How to Rally People Around a Shared Vision (Secrets From America’s Founders)

Summary

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Episode Overview

Main Theme:
This Thanksgiving episode of The EntreLeadership Podcast explores how America's founding story—the Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving—reveals timeless lessons about uniting people around a shared vision, leading through adversity, and the power of gratitude. Guest historian and leadership expert Steven Mansfield joins John Felkins to dive deep into what the Pilgrims endured, how their purpose propelled them, and what modern leaders can learn from their journey.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Real Story of the Pilgrims

• The Lesser-Known Pilgrims' Narrative: Steven Mansfield shares his passion for Pilgrim history, clarifying misconceptions and highlighting their unique impact on American identity.
  • Quote: "The Plymouth settlement and the Pilgrims is the first permanent Christian English settlement in the New World. So that's its place of glory." – Steven Mansfield [01:44]
• Not Just Religious Refugees: Contrary to popular belief, the Pilgrims left religious freedom in Holland not fleeing persecution but out of a sense of burden and vision to spread their faith.
  • Quote: "They were doing fine in Europe... but in their prayer meetings, what do they start to do? They start to say, we know there's this New World... and there are natives there who don't know the gospel. So... that's primarily why they sailed." – Steven Mansfield [06:09]

2. Journey to the New World: Hardship & Leadership

• The Mayflower Voyage: A harrowing 66-day journey across the North Atlantic with overcrowding, storms, and sickness.
  • Notable Moment: John Howland's near-death ("slam dunked" back on board by a wave) becomes a story of obedience—and comic relief.
    • "He reaches out and grabs a rope... the ship goes one way away from him... comes back and a wave picks him up and slam dunks him Michael Jordan style through the open hatch back to where he was." – Steven Mansfield [14:00]
• Leadership Structure: The congregation was led by elders, not a democracy; their pastor stayed behind in Holland while the young and healthy made the journey.
• Severe Suffering: Overcrowding, low food supplies, seasickness, and death plagued the voyage.
  • Quote: “[The sailor] said, these pilgrims are psalm singing puke stockings... The one sailor who insults them is the only guy who dies on the entire voyage.” – Steven Mansfield [14:49]

3. Arrival, Starvation, and Native American Alliance

• Landing North of Plan: Storms pushed them far north of their chartered Virginia territory, compounding confusion and risk.
• First Winter—The Starving Time: Bitter conditions and poor timing meant half the group died from starvation and disease.
  • Quote: “It got to the point where there was five kernels of corn per person and a little bit of brackish water...” – Steven Mansfield [19:40]
  • "Half of them died. Now, bear in mind, we're only in that winter... Every family had a death of some sort." – Steven Mansfield [20:00]
• First Encounters with Natives: Historical records tell how Samoset and Squanto approached the Pilgrims—famously asking, "Do you have a beer?" due to their prior exposure to English language and customs.
  • "Two big old tall Indians... walk up to the Pilgrims and in perfect King James English... say, do you have a beer?" – Steven Mansfield [17:22]
• Native Wisdom: Local tribes taught critical farming and survival techniques, including how to plant, fish, and make popcorn.

4. Transformation through Vision and Incentives

• From Socialism to Free Market: The Pilgrims initially tried communal farming, which proved unproductive and demotivating. Governor Bradford's shift to family-owned plots radically increased yields and optimism.
  • Quote: "Their governor, William Bradford... decided that they should have family plots... They went basically to privatized farming... and their yield come the fall of 1621 was huge." – Steven Mansfield [22:36]
• Lessons for Modern Leaders: Vision, accountability, innovation, and rewarding individual effort—all critical to successful teams.

5. The First Thanksgiving: Celebration & Lasting Influence

• Four Days of Multicultural Feasting: After the abundant harvest, Pilgrims hosted a four-day feast with 90 local Native Americans.
  • "They had athletic contests, they wrestled, they had shooting contests... There was a food fight. I don't know if they were throwing edible food, but they were throwing apple cores..." – Steven Mansfield [23:52]
• Five Kernels of Corn Tradition: New England families for generations would place five kernels on each plate as a somber reminder of what the Pilgrims endured—an exercise in humility and gratitude.
  • "They would pause and put five kernels of corn on each plate." – Steven Mansfield [26:53]
• Thanksgiving as National Holiday: The tradition evolved over time, with Lincoln declaring a national day of thanksgiving during the Civil War, and FDR setting the modern date.
  • "Lincoln was the first one to call a national day of prayer and thanksgiving... FDR made it November." – Steven Mansfield [29:27]

6. Lasting Leadership Takeaways

• Vision Drives Unity: The Pilgrims' journey was powered by a collective, transcendent vision—critical for leadership at any level.
  • "The fact that they were vision driven... That's the success. That's what leads to success in business, marriage, weight loss, whatever we're about, we gotta have a vision." – Steven Mansfield [34:16]
• Responsibility & Ownership: Shifting from communal to family plots mirrors the power of personal responsibility and incentive in business.
• Gratitude in Hardship: Their thanks came not from abundance but amidst grief and loss; gratitude was a conscious choice—a leadership lesson for all.
  • "When we celebrate Thanksgiving, we have to realize that the first pilgrims celebrated Thanksgiving out of an unbelievably agonizing era of death and suffering... Yet they rose, they built a civilization..." – Steven Mansfield [36:50]

7. Dispelling Myths & Embracing Real Heritage

• Mythbusting: Pilgrim history has been warped or sanitized; the real story is richer, involving nuanced relationships with Native Americans, robust individualism, and vibrant faith.
• Encouragement for Modern Leaders: Dave Ramsey closes with a call for gratitude, fortitude, and vision in leadership roles—drawing directly from the Pilgrims' story.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Steven Mansfield, on the Pilgrims' Motivation [06:09]:
  • “The burning hot issue is what they said in the Mayflower Compact… We sailed for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith.”
• John Howland's Ordeal [14:00]:
  • “A wave picks him up and slam dunks him, Michael Jordan style, through the open hatch back to where he was.”
• On the First Thanksgiving [23:52]:
  • “They had athletic contests, they wrestled… There was a food fight… and the elders had to stop it.”
• On Five Kernels Tradition [26:53]:
  • “They would pause and put five kernels of corn on each plate.”
• Advice to Leaders [34:16]:
  • “What’s the defining vision, purpose, etc., driving your life? That’s the success… We gotta have a vision.”
• On Giving Thanks Amid Suffering [36:50]:
  • “The first pilgrims celebrated Thanksgiving out of an unbelievably agonizing era of death and suffering and watching children starve… And yet they rose, they built a civilization…”

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:36] – Why the Pilgrims, not Jamestown, dominate Thanksgiving legacy
• [03:09] – Pilgrims’ spiritual vs. business motives for coming to America
• [07:43] – The Mayflower voyage: hardship, leadership, and John Howland’s mishap
• [16:09] – Starving time: five kernels a day, half the community lost
• [17:22] – First meeting with Samoset/Squanto: "Do you have a beer?"
• [22:36] – Switch to privatized farming and the subsequent abundance
• [23:49] – The original Thanksgiving: multi-day cross-cultural feast
• [26:53] – The five kernels tradition and its ongoing meaning
• [29:27] – The evolution of Thanksgiving into a national holiday
• [34:16] – Business & leadership lessons distilled from Plymouth history
• [36:50] – Choosing gratitude in hardship: the Pilgrims’ truest legacy

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Tone and Language

The episode is passionate and reverent but often playful, blending historical storytelling with modern business and leadership wisdom. Mansfield’s lively style balances the gravity of suffering with humor and humanity.

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Final Takeaways

• Leadership requires vision—not merely reaction to adversity.
• Unity comes from a shared, higher purpose.
• Gratitude is most powerful when it is chosen in hardship.
• Take time to reflect on real heritage and hard-won victories, especially as leaders tasked to inspire and rally others.

“Great victory out of great suffering… the Pilgrims, you know, they live as a symbol for me.” – Steven Mansfield [36:50]

Happy Thanksgiving from The EntreLeadership Podcast!

Transcript

[Dave Ramsey]

Happy Thanksgiving. From the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, this is Entre Leadership, the show where leaders like you learn what it takes to win at any stage of business and leadership. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host with over 30 years of experience leading in the trenches right alongside you today, we're digging into the incredible story behind the very first Thanksgiving. And you might be thinking, what do the Pilgrims have to do with my business? Well, more than you think, because this is a story about choosing a God, honoring vision, counting the cost, and uniting ordinary people around turning hardship into hope. And of course, the importance of gratitude for this one. I'm handing over things to John Felkins from the Entre Leadership team, who will be sitting down with my friend, best selling author, leadership expert and historian Steven Mansfield. Let's dive in.

[John Felkins]

Well, Steven, thank you for coming today. Appreciate the opportunity to get to have a conversation about a fascinating part of our history.

[Steven Mansfield]

Hey, it's a privilege. Good to be with you.

[John Felkins]

You know, we're coming up on Thanksgiving and there's so much history around Thanksgiving. One of the things that is such a big part of our identity is the Pilgrims and their whole story. So what do we have to learn from the Pilgrims? What lessons are there and what should we remember about them?

[Steven Mansfield]

Well, I'm kind of geeky about the Pilgrims. I go crazy every Thanksgiving to speak professor for a moment.

[John Felkins]

Yes, Professor Manson.

[Steven Mansfield]

Professor. The Plymouth settlement and the Pilgrims is the first permanent Christian English settlement in the New World. So that's its place of glory. But for us, at more of a family lore level, there are powerful parts of that story about the relationship with Native Americans, about their sacrifices, about starvation, about what they said they intended to do and why they came, that have lived down through the generations of American history. And we've kind of forgotten in our generation. I mean, I'm not bothered that Thanksgiving's about food and football in our time, but I wouldn't mind a little bit of this bleeding into our lives. And so I'm sure we'll get into all of this. But this is what it's really a living, vibrant, powerful story of faith and sacrifice and family and even international relations. That ought to land on our Thanksgiving tables every year.

[John Felkins]

Yeah, you know, I have gone actually both to Plymouth Rock and the Pilgrim Monument that's there in Provincetown on the Cape. And, well, for one thing, Plymouth Rock is probably the most disappointing. It's literally just this rock, you know, that's there. But why? Why do you think so much of our identity? You said this is the first Christian Settlement, yes, but Jamestown was just down the road, metaphorically speaking. But it doesn't seem to play as much into what we remember of history. Why is that?

[Steven Mansfield]

Yeah, you've got two English settlements before Plymouth. One's 1585, one's Roanoke, one's Jamestown, 1607. But both of them are business ventures. They're not primarily for faith purposes. Okay. There are Christians amongst them and there are chaplains. But The Plymouth Plantation, 1620, a few years later, they said, this is the famous Mayflower Compact. They said, we sailed for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith. They were doing fine in Europe, they weren't persecuted. We'll talk about the story in a minute. But where they ended up, they could have lived for the rest of their lives, but they sailed to the for the cause of the gospel. So it's a real powerful thing. And by the way, let me circle back just for a moment. I'm here to knock some myths in the head.

[John Felkins]

Please do.

[Steven Mansfield]

And what's funny is you have this awesome story and then you have the Madison Avenue PR version of the story, which includes Plymouth Rock. We have no idea where the Pilgrims first put their foot in the New World. That rock was there, it was prominent. And some publicist who wanted to encourage tourism to the Cape Cod said, hey, it was probably here. And then, as you know, they built this almost church like structure over it. Caca. Remember this word with me?

[Dave Ramsey]

Caca.

[Steven Mansfield]

It ain't true. Okay. So, yeah, I'm actually glad you were disappointed because it ain't part of the story.

[John Felkins]

Yeah, yeah. So speaking of the story, and you mentioned it a little bit. Let's go back. Yeah, let's go back and talk about why they came to the Americas and what caused all of that and what was the driving force behind it.

[Steven Mansfield]

So since Queen Elizabeth, you'd had the official Anglican church, actually sort of since King Henry viii. And so the Anglican Church was this compromise between Protestantism and Catholicism, but they passed a law along about 1550s, I won't give you too many dates here, that basically said that everyone had to be part of the Anglican Church and pay tithe the taxes to it and so on. Well, there were dissenters, There were people who said, no, this is a state church, this is corrupt. We wanna have our own consciences. We wanna have our own congregationally ruled churches and not ruled by the King or the Queen. And so they began to break away. Well, they were persecuted. So there was a congregation up in Scrooby, England. I've had history Students write Scooby Doo, England. And that didn't work out real well for them on their grade, but Scrooby, England. And they were really heavily persecuted. So they finally decided to go where there was a measure of religious liberty, even though their lives would be hard. And they went to Holland.

[John Felkins]

They went to Holland.

[Steven Mansfield]

We use Netherlands as the name now, but back then it would have been Holland. And they went to a place called Leyden. So Leyden, L, E Y D E N. Holland would have been about 1608. And they began to set up new lives. Some did well because they had certain gifts and skills, and others had to start working in labors that they weren't used to. You know, the Dutch dairy farms and their seafaring ways and ships and all that. And it was really hard, really hard. But what was great was, even though they could have lived there for the rest of their lives, they began to have prayer meetings. And they began to say, lord, we're not just meant to be a congregation in exile. What do you want us to do? And we have their journal so we know what they wrote about. And they said, we are increasingly having a burden to take the gospel to the natives of the New World. Now, this. I'm partially Native American, so this moves me. Here they are where they could stay forever free of persecution and have their congregational life. But in their prayer meetings, what do they start to do? They start to say, we know there's this New World. We've heard about it, we've seen the journals, we've read the reports. And there are natives there who don't know the gospel. So we, over the years, this would have been from 1608 to 1620, about a dozen years. We're increasingly getting. They wouldn't have used the word burden, but maybe modern Christian languages. I got a burden. I got a thing in my heart for the natives of the New World. And that's primarily why they sailed. You'll read a lot of, again, my favorite word, kaka, in the textbooks about. They wanted religious liberty. They already had it. They were escaping persecution. They already had. So that. That's loosely part of the story, but it isn't the burning hot issue. The burning hot issue is what they said in the Mayflower Compact, the document they signed on ship before they went ashore, where they said, we sailed for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith. So that brings us down to 1620. They finally decide all who are healthy and can from the Leiden congregation of these dissenters, these people who have broken off from the church of England, they're going to rent some ships, hire some ships and go to the new world.

[John Felkins]

How many folks roughly was that at that point in the journey?

[Steven Mansfield]

Yeah, you would have had about 300 people in the congregation in Leyden. Okay, you started out, it's kind of an interesting little story. You started out with two ships and let's say roughly 150 people divided on two ships, the Speedwell and the Mayflower. The Mayflower was about the size of a volleyball court, not very big at all. And it was a wine barge and it'd been around for a while. She was in her little long in the street in her dotage. So they set sail in 1620, but the Speedwell began to take on water right off the coast of England. So they went back to Southampton, the port where they had sailed from. They left the Speedwell there. They determined that she was unworthy. Sailors will tell you she had too much sail and the mast was breaking the bow, breaking the undercarriage. So finally, too many people get on the Mayflower. So you got about 100. You may have as many as 120 people on the Mayflower in a ship no bigger than a volleyball court. I think about 120 people. We watch four people play sand volleyball, but 120 people think about that. And that's what sails to the new world in 1620. And they sail too late in the year. All this messing around, sailing back to the shore, having to put people on board. Some people go, hey, God's obviously not in this. I'm not going. So they go home. You have all this fall draw going on for finally the Mayflower sales. But it's late in the year and this is going to be a major part of the story.

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[John Felkins]

I'm curious, do we know anything? Did leaders start to emerge or was it like a mob rule? And that's probably the wrong. Pure democracy, let's say. Did they vote on everything or.

[Steven Mansfield]

No, it was a congregationally ruled. It would have been elders and a pastor. The pastor was John Robinson, a really good guy who preached the vision for taking the gospel to the new World, but knew he needed to stay with the congregation in Layton. So he did not come to the New World, but he put the younger ones, those who were healthy, those who were strong, some of the elders, one military man, others on this ship, and they sailed to the new world. And so leadership did emerge. In fact, what I think sets us all up for this is that they sail 66 days across the North Atlantic. This will be approximately from September to November. I want you to think about that.

[John Felkins]

Well, I just did the Ramsay cruise for seven days in the Caribbean and I was ready to get off after seven days.

[Steven Mansfield]

Okay, 66 days with storms so bad. I'm gonna raise my arm now. My arm's the mast. The ship is going like this, dipping in the ocean on one side and then flipping over and dipping in the ocean on the other.

[John Felkins]

I can't imagine.

[Steven Mansfield]

Yeah. The captain, whose name was Christopher Newport, won't let them go above decks because they're gonna wash off.

[John Felkins]

Right.

[Steven Mansfield]

So now they're in four lower decks and what they call the tween deck, all kinds of human refuse and bile is floating around. People can't go outside. There are no porta potties, there's no plumbing. Right. One third of this, 103 to 120, we don't know the exact number, are children. They're screaming, vomiting, pooping. I mean, this is what's going on. One woman's pregnant, she gets on the boat, Gets on the boat, pregnant, has the first child. We think in the new World, one of them, anyway. They're in water so cold that the U.S. navy says at that time of year, if you spend three minutes in the water, you die. Not hypothermia like you're sick, you die. Three minutes. That's the cold water that's coming in. We have a journal reference from one guy that I've always enjoyed reciting because they're, you know, they're Calvinists and they're positive and they see everything in light of the providence of God. Well, what's happening is the slats and the ship. When the ship hits the water so hard from being lifted up, the slats actually opened for a little bit and fish were coming in at times. That's how big the opening was. And he said, we did thank God for the various and sundry fish that came in through the side of the ship, that we might eat them. And I'm thinking I would rather fast than have the ship opening up with fish coming in the side.

[John Felkins]

The fish are supposed to stay on the outside.

[Steven Mansfield]

That is unbelievably violent. But I don't want to lose the fact that this is serious suffering. These are farmers, by the way. These people have never been on shipboard. You were on a cruise ship and like, get me off of this thing probably for a week or two, right? 66 days.

[John Felkins]

Incredible.

[Steven Mansfield]

That's two months and a week. But there's one guy whose name is John Howland and I love his story. He finally goes, forget the captain. I'm going up top. I can't stay down here in the vomit and the poop and the screaming and the whatever anymore. So he disobeys the captain, goes up a hatch. And as soon as he goes up the hatch, a wave comes, which is exactly what the captain knew would happen. Catches him and washes him off the ship. Well, as he's flailing in the air and the water, he reaches out and grabs a rope again. These Calvinist providential goddesses. The ship goes one way away from him. He's over here with the rope, comes back and a wave picks him up and slam dunks him Michael Jordan style through the open hatch back to where he was. It's like God was saying, I told you to stay.

[John Felkins]

Put him back in place.

[Steven Mansfield]

The journal writings tell us that he never moved again. Like he just sat in the corner and said, I'm not moving, I'm not moving, I'm not moving.

[John Felkins]

He learned his lesson.

[Steven Mansfield]

So there's some humorous things with it all. One of the sailors constantly called them, and I love this insult. It's an old insult, but it tells us what they used to do. He said, these pilgrims are psalm singing puke stockings. That was his phrase. Psalm singing, psalm singing puke Stockings.

[John Felkins]

I think I've heard of this guy. Isn't he the only one that dies?

[Steven Mansfield]

The only one who died. But I love it for two reasons. First of all, he's the only dude that dies. The one sailor who insults them is the only guy who dies on the entire voyage. And the other thing is those are the two things the Pilgrims spent their time doing. Singing psalms, which is what the old Christians would have done in that era, and throwing up, psalm singing. Puke. Stockings. But it was miserable. Yeah, absolutely miserable. Finally, they come to the New World. They land by our calendar November 9th. So this. Now we're talking Cape Cod, we're talking New England. So they are already aware they're in trouble. They have come late. They got 120ish souls on board. They don't know exactly where they are. And by the way, the storms have blown them their charters for Virginia and the northern parts of Virginia, which we can think of as being kind of maybe southern Pennsylvania, they're way north of. They don't have a charter for where they are. So now they're gonna start exploring, looking around, and they're not gonna actually get off the ship for another five, six weeks. It'll be just before Christmas that they actually step off the ship and permanently go ashore. They are trying to figure out where to plant, where to build their fort. They finally do at what's now called Plymouth. And they are aware they're in trouble. I mean, it's December 21st when they finally put foot ashore. Cold, bitter, empty wilderness.

[John Felkins]

They're not growing anything at this point. And they didn't bring gr.

[Steven Mansfield]

Right. People of that era did not trust just natural, what they would have called natural water. They wouldn't just drink from a stream or a lake because they knew that they had previously, their children maybe had consumed water from a river and gotten badly sick, right? So they brewed beer. They had learned, they didn't know about microorganisms and what was going on with B vitamins and all that, but they just knew that beer didn't make them sick because the alcohol, we now know the alcohol killed the microorganisms and it had B vitamins that made their children healthy. So they hauled beer with them, but they wouldn't have consumed water from the ocean, the lakes, the rivers, so on. So they were in trouble. They knew they had to hurry, get some structures going, start brewing beer, getting things in operation. Well, while they're doing that, they notice that there are some natives watching them from the trees. And I'm part Native American. So I'm gonna switch now and become Hiawatha for you and be very Native American. But I love these guys because we now know who these guys were. And so they're watching. They've assigned some people with guns to watch them. Finally, two big old tall Indians, about 6, 4, stride out of the woods, walk up to the Pilgrims and imperfect King James English. They say, do you have a beer? Now this sounds like I'm making this up.

[John Felkins]

It does.

[Steven Mansfield]

I'm not. This is part of the record. The tribe of these Natives had been killed off through disease. They had lived with some other tribes. They noticed the Englishman coming. They had gotten on ships with other English captains just sailing in the area and so on, learned English, acquired a taste for English beer, and then finally been put back with a tribe, not their tribe. And that's when they noticed the Pilgrims actually showing up. So they watched for a while to see if they were dangerous and so on. And then they wanted to help. So they walked out of the woods, walked up to the person they thought was in charge, and thinking they were being friendly, just in the same way I might say to you, hey, do you have a glass of wine or something? They said, do you have a beer? So God had English speaking Natives who had a taste for. Who wanted a Budweiser or whatever, walk up to the Pilgrims, and this is their story. The Pilgrims told this story and this. The person who said that, the Indian who said that was Samoset. His best buddy was the famous Squanto.

[John Felkins]

Squanto.

[Steven Mansfield]

And they became friends. They befriended them, and basically they said after they had some refreshment and became friends, you're in trouble.

[John Felkins]

As soon as they had beers together.

[Steven Mansfield]

Yeah, yeah, you're in trouble. Yeah, it's. You know, the Pilgrims would not have celebrated Christmas like a lot of Dissenters did, but they knew what time of year it was. You're heading into the dead of winter, you're in trouble. Here's what you need to do quickly.

[John Felkins]

Was it called the starvation time? Is that right?

[Steven Mansfield]

They called it the starving time.

[John Felkins]

The starving time. Okay. So they meet the Indians.

[Steven Mansfield]

Yes.

[John Felkins]

The Indians tell them, you're in trouble, you're in trouble. And it kind of gets worse from there, doesn't it?

[Steven Mansfield]

It does get worse. Because there's not much you can do. You know, I don't work in agriculture, but you and I both know if you're three or four months behind in an agricultural endeavor, you can't make that up overnight. Right? You can't just go buy some Things and. And speed it along so they know they're in trouble. And what starts now is a combination of the bitter New England cold and that we know from records that that was a particularly harsh winter. They have just the most basic huts and so on for homes. And it got to the point where there was five kernels of corn per person and a little bit of brackish water, meaning water that they had thought they had filtered per meal, per person. Per day. Per person. Per person. Per day.

[John Felkins]

That was the rations.

[Steven Mansfield]

Five kernels of corn and a little brackish water.

[John Felkins]

Oh, wow.

[Steven Mansfield]

And half of them died. Yeah, half of them died. Now, bear in mind, we're only in that winter. Half of them. From the winter to the spring, half of them died.

[John Felkins]

Half of them died.

[Steven Mansfield]

And then in the spring. I don't want to gloss past that. I want you to bear in mind they're burying half of their people. Every family had a death of some sort, you know, uncle child, whatever. They were burying people constantly freezing, constantly eating, almost nothing down to skeletons. And they were rescued by the sunshine and the spring and natural things growing. And then they planted. And this is where some business concepts come in, that they had planted common plots of food and farmed it. We would probably say they did socialized farming.

[John Felkins]

They all like a co op.

[Steven Mansfield]

They farmed a common thing, okay. But their governor, William Bradford, this is a very important name in the history of their. He's also the guy who wrote the history, decided that they should have family plots that they would produce better, work harder, tend it better if there weren't. Wasn't a common plot, farming plot, but each family was farming, so they went basically to privatized farming.

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[Steven Mansfield]

They did decide to go with family plots of land which each family tended. And of course, they had the better technologies and the better wisdom from the Native Americans. The Native Americans said, don't make a hole like that, make it like this. Don't plow your furrows like that, plow it like that. They had knowledge from the years of living there. So better technology, better intelligence, and basically a capitalist, or I would say it's more free market. Sure, we've learned from surveys that the young don't like the phrase capitalism. They think that means crony capitalism. But they do love the free market. So it's interesting. So I just lean that way. But that's how the pilgrims would have spoken as well. And their yield come the fall of 1621. This is almost a year after they've arrived. A little less than a year after they've arrived. Their yield was huge. And if I can keep on rattling on, please do. That's when their governor said, we need to have a Thanksgiving. Okay, now we come down to Thanksgiving. So he declared, because they had so much food and they were relieved to be out of the starving time. This is the people who are visiting graves all the time and visiting graves of not just, you know, great grandpa, but my son, my daughter, my wife.

[John Felkins]

My husband, or maybe even my parents.

[Dave Ramsey]

Right?

[Steven Mansfield]

Because no question, no question.

[John Felkins]

Well, I mean, orphans.

[Steven Mansfield]

My point is that though they didn't write about emotional things very much, I'm sure depression was hanging over the whole thing all the time, but they had a really good harvest because of the privatized farming. The better technologies, the better wisdom. And so in the fall of 1621, they had a four day Thanksgiving ceremony. I love this, by the way, because they decided to invite the 90 Braves. Now, the 90 Braves of the natives of Samoset and Squanto outnumbered the number of pilgrims. Right? If you have 120 people and half of them die, you haven't had time to replenish. So they got more braves coming. So the braves, being good guests, went out and shot a bunch of deer and turkey brought them. And they had four days, which I love talking about. Just briefly, because they had athletic contests, they wrestled, they had shooting contests, they did all kinds of things. So there was the sports theme that we have in our modern Thanksgiving. I'm all for it. I'm all for it. I wish they were just carrying that on. I wish it was about different teams, but still, I won't go talk smack now. And they had a four day celebration. The natives taught the English how to make popcorn. It's the first time we see popcorn introduced to English life. Some of the foods we have now they wouldn't have had, but it doesn't matter. They ate mainly seafood. Even though they had venison, had some fowl, they would have eaten mainly seafood. Cause the bay was right there and they knew how to harvest it. All of the berry pies and everything. They would have had some version of that. But you know, there are some things we can be cynical about. And every year come Thanksgiving, the article starts trotting out about the myths and Plymouth Rock and all this stuff. But there was a Thanksgiving. It was to give thanks to God. They did invite the natives, who, remember they had come over to try to draw to Jesus anyway. And they had four days of food and sports and rowdiness. And at one point the elders had to stop a food fight. That's how much food they had. I don't know if they were throwing edible food, but they were throwing apple cores and whatever. And the elders had to stop. Well, stop, stop, stop. So, you know, it's like the college cafeteria breaking out. But I love it. It was joyous, it was faith filled. It involved the Native Americans again. I feel a part of that history. And when you sit down at your Thanksgiving table, this is what was going on. And here's the thing I love most that survived through the generations, and that is I told you that during the starving time, they had five kernels of corn. So there was a New England tradition that survived for generations and even gave birth to a poem. I'll tell you the name of in just a few moments where what they would do when all the food had been cooked and the table had been set, the family was dressed and coming to eat the great big Thanksgiving meal, they would pause and put five kernels of corn on each plate.

[John Felkins]

Oh, wow.

[Steven Mansfield]

To remember that era, that time, starving time. Say thank you for the. For the first comers is the phrase New Englanders would have used and offer a prayer.

[John Felkins]

That's fantastic.

[Steven Mansfield]

I revived that in my family, my military family. My father was colonel in the army. We would not have done that. But we were very reverent about Thanksgiving. So when I learned this history, I did it with the kids. And at first, you know, kids were like, dad, really? I mean, there's food waiting. But if I ever. If I got as they got older, into their, like, their 20s, and were coming back from college, if I didn't do it, they'd go, dad, the five kernels, you know, where's the popcorn? And there's a famous poem by Herbert Butterworth. There's an easy name to remember with Thanksgiving meals, Herbert Butterworth, which is all about the five kernels of corn and how they celebrated it in New England and how that's all they had during the starving time. So what I'm saying is, beneath things like Plymouth Rock and some of the myths, there really was a Thanksgiving celebration. It really was an offering to God. It really was about a starving time and a vision to be Christians in a new world. And it really was about love and generations yet to come. And there really was a food fight. So, hey, it's all the things we want it to be.

[Dave Ramsey]

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[John Felkins]

I know this is going a little bit beyond the story, but I'm curious because I think you know this story so well. It wasn't a national. It wasn't a federally recognized holiday for a period of time. Right?

[Dave Ramsey]

Right.

[John Felkins]

It wasn't Abraham Lincoln that memorialized it as a federal holiday.

[Steven Mansfield]

There were many days of prayer and fasting that had happened, especially during the American Revolution, later on in history, and so on. But Lincoln was the first one to call a national day of prayer and fasting. He didn't call it. Some people fasted, but he called it a day of Thanksgiving. And then people chose to eat. And then it was fdr, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who made it the day that it is. Then it evolved as kind of a day of, you know, National Day. Initially, it would have been a distinctly Christian day. And of course, the Pilgrims were coming when there was no United States of America that hadn't even been thought of and so on. But it got pulled into our national life after our revolution. And part of the reason was during the American Revolution, there had been so many days of Thanksgiving that we win. I mean, the fact that the American colonists won the American Revolution is like the Nashville police force defeating the U.S. army. You know what I mean? It's just the percentages were nuts, right? So lots of Thanksgiving, lots of when we had time, feasting, some days of fasting. So that tradition got carried into our national life. Lincoln made it national. FDR made it November, you know, turkeys and all that, third or fourth Thursday in the month. And it became a national holiday, which I still, you know, I tell Christmas people who are focused on Christmas, give me a minute. Don't rush me. Let me be. You guys are putting up Christmas lights before I got the turkey picked out of my teeth. Give us a moment to think about a pilgrim and to relax a little bit and think about that heritage.

[John Felkins]

It's funny you say that, because at our house, we refuse to put up Christmas decorations until after Thanksgiving.

[Steven Mansfield]

Thank you. Thank you. These Christmas people push us. I mean, I'm a Christmas person, too, but I'm joking about it. But what I think is important is that this is the only day in our year, the only day built into our calendar, to think about our American Christian heritage. I'm all for Fourth of July. I'm all for the President's days. Hey, I'm in all of it. I'm a historian. I love all those remembrances. But to think about the heritage of faith tied to our national existence, really, Thanksgiving's it. And so part of the reason that I tell this story so much and make speeches about it and write about it is that it's genuine. I don't want the myth to take over. I don't want the debunkers to over, you know, remove the story. But also, you know, like at your house at Thanksgiving, I'm not saying you have to do this, but five minutes between when the food is done and we're gonna sit down or we sit down, put some corn. My kids just went and put popcorn seeds, you know, on the. And we put a few minutes. Thank you, God, for the pilgrims. Thank you for that vision. Thank you for some vision for the Native Americans. My kids understood that they were descended, half descended from Native Americans. Thank you for that heritage. Let us light our torch, so to speak, our own torch of faith in that flame. And thank you that we're not in a starving time. You know, half our family's not dead. Or the kids would voice it in different ways and then let food and football rain. It's fine. It's perfectly fine. But give us a minute, for heaven's sakes, to be sacred about it, to reflect back.

[John Felkins]

I also, you know, I look forward to it to just for us to look at the past year as a family.

[Steven Mansfield]

Yes.

[John Felkins]

What are we thankful for? Because as you said, we're not dealing with the starving time. We're so far beyond that. But we do have a lot to be thankful for.

[Steven Mansfield]

Well, and who knows what depends on where a kid goes to school, what he's gonna hear. He or she is gonna hear about their national life. And is the whole country just abusive to the natives? And were we just always, you know, militaristic, angry? I mean, who knows what they've heard, right? And I'm grateful for teachers, but sometimes there's some real lies being taught in our schools, private and public. So this is just a moment where the parents can take a little bit of control. I'm not trying to pick a fight here, but have a little control and just say, hey, let me just read this to you. And sometimes the reason I mention the Herbert Butterworth poem is that sometimes people read that. That was read at New England tables. It's a four or five paragraph thing. You have to script that well. Don't put food on the table.

[Dave Ramsey]

Hot.

[Steven Mansfield]

And then time out. We're taking a half an hour for a sermon here. That'll just tick everybody off. But take a moment and be a little reverent. And my kids are that way now. I mean, they're all coming in for Christmas and they're a little ticked off they're not coming in for Thanksgiving. Because I'm not 100% sure what Bev and I are doing for Thanksgiving. But if it's just the two of us @ a restaurant, it won't be. But if it were, we'd say, could you guys give us a little corn in a bowl? And we've done it out publicly when we've had to travel and so on. And it really does bring a sense of holiness and reverence and heritage into our family.

[John Felkins]

I love that. I love and admire how much you value it and thought about it and have learned. If you could, if there was one lesson from the pilgrims and what they went through, what would you want people to know? What would you want them to take away?

[Steven Mansfield]

Well, I actually teach this story to a lot of businesses and break out the business principles. And so there are two or three that I think are important. And I know you asked for one, but you're talking to a historian. I'm not gonna just give you one. Are you crazy? Come on. The fact that they were vision driven. The story gets told like they're being driven by persecution, driven by the. But they were doing fine. But they got a vision. Happened to be a vision for Christian evangelism. But, you know, purpose driven, vision driven. All the language we use these days, I think that's important. Important for a business, it's important for a person. What's the defining vision? Purpose, et cetera, driving your life. That's the success. That's what leads to success in business. Marriage, weight loss, whatever we're about, we gotta have a vision. The second thing was they survived by the grace of God, but also by taking full responsibility for production. I mean, I'm putting it business terms, but that privatizing of farming. Granted they had better tools, always a key business bit of wisdom. Granted, they had better intelligence and knowledge. They'd done, in a sense, research, even though it was handed to them by the natives. But for each family to take responsibility for its own production transformed their farming. In fact, they wrote letters back to Europe saying, what are you guys doing with socialized plots? They were sort of evangelists for Adam Smith. So to. Even though we wouldn't live for another 150 years. But I think probably the thing that touches me the most is that when we celebrate Thanksgiving, we have to realize that the first pilgrim celebrated Thanksgiving out of an unbelievably agonizing era of death and suffering and watching children starve to death in your home. I mean, I just want to make it personal for a moment. So when they thanked God for his grace and had a laugh at throwing apple cores and arm wrestled the natives and went a hunting and there was any laughter and any lifting of the gloom, it was in the face of all that. And I think that's a lesson for us. People tell me all the time in our current generation what a terrible time to be alive. I Go, really? Really? You just happened to say that to a PhD in history who believes in the providence of God? And I know we've got some challenges in our time, but even if they're the worst times men have ever known, they're not as bad as that starving time. And yet they rose, they built a civilization, they continued good relationships with the natives for decades more. There was a War in 1670, but that wasn't even this generation. So all that I'm saying is great victory out of great suffering. And that's, you know, we've all had suffering in our lives. We will have more. It's just what it means to live in this fallen world. But to know that that's possible. And the pilgrims, you know, they're not. They live as a symbol for me.

[John Felkins]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Steven Mansfield]

And having spent so much time reading their journals and so on, I'm moved by the fact that they could, you know, in the words of the famous sports TV show, snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. The image that everybody has of big black hats with buckles on them and great, all black and big black. These are Quakers. Those aren't Pilgrims. Pilgrims wore bright colors and they drank rum and they smoked pipes and we've turned them into sin sniffing, snot nosed.

[John Felkins]

Narrow Christians felt bored.

[Steven Mansfield]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because it's easy to put up on a cake or something. But no, they were fun and rowdy and like I say, what'd they do Thanksgiving? They wrestled, they arm wrestled, they fired their weapons, they had a food fight and they talked smack about the cowboys. I'm sure that they did.

[John Felkins]

Giving thanks to them that winter or that fall after the starving time wasn't a concept to them, was it?

[Steven Mansfield]

No, no, no. It was a lifestyle.

[John Felkins]

It was. Thank you so much for your time and sharing your story and your wisdom.

[Steven Mansfield]

Well, thanks for letting me rant on about one of my loves and be a professor for a moment.

[John Felkins]

I love it. Thanks, Stephen.

[Steven Mansfield]

You betcha.

[Dave Ramsey]

Wow, that's some powerful stuff there. Hey, it's a great reminder of what real vision, grit and faith look like when everything's on the line. Big thanks to Steven Mansfield and our own John Felkins for that incredible conversation. And remember, better a weary warrior than a quivering critic. This world needs more high quality leaders. Take courage and lead. Thanks for joining us on Entree Leadership and again, happy Thanksgiving.