The Power of Gratitude: An In-Depth Discussion with J. Douglas Holladay

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Revenue Builders

Episode: The Power of Gratitude: An In-Depth Discussion with J. Douglas Holladay

Date: October 9, 2025
Hosts: John Kaplan, John McMahon
Guest: J. Douglas Holladay, Author of "Rethinking Success"

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Overview

In this deeply personal and practical episode, hosts John Kaplan and John McMahon continue their acclaimed series with J. Douglas Holladay, exploring chapter four ("The Practice of Gratitude") from his book Rethinking Success: Eight Essential Practices for Finding Meaning in Work and Life. Together, they delve into the science, psychology, and real-world application of gratitude, examining how making it a daily practice impacts leadership, business performance, relationships, and personal growth. Through powerful anecdotes, scientific insights, and actionable exercises, the trio demonstrates why gratitude is far more than a fleeting emotion—it is a transformative life choice.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Neuroscience and Power of Practicing Gratitude

• Start with Christian Jarrett's quote about gratitude being a muscle:

  “The more of an effort you make to feel gratitude one day, the more feeling will come to you spontaneously in the future.” – (Doug Holladay quoting Jarrett, [05:46])

• Gratitude rewires the brain and becomes more natural with consistent practice ([05:53]).
• Notable Insight: Unlike happiness, which is fleeting, gratitude is foundational—“It’s a mindset... [it] can be developed and exercised.” (Doug, [05:53])

2. Gratitude as the “Emotional Counterweight”

• Gratitude crowds out negative emotions:

  “Gratitude is the one emotion that cannot share space with anything else in the brain at the same time... The minute you introduce gratitude, gratitude takes over.” – John Kaplan ([08:38])

• Discussion on shifting mindset from complaint to appreciation.

3. Practical Entry Points and Daily Practices

• Start small: Write down one thing each day you’re grateful for, even if it’s as simple as good coffee or the weather ([14:22]).
• Doug’s personal practice: daily notes that accumulate into hundreds or thousands per year ([15:24]).
• Send gratitude notes, especially after others have “moved on” from someone’s loss ([16:57]).
• Watch for “signals of transcendence”—moments that whisper reminders to reach out or act kindly ([17:52]).
• Story: Doug gifting his Tag Heuer to a homeless man after feeling prompted—highlighting openness to unexpected acts of generosity ([18:15]).

4. Transforming Pain and Loss through Gratitude

• Finding meaning and prompting positive change after difficult events—COVID-19 as an example yielding life reassessments and unexpected growth ([20:29]-[21:07]).
• The concept of "post-traumatic growth": Every human has the potential for it, and gratitude is a powerful facilitator ([23:34]).

5. Allowing Space for Grief and Authenticity

• Caution not to bypass pain—“You have to be careful that we take the time to grieve that loss...” (Doug, [25:04])
• Powerful metaphor of the buffalo and the cow: Face pain directly to move through it more quickly ([34:28]).

  “The buffalo runs right into the storm... The cows run away, but the storm hovers over them.” – John Kaplan ([34:28])

• "Naming your demons" gives you power over them instead of being controlled ([36:09]).

6. Owning Your Story for Leadership and Connection

• Authentic leadership stems from understanding and embracing your own story and struggles ([38:48]-[40:25]).
• Doug’s assignment for MBA students: write “I come from…” poems, leading to emotional connection and acceptance ([41:39]).

7. Letters of Gratitude and the Blessing

• The impact of writing heartfelt gratitude letters to those who’ve influenced you ([52:40]).
• Story: John Kaplan writes a letter to a mentor, who later kept it prominently displayed—underscoring the deep value of explicit appreciation ([52:40]).
• Importance of “blessing” in life—unconditional affirmation not tied to achievement ([48:00]-[50:15]).

8. Practical Tactics for Leaders and Parents

• Ken Blanchard’s “catch people doing the right thing” philosophy powerfully improves performance and culture ([55:24]).

  “For every negative interaction you have, it takes five positive to overcome it.” – Doug Holladay ([55:23])

• Apply this approach with teams, clients, and family—positive reinforcement is a superior teacher ([59:26]).

9. Gratitude as an Everyday, Heartfelt Practice

• Sprinkle gratitude in all interactions, from coworkers to strangers ([63:35]); even brief, genuine compliments can have lasting impact.
• Expressing gratitude has to be genuine—a true “life practice,” not a manipulative tool ([67:13]-[67:48]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• John Kaplan:

  “Gratitude is the one emotion that cannot share space with anything else in the brain at the same time... The minute you introduce gratitude, gratitude takes over.” ([08:38])

• Doug Holladay:

  “It’s reinforcing—it’s almost what you’re choosing to see... If you’re choosing to see everything as dark... you can find ample evidence for that... What are you looking for?” ([05:53])
  “When you name [your demons], it goes from them being inside of us, controlling us, to now, we can work on them... but you have to start with having the bravery and courage to name these things that are really screwing with us.” ([36:09])

• John McMahon (on grieving):

  “The younger me didn’t deal with it... And then one day I wrote a letter to [my father]—bawled like a baby... finally it freed me.” ([30:17])

• John Kaplan (on self-awareness):

  “I have to take every morning and just see what's showing up... if I don't sit there in the morning and really ask who's showing up, my day can be helter-skelter, man.” ([27:20])

• Doug Holladay:

  “The greatest thing I can do for my three boys is to be the best human being I can be... not try to make them the best human being, but try to make me.” ([22:24])

• Doug Holladay (on leadership):

  “Our tendency is to catch people doing the wrong thing... What if we flip the scenario here and tried to catch people doing the right thing?” ([55:24])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [05:46] – The science of gratitude and how it becomes easier with practice
• [08:38] – Gratitude as the brain's overriding emotion
• [14:22] – Practical daily gratitude exercises
• [18:15] – Unexpected acts: the watch and the signals of transcendence
• [20:29] – Reframing loss and adversity (post-traumatic growth)
• [25:04] – The necessity of grieving and not getting stuck
• [34:28] – The buffalo vs cow analogy—facing vs avoiding pain
• [36:09] – The power of “naming your demons”
• [41:39] – Georgetown MBA poetry assignment and embracing your story
• [52:40] – Writing and receiving gratitude letters
• [55:23] – Emotional bank account: 5 positives to 1 negative
• [59:26] – Positive reinforcement in leadership and family
• [67:13] – The life practice of gratitude—genuine vs artificial

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Actionable Takeaways

• Start Small: Write one daily note of gratitude for five days; observe the shift.
• Be Brave: Take the risk to express gratitude, even if it feels awkward.
• Don’t Forget to Grieve: Face pain head-on; name your struggles.
• Reframe Setbacks: Seek purpose and growth in adversity.
• Catch People Doing Right: Highlight strengths, not just errors, in teams and relationships.
• Practice Self-Reflection: Take time every morning to check “who’s showing up” emotionally.
• Express Deep Gratitude: Write letters or notes to those who’ve impacted your journey.

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Tone & Takeaway

The conversation is heartfelt, honest, and unvarnished, blending humor, vulnerability, and wisdom. The episode makes a compelling case for gratitude not as a “soft” concept but as a crucial, actionable life and leadership strategy. Through candid stories and tangible exercises, listeners are challenged to move gratitude from a mere feeling into a daily, life-changing discipline.

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Recommended Further Action:

• Read "Rethinking Success" by J. Douglas Holladay (especially Chapter 4).
• Try a gratitude experiment for five days.
• Write a gratitude letter to someone meaningful.
• Watch for the next episode on Unforgiveness.

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Transcript

[A]

Welcome to the Revenue Builders Podcast, a weekly show featuring B2B sales leaders and executives. Hosted by five time CRO John McMahon and Force Management Co founder John Kaplan, the show goes behind the scenes with the people who have been there, done that, and seen the results. If you enjoy our content, please subscribe, rate and review the show to help us reach more people. Revenue Builders is brought to you by Force Management. We help companies improve sales performance, executing the growth strategy at the point of sale. Find [e-mail] Enjoy today's episode hi, it's Rachel with Force Management. Before we get started with today's Revenue Builders episode, a quick Plug we know a lot of you are planning your SKO and planning for 2026 force has a ton of great resources for you as you strategize. We we just put out an ebook on six priorities for driving growth in your organization and we have a whole SKO resource page that has helpful insights as you think through making your SKO more than an event. Check it out in the show Notes.

[B]

Welcome to another episode of the Revenue Builders Podcast. My name is John Kaplan and I'm joined today with my co host and friend, five time CRO and author of the wildly successful book the Qualified sales leader, Johnny McMahon. Today we continue with our series with Doug Holiday and the breaking down of his book called Rethinking Success. You know, we've been breaking this down over the last few months and and we're going to continue with that series. So as a reminder, let's talk a little bit about Doug just to get you refresh your memory. So his career trajectory is very unique and varied with its blend of public service, finance and business, nonprofit work, and more recently teaching and journalism. So Doug's a co founder of Park Avenue Equity Partners. He is also co founder and General partner in Elgin Capital Partners lp which is which is a private equity partnership focused on domestic energy development. While Doug continues as an active investor, the main focus of his time is on an organization that he built called Path north and it's a nonprofit dedicated to helping business owners and CEOs define success more broadly. They do this through peer to peer learning. Path north focuses on creating space for leaders to have conversations on finding meaning and significance. Significance in life and work. Doug was formally a senior officer with the international investment banking firm of Goldman Sachs.

[C]

There's so many things to list here. Prior to joining Goldman, Doug held senior.

[B]

Positions in both the White House and Department of State. After working under White House Chief of Staff James A. Baker, he was appointed by the president to the personal rank of special ambassador to charged to coordinate major aspects of the US Public response to the challenge posed by South Africa prior to the dramatic release of Nelson Mandela. So Doug's advised several presidents and numerous corporate leaders and has explained and debated public policy issues on national television. He's contributed to several books on a broad range of issues, foreign policy, culture, theology, and 19th century history, and has placed articles in the New York Times, Washington Post and USA Today. A true Renaissance man. So, excuse me.

[C]

Like I said, we're going to continue.

[B]

Our journey with Doug on this fantastic book called Rethinking Success. Let's jump in.

[C]

Hey, Doug. Where we just had a little bit of time before in the warm up a little bit. And we were both Johnny and I were saying that, you know, how much we, we've missed you a little bit. That's on us. And you know, we're going to get this back on. You know, we started with your, you know, your incredible book which is Rethinking Success. We started on, you know, going chapter by chapter and today's chapter on gratitude. I think it's just a common theme that's been through almost everything that we've talked to you about, but we're so glad that you, you know, I know your schedule's been craz. Schedule's been crazy. But we're so glad to get this back on track. And I know our listeners, these episodes are of the highest ranking that we have with the revenue builders. So thanks again. Thanks again for being on Buddy.

[D]

Oh, you. You are welcome. I mean, I don't know. That doesn't reflect well upon your listeners that they're so they have a low bar. A low bar.

[C]

Nobody. No. You're humble. You're humble. So you talk in the beginning of the book. I think you set off on a couple of great kind of quotes. And one of the first ones that you have is like the more of an effort you make to feel gratitude one day, the more feeling will come to you spontaneously in the future by Christian Jarrett. And you kind of started off the book with that. Like what was your purpose of starting off that way? Oh, sorry.

[D]

He is a chapter.

[C]

This is chapter four on gratitude. Making gratitude a regular practice.

[D]

Part of why that he, he is a noted neuroscientist, British. And it's interesting that it's not only anecdotal, but the research really indicates that your mind, your brain changes when you have a, an outlook that's rooted in gratitude. And this said to me that gratitude is A muscle that can be developed and be exercised. Because we all know people that my mother was like this. Probably you knew people or family that they just wake up feeling like, wow, this is great. This is great. Some people wake up and say, oh God. The other one wakes up and says, oh God. It's just, you know, it's just a, it's a mindset. So I, what I liked about this is it's reinforcing. It's almost what you're choosing to see. If you're, if you're choosing to see everything is dark and closing in on me. You know, you can find ample evidence for that. But I think what, what Jared is pointing out that you'll see more of those. It's almost like an exercise. If I said to us, okay, for the next two months, let's be alert to 1960s Volkswagen Beatles. Well, I can't think of when the last time I saw one, but trust me, if we've had that as a mindset, we're going to see some in the next two months. We'll probably see quite a few because we're choosing to look for it in a forest of competing demands.

[E]

I love what you get a brand new car. You didn't realize how many other cars there are of the same make and model on the road.

[B]

Great point.

[D]

Yeah, absolutely.

[C]

What I like about the point that you're making, Doug, is this is powerful for me. Any emotion to sustain, to sustain is a choice and all the science points to it. I think I shared with you guys before, one of the things that totally blew me away when I started looking at the, I started looking this around the pandemic and I got introduced to Dr. Lori Santos course from Yale and it was the science of well being and, and basically and it was a free course and I highly recommend it. I highly recommend your book and I highly recommend that free course is just, it was just really, really powerful. But you know, one of the things that I took away from that is gratitude is the one emotion that cannot share space with anything else in the brain. At the same time. They have that as a fact. You can have, you can have anxiety, depression, anger, you can have all these emotions and they can all share space in your brain. The minute you entered, the minute, the second that you introduce gratitude, gratitude takes over. So the science is pretty clear on it. I wonder how long it's going to take us as humans to, you know, internalize that and leverage it.

[D]

That's really interesting. You know, I've been, I've been thinking A lot about this. This sounds a little theoretical, but it's not. So up until the Enlightenment and then the whole argumentative times of the Reformation, it was interesting. Up until that time, people thought more holistically. Body, mind, spirit, everything was integrated. Then we began to live in our brains. So Descartes gave voice to that. He said, I think, therefore I am. Yeah, everybody. We all started living in our brains. But that's. That's. Nobody changes. Nobody. Nobody's life is different because of a thought necessarily. It's more how you penetrate the emotions. So what you're giving voice to, John, is the fact that gratitude really gets down to the heart of who you are. It isn't just a cognitive thing. It just permeates your whole being. So we have to be careful that we not think that people. This is why nobody changes. You look at the political culture, how divided we are. Nobody changes through an argument. It doesn't. Because that's all on a different level. What's driving people today is fear, emotion. You know, they're trying to find safety, they're trying to find touchstones, and you can't talk them out of that. You can't talk them out of that. They're fastened to that. So I think practices like gratitude and enable you to dislodge from those, fix that fixed mindset.

[E]

Yeah. In the book, Doug, you also talk about happiness versus gratitude, where happiness can be fleeting. And a lot of times we're asking people are the same, I'm happy.

[D]

Yeah, yeah.

[E]

In our life, you know, you can have some good days and some bad days, so you can be happy one day and sad the next. But what isn't fleeting is what you were pointing out in your book is having gratitude or being grateful.

[D]

Yeah.

[E]

That can be stationary. And then on top, obviously, we're going to live with the waves of. Of what happens in our lives.

[D]

Yeah. And I think, John, that's really important that we understand that that trouble is. Is the stuff of life. We're going to always be navigating trouble. We're going to have disappointments, betrayals, loss, heartache of all sorts of. And that's the stuff that we navigate. But you say, what are the tools we have to really get in a good space to make good decisions in the context of trouble? Well, one of them is gratitude. I was pissed at myself yesterday because I went up to the drugstore to get something and they had this $5 discount, and I kind of. It was a coupon I got. And I said, well, I've never done that, but that's pretty cool. So I go up there and I bought something. And she said, no, you have to do it the day before. Then it went on and on. It was like, oh my gosh. And then I finally said, I don't want any of this stuff. And I, and I, but I was, I was upset that I let that control me and I left like in a really bad state of mind. And I said, look, I'm talking. What. It was so ridiculous. I'm talking about $5. And for some reason my ego got involved with this ridiculous thing and I just gotta let it go. And part of what I did was just started thinking about all the things for which I'm grateful for and you know, I want to go up. I didn't say anything mean to the woman that was working there, but I clearly had a pissy attitude toward her and I need to apologize.

[C]

Yeah, it's powerful. I think what I love what you're, what you're saying is, is that we have the ability to choose. The symptoms are never going to change.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

I want to be clear on this. And I've been working on this for a long time. My symptoms don't change.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

The inputs don't change. For me that more the reactions. What I'm trying to do is to, is to deal with the reactions. The life stuff I don't think is going to change for me. In your book, you talk about some practical entry points. You just gave us one example of being like, hey, and you could actually be grateful for ability to be able to go back and ask for forgiveness for that person. That's a very, very powerful, powerful thing between humans, which we're going to talk about in, we're going to talk about next month. But talk about some of these practical entry points. You have so many in the book that you talk about thank you notes, gratitude lists, three things. I love your story about writing the thank yous each morning and then doing a yearly review. Would you just give us some practical tools that you've seen as. Let's just get it started with entry points with what people do.

[D]

That's really, that's really good. You know, I'm just saying if listeners, as you're kind of pondering this, I'd say maybe a starting point might be, you know, I always feel like people get too ambitious. Yeah, I'm going to make gratitude lists or whatever. Why don't you try an experiment, say for the next five days. I'm going to write down one thing every day that I'M grateful for just some little thing like dark roast Italian coffee today. There's no humidity in Washington today, whatever it is. But start noticing. That's the thing that you're going to start doing. You're going to start noticing little things that you haven't noticed before. I love the color of this wallpaper. I love. You know, you start noticing things and you put them down and they reinforce. So what Cap's getting at is for years I've done this funny exercise where I shoot for every morning. But if I'm realistic, it's four to five mornings. I will write down two or three things I'm grateful for. Sometime it's repetitive, I gotta tell you. But at the end of the year, I will have. And I do it on one sheet of paper. I'll have a. I have a graph piece of paper, one side and the back, and I'll just write it real little. And. And I'll have about 2,000 of these at the end of the year. And I laminate it. For some reason I'm keeping these things and I'll have real simple. But there's. I have now tens of thousands of these little things. So that's one little, little practice that I do. The other is so, so, you know professor at Boston University, Peter Berger, he talked about. He's a secular Jew, but talked about signals of transcendence, that there are things that are trying to be transmitted to us. C.S. lewis, the apologist and Oxford scholar, he said it differently. There are signposts, almost like God is trying to wake us up to things. So, so I'm try, I try to be alert to that. I try to be alert. So yesterday I thought of a guy that I know whose brother died two months ago. You know, I called him when it happened, sorry, Stan, this happened, blah, blah, blah. But it came into my mind. So I just sent him an email. I said, stan, I'm just thinking about you and your brother and, and that loss, I hope, may rest in peace. I. I just did that little simple thing. Now, a lot of people when you have a loss of a child or something happens, they're all there the first couple days, you know, writing them notes, sending them flowers. But a lot of times it gets weird. In two months, who's going to do that? Who's going to show up? Because trust me, Stan hadn't forgotten about it. Trust me, my friend, who is head of a public company whose son committed suicide four years ago, he hadn't forgotten about that son. But everybody's kind of Moved on. So my view is be open to these signals of trans ascendance that are trying to say to us, Doug, pay attention that that person. You know, do that and you'll start behaving differently. You'll start doing strange things that. Like, I had on my Tag Heuer watch about six months ago, and I'm driving along this homeless guy. I always have a bunch of dollars. I give it to him. This guy commented on my watch about four times when I'm interacting with him. And I said, you know, I'm getting the feeling here that this watch needs a new home. So I had. I gave it to him and drove up. I'm sure he's like, what the hell was that all about? But I felt that I'm supposed to do it. But I try to pay attention to these little signals, but they make life so amazingly rich and wondrous because you're seeing, you're being led and introduced to things, and. And part of that is having that attitude that I'm. I'm a grateful person. And you know, what's going to show up today? What, what, what wonderful thing do I get to be a part of?

[E]

Yeah. In your book, along those same lines, you talk about blessings that come in unexpected forms.

[D]

Yeah.

[E]

You're hit with something that leads you to more of a deeper or more meaningful outcome. So I always think about, I've always done this when I've lost a friend or a family member.

[D]

Yeah.

[E]

You know you're devastated, right?

[D]

Yeah. Yeah.

[E]

But I've always asked myself, why did that happen? Like, what is life trying to teach me?

[D]

Yeah.

[E]

What lesson do I need to take from this? So I've always found myself sitting back, reevaluating, you know, what life's trying to tell me. Then I make a change, and I find, like, it was such a positive change for me, what I did in my life that I wasn't going to do unless this devastating event happened. And you talk about that in your book. It's. It's amazing.

[D]

Well, as you. You're talking, John, I was thinking there aren't many people that would say, wow, that loss that was so painful actually ends up on your gratitude list because if you flip showed you, it reminded you of the brevity of this. This journey we're on and to really love the people that are in our world. Every day, you know, you start saying, wow. Out of that one painful episode, ten wondrous things kind of came into my life.

[E]

Well, think about what happened with COVID With COVID I had Been people had been telling me for 10 years, why don't you write a book?

[D]

Yeah.

[E]

And I kept dragging my feet and dragging my feet. Covet hit I'm locked in the house. So I wrote a book.

[D]

Yeah.

[E]

And then some. And I think it forced a lot of other people, you know, to reeval re Evaluate their lives.

[D]

Yeah.

[E]

People picked up and moved to different states.

[D]

Oh yeah.

[E]

People started to only want to do remote work.

[D]

Yeah.

[E]

You know, the society changed deeply because people reevaluated their lives then that was, you know, and came in an unexpected form.

[D]

Yeah. It almost forced change. But then you either went with the change like you did.

[E]

That's a good point.

[D]

Or, or you, you resist and keep saying, God, how are we going to get back to this? What, what's going to happen?

[E]

No, well, that's where I see a lot of people. No matter what it was like a loss of a family member or the COVID thing or other things for some reason, to your point, other people take it and don't try to change and look at is something that's meaningful and positive that I need to change in my life. And they suck it up and say I'm a victim. And now they play this victim mentality for the rest of their lives. Yeah, we've all seen that. It's awful.

[D]

Absolutely. Now you're absolute. And again, that's why it goes back down. It seems like the greatest thing we can do to create a different narrative for our society, our family and others is to be people like this that exemplify that spirit of gratitude and wholeness. I mean, I keep feeling like everything goes back to us and what we can do to change ourselves. Yeah. The greatest thing I can do for my three boys is to be the best human being I can do. Be it isn't try to make them the best human being it tried to make me.

[C]

Because that's a good point.

[D]

You know those programs we've all tried with our spouses or kids and that program doesn't work. The only program that works is kind of like the research on re. You know, if you want your kid to be a great reader in life, quit trying to get him to read. You should read.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

Because people emulate models.

[E]

Yeah.

[C]

I like, I like this theme we're on right now. And as we, as we relate it to business to make a little correlation here. Because life, you know, we show up to business with our lives. So there is no compartmentalization. I don't believe, I mean, I love that John.

[D]

I, I tote you know, I love that and think it's central to thriving when you don't compartmentalize.

[C]

Yeah. I don't see peop. I don't see how people. I haven't met anybody that. That truly has done it. But one point I'd like to make here that I really love is again, when I say it's a choice, I don't want to alienate any listeners because I've been on the other end of this where I feel like life has not given me a choice and I'm getting my ass kicked on stuff.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

However, if I'm open to it. And the beautiful thing is all the science says that we all have the capability for what's called post traumatic growth. All of us, every human being has post traumatic growth available. But I don't want to say this in a punitive way. And Doug, I think you can help me with this because it's available to all of us, but it's not like, oh, suck it up. You've got post traumatic growth. You're a hero. You don't have it, You're a victim. For me, just knowing that it's possible, and this was a hard part of my life, was just knowing that it was possible and then being built in the human way that we're built to know that when we do thrive in post traumatic growth, they call it, we actually get a memory of it. We actually get an immune system that gives us a psychological immune system that says, hey, dude, you faced some tough crap before. You've lost accounts, before you've lost your job, before you've lost that promotion before, and look at what you've been able to do, or look at the opportunity or look at what others have been able to do. So I think this possibility of post traumatic growth is a real lesson that is powerful for today, I think.

[D]

I love what you're saying. Let me add something to this, because I think it's. This is really important. When we go through something that's really traumatic, we. A loss of a child or something, that's just devastating. I think we have to be careful that we take the time to grieve that loss. Like the Kubler Ross thing she has, she talks about the stages of grief and it. I think we eventually get there. But I find the people that kind of go la de da and say, oh, yeah, yeah, I love my mother was great, but she lived a good life. Great. Well, I don't know whether they've adequately grieved that that loss is there. So I Think we gotta really allow people and allow ourselves to feel. Feel the pain. I was betrayed. I was hurt. Somebody's trying to get even with it and really feel that pain and embrace it, but not live there. And I think to get back to, John, your point about if you live there, you're going to be a victim your whole life.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

But if you don't stay there for as long as you need to, so that you really absorb it. Okay, I think I'm ready now to start walking.

[C]

And so this is so related to business because it's the reflection part. And I love your examples of, like the skiing example that you give the slalom skis.

[B]

They're bent.

[C]

They're. They're made to force you to lean in.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

You lean in and you go faster and you do things like that was so powerful in your book. And I thought about it. Like, I have spent a lot, large part of my life running from some crap in the past that I just didn't want to deal with.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

And I felt like if I took the time to deal with it, then my life was going to drastically change in the moment. And what I didn't realize is.

[D]

It.

[C]

Ain'T going anywhere, man. It's gonna pop up. Like, it's gonna pop up and pop out somewhere.

[D]

It's like that guacamole, expected waves.

[B]

Yes.

[D]

The other one pops up.

[E]

Yes.

[C]

Yes. And what in your book, Doug, is that you? And I love this part because I've taken it and really, you know, the self reflection. But not to get too heavy here, but I'm hoping the listeners are engaging with this. Like, I have to take every morning and just see what's showing up. And it's not always great stuff. Like, I woke up this morning pissed off about a couple of things in the marketplace, literally pissed off. And I had to sit with myself and say, okay, who's showing up? And there's an edgy part of me that's showing up, a competitive part of me that's showing up. And by the way, it got my attention and it's got my best intention in mind. But how it's showing up with others. Like, I got on the phone this morning, I'm whipping everybody's ass about it. And. But I realized that, okay, John, what's it saying to you? What are you actually pissed? And I was pissed off because a couple things is that part of me that was barking was telling me, you're not acting fast enough on something. And I just, you know, and that part feels like it has to tell me that. But if I don't sit there in the morning and really ask who's showing up, my day can be helter skelter, man. Like, and I'm just reacting to emotions that were always there and are. And they're just waiting to be heard. Does that make sense?

[D]

Oh, it's. It's totally makes sense. And, and, and, you know, this is a practice that I hope our listeners will at least consider, because I think what you're saying is we need a moment. We need, whether it's five minutes or a half hour and an hour every morning where you level set, you learn, you feel what it's like to be at peace, and then you can kind of look at the world. But if you keep running and you take that anxiety and that anger and it just keeps whipping it up every day. So, you know, Socrates says the unexamined life's not worth living. So the idea of creating space every day where we examine and have little practices, okay, you sit there and you just breathe. Then you write down one or two things you're grateful for, and then you consider, what are the big things I need to get done today? The one or two.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

And then all of a sudden, you created a structure that really is full of meaning and you know how to. You know where to go. Everything else is a bonus.

[E]

The younger me didn't deal with it and found something else I had to do and I moved on. And, yeah, let's say it came out in some bad ways. Especially the younger me. Yeah, especially the loss of my father. He died in his 40s and I never dealt with it.

[D]

Yeah. Yeah.

[E]

And then one day I wrote a letter to him.

[D]

Wow.

[E]

Powerful.

[C]

After he was gone, Johnny, 20 years.

[E]

After he was gone, powerful. Finally said, I gotta deal with it. I wrote a letter to him. Bald like a baby dude, if you.

[C]

Don'T talk about the specifics.

[E]

But finally it finally freed me, you know?

[D]

Oh, that's great.

[C]

How did you. I mean, that's such a powerful. That's such a powerful practice, Johnny. How did you come to the point where you just said, that's a. That's going to be a relief. How did, how did you do it?

[E]

Because I couldn't even talk about it, like right now even.

[C]

Yeah.

[E]

Almost starts to bubble up to here. But anytime I had mentioned even my dad and tried to tell somebody, if they say, hey, well, what did your dad do? I get right here. I'd almost have to get up and leave. I couldn't even talk. Yeah, it was that high. The emotions just came flying up. Yeah. And I thought, dude, like, you got to deal with this. Wrote a letter to him. It was the greatest thing I ever did. Well, now I can at least talk about it.

[D]

Yeah. Well, that's a great. Again, a great practice. You paid attention to what was bubbling up. And a lot of us don't. We just keep running and running again. Socrates said, beware of the busyness of life. And you just say, part of our problem is we're so damn busy. And part of it is this. We're running from these things. And what we're saying is, what would show up. To use caps. Language, what would show up if we stopped running. Now, for a lot of us, it's fearful, you know, 100%. Yeah. We've talked about. I take these 16 guys every year, men and women, to a Trappist monastery for two and a half days of solitude. And some of them are petrified. They don't know what's going to show up. And so we have to walk through this. But it's powerful. I am convinced that most of what we're looking for is found in solitude. Because all of a sudden, when you stop running, the answers start showing up. And the stuff we haven't dealt with start showing up. But it almost feels like we're making progress because we're running so hard.

[E]

Yes, definitely. I'm guilt. I'm guilty of it.

[D]

We all are. We all are. It's. It's.

[E]

I stay busy. I don't have to deal with it. And then eventually you realize, okay, how much longer can I have this monkey on my shoulder? Like, I gotta get this thing off.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

So, Johnny, we all have the. This is so powerful, man. Like, I got goosebumps just thinking about it. Because I remember about 20 years ago, you and I in a restaurant overseas, and my father. I was telling you about when my father passed away, and I was, like, absorbed in my story.

[B]

And it.

[C]

I don't know if you remember it, but we were there and you got emotional and I actually stopped the story and I had to apologize to you. And you said, no, nope, your story is not what's throwing me. Just keep going. And so for me, I love. What I'm thinking about right now is the analogy of the buffalo and the cow and the storm. And this is so powerful for me right now when I'm thinking about it, because. And it happened in my life. Like the buffalo, when the storm comes and they have this. They've studied this, like in the plains, when the Storm comes, the buffalo turns right away and runs full speed into the storm. They run full speed into the storm. The hail, the lightning, they're getting pounded because they know that if they run straight into it, it's not going to last as long. And they come out the other side. Now the cows are in the same pasture, and the cows, they don't run with, they don't run like the buffalo. They run away from the storm, but they're not fast enough. So the storm hovers over them and pummels them for the entirety of the storm.

[D]

Yeah, great analogy.

[C]

So sometimes when I wake up in the morning, I'm like, okay, man, am I the buffalo or the cow today? Like, who's showing up? And I always try to ask myself, how can I be the buffalo today? Like, what, what needs the buffalo? And it's, you know, it's an analogy, right? And everybody gets it. But it ain't easy, man, because, like, there's fear. There's fear, there's anger, there's like, there's other people involved. There's, yeah. When you choose the buffalo in life, it, I'm telling you, it, the, the data says that you, you face it, you go through and you get pummeled last.

[D]

But, but what you're talking about is what. You know, I had a guy that was the head of USAID when all these cuts started coming, you know, he called me and said, doug, I have a question for you. What does it mean to be brave in these days? What does bravery look like? And you kind of say, what you're saying here, Cap, is bravery is, instead of running from these issues, it's facing them. And, but when you face the demons, I think, I don't know if I've mentioned this here, but I, I, I, I find the analogy really interesting. When you look at whether you think it's literal or, or metaphorical. But you look at the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, and the first, the first job that Adam, that God gave Adam and Eve to do was to name the animals. Why is that important? Well, in Hebrew culture, when you name something, you control it, you have dominion over it.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

So. So instead of a zebra controlling a human, a human has domain over that or with the rest of the created order. So my analogy for this is we all have these demons in ourselves. When we name them, it goes from them being inside of us, controlling us, to now, we can work on them, but you have to start with having the bravery and courage to name these things that are really Screwing with us that are taking us down. And their patterns, we see them over and over and they keep tripping us up. And we say, how? How did I get back here again? So you start naming them now you're in control. No longer is that in control of you.

[C]

Powerful, man. Powerful. And it goes back to other chapters in your book that talk about rip my face off with what you do with your kids at Georgetown, but for me, and then you made me do it in front of the kids at Georgetown, just telling my kids about it. I've never told that story publicly.

[D]

Yeah, right.

[C]

And you know, Johnny, he says, I want you to. I want you to, you know, tell your story to the Georgetown kids. And I'm like, okay, and here's Force management. This is what we did.

[B]

Blah.

[C]

He calls and I asked him, what do you want me to do? He's like, yeah, just tell your story. And then I'm like, okay, all right. It's not that interesting. You know, Force management left corporate America, blah, blah. And he calls me two days before Johnny, and he says, hey, how you doing? I said, I'm good, man. And he goes, well, how are you doing with your story? I said, I'm good. And he goes, well, what are you going to talk about? And I tell him, and the freaking guy asked him five times before, and the freaking guy says to me, yeah, yeah, that's okay. But. But. And just tell your story, the full story. And then he leaves me alone. And for 24 hours, I'm sweating and I'm writing down my story that I'm like, well, John McMahon is my dear friend. He knows my story. But the process of owning your story, first of all, connecting to your story, owning your story, and that was such an amazing experience. It's the only time that I've done that in public. And, man, it was very powerful for me. And it started connecting so many dots that began to. When you talk about the naming thing, by talking about my story, I know exactly. I have a part of me that's called. I call Edgy. I know exactly when Edgy was born. Edgy was born at 10 years old with a pretty traumatic thing that happened. And, okay, edgy's not never going away. Edgy's a part of me. But just to know how it's been a part of my story, like, great leadership. Will you talk a little bit about what you do with those kids at Georgetown?

[E]

Let me just say that I faced edgy a couple times, Doug. I faced his Edgy a couple times.

[D]

But, you know, but doesn't it help almost for him to give voice to that? He realizes, he realizes that it sabotages 100% interpersonal relationship, business relationship. But the truth sets us free 100%. When we start talking about this stuff and, and we realize you don't have edgy John. I don't, I don't know if I do or not, but we all have something.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

Something that's going to show up. It's going to.

[C]

But edgy doesn't control me. I control edgy.

[D]

Yeah, yeah.

[E]

No, he's even told me, you know, Johnny, just so you know, I'm getting edgy now and I go, I already figured that out.

[C]

Well, I think, you know, Johnny being honest. Right. We, you and I goof around a lot, but we know each other so well and I know your intimate details. You know my intimate details. That the power of that is he helps me be a better leader in my business because he'll say things to me like, hey, is that Edgy making that decision or John making that decision or. Yeah, and it's that inference, you know, And I think great leaders, you can't be a great leader if you haven't understood and owned your story. Yeah, you can't.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

Now you do the thing with Georgetown kids. Just real quick, tell, tell us what you do with the Georgetown kids.

[D]

Yes, it's an MBA program and I felt like there was a need for something that wasn't the typical analyt looking at strategy and accounting and all the typical MBA fare. This is about how do you become the best version of you? How do you redefine success for yourself and not let these narratives that have been in our head and our history define us and sabotage us. So one of the things I want them to understand is that those demons, those, those parts of them, that humanity that is just their embarrassed about their flaws, the mistakes, all those things are not actually the end. They're the actually the connecting point with every other person that they'll come across. So I said, I want to give you an exercise because most of these kids are. Their undergraduate was in engineering or, or they're math nerds or whatever. So they all live in their heads.

[C]

So I said, and they're high achievers, bro.

[D]

What's that?

[C]

Yeah, they're high achievers.

[D]

High achievers. But I said, I want you to go to a different space and this can be really uncomfortable for you. I'm gonna have you write a poem. And they're all saying, we're not liberal arts people. We're. We're finance people. I said, great, that's all the better. But I'm gonna help you. I'm gonna give you the first three words of the poem I come from. And. And then, oh, my gosh, they start sharing their pump. And I have heard things that I. That are unimaginable. Kids that have lived in their car when they were 13 for two years, that abuse, murder in their family. I mean, on and on. And these are the demons that are plaguing these people. And I said, look, okay, what you've done now is now you feel connected. We've been together one week. You're better connected to these people on an emotional level than the people.

[C]

I was there one day, dude, and they ripped my face off.

[D]

Yeah. And all of a sudden you say, ah, this is what it means to be human. And I said, I'm telling you what you're experiencing here. This is what reality should be. You're going back to a world that doesn't think this way. And that's why I have them. Right. I've got them up. Got these letters on my desk from my last class. I'll send it to them in about another week. It's a month after the class. And this is a letter they wrote to themselves to say, here's what showed up for me. And I never want to forget this. I had one kid who, West Point graduate, African American super achievers. And a joint law degree and MBA at Georgetown. He had a horrible, traumatic thing. A cop ran a stop sign in Georgetown, hit him on his bike. He had like nine brain surgery on and on. This kid was really went through it, and six months later, he decided he couldn't do anymore. He was going to take his life. He's telling me this, and he said for some reason, before I do, I thought I'd open my mail. So he's going through his mail, he sees this letter, and he's just trying to figure out, God, that handwriting looks familiar on the envelope. He opens it up and starts reading it. It's his letter to himself. He wrote before the accident, it. And he read this and started weeping and saying, holy crap, this is who I'm meant to be. And it shifted everything now, so. So we have it. It is an experience, as you know, John. It's. It's. It's something. And it's. I. I am so moved. My biggest problem, that last day, classes, I just am like, I don't want to start weeping here because I. It touches me so much that they have given me the privilege of knowing them in a way that no one's ever known them.

[C]

You know, Doug, I have a, I have a gratitude that came out of that. So this is a, this is a episode on gratitude. That was the first time where the mantra for me, telling my story to those kids that I was saying, I heard myself say over and over, this is just a story. There's no heroes, there's no victims.

[D]

I remember that. I thought that was great, but that's.

[C]

The first time I said it in my life. Now I say it all the time.

[D]

Yeah, it's a great, it's, it's a great thing because, you know, you didn't ask for the story. None of us did. It's like Peter Buffett telling me we're all born into someone else's story, right? So all that pain, all that emotional inertia that's in us because we saw that in our dad or our mom or whatever, you know, we didn't ask for that, but we can control how we work through it. And that's why the power of being honest about your story, yes, being grateful for parts of it, but knowing that there are parts that harmed us and not being afraid to look at this. There's a Great Line by E.E. cummings. He said, to be nobody but yourself in the world is trying every day to make you something other than yourself is the bravest thing you can do. So all of us are trying to be something that the world has told us we need to be, but to be who we fully are. That requires going really deep in our hearts and understanding our story. But that makes us really attractive and authentic. And what are people looking for today? Not perfect leaders, but authenticity. And authenticity begins with me saying, you know, I, I, I screwed up. I, I don't, you know, I'm not emotionally accessible to my wife. I'm not this, I'm whatever it is. All of a sudden, the name in that, now we can start to go to work on it.

[C]

And the powerful part of what you said, I think is the takeaway for me, is bringing it back to gratitude. When we look at our lives and we understand the good, bad, and the ugly, I began to realize that there was no bad. Like, it just stuff just happened. And the power, like John was talking about this post traumatic growth is what I called what John was saying, but the power of being able to say, okay, because of that, I started to do these things.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

And I was grateful. Like, I never thought I'd be grateful for that freaking crap. You know, when I was 10 I never thought I'd be grateful for that. And I actually said to myself, okay, like, that had purpose. You know, at the time, it didn't feel good. It still doesn't feel good, but it had purpose and meaning, and therefore, I'm grateful. And that's like, if I.

[D]

You refrain, Cap. You reframed it. That's the thing that we all can do, because you can't. You can't deny what's happened, but you can reframe it, and you can reframe it and say, okay, in light of that, I want to be a different kind of dad. So part of that is being honest about. I didn't get certain emotional things that I wish I'd gotten from my father. I say to my class, like, I tell the story of Peter Buffett when he left Stanford and decided to not be his father's son, pursued music. And I told him, in faith traditions, Muslim, Christian, Jew, there's something called the blessing, particularly where an elder says to you, john, you have what it takes. And most young men, I think when you see people that are always striving and needing the attention and all, they never got that. So they're always like, look at me, dad. Look at me, dad. But they don't. It isn't that. It's kind of like they're trying to be pleasers their whole life. And so the blessing is really important. So I remember Peter, I said that to him, and I said, did you ever get that from your father? He said, he thought about it. He says, you know, 10 years ago, I was in a music show in Omaha, and I looked in the back, and my father was there with Charlie Munger, his investment partner. And he walked down afterwards and he put his hand on my shoulder. He had never even discussed that I'd left Stanford to pursue music. And he said, you know, Peter, we've both been successful in our own ways. I said, peter, you just got the blessing, brother. Yeah.

[C]

It'S awesome.

[D]

So. So I think if And. And. And most of us didn't get the blessing. That's why it's important. If we didn't get it, it's okay. You know, it's okay. We can get it from God, we can get it from others, but we need to know when it shows up, when we're pandering to get noticed and, you know, look at me. But we also need to. I've written all three of my boys a letter and just told them, without tying it to any performance, just say, I love and admire the man, the Men you've become. And I just want you to know I am so grateful you're in my life and you're my son and I just want you to. I send you off into the world to be a agent for good and live your dreams.

[C]

Dude, that's so powerful in the gratitude realm. And these letters of gratitude. I just want to share a quick experience and you bring it up in your book. And it was actually brought up to me. It was brought up to me somewhere else. But you will reinforce it in the book of writing a gratitude letter. Johnny, you did it just kind of spontaneously to your father. 20 years after I had a person in my life who was a big part of my life and he was still alive and he. And he was like my best. One of my best friends. Fathers. And I'll just. I won't tell the whole story, but I hated this kid. And then I became friends, and then we became friends through athletics. And then the father came into my life afterwards, and he was like a second father to me. He impacted my athletic career, my college career, my business career, and I. He was the best man in my wedding. And it was. It was a little bit traumatic for my friend. Like, I had to call him and say, hey, is it okay if I ask your pop to be. And not you, your population to be the best man in my wedding? Anyways, long story short, real quick, I just want to encourage people. I wrote a gratitude letter for him. And I wrote it like, this is what you mean to me.

[B]

And.

[C]

I did it a couple of. I did it like two years before he died. I didn't know he was going to die.

[B]

He died.

[C]

He died rather suddenly. My buddy called me and I will never forget this. When he went to his father's house, there was nothing else on his desk. My gratitude letter from two years before was sitting on his desk. And I got to tell you, the funny part is, Doug, when I wrote it to him, he called me and he's like, cappy. His name's Ron Grenadier. He's like, cappy, am I dying? That's what he said. He goes, am I dying? Is there something I don't know? And it was really, really funn. But I got to tell you, that's a blessing. They asked me to do part of the eulogy. I came and talked and I talked about that letter. That is a blessing. That one act of gratitude that wound up coming back to me. It's with me for the rest of my life.

[D]

Wow, that's. What a thing. And Everybody could do that, but we don't. And that's why we have to be reflective and say, what is it in me that is fearful to do that? Or maybe it's just awkward or whatever, but it just good information to try to, you know, kind of understand what are the blockages to really showering our kids or our spouse with things, you know, John Gottman, who's the noted at the University of Washington, noted as the kind of dean of all relationships. They've done all kind of research and all. And he said, this is really apropos to. To gratitude and to relationships, negative things that are said to us. This is why, oh, my gosh, I'll say to my class, how many of you, somebody told you something when you were young that stayed with you and they still remember it? This fifth grade teacher told me I wasn't smart. This other person told me, I remember somebody saying, the ninth grade person said, you should take. You should take shop courses because you're not college material. You'd be a good bricklayer. You know, these words have power, these negative things. So the negative really is almost like poison in our system. So Gottman's research suggests this, and this is freeing, but also troubling. He said, for every negative interaction you have, it takes five positive to overcome it.

[B]

Wow.

[D]

So with your spouse, if you're having this snide remark thing, you know, wow, you've gained some weight, huh? Well, well, trust me, that's one that's. That is going to be remembered. But if you don't have an emotional bank account that's been built up that you can draw on, you can see very quickly how if every interaction, one of those every two weeks builds up and you all of a sudden say, why did they get divorced? I thought they were really a good couple. And. But it's true with all of our significant relationships. Which brings me. Cap, we had talked about this, and I wanted to mention it because I think it's so powerful. When I read this tiny little book called the One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard, decades and decades ago, I thought to myself, this is all you need. Those of you that run businesses or groups, when I tell you this, this is all you need, I think, to really be a good leader. And what he says is our tendency is to check, catch people doing the wrong thing. And of course, we go into a room and I look around and say, God, look at that smudge on the wall. Oh, my son, you didn't put your tennis shoes away again. I mean, our minds gravitate toward the negative all the time. Blanchard's view is this. What if we flip the scenario here and tried to catch people doing the right thing? Now, for example, you know, you have a staff meeting, and all of a sudden I say to Rachel, after the staff meeting, rachel, could you meet me in my office? That's never good. But what if it was good? I said, rachel, I just want to say something to you. It was so powerful in our staff meeting today when everybody kept talking over Cap and you said, wait a minute, wait a minute. He has something important to say. I want to hear him. You valued Cap in an important way. I just want you to know I saw that. Thank you. Do you think Rachel's a better. Going to be a better employee now? Do you think Rachel is going to look for ways to contribute? Do you think the culture of that firm is going to exponentially improve, catching people doing the right thing and developing that emotional bank account? And, you know, you're a football player, Cap, and I think you are, too, John. But I was struck when I found out that Tom Landry, when they watch their game films the next day, which is typically an embarrassing thing. John, you missed another tackle over here. Cat. Look at. This is so all I remember. Yeah, so what? Tom Landry would only show those plays that were successful where people did the right things, and it seemed like it worked out well for him. I'm not. I'm not suggesting. I'm not a coach, so I don't know. I'm not suggesting that a number of.

[E]

Super bowl rings, for sure.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

But I thought, when I read that, though, Doug, I thought about a great takeaway for our. For our listeners, regardless if you're leading or if you're interacting with a customer, if you're interacting with a colleague in a collaborative sale. Just like catching people doing things well is so powerful, and it's so. Like most people, we don't have that mentality. Typically, we're like, okay, I'm a manager. I'm a leader. I'm supposed to point out the things that I got to correct. The behavior I got.

[D]

Yeah, yeah.

[C]

Versus the power, like you just said, the power of showing some highlighting when it's done well is just as good. Is probably a better teacher than showing them how it's wrong.

[D]

But you just think about, you know, when you're raising kids, the power of this because. Cut. It's horrible. They do every stupid thing wrong in the world. You left the lights on again. You did this, you did that. You know, you left the car Running. You forgot you lost your key. I mean, there's a million things to be upset about, but if you start noticing, and that's what we were talking about, you start noticing. And that's where these signals of transcendence, all of a sudden you start. You think of that sun and say, wow, I remember when you did that. That was so amazing. You know, I need. As we're talking, I need. My boys are in music, and they. And my. My son, just one of them just finished an album. And my son has this great space in LA where they have bands that come out behind a thing. They have a. They have a stage and all that. And. And I just said, you know, he. He wanted to honor his brother. So last Friday he had a show there, about a hundred people, and he didn't charge him anything, but he gave Hayes $500 for just, thank you for coming. And I thought, that is wonderful. You know, just. It's wonderful. And that says more to me about his character and who he is. And.

[C]

Johnny, could you.

[D]

I haven't told him. I need to tell him.

[C]

Yeah. Amen. Johnny, could you take this episode to heart, please? When we're playing golf, you know, you could. You know, you could.

[E]

Strokes.

[C]

No, no. Now I'm Doug. I'm setting myself up because he's gonna say, you know, point out when I'm doing things well. He's going to say, well, I would if I saw something. Are there any other strategies? We've talked about a lot of things. We've talked. This was very deep. I hope that people listen to this and re. Listen to it. I know I will. Are there any other things from just like a tactical perspective on, you know, things that we could share with our audience on? This is a choice.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

Muscle. It's got to be. It's got to be exercised. Are there any other things that we didn't talk about?

[D]

I think I would urge people to be brave, take the risk. Try one or two of these. Like, write down for five days one thing you're grateful for and kind of try to feel, how did this feel? Is it worth extending it for another five days? And then if you do write a letter or if you do decide to catch somebody you love in your world or a colleague doing the right thing, and just notice what starts to happen in that relationship. So it's important to do the thing, but it's also important to be reflective about it. How did that change the relationship? Because a lot of our kids feel like, you know, they're in this penalty Box. Because, yeah, they are a problem. They aren't fun. It isn't fun raising kids a lot of time and, you know, you feel like you're the. The truant officer. But I, I see it at airports all the time where everything is a negative interaction with it.

[B]

Oh, God.

[C]

You see, the person at the. At the airports are a great example.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

And you, you. I actually have said to people, hey, buddy, do you actually think that the way that you're talking to this person is going to give you a better chance to get on this flight or on another flight? You know, you're out of your mind. Now, I should probably say it differently because I'm edgy.

[D]

That's good. I think you're not letting somebody be a bully. You're stepping up and. No, you're absolutely right. And I think trying to say that I got a ticket. I have mixed motives on this thing, but I got a speeding ticket in Washington and I never got the first one, so all of a sudden it doubled. So now it's $300. Last week, I, you know, I decided to write him a note and I said, look, you're probably going to make me pay this whole thing. And. But I just want you to know, I don't think I got the first notification, but maybe I did and lost it. But if you could give me a little grace. And by the way, I just want you to know, I know you get a lot of criticism, and I know it's a thankless job, but I just want you to know I. I just want to celebrate that you're doing something really important to do, and thank you. And I thought, I don't know what they'll do, but there's still human beings on the other side. They're going to read that letter. And I hope there's a little bit of a smile that might come because I did that. So I guess what I'm saying, Cap, is you can sprinkle this gratitude thing and all over the place. It doesn't have. It doesn't have to be. Like, instead of thinking it, you go to the gas station and somebody drives up and the color of the car is really attractive. Well, why not say that is a. It is really a beautiful color. Do you think that guy's gonna remember that? Of course he is. But nobody does that. But it does something to you. It does something to them. And, you know, just. Just doing little things. You know, my people that work on my car, they'll do anything for me because all of a sudden I'LL I'll just drop off a bag of cookies. I just felt the impulse, you know, whatever takes, no time. But I love doing it, you know, but if you just build it in your life that we're supposed to be there to. To shower goodness in little ways. Amazing.

[C]

I. I think so, too. Johnny, wrap us up, bro. What do you got? It's a deep one. This was a deep one, buddy.

[D]

Yeah, it's. It is. It is.

[E]

Well, all of it. Just, you know, you try to get better in your life as life goes on, and I keep, you know, you keep reflecting on what's going on in your life, and you try to have gratitude for what you have and the people around you. And like Doug said, it's pretty easy to get caught up in being busy all the time, not taking the time to express gratitude or even reflect on your own life of what you're grateful for.

[D]

Yeah.

[E]

And I think it's. That's really what this episode is all about. You got to take a little more time to look around, see the people in your life and the things in your life that you're grateful for and recognize that. And recognize them.

[D]

Yeah. Yeah.

[C]

And I think, you know, to put a bow on that. What Doug does so great in his book, he talks about the practice of gratitude. Gratitude is. Is a life practice, and it's not just a feeling. And if you get anything out of this episode, that's what I got out of it is. It's a practice and it has massive return, but it's a practice, not an event or feeling.

[D]

Yeah. It's a way of living that. Because it can. Everything can be artificial. It's like you read Dale Carnegie, how to one friend and influence people. He said, remember names, be interested in the other person. All those are good truths. But if they become just artificial prompts, people feel it.

[E]

Yes.

[D]

But if they. If you just are grateful and just do it, wow. They feel that too.

[B]

And.

[D]

But you feel it. You.

[E]

It's got to come from the heart, though, like you said. Otherwise people can. Like a Geiger counter.

[C]

This is a good. This is a good tease for, you know, the next session we're going to have. And I'd love for our listeners. Get the book, man. Get the book. Rethinking, Rethinking Success. I want to make sure I get the exact title correct. Rethinking Success by Doug Holiday. Eight Essential Practices for Finding Meaning in Work and Life. Today we talked about chapter four, which was the Practice of Gratitude. We're going to come back and I'm just putting it out there. I'm afraid you guys are going to have to lead the next one because Unforgiveness and Joni, you're going to have to lead this one. But, Doug, thank you for being who you are. Thank you for what you do. I'm grateful that you came into our lives. I'm grateful that you've come into the audience, to the lives of our audience, and you're just amazing. Thanks for being with us.

[D]

Oh, thank you, guys. I really appreciate the chance to be in the conversation and you trusting me in front of your friends that are on this amazing communication vehicle you've created.

[E]

That's the thing, Doug, is I can't tell you how many friends that I have that are not in the business that John and I are on. They like my friends, some of which are, you know, they're blue collar workers. They do. And they picked up your book. Some of them gave bought copies for their entire family.

[D]

Oh, my God.

[E]

And now when we're in just discussions over the past couple of years since you've been on the podcast, we reference your book. It's amazing, really. So you've had I am this effect on a lot more people than you actually might realize. So thank you for everything you do, Doug. Appreciate it.

[D]

Thank you, John. Thank you, Cap. Thank you, Rachel.

[E]

Appreciate it. Thanks, Cap. Thanks, Doug Holliday. Thanks, Rachel. Okay, everyone, for listening to another episode of the Revenue Builders podcast.

[A]

Thanks for listening to today's episode. Be sure to check us [e-mail].