The Myth of Work-Life Balance: How to Succeed at Both | Michael Hyatt

It's how we think about the world, you know, how we perceive. And I think that to realize that we're always taking in information from the world and our brain is a meaning-making machine. So there's that narrator I talked about earlier, right? That's sitting in the stands just like at a football game and commenting on what happened. I don't have to believe what the narrator says. I have a sign in my kitchen that says, don't believe everything you think. And it's a hugely powerful lesson. Don't believe everything you think, because it's our thoughts that can empower us to go further than we ever thought possible. But it's also our thoughts that can hold us back. That's right. And keep us stuck.

Hey guys, Dr. Josh Axe here. Welcome to the Growth Lab Podcast, where we cover the science behind how to grow yourself, your health, your wealth, and take your career and relationships to the next level. Today I've got a personal friend of mine and mentor, Michael Hyatt. Uh, we're gonna talk about all kinds of things today. We're gonna talk about how to be successful. We're gonna talk about mindset. We're gonna talk, we're, we're about to talk about peptides here as well and some things regarding health. And I'm super excited to talk to him today. Mike, welcome to the show.

Josh, great to see you.

Well, cool. Well, I want to continue our conversation that we were just having. I said, hey, let's just go ahead and click record because we'll— we can talk about all this stuff. But yeah, we were talking about peptides and, you know, I got turned on to those because I had a spinal infection and my back issue, which, which really they helped me heal a lot faster. I mean, I could really tell a difference. And so then you were sharing some of the incredible results you've seen in your wife and your daughters.

Yeah, it's really amazing. And the thing I love about it, it's just amino acids. So it's not like putting a foreign thing into your body. Yep. But yeah, I was, uh, having chronic, almost debilitating neck pain for a couple of years. And I tried everything, as I was sharing with you. I, I did everything from chiropractic to dry needling to acupuncture to physical therapy, Egoscue, every modality I could find, and I couldn't get any relief. And I finally— my nutritionist introduced me to a doctor, Dr. William Seeds, on the West Coast. And he's a former— I guess he still is— orthopedic surgeon, but he's kind of the peptide guy. He spends about half of his time doing research and half of his time doing clinical practice. So he put me on Pentosan injections, uh, for my neck, and it took about 3 months, and I've been pain-free for 2 years. I mean, literally no twinge of pain. It's amazing at all.

Yep, it's amazing. You know, one of the things that I noticed is I was taking— I'd mentioned TB500 and BPC-157— is just my body healing faster. You know, just your body's able to regenerate. And so you showed me— I mean, it's amazing, the scar on your arm, that it's— there's almost zero scar tissue there because of the power of these peptides. And you know what, right now they are— they're kind of one of these borderline things in terms of how legal they are, because the FDA sees them as, um, it's kind of the thing, are they a supplement? Or they have medicine. And so I think this— some— there's different state laws around them. And so it'll be interesting to see what happens with them in the future. But they're— I think they're sort of the future of— the future of medicine, a big part of the future of it.

I do too. And obviously you got to be careful about, you know, where you get them.

Yeah.

You source them.

Yeah.

Because it is unregulated. And I think through Dr. Seeds, one of the things he's done is really vet all that and make sure that we're getting the very purist peptides, and they're all injections. I feel sometimes like a human pin cushion. Yeah, but, but like another one, I don't know if you've done CJC-1295, ipamorelin. Yeah, it's a great one for bodybuilding and working out. Yeah, fast restoration.

Yeah, there's a, there's a combo a lot of people do of ipamorelin and tesamorelin, and in terms of, yeah, what it does for testosterone, you know, it's really great for testosterone in men.

Yep, absolutely.

Yeah, yeah. You know, one of the things I want to start off asking you today is, and, and when I heard this, I just, I was like, man, you know, I wanted to be able to up so badly, but you had a heart attack since last time I saw you.

Well, it was literally a year ago last Thursday. Wow. And so, I mean, I've always prided myself on being really fit, at least for the last 2 and a half decades. Yeah, you know, run numerous half marathons, uh, eat clean, pay a lot of attention to my nutrition and all of that. But I kept having this calcium build. I kept getting a calcium scan and the calcium numbers kept building. And it was really alarming. And so I went into my doctor. I've got a great doctor that has a cardiovascular certification, just my primary care guy, and then my cardiologist. And they said, yeah, that is alarming, but, you know, let's try to figure out what it is. And so it turns out that there's this subparticle of LDL called Lp. You're probably familiar with it. And about 20% of the population has a problem with this where it's, it's more than it needs to be.

Yeah.

But with medication, you only can reduce it about 30%. Well, I've been working with Dr. Mark Houston here in Nashville, and Mark was able to, to cut that calcium score by 30% in a year just using supplements.

Yeah.

So he would target that particular gene, try to turn it off. And so we made some really good progress, but it was pretty high calcium score. And so I was out for a walk one day and started to feel some vertigo. And just got really, really dizzy. And then I threw up a couple times, and I called my wife and I said, look, I know I'm only half a block from the house, but I don't think I can walk home. So she came and picked me up, took me to the house. And I don't know if you've ever had this conversation— this happens to a lot of men, I think— where I'm like, am I having a heart attack? Am I not having a heart attack? And so you're having this internal debate, you know, do I really need to go through the fuss of calling an ambulance? So my wife called my, uh, son-in-law who's an EMT, and, and he was like, what are you thinking? Absolutely call an ambulance and do Now they were a half a block from my house.

Wow.

So they came right then, wired me up. They said, yeah, you're definitely having some kind of cardiac something. So they took me to St. Thomas Hospital here in Nashville. And when I walked in, they said, um, the cardio surgeon came in and said, you know, let's just do an angiogram. He said, I'm sure you— I mean, look at you, you look great.

Yeah, it's great.

Yeah, you know, you're, you're one of the best, the most healthy people, you know, that we see in here typically.

Yeah.

So maybe, maybe you'll need a stent, but we'll do that while we're in there. Well, they came out of that and they said, uh, yeah, you're going to need a triple bypass. Well, it ended up being a quadruple bypass after they got in there. And so, um, that was something I wasn't expecting. And in fact, I went back and read my journal entry for that day when I had the heart attack a year ago. I had no clue. Yeah, I have a day planned, all the stuff I was looking forward to. And then that happened, which, as you know, I'm a big planner.

Yes, yes.

But it was just a good reminder to me that you can't plan for everything. Yeah, life's going to throw curves at you and you got to be able to, to deal with them.

I mean, what, what's your— how's your life changed since then? Like, like, were there any epiphanies or anything like, I need to do something differently after, after that?

Well, there, there weren't any epiphanies in terms of sort of the health protocols that I was following because I was already doing doing all the right things. Yeah, but I had to get into cardiac rehab, which I, I kind of didn't put a lot of value on it. I thought, you know, what are they going to teach me? I mean, I, I read health books. Yeah, exercise, all that stuff. I loved it. It was fabulous. And the best part about it was the social support. But I got to tell you about a mindset thing that, that was really interesting.

Yeah.

So you work out with this small group of people, all of whom have had some kind of cardiac event Then you go into a classroom and there's a nurse there that leads you through some aspect of recovery. She might be talking about nutrition, she might be talking about exercise, stress, all that kind of stuff. But the first time there's 8 of us in the room and she says, what does your heart attack mean to you? This is a very, very perceptive question because there's what happens to us and there's a meaning that we assign to it. And that's what I wrote about my newest book, Mind Your Mindset. So the guy right across from me, he said, "Well, I'll tell you what it means for me. My life is basically over. You know, I've reached my prime and now I'm on the downside and it's just kind of a slide from here to death." And I thought, "Wow." And I had had Dr. Seeds call me when I was in ICU and said, "Look, forget everything that's happened. It's all in the past. You can't do a thing in the world about it." You can't second-guess it. You can't make it different. It happened. But your future is bright and your outlook means everything. Your outlook on the future will have a physical impact on your body. And he said, you're— you haven't done your most important work yet. It's all in front of you.

Yeah.

Well, that was the mindset I had, thanks to him, in that same class. And I thought, wow, mindset makes all the difference. So I enjoyed that.

You know, we had a— and you, you made this introduction for me. So I had Greg McCown on the podcast here.

Oh, awesome.

And I had asked him something. I said, hey, what's one of the best pieces of advice you've ever received? And he said, you know, he mentioned something from Stephen Covey, and he said, you know, he said, your life should be a crescendo. Like, at the end, it's that, it's that thing, your best years are, uh, you know, at the end, and living your life in that way.

Well, and, uh, Dan Sullivan, who's my coach, says to me He says to everybody, he says, always make your future bigger than your past. And that's so important because I meet people all the time who have that attitude. I was doing a coaching gig with a guy that was 55 years old, and I said, well, tell me about your life. And he said, well, basically it's peaked. I thought, first of all, how would you know that? And B, what does that mean? You're just going to like coast through the rest of your life? And I think it's a very disempowering belief, but we have to, I think, make that future bigger than our, our past. In other words, it's not that we're just going to drift into and hope it's better. No, let's make it better. And that's really been kind of the foundation of all my work. How can we design a better life and create better outcomes for our lives?

Yeah, you know, I, I've used your planner, uh, quite, quite frequently, and I think that— thank you. Yeah. And so I think that this idea around planning for a bigger, more brighter future is something that I think a lot of people start to lose. But I think about some of the people I know that have lived the best lives. It was this sort of, as we talked about, this crescendo, this idea at, at the end. And you know, I think about like this is, well, what's the point of accumulating all this wisdom then? I mean, you would think somebody in their 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, later in their life would know, um, I know a lot more. Yeah. So therefore I'm gonna make smarter decisions and I'm able to, to do more.

Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, I think I, I feel like I'm at the best time of my life because I've got a life, a lot of life experience. I've raised 5 daughters, grown daughters. I have 10 grandkids, you know. I started and bought and sold businesses. And so yeah, I've learned some things, mostly through failure. Yeah, right. But, uh, hopefully that, you know, metastasizes into wisdom.

Yeah, yeah. It's so good. And I remember talking to you, this was, this was probably a couple years ago, and, um, you share— you, you shared with me that you were, you were talking to Tony Robbins some and, and learning learning some things there. What, uh, have you talked to him recently? What are some things you learned from Tony?

Well, I've learned a ton from Tony, and he's endorsed, I think, almost every book that I've written, including the most recent one, the Mindset book, which was huge because Tony was the first person that I really learned this whole idea that there's what happens to you and there's the interpretation that you impose upon it. Those are two different things.

Yeah.

And I think people get those easily confused. They think that their story of what happened is what happened. And, and usually there's some distortion involved, you know. And so we have to go back and interrogate that story and say, you know, is this— is the story that I told myself about what's happened, is it actually serving me or not serving me?

Yeah.

You know, so, so yeah, I think that's one of the big things I learned from Tony. Another thing that I included in my, my book, Your Best Year Ever, is this whole idea of limiting beliefs.

Yes.

You know, I got that initial idea from him, and then we did a deep dive into that, me and my content team, in terms of, you know, how we get those limiting beliefs and, and the impact. Because those— that's really what holds us back.

That's right.

In terms of performance, it's what's between our ears that's far more consequential than anything that goes on in the external world. And just to give you a story of that, back in the Great Recession, uh, I was the CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers at that time. And we were owned at that time. We'd been a publicly held company when I became the CEO, and then we sold it to private equity. You and I were talking about, yeah, you know, the fun of that kind of experience. But, uh, so, you know, we were struggling because of the economy, and I had an executive coach that would come in once a month and meet with me for a full day. And so she came in in July of 2009, and she said, how does next month look? And I said, man, I think we're going to nail it. You know, I feel really good about our progress, and really feel on top of it. Well, so fast forward 30 days, she comes back, she says, man, how did it turn out? And I said, not great. She said, what? And I said, well, we lost a little money and our revenues were down by about 20% off budget. She said, I was— you were so confident when I was here last month. What happened? And I said, well, I said, first of all, we're in a recession. And by this time we knew we're in a recession, consumer confidence is way down, foot store or foot traffic at retail is off. In addition to that, the whole digital thing is creating all this uncertainty because of Kindle and, you know, ebooks and all that. In addition to that, we haven't quite figured out social media yet, and traditional media is not working like it used to. And so I felt, okay, I was pretty justified in missing my numbers. She says to me, she says, "Well, I get all that." But she said, "Why do you think you missed?" I said, "Well, I just got done explaining to you." She said, "Well, let me ask it this way. What was it about your leadership that led to this result?" Well, that ticked me off because I thought my leadership has nothing to do with this.

Yeah.

You know, I just told you it's all this external stuff. And she said, "Well, let me ask you the question in a different way. If you could go back 30 days, And if you could lead in a different way, what would you change? And I said, wow, well, I said, I first would have gotten really clear with the sales team exactly what the objective was, and I would have made sure that it was broken down by department, by individual salesperson, so everybody knew what their assignment was. Okay, what else? I said, I think I would have gone on that call, that sales call to Walmart, because I think just my presence would have enhanced the purchase, you know, how much they bought. What else? So I gave about like 3 to 5 things. She— so she just kind of smiles a little bit and she says, so you're telling me it was about your leadership? And I thought the entire time the problem was out there. Wow. But once I realized that the problem was in here, two things happened. I mean, it was kind of bad news because it was my leadership. The good news was I had the power to change that.

Yeah.

'Cause I couldn't change the economy. I couldn't change the trajectory of publishing. I couldn't change the trajectory of social media. You know, I could have mild influence on those things, but I could totally change my thinking and how I led. And that was like the most empowering conversation, leadership conversation, I think I've ever had.

I mean, it's such an important quality of a leader to sort of have this level of both humility and hunger to grow. Because if not, you're sort of pointing to things outside of yourself. And so, you know, I think that, um, yeah, I, you know, I've read so many, you know, The Vision-Driven Leader, that was a book that you obviously wrote, and, and, and I know put some great things down in there in terms of, hey, what does it mean to sort of cast a vision and lead people towards that vision? But when you, when you think about sort of that lesson in leadership, what's your advice to other people? Because right now, you know, I started a, a new platform called Leaders.com, and one of the things I'm trying to do is go from the health space more to the personal growth and leadership space and say, hey, This is an area I see of need because I think as we went through COVID, I started seeing this, um, just what I felt like was really poor leadership of a lot of companies and the CEOs just caving to whatever the culture told them to do. And so what are your thoughts on leadership in terms of how to lead when the culture is telling you to just fold and follow what the culture is, is telling you to do?

Yeah, well, I think that's where, uh, planning can be enormously helpful. Designing the future that you want and never give that up. And people say all the time, well, you know, there's so much uncertainty because of the economy right now as we're sitting together recording, right? A lot of uncertainty in the economy. We've got a big presidential election coming up next year. There's already uncertainty building around that. So as a leader, you have to really create the certainty and you can do it a lot of different ways. You can create it with your attitude, how you show up in meetings. You know, are you calm and confident? I think are the two most important attributes you need to bring to your team, that calm, confident presence. Um, do— are you, uh, courageous in terms of what you're going to try to achieve? And one of the things I learned from writing my book on goal achievement, Your Best Year Ever, is that if we have risky goals, we're far more likely to accomplish them than if we have these realistic goals. So realism is overrated.

Wow.

And so they got to be risky. Now, they can't be delusional.

Yeah.

But we got to dial them up past, you know, the comfort zone. So we're in the discomfort zone. And are we doing that with our team? Are we helping them to, to dream and to think about accomplishing something that's truly significant, that makes its mark on the world? And so I think that's where we're— regardless of the environment, I don't care where you live in the world, I don't care what you're up against, your thinking is the single most important asset that you bring to anything. And if that's dialed in, if you give attention to that, just like you would any other kind of hygiene, that you would think of your thinking as something that, that you really need to be careful to cultivate and have the right thoughts and be able to, uh, lead out of that. Because your thinking impacts your actions, the actions you take, and your actions are what create the results. So if you want different results, you got to change your thinking.

Yeah. How does somebody start to recognize, okay, this thinking is not serving me?

Well, I talked about this. I wrote this last book, Mind Your Mindset, with my oldest daughter Megan. Yeah. And one of the things we talk about in there is that you've got to learn to recognize the voice. We call it the narrator, but that's the voice in your head that's constantly commenting on everything. You know, like, it's the voice that's saying to me right now, how am I doing in this interview? Or where's Josh going to go next? And it's kind of trying to predict that. And the voice of the narrator is designed to do one thing, and it's to keep you safe. So it always takes the most risk-adverse approach in anything. And so to recognize that that voice is going and that it's a narration and that it only approximates the truth, because again, there's what happens and then there's the meaning that the narrator is going to try to assign to that. You know, I'm walking through the hallway at work and somebody doesn't look me in the eye. They just kind of walk back by me. They don't greet me. And so I create this story and I think, well, they're angry with me, or am I about to get fired, or what's going on here? Well, it could be that they're just lost in their thought because they just got a phone call from their kid's school and something's happened, you know?

Yeah.

So it's again, there's these narratives. So we've got to learn to recognize that narrative. But this is where we can also reprogram it. We can say, you know what, I don't like what the narrator's telling me. I want to come up with a more empowering story. So imagine a different story and then be deliberate in rewiring your brain. So like one of the things I do, I do this every morning, but I listen to, I have this app called ThinkUp and it allows you to record affirmations in your own voice. And I always recommend record the affirmations of a better, bigger future, but write them in the present tense as though you're experiencing them right now. And you record these in your own voice. And I just, for 10 minutes, different categories— I have a different category for every day. And so I listen to that for 10 minutes while I'm meditating, and it's just a way of me intentionally rewiring my thinking so that I can have better thoughts to deliver different actions to produce better results.

Wow, I love that. I'm going to have to check out that app and do that.

It's really cool.

That's awesome. As you've been working with people, I know you've worked with a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of business owners, CEOs. What are probably some of the most common false narratives that continually run through a lot of people's brains?

I think the most common one I meet with, and I've had a lot of coaching clients in tears tell me this, men and women, but they just don't think they have what it takes. Mm-hmm. It's that self-doubt. And they think they're the only one. They think, well, I see all these other leaders and they're all confident. You know, none of them are having these same thoughts and they feel very alone because of that. And it's very isolating to have that thought. And one of the things that I try to do in those conversations is to normalize it and say, look, what you're experiencing right now, those thoughts you're experiencing, are— it approximates 100% of the people I deal with.

Yes. Yeah. You know.

Yeah. And I've been given keynotes before where I've asked a room full of CEOs, how many of you had self-doubt? You know, it may not be in the middle of the day, but late at night you're laying awake and you're thinking to yourself, I don't know if I've got what it takes. Well, I mean, every hand goes up, you know, and maybe it's a few just initially, and then everybody goes, okay, it's me too. So that's pretty common.

You know, I want to— first of all, I think you hit the nail right on the head. When I, I was having a conversation with, um, I think it was Erwin McManus, he was here. Uh, well, I was— yeah, so good, so good. And one of the things we were talking about was, um, As I, I know you had a mastermind group, I have a mastermind group, and as I've coached doctors and people over the years, the biggest thing I noticed between somebody's business is blowing up and taking off and not is their level of self-doubt. And it's not that every single one of them, even the people that are incredibly talented, like we had one woman who, you know, was doing $300,000 and now she's doing $3 million a month, and another person, very similar business, but it was like they decided even though they had self-doubt, to try and just, you know, do everything they can to push through that and not lie to themselves, but say, here's why I'm capable. Here are my talents and gifts. Here's what— and when we read about whether it's Elon Musk or Steve Jobs or whatever, every single one of them had self-doubt. Every single one.

Absolutely. And it's not a one and done thing. It's not like I'm going to, you know, slay this dragon. I'm done with self-doubt and I'm just going to be this confident, ebullient person that shows up in every conversation. No, this takes a lot of work. It takes— it's like, again, hygiene. It takes ongoing work because every time we experience a setback, work. You know, everything— every time the world throws us a curveball, even with my heart attack a year ago, I'm just like, you know, what does this mean? You know, am I about done? Does this mean, you know, did I miss something here? I mean, there's all kinds of doubts that going on in your mind. And so I think it takes work, a lot of self-work, to not suffer from that doubt.

Yeah.

And to continue to move forward.

Yeah, it's so good. You know, I was, uh, I was thinking this week, I was going through and kind of looking at our social platforms and being able to grow those, and I knew you were coming on, and this thought came into my head. I thought, you know, Michael was the first person to really teach me how to build my platform. You came out with— I think this is one of your first products or things. It was, yeah, was, and it was called Platform. It was. And I remember reading that and going through and say, okay, and for me at the time it was Facebook and YouTube. Okay, those are the two platforms that were around and my website. And so I started really focusing on building that platform, but it helped me so much. One of the things I'd love to hear from you is now, now we see a lot of, a lot of people who First off, there are so many influencers now who are teaching each other how to build, build platforms. I know we got a mutual friend, Amy Porterfield. She teaches, Julie Solomon. There's people like Alex Hormozi. There's a lot of people teaching people how to grow and build their platform. What are a few of the principles that you taught back years ago and how to build a platform that still hold true today?

Yeah, I think a lot of people think it's about marketing, it's about positioning, and those are all important. But I really think it begins with the product. In fact, I used to tell my team, when I was the CEO of Thomas Nelson, I used— I created some buttons that everybody wore for a while that said, "It's the product, stupid." And I, I really think it is. And the first part of that book, Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World, the first part of that book is devoted to how do you create wow experiences.

Yeah.

Now think about this: in almost every encounter, whether we go to a restaurant— we were talking about one, uh, before we started recording— whether you go to a restaurant or you go to a concert or whatever, you come in with a set of expectations. Right? And so if the expectations— if that experience is less than your expectation, you experience disappointment. That's right. If the experience is about what you expected, you experience satisfaction. And unfortunately for a lot of American businesses, customer satisfaction is the limit of their vision. That's all they care about. But there's another level. When the experience exceeds your expectations, that's wow. And so wow is one of those things that can be engineered, but you've got to reverse engineer it. So one of the things I recommend in the book, and this goes to creating the products and even your postings and all that stuff on social media, is let's just deconstruct what people expect. And I've got this example in the, in the book where we had a lobby at Thomas Nelson publishers, like most businesses do. And people come into the lobby and, you know, there's some nice enough chairs and there's some magazines that are way out of date. This happens at doctors' offices all the time, right? And so, you know, and maybe the receptionist doesn't really— they never greet you by name and it's still a little bit impersonal and you're just, you know, then you go sit and wait for the doctor to call you. But I said, what if we could re-engineer that to sort of pre-frame the experience they were going to have with us? Because that's the first impression. So the very first thing I did was I went to the receptionist, who was a little bit of a sergeant at arms, you know. She saw it as her job to kind of buffer everybody else and the company from the undesirables that might be coming through our doors. So I said, you, from this point forward, you're no longer the receptionist. You are the director of first impressions. That's your title, your official title. You're the director of first impressions. That's your responsibility. We completely redid the lobby, redid the whole building, but we redid the lobby. We said, how could we have, you know, really comfortable chairs? How could we have current magazines? How could we have a stack of our books, you know, of our most recent bestsellers, and invite people just to take one, take one for free? How could the receptionist ask them, you know, would you like coffee? Would you like some water? And really welcome them. And, and could the receptionist— would be possible for her to be briefed on who was going to come so that when they did come, she could greet them by name and welcome them like we've been expecting them. Now, by the way, Will Godera wrote the book Unreasonable Hospitality. Yeah, which talks about this whole thing. And I just, just read that about a month ago, but it's a, it's a very similar concept. So I don't think there's any substitute in building an online platform for just figuring out how am I going to wow people. And you mentioned Amy Porterfield, and she's a dear friend of mine, and And she does that with all of her products. Yeah. I can remember the first time that I, when I bought Digital Course Academy, which she's promoting right now.

Yeah.

Yeah. I bought Digital Course Academy because I wanted to learn how to build better courses. And I went in there, first of all, I was blown away by the quality of her course, which inspired me to build better courses myself. And we've always had that, that kind of attitude, even our planner you were talking about. Yeah. We go to the added expense.

So good.

To have those books. Sewn, you know, the binding sewn, not glued. And that might be invisible to the user, but it creates a totally different experience. Yeah, backs don't break, pages don't fall out, that kind of thing.

I've given that to so many people. I bought— thank you— at one point. It's good. I mean, it's just— we have a, uh, actually I have a men's leadership group that you inspired me to do, and I think you maybe remember we talked about that. Yeah. And you know what, to me that was one of the most It was— it is still, because I'm still doing it, and was one of the most fulfilling experiences I've ever taken part in. Wow. And I actually think it's the thing that's caused me to grow the most as a person. Like, now I've attended, uh, mastermind groups and had coaches and like all those things, but I think leading and being part of a growth group has been so transformational. And it wasn't just being part of the group, it was doing it the way that you taught me how to do it. And some of this you may not realize because, I mean, you know, usually once a year, you know, I say, hey Mike, hey, can we get together and can you know, I ask you some questions. And so, but I remember going and meeting with you, and so one of the first things we did is I had everybody sign a contract saying you will show up on time and not miss. And then they have to go home with their spouse and say, hey, I'm agreeing to be there on time and not miss this. And so that was one thing, is that everybody, you know, everybody's committed from the beginning. And then one of the things you taught me was, hey, take a, you know, read one book But don't just read the book, create a net out. Yeah. And so I'd have everybody create a 2+ page net out and highlighting what they learned. And then what I did after that is I encouraged that— well, and then we meet in the group and we typically have an exercise that's sort of tied to the group to where we read the book, we all share here, what are our biggest takeaways? And I'm always taking notes cuz we got some, you know, we got a couple CEOs in the group and just massive influencers and some really great— there's 8 of us. You told me to, hey, you have about 8 meet the 10 people. And so we go through and share, here's our biggest takeaways. And I'm always taking notes because, yeah, these guys, it's different things than I would typically write down. And then we go through some sort of exercise. So if we read a book like Tim Keller's Meaning of Marriage, you know, we would go and write a list like the top 10 things we love about our spouse and bring them on a date night and create a sort of— excellent. And, um, and then what I would do is, if they have teams especially, I would say, I want you then to take what you learned and create some slides or not, but present to your team.

You know, that makes the difference right there.

Yeah. And then when they would teach on it themselves, they're like, whoa, I— they, you know, really knew it. So, so that's the process of our group. And, and also, you know, we'll get together for dinner afterwards. Typically we meet typically 2 to 5, one day a month. But it has been the most transformational thing that I've ever gone through. Like, I've grown more from that than anything else I've ever done.

Well, It was the same thing for me. You know, I felt like, you know, if they only knew, I'm the biggest beneficiary of this whole thing. Yes. And so now I do, um, high-end coaching with just a handful of entrepreneurs and, and CEOs. I have about 8 clients. But one of the things with them is I'll be sitting in a coaching class, and they pay me a ton of money to do this, but I'm sitting in a thing and I'm thinking, I can't believe what I'm getting out of this. You know, I— if they only knew you know, I should be paying them for this. Yeah, because I'm getting so much out of it.

Yeah, one of the cool things too that I do in the group is I say, hey, at some point in your life you have to go and start a growth group yourself. Yeah, and, and I want to say half of them at least have already gone on, and even though they're part of this group, they actually are leading another group outside of this group. And so it's been really, really— so anyways, thank you.

Yeah, you're welcome. Well, I mean, the truth is I learned this all from Reggie Campbell. And, and so I'm not the originator of this, just, you know, to be fair. What was the name of his book? Mentor Like Jesus.

Mentor Like Jesus.

Yeah. I mean, that was a phenomenal book and I basically just did exactly what he said.

Yeah.

And then, you know, I made a few adjustments along the way because I did it for like 3 or 4 years and then I sort of converted that into paid coaching.

Yeah.

So, but it was a great precursor to that. And Gail and I just started last week. Leading a small group in our home from church.

Wow.

And I haven't done that for years. You know, I've taught Bible classes and all that, but it's the first time we've done a small group and I was blown away by it. I thought, I cannot believe we haven't had this in our life for all these years because it's so valuable.

That's so good. Where do you guys go to church?

We go to St. Ignatius Orthodox Church.

Yeah, I thought you were Orthodox.

Yeah, I'm Eastern Orthodox.

You know what? I've spent a lot of time the past couple years reading up on church history. Oh, really? Yeah, I've probably read 7 books this past year. In fact, I had Patrick Lencioni, He was on here. And so we started, actually interviewed for an hour, and then after we talked probably for an hour about church history and all the saints and things like that. But, you know, it's, you know, I think that I grew up Protestant. We went to a Baptist church and then a Methodist church and a non-denominational church growing up. I think one of the things that I think I've become more aware of recently is how there's some deeper things here in terms of, you know, you know, how humanism influenced the church and other things. But generally how one of the— and by the way, I still, you know, firmly believe most of sort of my Protestant doctrines. But I do see one of the issues is, is the sort of Catholicism and Orthodox to a degree, it's very, it's very traditional. And there have been things that have been passed down for a long time, but there's a greater level of order and hierarchy in terms of the way that it functions. And one of the things I see now happening in the Protestant church is it's, well, now there's not only Baptist, but then there's Southern Baptist, and then there's, or there's Methodist, but now there's this. So there's like 17 different Methodist churches. So I see this church sort of fracturing, and now there's very little accountability. Right? Like, tell me if you see this too, because I kind of look at it like anybody can just start a church and say, hey, it's a Christian church, but they literally most of the time will have zero accountability in their lives. And, you know, especially for a 20-some-year-old sometimes starting a church, that doesn't seem like that good of an idea.

Well, I have a lot of thoughts on this, and I won't get too far into it because it'd take us down a rabbit trail. But I, I think I had a Protestant friend of mine who said excommunication in the Protestant church basically means you get taken off the newsletter list, and there's no real, no real teeth in And we had a rogue priest in North America, and the Assembly of Bishops just came out and said, nope, he's playing out of bounds. Don't— he can't preach in your churches. He can't serve in your churches. But there was that kind of hierarchy, which, you know, he just couldn't move down the street and start another church.

Yeah.

At least not an Orthodox Church.

Yeah.

And so I think that kind of accountability is something that's sorely lacking in American Christendom right now.

Yeah. And I think there's a balance to it, right? I think obviously when Martin Luther sort of, you know, had his 95 Theses and sort of broke off and did some of the things he did, I think he had some really, really valid points. Sure. But, but I also think that there's this level of like, we just kind of at this point have thrown the baby out. It's kind of like, well, any hierarchy in any order is bad. We just want freedom to do whatever we want any time. And so then it's, well, it's chaos, right? Yeah.

Well, and I think, and I think for me, it gives me great psychological comfort, intellectual comfort too, that I'm in a tradition that has been around since the apostles. Yeah. And so we don't feel the need to make it up as we go.

Yeah.

All the time. We've got this bedrock. It's kind of like being in a family where you have, you know, two parents and grandparents and maybe great-grandparents. And there's some history there. You know, there's a, there's a family context that is really helpful and helpful for the kids. And I feel that same way about church.

Yeah, you know, I was thinking about this as I was reading or listening to this audiobook today, is that, you know, Jim Collins in his book Good to Great talks about you've got to maintain your core values. Like, those can't change.

That's right.

But the way you get them out to people and sort of help lead people to this truth, that can change, right? Some of those things. And so I thought about that with the church too, is, is that But that's one of the, you know, that's the important thing is that, hey, you know, we keep the truth of what Christ did for us on the cross like that. That doesn't change, right? In a lot of what the apostles and what the Bible teaches. But sometimes the way that we may be, hey, you have the music, it's different, right? So there are certain things that can be different. But anyways, you know, it's that sort of fracturing of what the truth is, of course, that become so, so, so damaging because it's like, well, what do Christians believe? Right, right. And how many different answers will you get? And I think for the most part, it still aligns when you look at Orthodox and most Christian churches and Catholic churches. But obviously, I think there are some, you know, well, it's like a Venn diagram.

There's, there is a lot of overlap, but there are some distinctives as well. But yeah, you know, to cut it to your point of certainty, you'd ask me what I learned from Tony. One of the things that Tony Robbins talks about is the 6 human needs. Human Needs Psychology. And he says all of us have a need for two things that feel really counterintuitive. One is certainty, but we also have a need for uncertainty or variety. And so both of those things have to be present for us to be healthy. There's got to be that, that stabilizing rock-solid foundation that doesn't change, but there also has to be some variety to keep things interesting.

Yeah.

And I, I thought, you know, that's That's really good. And I, you know, find that in orthodoxy. And yeah, maybe you find it in your church, but yeah, I got to have both those things.

Yeah, I think, you know, Jordan Peterson covers the same thing. He basically says it's chaos and order. And he said you want to be standing where you're growing, you're learning, things are— but still standing on that, these core principles that are everlasting and true. And so it's, you know, yeah.

Have you heard what he says about orthodoxy?

Well, first off, I love Jonathan Pageau. And so he's an Orthodox. And so I've heard a lot of their conversation. Okay, good. But share what would he say?

Well, he just— I know I just saw some Facebook posts that he was in Greece at a place called Mount Athos. Yeah, it's a peninsula that I've been to. I spent 3 weeks there and it has about 21 monasteries, many of them.

I was literally reading about it this day. Yeah. So and it's called the— you know, so it's right off of Greece, right?

Yeah, it's part of Greece, but it's its own independent republic. But it's called Mount Athos.

That's right.

Or sometimes called the Holy Mountain.

The Holy Mountain, right.

21 monasteries there. And when I went there, I felt like I just stepped onto the set of Lord of the Rings. You know, you just feel like you're in a place that's completely out of time, where everything feels really alien but in a good way. You know, they just live a different kind of, kind of life there. And I had some amazing, amazing experiences there.

Wow. Well, I know his wife is Catholic and his daughter's, you know, Protestant, and he's Nobody knows. I know exactly what Jordan— you know, it's keeping us guessing. Yes. But I've, you know, he's probably the person for me that I've learned the most from for the past 2 years. I've consumed so much of his content. And I think he's helped me see, you know, one of the things that I know that the Jews used to have this reference is that sort of like the Bible is like a diamond, like every kind of different angle you look at it, there's a new sort of truth there. But he'll teach this. He says, you know, the Bible is not only true, but the Bible is meta-true. It's the truth of which all other truth is based off of. So he's like, even the writings of Shakespeare, something like that, those moral principles, those are taken from sort of this biblical truth. And so it's been really interesting to learn from, you know, sort of the psychology of things from him. And yeah, it's been enlightening. They did this series at Daily Wire called the Exodus Series.

Yeah, I haven't heard it, but I've seen it.

It is one of the best Bible studies I've ever seen. They bring in these experts from theologians from Oxford and Cambridge, and Jonathan Pageau's there. Uh, they got Dennis Prager. Anyways, it's really, it's really fascinating. I think you'd like it.

I subscribe to The Daily Wire. I need to go back and listen, uh, to that.

So yeah, it's good. It's so good. Um, so one of the things I also learned from you is how to be more productive, you know, and so, and how to use our time wisely. And I want to kind of go back to— I know, again, we, we start off talking about you, you had a heart attack. What are some things like, do you see time any differently now and how you use your time? And also, what is your best advice for people who want to make the most of their lives and become sort of these samurai in terms of time management?

Yeah, I— there's so many things I, I could say here. You know, when I had my heart attack, I took 3 months of medical leave. Probably didn't need that much, but I did. And so I was able to step away from my business, let the team run it for 3 months, didn't change anything. The trajectory stayed the same. We continued to grow all of that. But I had a lot of time to rest and reflect and journal and read. And that was enormously helpful. And I think the problem is that we overprogram our calendars and we're so busy trying to just fulfill the needs of our cameras and squeeze in every possible thing that there's not the time for reflection that we need. There's not the time, you know, to experience life because it often happens in those interstitial moments between appointments or between big events. And I think the thing I've learned is to be more intentional about having those moments, having those spaces in my life. And I've been on this journey really since 2002. So, and I don't know if I've told you this story, but Uh, when I first came to Thomas Nelson, they gave me responsibility for one of the divisions of Thomas Nelson, which happened to be the worst performing division out of 14. So we were 14 of 14 in terms of revenue growth. We were going backwards. We were shrinking profitability. We'd lost money. Staff morale was terrible and all that. So the CEO asked me to take charge of that. He said, how long is it going to take you to turn it around? I didn't have a clue. But a guest. And I said, I think it'll take us 3 years. And he said to me, he said, well, that's kind of what I was thinking, so go make it happen. So I went back to the team. They were pretty demoralized. I said, look, I got kind of a vision for what I think we could do. This became the genesis of The Vision-Driven Leader. But I've written down these 10 things that I want us to be attributes of this new division and build toward it. Well, they got super pumped. They added to it. We all owned it collectively. We rolled up our sleeves. But Josh, we were working nights, weekends. I wasn't taking care of myself, but we turned it around. We went from number 14 to number 1 in 18 months.

So a year and a half.

Wow. Half the time I'd, I'd told the, the CEO it would take. And so I got pretty excited and I got, uh, the biggest bonus check I'd ever gotten in my life. It was more than my annual salary. So I come from the office back home. I know Gail's gonna just be over the moon with this. Gail's my wife. We've been married for 45 years now. So she was— so I thought she'd be super excited. So I bounced through the back door and I unfurled the check and I said, look at this! And she was not her usual enthusiastic self. She said, yeah, that's great. She said, we need to talk. And I went, uh-oh. So she took me into the den and she sat down and she began to kind of tear up. And she said, she said, first of all, you know, I love you and I appreciate everything you've done for our family. But she said, I've got to be honest with you. She said, you're never home. And even when you are, you're not really here. Yeah, you're somewhere else. And she said, your 5 daughters need you now more than ever because they were all like in high school. And then she started to cry and she said, "Honestly, I feel like a single mom." Well, that blew me because that was not what I was going for. Yeah. And I mean, I felt like I was facing this impossible choice. I could either win at work or I could succeed at life, but I couldn't do both. And on the one hand, you know, I'd led this team to become number one in our division. They wanted to continue because they like getting the bonus payouts, too. But on the other hand, here's my family with all their needs. And I felt like, again, it was this impossible choice. And so that began a quest for me of wondering, is there a third alternative? Is there a model of success for which you don't have to sacrifice your personal health or your most important relationships on the altar of your ambition? And so I hired an executive coach, and this is all circling back to your question about productivity. And one of the first things he said to me is he said, well, tell me about your week. And I was telling him about working 70, 80 hours a week and all that. And he said, he said, more than anything else, and this is the biggest lesson I've ever learned in productivity, he said, would you be willing to put boundaries around your work? Because what I see is not a river that's going anywhere, but I just see a swamp, and you're in it all the time. And he said, are you willing to put boundaries on your day? And I said yes. And he said, well, what does that mean for you? He said, is there a time at which you're willing to quit work? And at that time, and I thought this was a heroic thing, I said, um, I'll, I'll quit by 6 PM. Now you have to understand, I would go home, eat dinner, get right back on my laptop.

Yeah, yeah.

Keep working till 9 or 10, sometimes 11. So I committed to, to stopping at 6. He said, are you willing to not work weekends? I took a deep breath and I said, yes. And I had this accountability. Are you willing to not work on vacations? And I was the guy that would get up a couple hours early before the family, process email, make a few phone calls, and I was always working on my vacations. So I said, yes, I'm not willing to work. I'm willing to not work on my vacations. And he said, great. He said, then I'm sure you won't mind if I call Gail occasionally to check in on you and see how you're doing. Josh, that's when it became real. And he did that. So he would call Gail periodically and he'd just say, you know, how's Michael doing? You know, he said he was going to do this. Well, that created space for the rest of my life so that I could pursue hobbies, I could have relationships that were non-work relationships, I could attend to my health. All that was awesome. But here's the thing I didn't realize: that created even greater productivity at work. Because work expands to the time allotted for it.

Parkinson's Law.

Yeah. But if you put constraints on your work, even if they're arbitrary or random, you will become more productive because you'll be forced to prioritize.

Yeah.

Because not all tasks are created equal, and it's easy to, to go to sort of those, those downhill tasks, you know, those, um, easy tasks that make you feel busy but you're not actually accomplishing much. And so prior to this experience, if, you know, if it was the middle of the afternoon and I got involved in a conversation, I'm like, yeah, don't worry about it. I can, I can still work tonight. I can get it done tonight after I get home. But once you take that option away, it's like, whoa, I need to get back at it. Yeah. Because I've only got till a little before 6. I committed to my coach and to my wife that I would be home at 6. So I got to get on it. Yeah.. And so it keeps you much more focused, much more attentive and much more energized. And it gives you a life. Yeah. And so I call that the double win, you know, win at work and succeed at life. And the double win is really what I'm about and what our company's about is helping people get that.

That's so powerful. Yeah. I think it's that, that, that idea of, hey, if you only, yeah, if, if you only have this many hours of work, work, work a week, what do you do? You know? And then it, it forces you to prioritize. I love that. You know, you mentioned that accountability and again, that's one of the points I was trying to make earlier. You earlier too. If you have a good leader overseeing you and they're holding you accountable for certain things, we should be so grateful for that because it does cause you to grow. It helps you stay in your lane. It's—

yeah, there's an important thing on accountability though that I think, and I don't— this is an original, I don't know where I came up with it, but I think, I think it's true. And that is, I can't hold anybody accountable, but I can help them hold themselves accountable. And that's what my coach did for me. He said, what do you really want? Yeah. And what are you really willing to do? And are you willing— and this is, to me, this is the essence of integrity. Can I keep my word? Can I do what I say I'm going to do? And it begins with myself. Can I keep the commitments that I make to myself? That's the basis of all integrity. If I can't keep those commitments that I make to myself, and, you know, all of us struggle with that, how can I keep my commitments that I've made to other people. Because if I want to have integrity, not only my own life but in my— all my relationships, in my business, it all comes down to can we keep our word. And so I think that's what accountability is, and that's what I, I try to teach my clients to do, is to say, look, what are you committing to? Are you willing to hold yourself accountable to that? You know, and I'll remind you, but I can't hold you accountable. You're not doing this for me, you're doing this for you. You said you want this. Now, are you willing to hold yourself accountable to that? Hmm. Little distinction, but I think it's important.

Yeah, it's so good. So good. You know, you and I both, I think over the past couple years, it was interesting. I'm writing a book on mindset that comes out. It's called Think This, Not That, comes out in April. Love it. I know you wrote a book, Mind Your Mindset. And so I think there's this idea about, I think people are starting to recognize, and I think part of it's due to the mental health crisis today of how many people are suffering with depression and anxiety and feel uncertainty and sadness and loneliness. I mean, this is, you know, obviously I think COVID exacerbated it, but I think even before that, uh, we see the, those numbers start rising. Talk to me a little bit about mindset and question related to this. What is your biggest mindset shift you've had in the past, call it 5 years?

Um, lemme come back to that. I'll give myself a time.

It's a, go ahead.

Think of that. But what was the first part of the question?

Well, I'd love for you to just talk about mindset, you know? Yeah. What sort of, what, what's your definition there and how, how does it impact us?

Well, I do think it's how we think about the world. You know, how we perceive. And I think that to realize that we're always taking in information from the world, and our brain is a meaning-making machine. So there's that narrator I talked about earlier, right, that's, uh, sitting in the stands just like at a football game and commenting on what happened, you know, running commentary, you know. And sometimes it feels like there's a committee in there, you know. They're all talking about what's going on in my, you know, my life. But they're sometimes right. Again, always had the best of intentions. My narrator's always trying to protect me, but I don't have to believe what the narrator says. I have a sign in my kitchen that says, "Don't believe everything you think." And it's a hugely powerful lesson. Don't believe everything you think, because it's our thoughts that can empower us to go further than we ever thought possible. But it's also our thoughts that can hold us back. That's right. And keep us stuck. So if you think about how anything is created in the world, it begins with thinking, then it begins, then it goes from there to our words, and then it goes from there to our actions. So our words, what we say we're gonna do, is how we begin the creative process. And if you look back all the way to Genesis, how did God create the world? He spoke it into existence.

Mm-hmm.

And so there's this enormously creative power in our words. But what sometimes we don't realize is that there are words— that's how our experience is being shaped, is by the words we choose to describe it. And a lot of times, for example, well, we might use really catastrophic language. Yeah. You know, like we might say to ourselves and say to somebody else, say, well, how was your day? And this happened to me just recently where I said to Gail, she asked me, how was my day? And we do this typically as we're going to sleep, and we try to catalog our wins because it's so easy to notice the negative that if we don't focus on the positive intentionally, we get swept into the negative too. So she said, "How was your day?" And I said, "It was horrible." And she said, "Really?" She said, "Tell me what happened." So I explained what happened, and she listened patiently, and she said, "Well, it sounds like to me that you had a kind of a bad 20 minutes." But the rest of the day was pretty great. And I laughed out loud. I thought, that's exactly right. So I was using this catastrophic language that was shaping the way I perceived that experience. And so we've been very intentional even in our marriage, you know, to try to downplay with our language and with our thinking the drama and focus on the positive because I have a choice. You know, I could, I could. Could be things that Gail does that annoy me, theoretically. There are definitely things I do to annoy her. And so she could focus on those things, make a mountain out of a molehill. And before long, you get to the place where I'm not sure I can live with this person anymore. Where if I focus on her and say, you know, she is the most generous, kind, giving person I know. Yeah. And remind myself of that periodically, that shapes my perception. Those are thoughts. And we can choose our thinking. We can choose our thinking about other people. We can choose our thinking about ourselves. We can choose our thinking about what's happening in the world. You know, one big lesson on this, I don't cite this in the book. Have you read the book Factfulness? No. It's— I can't remember who the author is. I think the author is Swedish. It's huge. I've read it twice. But the idea is that if you just listen to the news, you think things are getting worse. And worse and worse. And what he proves is, based on demographic information, psychographic information, all the research, no, things are actually getting better. And it doesn't matter where you, where you look. You look at, um, you know, supplies of food around the world, you know, you think, oh, all these people are starving. No, more people are being fed today, uh, fewer hungry people than ever before in history, more water available to people, clean water available to than ever before in human history. Um, child trafficking, less than it's ever been in history. You know, all this stuff, but he just proves it to you. But that's thinking, and you've got to choose how you're going to think. And if all you do is watch the news, you're going to have a very distorted view of the world.

Yeah.

Wow. This could, by the way, it's going to impact your personal performance. You know, if you think about it, if you— if we were walking through the jungle somewhere in tiger jumped out, that would have a physiological impact on our body. Yeah. Stress levels, all of that.

That's right.

And yet we willingly subject ourselves to those kinds of things where we get ourselves in a position where we have this almost involuntary stress response to something we can't control. That's kind of made up anyway. And that, oh, by the way, like the news, it's always hyped because they know that if they can keep the fear on the topic you can't turn away.

Yeah, that's right. What's the biggest mindset change you've had over the past little bit? Like, is that something where you're like, you know what, I thought it was this, but now I'm pretty certain now it's—

I'm not sure I can answer that question. I think I feel like almost most of the big shifts that I've had, I've almost stumbled into. Yeah, like, like one of the things You know, I, I used to think that, that if I was going to have deeper relationships with my kids— and all 5 of my daughters live here in Nashville where we're recording this, and all 10 of my grandchildren live within 5 minutes of me, so, uh, the family's all the way around— so I, so I was very intentional about— I would continue to have dates with my daughters. I would take— I take them out even to this day on a rotating basis, one a week. And then just cycle through them every 5 weeks or so. You know, sometimes different because of vacation. But I thought it was all about sort of those structured times. Um, and I, I realized that it— that the relationships are really built in the unstructured time. So for example, we bought a lake house in 2020, and I, I don't know why I hadn't done that 25 years ago, probably because I couldn't afford it. But we bought this lake house at Timms Ford.

You know where that— yeah, yeah, we've been there.

Love And so that's been the single biggest, best investment my family ever. Wow. And it's because, like, lots of us show up on the weekends and we have these long, unstructured conversations where we get past what you would talk about over lunch. Like, if you have an hour over lunch, you'll have a conversation and it will be partially transactional, but you're probably not going to get into the to the deep transformational stuff. Yeah, but the lake, totally different. And a lot of times those conversations happen when we're doing something else. This is one of the reasons why I like golf, is not for the golf per se, but for the conversations I have with friends on the golf course.

Yeah, that's so good.

Same thing with fishing, you know. You're like— friend of mine told me one time, you're doing something but you ain't doing much, and therefore you have time for the conversations.

It's so good. My fondest childhood memories are us going to the lake. Really? We had a We would rent, um, a houseboat with my cousins and go usually once or twice a year and for, for a week and just water ski and swim, you know, just have an absolute blast. And so my dad was actually a semi-pro water skier growing up. Oh, so he would be in tournaments and would drive in tournaments. And so we, I mean, we were, you know, we were water people. But yeah, being able to do that is just, um, yeah, there's just something about being just in that— you're more nature too. There's something that's sort of calming about And I think leads to more of those conversations and getting your body out of that kind of stressful state. So that's, uh, I love that.

Well, I'm trying to be more intentional because I'm, I'm kind of a geek and a tech guy, so I'm trying to be more intentional about finding excuses to be outside. Yeah. And to get more sunshine and fresh air and grounding and all that stuff. And the lake provides that opportunity.

That's so good. You were saying something just a little bit ago which was related to changing our thinking, right? And one of the things that I think that I had this epiphany of a few years ago was, um, you know, uh, how, how do— how, how should I know what to think? And there's a Bible verse, and it's, um, you know, you know, Jesus says, you know, by, by their fruit you'll recognize them. And I think that's something that really stuck with me, is that I, I try and think about my own thoughts, when I try to discover the truth, I try and think about what does that person think about it? Not, not trying to sort of like, I'm going to read a certain amount of things or whatever. Like, for instance, Mother Teresa, what did she think about poverty? Or what did she like? What were her religious beliefs? What did she— how did she view people? Or C.S. Lewis, or, you know, some— somebody that I can relate to. And I think that's been a sort of a powerful exercise for me. And so one of the things I always love doing with, with people who I have really admired in certain areas of life. Like for yourself, you sharing your, you know, the way that you father, like doing date nights and, you know, buying a house where all the families can come together. Like those are things that I think I really take to heart and think about, okay, so I think about family a certain way, but how does Michael think about family and about being a dad and taking care of his daughters? Can you share a little bit of that about that with me in terms of like, how do you view being a dad? What's that role mean to you? What do those responsibilities mean to you?

Well, I think it's different today than it was 25 years ago when I was in the thick of raising the kids, because I think at that time, uh, to be honest, if I can just get through this and keep everybody from killing each other and keep me from killing them, you know, uh, that'll be great, you know. So I had a very low bar that I was aiming for.

But I mean, 5 daughters, all sort of a junior high and high school, I mean, that's— I mean, that is wow.

I think I'm a better listener today because of that. Yeah, yeah, because I had to listen to them all the time. I mean, everybody always had a lot of hormones going on, you know. So, and I'm sure it's the same if you're raising boys, it's just a different kind of thing. So I don't mean that in a sexist way, but, um, I, I think when the kids are small, you have to exercise more control. And I think that parenting is really an exercise in de-parenting. So I'm essentially over time trying to make these humans less dependent upon me, more dependent upon God and themselves, you know, to be able to make their way. Well, and as a result of that, we've gone through these distinct phases as parents. So we were very much the parents, and then we kind of graduated from that to where we're the coaches, you know. And it's really fun when they start coming to you for your advice. And you can share with them some of your best thinking. And then now it's at a place where they're just my best friends. And, you know, I like to think I'm a trusted advisor to them, but honestly, they're trusted advisors to me too. You know, I was talking with one of my daughters, Mary, recently, and she's a coach. Phenomenal. And I was having this issue and I just said, I just want to talk to you about this. And she just put her coach hat on. And did a phenomenal job with me. And that was enormously gratifying. So I think you have to evolve. You know, you can't be a parent of grown children trying to still control them. And there are choices that my grown daughters will make that I wouldn't make those choices. And yet I have to be okay with it because I can't control it. I can't manipulate it. And if you try to do that, you break trust. And to practice radical acceptance with the kids. And as long— and I had a psychologist, a therapist, tell me this, he said, as long as you're in relationship, then you have a chance of influencing them. But if you sever the relationship for any reason, then all of a sudden your influence stops.

Yeah.

And so I've always valued the relationship above everything. And I wouldn't say I, you know, would value it above truth. I can speak the truth.

Yeah.

But I speak it in love. So I don't ever want to say it in a way that's going to jeopardize the relationship. Yeah. So I just think, you know, radically loving the people that God has given to you and thinking beyond the next generation. This was a major shift in my thinking over the last 2 years. Took me a while to get to the answer of this, but my financial advisor gave me a book and I'm not going to be able to think of the name here. Maybe I'll think of it in a second. But it basically was the idea of you need to think of your family 7 generations from now. And how can I pass on not just my financial capital, but how can I pass on my spiritual capital, my emotional capital, my intellectual capital, my ethical capital? Wow. How can I pass on all of that for 7 generations? Well, I just wouldn't— I, I thought maybe to my grandkids, but the truth is for most of us alive today, we're probably better chance than not that we're going to see our great-grandchildren, you know, God willing. So what kind of influence do I want to have on them? And what kind of influence do I want to continue to have after I'm no longer alive? And then how can we perpetuate that on? So, you know, if you look at the Bible there, you've got, uh, families, you've got clans, and then all that moves up to tribes, and then you have a nation. But it really starts with that family. And now I have the privilege of being— this is kind of a bad word in our society, but the patriarch of a clan. You know, so I've got a clan now.

Yeah.

It's more than just my family. It's a group of families that are together. And I don't know if we'll end up being a tribe, but I like to think like that because it shapes the way I do things. I'm much more intentional about the example that I set because I think with kids and also with the people that we lead in our organizations, more is caught than taught. And sometimes people can't hear our words because of how loud our actions speak. And so, you know, I grew up with a, with a dad that had got really severely injured in the Korean War such that he had to have a lot of brain surgery and had this chronic limp for as long as I've known him, you know, because it happened before I was born. And so at about 5 years old, I'm walking around limping, and my mom kind of figures out what's going on. She comes to me and she says, Michael, you don't need to limp. Your dad limps because he was hurt in the war, but look at all these other men. They're not limping. You don't have to limp. And that's how powerful I call it the law of replication. But he was unconsciously replicating that, and I was picking it up.

Wow.

Just from watching him. This is why when you go into organizations, if you do any consulting or coaching, you see this when you get people from the same organization. They have a lot of the same vocabulary, a lot of same mannerisms. Yeah. And all of that's just picked up. And so when it comes back to your family, that's why we have to be very intentional about the tone of our voice, the words that we use, you know, how I treat my daughter's mother, my wife, because all of that is going to be replicated in their lives because it's sinking into their subconscious all the time.

Yeah.

And so if you want to have good replications, you got to get the prototype right. You know, because the mold is going to just spit out whatever you are. So, you know, and obviously we can intervene on ourselves and not have to, you know, repeat those generational patterns. But it takes a lot of effort. And so to the extent that I can, I want to be the best model I can be for my kids. I want them to think, and this sounds maybe a little bit arrogant, but I want them to think, what does it mean to love God? Oh, I remember how my dad would get up every morning to read the Bible and I remember how he would pray and how he was always in church and how that was so important to him. Or what does it mean to love my spouse? Oh, I remember how my dad treated my mom or my mom treated my dad or how they would handle disagreements. All that stuff's being caught. But if I'm not conscious of that, then I can create real problems for my kids. And I don't have much of a chance, you know, of affecting those 7 generations.

How do you practically go about becoming that person? Like, you know, after reading that book and thinking about that, how do you think about practically, here's some things I do, or here's sort of my plan that I do in order to become that person?

Well, I do think reading is helpful.

Yeah.

You know, where you see people that you want to emulate, you know, like Mother Teresa or somebody else, you see qualities in their life and you go, wow, I'd like that in my life. CS Lewis has this wonderful introduction to a book called On the Incarnation by St. Athanasius. And so it's a classic book that was written like back in the 4th century where St. Athanasius is defending the Incarnation against the Arians. And in this introduction, CS Lewis talks about the value of reading old books. And he says, He says the value of reading old books, and he said you really ought to purpose that you'll only read one new book for every old book you read. And he says the value of an old book is that they get us out of all the presuppositions and paradigms and frameworks and constructs of the present. Because so often in the present, even with people that we think we vehemently disagree, we've adopted many of the same presuppositions.

Yeah.

And he said the only remedy for that is to get out of that into a different historical context He says, in a kind of a funny way, he says, "Books from the future would be just as helpful, but they're harder to get." Yeah. So, read the old books. Well, reading— like, I love reading biographies, reading older biographies of people that are— that really lived in a way that's very different than us, that attended to their character. You may remember Benjamin Franklin, you know, having that list of self-improvement where he's constantly trying to work on himself. And I think we're the most important project we work on. Yeah. And tending to our own soul and our own conduct and our own thinking, everything flows from that. Our behavior flows from our identity, from who we think we are.

That's right.

And so we've got to give attention to that. And I mean, to get it really practical, this is why for me in the morning, is my most important time for working on me. You know, that's when I'm up. And I mentioned it before, but, you know, first thing I do when I get up is I pray, uh, then I read the Bible, and then I read some other book, and then I journal, and then I meditate, and then I exercise, get dressed, eat some breakfast, and I'm ready for the day. Yep. So I'm really trying to hone, and I'm constantly, when I'm journaling especially, asking myself, okay, what did I learn from what I read? And how do I measure up? And is there anything I can do to improve myself? And I think then also just in the warp and woof of life, being quick to ask forgiveness.

Yeah.

And I think that you learn when you do that. You know, I end of last week had a bit of a disagreement with Gail, and she had planned something without telling me. And I wasn't particularly happy about it. I'm not that flexible. Flexibility is one of her top strengths. It's number 34 on 34 Strengths for me. And so we kind of got into this thing about it. But the next morning, I'm journaling and I'm going like, "Ugh, I owe her an apology." And so I just, again, I'm constantly evaluating my life in terms of what I want to be and am I showing up for myself in the way that I'd like to show up? Because I want to be able to look back at my, my own life, and I'm sure you do too, and be proud of how it lived.

Yeah, it's so good. I mean, I think, I think being able to ask for forgiveness— and this is something that I saw my dad do, and my dad was military guy, served in Vietnam, and he, you know—

wow, he's still alive.

Yeah, he's in his 70s, and he's, uh, would get a little, you know, like my dad had a little bit of a fiery temper, but he would always, you know, after his initial reaction and come back and like apologize. And for me, honestly, like, it's one of the biggest things that stuck with me. And it kind of like, the way that I interpreted that was, oh, my dad's humble. Oh, he's willing to change. And so I think that that is one of the most, um, powerful things that, you know, that kids can see from a dad and be able to experience. Because I know for myself, I mean, it really impacted me in a huge, huge way. And I've noticed that I think the people that I, um, admire the most in their— the people have created sort of, you know, I look at their life and I'm like, wow, they've got a great spiritual life, they've got a great family, they've got, you know, success in their career as well. I see them start their day very similar to how you start it. You know, it's spending that time with, you know, you know, the things that matter most, right? You know, it's, you know, spending time with God, spending time on health, maybe spending, you know, you know, giving the family, you know, a hug and a kiss and sort of, and then, and then getting going with their mission. But it's Yeah, I think it's powerful. You know, one of the things I know that as you've had in the past, you've been around some really incredible leaders. And I'm curious, what is the best piece of advice that you've ever received?

I don't— if I thought about this, I might say something different. But the thing that comes to mind was when I was at Thomas Nelson as the CEO, right? The day that I became the CEO,. And I had a lot of amazing authors that I worked with, leaders. And John Maxwell called me on the phone to congratulate me. It was the day I became the CEO. And he said, Mike, he said, you've heard it said it's lonely at the top. And I said, yes, sir, I have. And that was kind of my default assumption. It's going to be lonely at the top. And he said, I want you to know that's a choice. And that had a profound impact on me because one of the first things I did after that conversation is I found two other public company CEOs in Nashville, and we all were facing similar kinds of things. It was like, you know, right before the recession, and we were on this bubble. And so we said, hey, let's get together once a quarter for half a day. And let's just have a topic for— it might be hiring people, it may be onboarding people, developing talent, trying to grow our businesses, whatever it is. We'll pick a topic and then we'll get together, we'll have breakfast, and then we'll spend the, you know, that morning and then have lunch and then we'll be done. And we can call on each other when we need to. So I never felt lonely. Yeah, so that was a simple challenge of an assumption that everybody assumes, well, it's lonely at the top. Well, it can but it's a choice.

I mean, this is a way to mine your mindset, right? You've got these narratives going on. I have this view of the world, and is that serving you? Yes. No, exactly not. Yeah. What is your biggest piece of advice for anybody who wants to change their mindset?

Uh, become aware. I, I really think that self-awareness is the key to effective leadership, because without self-awareness, there's no improvement, there's no change. If you're not self-aware, you don't feel compelled to change. But if you start observing your behavior and you're not happy— like, I had a coaching client that came to me 2 years ago. We just celebrated his 2-year anniversary with me, coaching with me. And when he came to me, he was very discouraged, very negative, didn't see much of a future for himself. And these were, by the way, things he could not share with anybody, not his family, He couldn't share it with his colleagues, definitely not his board, because what would they think of him? But he was very transparent with me. Uh, fast forward 2 years, and I said with him last week, I said, I'm meeting with a completely different person. You know that, right? You're not the same person I started with. I said, you are completely changed. And he said to me, he said, well, it started with awareness.

Wow.

And it's because One of the first things we did with him, in addition to just doing like I always do, a battery of personality tests, just so they can be more aware of how they naturally respond in certain situations. But then we did a 360. You ever done one of those? A 360 assessment where you have the people that are above you, like if in his case was right, you have your peers and you have the people that report to you all fill out an assessment how they see you.

Yeah.

And you fill out one too. And there's gonna always be a gap between how you perceive yourself and how other people perceive you. But knowledge is power. And when he saw, for example, that everybody else saw him as a little bit flaky, that like he always had ideas but he never followed through on 'em, it's like he sort of suspected that, but now he had the real self-awareness. And he said, I've gotta change my behavior. I cannot be seen as flaky. Wow. So it begins with self-awareness.

Yeah, I love that answer. And I think about, as I was sharing, I've been reading a lot of books on church history. One of the things I've noticed about the saints or the people that have had the biggest impact in the world, one of the defining factors of all of them, especially people we'd call maybe ancient mystics and things like that, is awareness. I mean, they are just keenly, keenly aware of their own deficiencies, but their own potential. I mean, all of those things. And that's just— it's huge because it's kind of like, you know, I've heard you talk a lot about goal setting. You were one of the first people I've really sort of modeled my goal setting after and teaching us how to set SMART goals. But you need to know where you're going, but you also need to know where you are. Definitely right.

So, well, I think of it like a GPS system. So when you go in and plug in a destination, like when I was coming here this morning, didn't have a clue where I was going. Well, the GPS system had to know where I was starting. And where the destination was. Yeah. If it had those two items identified, then it could plot a path.

Yeah.

But it's got to begin with that, that self-awareness. Where are you right now?

Yeah. So good. You know, I was reading a study, and actually the study, I love the name of it, it's called the Batman Study, and, uh, or they call it the Batman Effect. And so they did this study with these kids, and basically they said, hey, we're going to have you go and do a task. And so some kids, they said, hey, hey, hey, John, 'Hey John, I need you to go and do this task.' And, and, and the group of kids did that. They had another group and they said, 'Hey John, we want you to be aware while you do this task, like we're, you know, in, in terms of your productivity, do as much as you can.' And then they had another group and they said, 'Hey, who's your favorite superhero character?' And so they had Batman or Dora the Explorer or, you know, a Disney princess or something like that. And they said, and, and and they looked at the 3 groups and the people, the kids that saw themselves as their favorite superhero and they were aware of, hey, this is sort of who I am or who I could become, they had the greatest results. Of course, the, you know, where could they call it self-distancing, you know, they had good results and the ones who weren't. But the point there is, is like, and the other thing that was really interesting about the study is these kids who thought maybe they were more than they thought they even were had the greatest results.

Yeah, it's amazing. Um, Todd Herman, has a book called Alter Ego. And Todd was a performance coach to a lot of Olympic Olympians, and one of the things he would do was help them to create an alter ego, that superhero— yes— person, and help them get in that headspace before they performed. And that was like his hack for improving dramatically performance. Think of yourself as somebody else.

It's so good. I had a mentor tell me once— I used to get real nervous when I went out and spoke.

Yeah, me too.

And he said he said, picture yourself as out there as a prowling lion, like you're out there. And then he— there's two pieces of advice. One, that's your alter ego, you're the lion, you're pre— you know. And then he said, and then also just speak to one person at a time. We've all heard that communication. But those two things really helped me get more. And he gave me a third one, he said, know what you're talking about. Go and study your material, know what you're talking about, you know. Don't just try and be everything off the But it really, I just, I mean, those little things. But part of that was that sort of alter ego there.

Well, I have an interesting story there too. And by the way, this is, this is something people should know about public speaking, is that most public speakers do have that anxiety before they speak.

Yeah.

And I still have it to this day.

Yeah.

And, uh, one of the things I did, talk about changing your thinking, uh, the thinking that was the default, what the narrator is saying, if you go out there on stage, you are going to die, or you're going to be radically embarrassed, or you're going to forget what you were saying. And how will that feel? You know, I mean, all those kind of things. Yeah. Because again, that narrator is trying to protect us from a situation that it regards as threatening. But I reframed that. And I mean, I used to sweat so badly when I would go speak that I would wear like 2 t-shirts, hoping that I didn't give myself away by sweating through my clothes.

Yeah.

And, you know, my mouth was dry and I just couldn't sleep the night before. You know, so many stories about that. But then I reframed it and I said, no, this is just how my body prepares itself for peak performance. This is adrenaline. Yeah. And in performance situations, adrenaline is our friend because you never think more clearly or faster or more precise than when you've got adrenaline flooding your system.

So true.

You know, and again, that's just It's designed to protect us. But I've had so many situations where I— where now, and you know, I have that anxiety a little bit beforehand, and I just go, oh yeah, that's just my body's way of preparing itself for peak performance. Thank God for adrenaline. This is going to be awesome. And when I step on the stage— and you probably had this experience— I mean, literally within 30 seconds, I've lost all the anxiety and I'm totally into the talk.

So good. That's great advice. I have just a couple more questions for you. One is around leadership and your Vision Driven Leader book. What are the top 3 things people need to do in order to be a vision-driven leader?

Well, first of all, to, to realize that it's their responsibility. That's number one. Um, I don't care what level you are in the organization. When I started practicing what I teach in The Vision-Driven Leader, I wasn't the CEO. I didn't even report to the CEO. I was two levels down from the CEO. I was a divisional manager, and I started applying it right there. So it's your responsibility. A lot of people I see you know, leaders just kind of check out, sit back, and say, well, you know, I wish this organization would get its act together and get a vision for the company. When it does, I'll engage.

Yeah, I'm thinking about a VP, and I had— and she did this so well. She's one of the best VPs I ever had, and she would do this. It's like, imagine or think about, like, here's where we're going. And for me, even as being her, her leader in the organization, it was like, she gets it. Yes, let's go. I mean, I wanted to support everything she did even more.

Yeah, yeah. So I would say that's So that's the first thing is just realize that it's your responsibility. Number 2, you don't just sit back and wait for the vision to happen. I think the hardest thing in life is figuring out what you want. Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

By the way, 3 times in the Gospels, Jesus asked people, "What do you want me to do? What do you want?" Because that clarity is really important.

Mm-hmm.

So it's not gonna just happen by osmosis. You're not gonna get, you know, struck by a bolt of lightning and get it. You've gotta work. And for me, and I encourage my students to do this, my coachees to do this, Just start writing. You know, put yourself into the future. Imagine it's 3 years or 5 years from now and you're sitting in that future. What do you see? Write it in the present tense, what you see. And then from that point, uh, maybe there's a third thing. Then you got to cascade that through the organization. I, I really believe the vision has to start with you as a leader. It's the essence of what it means to be a leader, because if you're not leading people somewhere You're not a leader. You only need a leader if you're trying to take people from where they are to somewhere else. So you better be clear on where the somewhere else is. But then you— it starts with you, but it doesn't end with you. So that vision has to be cascaded through the organization once you get clear on it. And you have to have the humility to say, for example, to your executive team or whatever your first level of leadership is, to say, look, I've been thinking about the future and I've got some things framed up. I feel pretty good about some of them. Some of them I'm not so sure about, but I need your help to get the clarity that we need to move forward. Because when people help plan the battle, they don't battle the plan. Yeah, it's so true. And so to get them involved so that it becomes our vision and then cascade it down to the next level and then to the next level and then to the next level. And this is a fourth bonus one. I think sometimes we're inhibited. People are inhibited by their ability to imagine the future because they get too focused on resources too early. So they think to themselves, well, I couldn't do that thing, I can't start that business because I don't have the money. And the, the problem is that's not how the world works. Resources follow vision. If you have a vision, it will attract the money. Just go to your banker and ask to borrow some money but don't give them a specific purpose. Yeah. You know, they're going to say, well, what do you want to do with it? Yeah. I mean, are we doing a renovation? Are we starting a business? We funding kids' college education? What are we doing here? So I think that clarity and that vision has to be there before the resources show up. And then all kinds of amazing things happen when you get clarity on that vision. Clarity accelerates progress, and that's the value of vision.

It's so good. So good. Last question for you. What does success look like for you in 25 years?

Um, well, first of all, I have a personal vision statement. I talk about this in my book on life planning called Living Forward, and we're just retooling that to version 2.0. But, but the essence of it is that in every major domain of life— so what does it look like in my marriage? And I have all this written out in a paragraph for each one of these. Uh, what does it look like in my health? You know, I want to be in my best health of my life, you know, 25 years from now. And I'm sure there's some things that age will impact that, but that's not going to happen by accident, right? You know, most people, you know, their lifespan exceeds their healthspan, and I don't want that. You know, I'd be healthy right up till the day I die. What's it look like in my marriage? Deeper intimacy than we have right now. Greater friendship. Doing more things together. So I think that for me, success is fundamentally multifaceted. It's not what I accomplish in work. Work's important, but it's only one of like 7 or 8, 9 domains.

Yeah.

So I wanted to find that sort of that full multifaceted success and get very clear to myself and repeat it to me, off— review it often and then repeat it to myself often. Of what is that, that future I'm moving toward.

Paint me a vision or picture what that looks like 25 years from now. This is what you're doing.

Yeah, well, I think, I think in my relationships, you know, I'm seen as the sage in my family.

Yeah, yeah, you know, and I consider you a sage, so I'm a sage-ette.

Yeah, I've got a long way to go, but, um, but yeah, I wanted— I want to be— have that kind of role as the patriarch in my family, the person who who my kids know, uh, is always for them, always encouraging, the soft place to land, uh, the place where they can— and we have this now where our grandkids will come talk to us about stuff that honestly, you know, we have to do everything we can to just keep from going, what? You know, but they feel like they can share it with us even when they can't share it with their parents. Yeah. And so, you know, that, uh, my work You know, I want to continue— I want to continue to be writing books 25 years from now. I want to continue to be, uh, coaching, which is my— the thing I love more than anything. Yeah. Um, so there's a few things.

That's good.

My life plan.

I mean, hey, maybe it'll be at Tim's Ford. You'll have a great-grandchild on your lap and be— yeah.

And we own our entire neighborhood at Tim's Ford. That's, that's my vision for 25 years.

Wow.

Not really, but I'd love to have several houses on that peninsula that we're on.

I'm going to get the peninsula next door just, you know, like, come over and come over and see Yeah, so that's so good. What are you most excited about right now? You're like, this has really got me charged up.

You know, I, I think the journey of our company has been one of increasing focus, and ironically our company is called Fully Focused. And one of the things that, that we've decided to do is that we're going to put 100% of our effort into our planner. We've done digital courses, we've done a lot of different things, books and all that kind of stuff, and business coaching. I will continue to coach personally, but we are actually sunsetting our business coaching practice so that we can focus exclusively on the planner because it's exploding and we feel like it's a gateway drug to self-improvement. So if we can get people into the planner, all kinds of cool things start happening in their lives.

I love it, and I love your planner. Thank you. So I want to encourage everybody— in fact, I want to talk about your books for a minute, but I also want to mention this planner is the thing that I've used the most for the most years. And so basically I can go through, you know, my top 3. There's always a fantastic quote, something inspiring there for the day. And it's a really great way to manage your time and your productivity. So you can check out Full Focus Planner. You can find it everywhere. I know on Google it. Yeah, just Google it. You'll find Full Focus Planner. It's great. Also, Michael's got a new book out called Mind Your Mindset. He wrote with his daughter. It's another great book. We also talked about The Vision-Driven Leader today, and you got a lot of great books. I mean, I get, you know, one of, one of the ones I brought my team through was Your Best Year Ever. Awesome. And, uh, that was great.

The new edition of that comes out in November of 2023, so it's about 20% different. So we've done a lot more research, we have some more case studies, uh, some more little hacks that we've learned along the way.

So, so awesome. So check that one out too. I want to thank everybody— I say thanks everybody for listening today. Again, this is Michael Hyatt bringing his and sharing his wisdom with us. I want encourage you, hey, if you're not subscribed here to the Growth Lab, hey, subscribe so you can check out more great interviews. And also, if you're watching on YouTube, let me know what is your single biggest takeaway from the wisdom that Michael shared with us today. I'd love to hear from you, and that may inspire a future podcast as well. Again, hey, thanks everybody for listening, and thanks again to Michael Hyatt.