can't tell my kid? So I think a lot of it is having the guts to look at your story and say, how do I pivot? How do I get out of that? So I think it's. It's simpler than we think. But a lot of time it's easier to blame others and this and that and all that. But I think you have agency when you. That you realize the truth Sets you free. All you need to do is start looking at the truth of what really is and not pretending a scenario that wasn't there, you know?

[John McMahon]

Oh, good. Johnny, what else from you, brother?

[John Kaplan]

Well, I only have one. One more thing that I, That I thought when you said you wrote. I wrote it down. Keeping score versus someone else. And to me, it struck me as we have to know the difference between protecting ourselves and thinking about punishing somebody else.

[Doug Holliday]

Yeah.

[John Kaplan]

And it's more important to protect yourself and, and, and, and have forgiveness.

[Doug Holliday]

And I think a lot of us on this podcast and in life, we care about our kids. Well, how we show up is going to affect them. If we're forgivers, if we are authentic, that matters. That matters much more than all the other things we could ever do. So it's not selfish. And I'd say, particularly you male leaders on this thing, find a group of men where you can start being real with and start talking about stuff and really has implications not only for your life, but for everybody. And that's in the. In your. Your world.

[John McMahon]

You're amazing, Doug. You're amazing. And we're going to come back next month and we're going to talk about, you know, a really important one defining success or failure for yourself, not for others, but for yourself. And I know this is a big part of your book of, you know, rethinking success. Johnny, you want to take us home?

[John Kaplan]

These are all things that we deal with on an everyday basis. So. Yeah, yeah, you give us perspective on all those things. So thank you so much.

[Doug Holliday]

Well, it's a. It's a real privilege to be on the journey with you guys and to be in these conversations. Wow.

[John Kaplan]

Yeah.

[Doug Holliday]

Thank you. Thank you, buddy.

[John Kaplan]

Thank you, John Kaplan. And thanks to everyone for listening to another episode of the Revenue Builders podcast.

[John McMahon]

Thanks for listening to today's episode. If you enjoy the content, please subscribe.

[Doug Holliday]

Rate and review the show to help.

[John McMahon]

Us reach more people. This show is brought to you by Force Management, where we help companies improve sales performance.

[Doug Holliday]

Performance executing the growth strategy at the point of sale. Check out forestmanagement.com for more information.