Episode 70

welcome to another exciting episode of Finding Peaks Clint you know I say that all the time but today today is true we are dead serious this is very exciting pull up a chair hopefully your popcorn’s already popped because we’re bringing it to you guys today out there in the world Brandon Burns chief executive officer for Peaks recovery centers joined by co-host Clint Nicholson LPC Lac all the clinical things Chief Operating Officer for Peaks recovery centers and before I highlight uh Our Guest today I want to point back to the Kevin Miller episode that we did several weeks ago look it up in that regard Kevin and I were going back and forth trying to talk about this book it had the word success in it in that regard and we just couldn’t quite put our finger on it in that moment but I have tracked it down and we are joined today by the great author Tim Sher who wrote The Secret Society of success also a podcaster as well too who uh whose podcast is called build a winning team in that regard so we’re here today to celebrate the book the information your presence with us you gave a wonderful keynote to our leadership team before coming on here today and we’re just excited to invite you into this episode to talk to leaders out in our industry in the world in general and see if we can’t Define what success is today so welcome Tim and thanks for being here oh fun to be here hanging with you guys this is great I’m having a great time we haven’t even really even started this video yet yeah so we’re in it and you know your your book has so many incredible chapters I’ve spent a great deal of time on it uh I’ve probably been just bragging about you to your face for the last you know 24 hours now that I’ve gotten to know you in person and I’m just curious uh if we could highlight for the viewers kind of the starting point to this that the spotlight mentality what is that what does it look like um just as the general beginnings of this process yeah so you know it’s interesting if you think about the story of Apollo 11 you’ve got Neil Armstrong Buzz Aldrin but a lot of people don’t know there’s a third astronaut on that mission Michael Collins and here’s the guy he Ubers kneel and Buzz to the Moon drops them off those guys then do all the various tasks that they have to do on the moon surface well he actually stays back in the Command Module and orbits them in something like 26 times until those guys are ready to be picked up and brought back to Earth and what I love so much about Michael Collins and and how he shows up in this story is when he gets back to Earth sits down with the Press he talks about how content he was to have had one of those three seats and that’s such a different message that we are hearing because I think the world that we live in today says to be successful you have to be the one that everyone is talking about getting into the spotlight is the goal right yeah but I think that the way that we show up in in how we can be at our best may not look like defining success in the way that culture tells us that success is so is fame money and power the only ways that we can be successful in our lives and our careers and you know I’ve discovered this group of people you know titled with the book The Secret Society of success that have just shown me that you know do we have to walk on the moon to be happy are there some other ways that we can approach this in our lives and you know one of the big shifts for me and my life has been in in trying to live in this new way to to define success in the same way that these groups of people have that have been really inspiring to me the thing that I’ve had to overcome is what I call the spotlight mindset which just simply is defined as this unhealthy desire for attention and recognition and it can show up in so many different ways in our lives whether it’s through you know striving or through you know a fear of failure or whether a symptom of the spotlight mindset could be something like comparison are you constantly stacking up how you view yourself based on your success compared to other people so the spotlight mindset this thing that has us just thinking about ourselves all the time is the thing that is keeping us from achieving success at a totally different level and has us living kind of the opposite of what the secret society of success would say that success is so I’ve been on this journey to figure out okay how can I learn to live in the way the secret society and how can I learn to avoid these trappings of trying to make it all about me especially when it comes to leadership and how I show up for my team and the people that I have the opportunity to lead absolutely you know I think um that message of sort of the humble leader and sometimes can come across as like very the sort of altruistic kind of benevolent mindset that feels very unrealistic in a lot of ways but what I love about your book and sort of your approach to this is that you allot for people to be human for leaders to have what you refer to as that tension that and I think that there’s something very grounding in that because if you’re just like oh yeah you just need to like not want the spotlight and you’re going to be great at this you know it just doesn’t feel real right it feels very um yeah just it just feels very out there and I think that that that portion of this of your message is very grounding and very helpful I was just wondering if you could speak about that a little bit yeah so if there’s two sides of the spectrum here it’s kind of how we’re wired we want to be seen and valued and appreciated we want people to know that we matter and if you think about even when we’re born babies cry for what they need until they’re fed until they get what they want and what happens in our lives is that evolves a little bit but people as adults we’re kind of just screaming for the attention so we get what we want and so there’s a very human part of just survival we’re trying to take care of ourselves that is the far side of the spectrum that selfish approach to showing up but swimming Upstream and living in the way the secret society has us more focused on other people than ourselves has us focusing on our teams and the people that we have an opportunity to lead we’re focused more on them and their success more so than our success but it is so hard to get into that headspace and so I would love to be able to have said in the book or to you guys all right so here’s here’s the three-step plan can’t wait to tell you how to completely avoid this selfish way of thinking and living you’ll never suffer from this or deal with this again and I felt this pressure to write that in the book like my brain loves linear I would have loved a one two three step but I couldn’t do it because it’s not true it’s not real to our actual lives the truth is we live in the tension between these two things this aspiration to be selfless and to think of others first that is the aspiration but the reality is some days all I can muster is just getting through the day on my own thinking about myself so what do we do about that I think what we do is we just learn to identify these selfish Tendencies and try to just get a little bit better every day right right totally and I think in business a lot of leaders are looking for that Silver Bullet like what’s the one thing that’s going to just hockey stick us up yeah I was looking for the bully for the bullet points myself yeah and I did not see them we want the Silver Bullet absolutely we want the quick ease see answer but this is true in life it’s true in business there is no Silver Bullet and in fact the Silver Bullet if there is one is continuous Improvement it’s getting a little bit better every day yeah you have people talk about just get one percent better and that can compound to some pretty massive growth but I think it’s actually pretty encouraging for all of us because it’s not realistic to think that we can totally overcome it but it is realistic to think that I can show up a little bit better today than I did yesterday and if I keep doing that if I keep trying to be in a headspace where I’m thinking of others first and I I get more comfortable in that I hope that that will lead us on a much better path yeah yeah and I I love this notion of just it being in tension right because in my as I’ve shared with you in your time uh hanging out over the last 24 hours and with the you know the keynote this morning that you know the first time I read a chapter like living in the spotlight it’s like I don’t do that yeah and so we were joking about Fight Club first rule of Fight Club is we don’t talk about Fight Club you know first rule of secret society might be like careful and if your first thought is I’m never in the spotlight right yeah you know as a rule and and so it required more investigation in that regard to live with an intention to see if it’s really true for me because I don’t feel it necessarily in our office environment but then when I go to post something on LinkedIn you know the viewers out there know me well at this point uh findingpeaks and peaksrecovery.com keep sending me all your thoughts and ideas critiques uh know me at this point to to just kind of want to point out the harm at times this industry does to kind of point at the the lacunas and the pitfalls and the shortcomings of our industry and out of that I always don’t do a great job at kind of wrapping around it and I share that because you know one way I see myself in the spotlight mentality at time is I I found this new platform called LinkedIn so healthy all of my people in the industry and everything on and I’m staring at it and I’m like this is what’s wrong with the industry and hammering it on and I send it and then I stare at it and I’m like I should not have said it in that sort of way because I’m not the things that I’m posting in that regard are about me I want them to know that I’m watching and that we’re so successful over here and I’m calling you out versus like okay step back erase all those things that I said right and step into it and invite people into the discussion hey this is where our industry is really struggling and I want to invite you guys in to have a conversation because I think we’re actually doing it well enough over here to actually provide opportunity for your organization right and so out of that right you get this very powerful transition that I think you talk about in your book from uh the spotlight mentality into sort of this kind of you know service of others but before we launch to the end of your book in that regard you’ve had such incredible opportunities to work with just wonderful CEOs leaders in the world um your build a winning team podcast has some incredible guests on it as well too and so your guests your friends the people you know are literally in the spotlight of the world in a really big way yet it seems like in your experiences with them of course um they themselves are not living the spotlight mentality that they are part of the secret society of success so what’s that like to be around people who we are all like they’re in the spotlight but at the same time um they’re kind of to the side of it and what has that been like for you to kind of meet these people was it your initial expectation okay I’m gonna meet these highbrow CEOs and they’re going to shake my hand and turn the other way it sounds like your experience is much different than that people I’ve been really inspired by not everyone in the spotlight operates in a healthy space right totally you know not everybody in the spotlight lives in the way of the secret society but I’ve met a lot of people who who do and what I’ve learned is living in the way the secret society being a part of that group actually has little to do with your position on the org chart or how much visibility you have in your role or how many followers you have online being in the secret society has much more to do with how you show up and you know I’ve met some people who couldn’t be more in the spotlight and let and yet how they show up is really there to help serve you know one amazing example um this guy named Ken langone he’s one of the co-founders of the Home Depot and Home Depot’s massive success like everyone knows about the Home Depot but what I also love is if you look at how they structure their org chart they have what they call an inverted pyramid where in most companies the CEOs up at the top and you know supporting them below is the rest of the organization well it’s called the inverted pyramid because the Home Depot flips that thing on its head the CEO is at the bottom in support of the rest of the organization they see their opportunity as leaders of the company as they’re there to serve their customers they’re there to serve their employees and some beautiful things happen when you show up in that way and you know someone like Ken langone who’s been a part of that company from the very beginning you also see this way of thinking and living in you know other areas of his life he’s a billionaire and yet he uh because of this investment that he has made in in trying to help other people win help them on their way he is a chairman of NYU langone health and the decision that he had made was that everyone that goes to medical school NYU actually goes tuition free wow so they made this big announcement where he’s able to stand up in front of a group of incoming students and say as of today your tuition is free awesome wow and he said that was the first time that I truly felt Rich that he can create that opportunity for people but what I love about a guy like Ken is he could be more in Spotlight he’s a billionaire to so many people this is the aspiration they want the wealth they want the platform he’s helped launch this incredible company and the Home Depot but what do you see him doing he shows up not only in now being a part of this organization with an inverted pyramid as this model and method of leadership that they want others to see and learn from he’s also using his resources to give back to others and help other people win and help them on their own journey to go out and do good in the world you know as a medical students at NYU so I see people like that and it’s just kind of had me thinking about success in a different way sure you know maybe success isn’t the position maybe it’s not the wealth maybe it’s more how can we learn to show up in the way that Ken does in giving back to others and you know thinking of others first absolutely yeah and um you know what it’s always it’s just so special to be in this house seat and to uh know where I want to you know kind of like take this but to not like just jump ahead and just be excited in that regard and really you know pull the audience through the Brilliance of your book and what you’re providing in it as well too so we have these you know could we have the spotlight mentality kind of starting with this sort of spectrum then we recognize there’s an un there’s unhealthy features about this that can not only cause issues in our personal lives but for our organizations and teams and systems and so forth uh but it seems like there’s a better way to go about this once we step out of the spotlight mentality so what’s like what’s the starting point here right and you talk about you know the example of LeBron James in your book and um would just love for the viewers to be able to hear you know kind of what you’re seeing in these leaders and what they start doing once they step outside the spotlight and kind of what you know you bring the to the floor about LeBron James yeah so I I love that how can we get practical about this like how can we show up in a little bit different way so um yeah LeBron in 2020 he and the Lakers win the NBA finals and you think a guy like LeBron would you know want to be the guy out there scoring all the points and being the man he’s one of the greatest basketball players in NBA history surely this is how he would show up but what I love what happened in 2020 is LeBron was not the scoring leader in the NBA he wasn’t even in the top five but in 2020 he led the league in assists yeah so the way that he chose to play and then ultimately how he and his team won the championship was by him setting someone else up the score absolutely and if you look at these cultural definitions of success the message we are hearing is you need to be the scoring leader in whatever that looks like however that looks in your industry but what if success is in the assist what if actually instead of trying to be the scoring leader you spent more time thinking about how you can help other people win how you could set your teammates up to score and you do that show up in that way whether or not you ever get a scoring leader title or not that’s totally secondary he’s all about the team trying to bring his talents and his abilities uh and and bring all of that to the table but to be somebody who’s as interested in the assist as anything else I hear a story like that and I just think holy smokes I got some work to do because it’s so easy for me to think about I’m going to show you guys how good I can be yeah and um and he just kind of totally flips that model on its head I I really love that part of the book I think um that idea of being I don’t know is CEO was a really weird title sometimes and I guess a lot of times I look at myself when I read that I was like maybe I’m just a professional assistant like that’s just kind of my role it’s just the spotlight this is about as close as I get and I do it uncomfortably so um but that I it just um I don’t know in that moment it I there was like all of a sudden I felt like I had a place in as this type in this type of role which I mean I don’t know how many CEOs you’ve had on your podcast you know it’s all the CEOs usually the spotlight right and so but you always have that per there’s always somebody underneath trying to direct and coordinate and all that kind of stuff and um and I mean and I I love what I do and I there’s nothing I I think I feel very um very fulfilled in my position uh and so that moment was uh I don’t know there was some a real validation there and so I just really appreciated that yeah one of my favorite songs is uh by my friend Steve Moakler and the chorus says we all wake up in different situations with different callers for our occupations but ever since the world’s been in rotation it’s been run by Humble operations and this idea of every role us value every role has worth yeah absolutely and you know if you think about a concert we need people in the spotlight for the whole thing to work yeah there is nothing wrong with the spotlight as long as people who are in those positions are you know showing up in a healthy way not making it about them but contributing their part so there’s nothing wrong with that that person standing in the center of the stage we need them but we also need the person running the lights the person running sound the backing guitarist we need the person taking tickets when we walk in we need you know the person that’s showing people where their seats are the problem I have is when people try to say that there is only one role that matters in our aspiration should only be to go try to be the person standing on the stage and I love that you picked that up in the book because My Hope Is that more people feel that too a validation to play their role to own their part to do it with excellence and to find contentment there rather than chasing after this definition of success that maybe doesn’t feel true to them so when you write a book there’s a lot of different people that contribute to it editors being some of those people and I think a lot of people would look at an editor and say okay for you to really make something to yourself you probably need to go be an author like your name be the one on the front cover of the book but then I’ve met enough of these editors that say but I like being an expert yeah yeah you’re gonna take me out of this thing that I’m very skilled at that I love to do and pressure me to step into a role that I don’t even want and I think there’s a lot of people that resonate with this book and these ideas because they are an editor yeah absolutely and they’ve just not believed these cultural narratives that they’re not successful because I I want them to know you are successful in the exact role that you are today and not to believe the lie or the myth that they have to go try to be something else to find success and so let’s just think about success a little bit differently and show people that maybe the success that they’re looking for is exactly where they are today right now yeah and and I I want to talk a little bit more just about you know success is the assist right because you know I’ve talked about it with the viewers I was talking with you a little bit about it yesterday but from 1993 to the present day we’ve done past podcast episodes um with the president and founder of Vista research and Conquer addiction Joanna Conti they run a significant third party platform that surveys outcomes for our industry and what they identified was in the last 30 years outcomes have remained flat at about 33 12 month after a 12-month follow-up post treatment and last use in that regard so 33 over 30 years with all the science all the medicine all the things that we have and in that way I feel like I want to be the I’m gonna I’m in the spotlight in this moment in my thought bubble right like I’m gonna hold the 70 outcome in my hand one day and everybody will be like Peaks did it and that CEO is at the top of it and like I’m on this pedestal right in my head and it’s a thing I’m not gonna always talk about being vulnerable here and talking about how leaders work right in our heads and our thoughts bubbles like I want that for the organization at the same time our mission is to save lives 107 000 opioid deaths last year we just celebrated the awareness around overdose deaths on our own campus and because we’re in an industry of not selling Snickers bars but human lives you know being involved in that regard I have if I am that person that can do that as a CEO as an organization we have to give that away right because we only have 36 beds and there’s 107 000 people who needed it last year desperately right and so if there’s a cure out there or any organization identifies it um we can’t just hold that we have to support others to show them how to bring that forward to the benefit of family systems in our culture overall here in the United States uh in that regard and so you know I just think there’s such powerful in the concept of the assist it doesn’t just extend to our teams in that regard but in a business where human lives matter it extends to the other organizations so how can I support get off get out of the spotlight Brandon right and support these other organizations who maybe I might feel are a little bit behind us you know around awareness and growth and that sort of thing and catch them up to speed so that we can all collectively start improving this together and really collaborate about it because the reality of our industry you know at the end of the day is that there is so much suffering out there that we can assist for days and we would still fall short of the collective issues that are in front of us so I just wanted to share that with you and curious from your perspective how much you see the assists because I believe you mentioned in your book where one of the companies just started branding for other companies they recognized their size within the world and then they invited other companies to be listed on their site and then they just kind of gave it away from there and to just walk us through some of those experiences that you may have seen along your journey you know so I think it’s really important for us to Define what success is for us personally and for us as a company like what do we actually want and how can we Orient our decisions and and the things that we do in line with those definitions of success so The Story You’re referencing is a guy named Leela fever and you know he got quite a bit of attention when he and his company created a video called Twitter and plain English and this was in 2008 right around when Twitter and some of these other social platforms were just getting going and trying to describe for somebody who doesn’t know what Twitter is what Twitter is is like especially free all of the stuff even existing was was difficult so they created this video to just simply talk about what Twitter was Twitter ends up putting it on their website featuring this video on their website Lee just starts getting bombarded with all this demand for other companies wanting similar videos and made for them and one of their uh clients right after that was Google they wanted to help have a Google Docs described in plain English and so Lee made a video for them and more and more and more demand but Lee had a choice to make do we want to build this business and this company up in a way that has this really scaling up and perhaps doing more work than we’re comfortable doing maybe at a pace that they didn’t really want so they defined success as he and his wife running this business together and not building out this massive agency even though that’s what demand kind of was required about that moment and so they had an idea they said what if we created um what they called the common craft explainer Network so their company was called common craft and so they created this network and so they made an opportunity available for some of their competitors people who they knew they could refer business to they said for 750 a month we’ll list your company’s information on our website so that when these companies come to us maybe with work that we’re not able to deliver on we can just funnel those leads to you well they had nine companies paying 750 a month if you do the math that’s 81 000 that they made that year by choosing to stay small and stay true to their own definition of success and to not look at all their competitors as competitors but this hey there’s enough here for all of us yeah yeah absolutely and it’s so easy for us to look at competition and see it as us against you um but I love how they looked at it as more this abundance mindset yeah and how can we collectively win and you know ultimately the industry at large grew because of their willingness to just be more open-handed with the whole thing yeah and I think there’s an opportunity for all of us to um maybe be a little bit more like that yeah rather than be so focused on us how can we you know to find success for ourselves and then also in that maybe you create opportunities for people who maybe you had seen as competitors before that yeah yeah absolutely it’s it’s one of those uh you know I think when we talk about like the tension like the human tendency and I love the baby analogy too like you’re crying to you know meet your needs but things haven’t significantly changed from you know being a baby we want those needs met so it feels like counter-intuitive to support the competition right in that regard it feels like a thing to just reject and go about it on your own uh and I think in those sort of ways uh for me in particular it has led to a spotlight mentality we’re just going to do it better and do it by ourselves and I’m just going to dismiss all the noise and everything over here on the side and now that we’ve arrived it’s sort of the size of our organization I just recognize how even though it’s been healthy for us personally as an organization uh and the individuals within it it has caused harm in the environment of like our industry and um has made you know marketers at time even just fearful to even like hey Brandon you know can I come over and tour your facility or drop off a box of creatures or whatever the case is you know that intensity you know as I reflect on it hasn’t always led to um or what initially felt positive hasn’t always turned out to be the positive way to go about it in that regard so for me just sharing with you know the leaders about there how you know I’ve walked within this tension and lived in the spotlight mentality and it took some reflection to be honest about that as an approach but the power that comes from it and the opportunity to assist and to not just be a leader for organization but to be a leader for this industry in that way um just feels like I’m in this new space now you know kind of after taking some of the guidance and Direction out of your text and just wanted to you know share that with you as well too and from the viewers this book’s got a lot of incredible information going on in it in it and it’s worth your time and reflection as you go through it and so kind of moving through it as you know as you set it up within this you know within your chapters we arrive at these uh chapters about recognition and I don’t want to name drop too much because you have all the names to drop on your end you know David Novak but listening to the podcast episode on your build a winning team platform I believe it’s episode one for uh that as well too and you know the whole concepts of you know recognizing through Rubber Chickens and all that sort of stuff and it’s also just I mean you know David himself is just an awesome speaker he’s inviting and he’s connecting I was fully in you know braced in the the podcast episodes also shared on the audible version of your book but it’s fascinating that he took this concept of recognition into the organization and made it the thing and then the success followed from that you know in that regard and um just would love for you to share kind of you know maybe your friendship you know with David what you’ve come to learn from David and how much he inspired you know I believe it’s chapter five of recognition within your text yeah so David grew young Brands when he was the CEO and young Brands is the parent Corporation for KFC Taco Bell and Pizza Hut and you know in David’s tenure he grew the business from 4 billion to 32 billion dollars and and you know a lot of people would look at that they’re like how did you do that well how they did it was through creating this culture of recognition you know David really wanted recognition to be the thing that they were known for the number one thing and behavior that they wanted to drive in the business and a lot of people would hear about this idea of recognition and maybe telling you this as like advice to grow your business yeah and be like come on you know recognitions the soft fluffy stuff but you know David said it’s it’s the soft stuff that drives the hard results and so David made it a a personal mission of his as the leader in the company if this is the behavior that he wanted to see he knew he casts a shadow as a leader and he had to go first he had to model for everyone else what this looks like and so he would call people out for you know doing good things you know doing the kinds of behaviors in the company that he felt really would would drive and move the company forward and so he had what he called a personal recognition award so he’d give somebody a bit of personal recognition and he’d say hey I want to actually take a picture with you I’m gonna send you a copy of this picture as well um but I’m going to take another copy of it and put it on the wall all in my office because when people walk into the CEO’s office at Young Brands I want them to see your picture so that they can see you’re the kind of person who’s really making stuff happen around here so he started putting his pictures on his walls you know framed all around and quickly ran out of space on the wall so we started to put them on the ceiling and what I love so much about this is recognition really was the thing that made the company run and you know this kind of thing is so possible for all of us to do to just simply call out the good that we see in our team members and um we actually used to when I was leading the company at story brand we would just add a little bit at the end of a meeting that we just call shout outs we’d want to to shout out call out the things happening behind the scenes that may have otherwise gone unnoticed absolutely unrecognized and we just wanted to take a couple minutes and just call out some of those things the reality for all of us is we want to to feel seen and valued and appreciated and by simply calling out some of that work that we see as Leaders can make a pretty massive difference in in the people that we have the opportunity to lead and so what I love about what David has done is after he left young Brands he wanted to take these Leadership Lessons that he’d learned about recognition about you know effective ways of building teams and of growing a business to 32 billion leading a million and a half employees and so he created a non-profit yeah it just it’s absurd one and a half million employees yeah that’s that’s amazing yeah it really is and so he created a non-profit called David Novak leadership and the whole idea the whole mission in David Novak leadership is he wants to make the world a better place by developing better leaders and this summer he actually said hey would you consider being CEO of David Novak leadership and you know you’ll still I still want you to have freedom to like write and speak and I immediately was like of course I don’t even know what this looks like that I’m in and um so now we’re trying to help everyone from elementary school students to professionals learn what it looks like to um recognize others to show up and think you know not me but we and yeah you know Coca-Cola they sell the kids because if they can get a kid liking Coke as a kid they’re going to be Coke buyers for life and I want to do the same thing in leadership right and in teaching people these ways of showing up and living if we can teach a kid that it’s important to think of others first if we can teach a a high schooler that success looks like helping someone else win if we can teach them this at these early ages when they are in college and they have an internship when they step into their first job as a professional they then become leaders if we have been teaching them these things along the way way they then are going to lead in this way and start to build teams and Company cultures that are showing up like that too imagine what the world could look like if more people showed up absolutely wanting to help other people win to finding success a little bit differently recognizing others valuing every person’s contribution I mean I get pumped up about what the world should look like 20 years from now if we invest in you know some of the youngest of people like it couldn’t be more impactful and more important yeah I love the energy behind that the literally pouring off of you yeah so I mean hey how can you not be excited about this as like a viewer of this episode and certainly I’m you know continuing to be excited about it and just uh you know reading your book I need to know you the podcast and all the energy around it it’s it’s just a beautiful platform and I you know it has me thinking a little bit about this the cultural language of like the great resignation right that we experienced on the back side of you know the pandemic turned endemic right and a lot of just frustrated company cultures and people looking for different opportunities you know one thing comes to mind we have a very small time currency in this world we’re born and then you know I hate to say we die one day right and regardless of what’s on the other side of this life experience you know in that regard we spent a great deal of our time in work environments 40 hours a week 60 hours a week 80 hours a week you know as a contribution in that regard and I think about it through the lens of like how do I Inspire the person not to just come here to collect the paycheck but to be like I’m getting out of bed today I’m gonna go save some damn lives at Peaks recovery centers and be you know just pumped on that as a notion and you know for us at Peaks we’ve been so fortunate not to like experience that it was almost like background noise or we almost had a sensitivity to it like it’s coming yeah our you know everybody’s about to bounce but at the same time we were nurturing that cultural aspect side of things and what if as you’re saying the opportunity here in the world for change and you know removal of division that seems to take place in the social medias and all this stuff has to do with empowering leaders to do better within their organizations and creating that intrinsic invitation to come to work because you just can’t picture yourself being anywhere else for eight hours a day and I think books like the secret society of success and in particular your book greatly highlight the value proposition of that and just recognizing people right and not just recognizing like Clinton you’re a good person right but Clinton you are oh yeah thank you I appreciate that yeah I tell people that all the time he tells them all the time but also to go into work into you know and just to recognize and I I see like I have a lot of energy and I say a lot of things before I go into leadership clinical say Hey you know 15 minutes before like what are you going to say in there you know let’s translate that right now for the team and like let’s make sure we get it correct but also I have a lot of energy and thoughts and ideas and I throw it at him right and he has this beautiful way of translating this into company culture in a way they can hear it in a way that I would have erupted the whole culture you know by Brute Force bringing that information in and so the development of leaders and uh the directionality about that uh I just want to recognize you know with the viewers that I think that’s a special thing and I think it’s a really valuable thing that you’ve kind of discovered as uh what we’ve been calling golden nuggets within text that exist within the book that you’ve written yeah so you know the I the reality is what our team members want today is very different from what they wanted two years ago yeah and the greatest thing that we can do is to show up and hear them people want to feel seen and heard and valued and if they don’t feel that they’re gonna go somewhere else there is an environment now that is so much more acceptable to go bounce into a new job because they want things in a culture that maybe didn’t matter as much to them or maybe they weren’t confident enough to make the step or to take that leap unless they were experiencing them in their in their role so it is more important now than ever for people to feel recognized and valued for them to feel honored in their contribution so I think there’s some really beautiful things kit that can happen at the intersection of like the employees desires their skill sets what they want and what the company need is when those things can line up I think some really beautiful things can happen so I’m constantly asking our team what do you want yeah you know what what are the things that you’re thinking about today two years from now what are the things that you value and how can men we be looking for opportunities to allow you to flex or whatever within the context of what the business need is and when we can do that when we can not be so rigid in our own leadership or on our way of wanting to do things that we’re not going to accommodate our team members how can we accommodate as long as it meets in line with what the business need is and there’s sometimes when team members just need to go somewhere else and that’s okay yeah that’s fine you know if our goal is to help others win sometimes the greatest thing that we can do is identify that maybe this company is not the place for you anymore maybe there’s some other opportunity for you over here and that’s okay if my intention is to help somebody else when I have to be willing to also champion in them into a new opportunity if that’s what’s best but I also hope that people stay with me and our company as long as possible right where it makes sense and so what I think is most important in all of this is that we are all getting more and more clear about what success is we’re starting to talk about or having conversations we’re allowing our team members to know that they are heard absolutely and we’re creating space for that and so I think if you do that as a leader you show up you create that safe environment I think people are going to stick around yeah you know totally yeah and I um you know uh it was it’s kind of intentional right in my brain here my thought bubble kind of guiding through the episode here we uh uh it’s earlier in the book but this question for leaders and how we show up is something now that I’m asking myself each and every day after reading your book kind of slapping the doors I go in like who am I here for and I think you know of the many stories that you share within your book The thistle farm story has a powerful message of who am I here for and how that operates within that organization station so I don’t want to steal the Limelight of that that story but I was hopeful for the viewers that you could connect the thistle Farm stories with that who am I here for and share some of the power and that Vision that’s being carried out through this incredible not-for-profit company yeah yeah so I I was at this event in Atlanta and I heard this guy Andy Stanley speak he’s an amazing Communicator amazing leader and you know he says if we really want to find purpose in our careers the question we need to ask is this who am I here for and what I love about that question is it allows us to show up with all of our talents and our abilities and our passions but it has Us in this head space where we’re bringing all of that in service of someone else who am I here for and that could be really challenging as a leader to say that some days because I’m sure you guys have these where your inboxes just never ending you can’t keep up with email your calendars are jam-packed you’ve got text messages and phone calls and fires to put out on those days you just want to like put your head down put your blinders on just get your stuff done but it’s on those days that I I really just need that who am I here for reminder and so when I I got back from this event hearing Andy Stanley speak I created this eight and a half by eleven sheet of paper and up at the top and real big bold letters I wrote that who am I here for and below it I put the pictures and the names of all of my team members and their families because on those really busy days when I wanted to think only about myself I needed a reminder that said that the reason why I’m showing up is for these people absolutely and for the customers that we have the opportunity to serve yeah and there’s something about that question that just gets out of that gets us out of this selfish mentality yeah and that concept is so powerful that there are people who have been living this way whether or not they knew they were living this way it was almost subconscious and one of these people that lives this way is Becca Stevens and in in 1997 she created a home to help five women get off the streets from lives of prostitution drug addiction some of them and you know had experience trafficking and she wanted to help them learn to recover from you know the trauma and you know what I love about thistle Farms is you know you hear about a prostitute or someone like that and or you see someone on the streets and and you know it’s so easy for us to be judgmental and be like well you surely did something like what did you do because you deserve to be here right I think if we’re honest we’ve probably felt that at times but what I love about the thistle Farms approach is they have this two-year recovery program now that they help women get off the streets and and recover and they don’t ask what did you do right it’s more like what happened to you yeah it’s this empathy of understanding there are stories and systems and things that helped contribute to these women getting here absolutely and so Becca just has this heart and this passion for giving people a second chance at life and for so many of these women in their recovery them being a part of this free program that thistle Farm she says for a lot of these women this is their first chance at life and um so there’s this one woman that I met in this program her name’s Jennifer and she’s incredible she’s got all the joy and energy if she was in here in this room we’d all be smiling and laughing and you know one time I asked Jennifer I said you know hey where would you be without Becca Stevens’s influence in your life you know so Becca has this goal of just helping five women get off the streets I mean there’s no dream of creating a social Enterprise or anything she just wanted to help five women get off the streets and recover and um Jennifer now several years later is a part of this program and and so I asked her you know where would you be without Becca and you know she didn’t delay she didn’t hesitate at all she just said I’d be dead without Becca I’d be dead and the approach that Becca has been operating with since 1997. now this program has celebrated 25 years focusing on one life at a time yeah and it’s so easy for us running businesses to have aspirations to build big companies build big teams really make an impact in the world and it’s almost as though we’re not successful we’re not somebody truly worth you know aspiring to be unless we have this massive stage this massive platform impacting hundreds or thousands or millions of lives but Becca has shown up in a very different way she’s shown up with one life at a time letting that be enough letting that be how we define success and so I think for so many of us we may not have a big platform we may not have a big stage we may not have a big company but I’m sure there’s one person in our like immediate group immediate circle that actually could use a little bit of help absolutely why um it’s like who am I here for when we can think of maybe the colleague that needs us to just check in with them and see how they’re doing because maybe they’re dealing with you know some pretty hard stuff I think if we can be leaders Who start to measure our impact and our value as focusing on one life at a time if we can be leaders who think about serving and helping others if we can be leaders who think less of ourselves and and less about our journey and our climbs to the top or how much money we’re making I think if we focus more on the people around us I just feel like that’s a much better approach yeah to uh to actually being successful by definition and and how the secret society would would look at it yeah absolutely you know success right is one life at a time and I think that’s just such a powerful message for the viewers out there not only because of the connective tissues to the industry we work in and the things we do at you know Peaks recover each and every day but also because when your focal point becomes one person at a time the teams the systems the you know wealth of the not-for-profit organization all that stuff follows correctly but only at the pace of one person at a time so it’s not distracting it’s centered it’s directional and so it has all these beautiful operating features and you know it feels like in you know we we don’t have all the time in the world to Cascade all the stories and you know but the Tom shoes stories and all of these sort of you know interactions that are taking place when they when they put forward uh success is these sort of things within their organization and made it the thing versus all these other things everything else grew just naturally and beautifully in the background uh so I appreciate you bringing that story forward and sharing that again too just excellent examples of things to read as we roll through the book and um you know kind of tailing out here towards the end of the episode you know one more powerful story you know comes from uh not only your uh build a winning team podcast uh episode with uh Scott Hamilton a famous figure skater Olympic uh gold medalist and so forth and he just such a powerful figure right so many challenges within his life that he’s gone through and just to continue to smile and shine and show up for other people and the way he redefines you know negativity in his life is just information and those sorts of things um powerful stuff in addition to that walk us through uh your guys’s conversation and what it means to learn how to fall yeah so you know you’ve got a guy Scott Hamilton he’s had a crazy amount of success and yet just as publicly he said so many you know trap challenges in his life cancer three brain tumors and as I’ve talked to him about all this he he’s he talks about these things as though it’s a blessing yeah and and he’s being genuine he’s like Tim this is what made everything possible and for so many people as they think about having a successful life and career I think there’s this idea that maybe we can get through that without any major challenges or setbacks and um that’s just not at all what Scott’s story has shown me and you know what I’ve learned from Scott is like success looks like embracing challenges and learning from failure and you know exactly like you had said one of the big lessons he taught me is what if we started to look at failure as what it is just information what if failure was 100 information because as Scott has learned to become an elite athlete he knows even in his gold medal run he fell yeah yeah


right so failing in life falling in life is a guarantee and some people come to the Scott Hamilton skating Academy in Nashville wanting to learn to do what he’s done and so they’re probably surprised when the first thing that they learn first thing that Scott wants to teach them is how to fall because they’re going to fall so what if we started to look at success look at our lives more like Scott does to look at our challenges and our failures and our setbacks as information and learn to learn from them I I just feel like we’re going to be more true about what actual life looks like rather than living in this Fantasy Land which is okay I should be hoping for no problem no trouble and if I experience it something’s wrong it’s like actually this is just you being a human so let’s just acknowledge that and move forward and so that idea of what success is learning from challenges and embracing them I think is a huge thing that has helped me in my life because of what Scott’s taught me yeah I love that so much I mean in our organization there’s there’s so much energy there could be a crisis we got to manage the milieu we got to support the teams and all of these folks within the with each within each and every day you know and what we do as an opportunity and uh to sort of learn how to fall within that and sort of embrace it it’s just such a beautiful message and you know me I’ve been saying I don’t live at the level of hyperbole I I believe it’s a beautiful message uh to learn how to fall at the end of the day um because it’s guaranteed but it feels like at least up until you know reading your book or you know becoming the professional that I have it’s been a feature of avoidance how do we avoid falling I’m gonna put everything I can in front of me to ensure this never happens again right and that’s so stressful to approach it in that sort of way to create all those blockades in a way instead of like you know like let’s bring the bring the failure in here let’s bring the falling in and let’s just invite it right in and move through it together right yeah yeah so if we are just trying to avoid failure are we actually being ambitious enough because I think for so many of us in our businesses we want to set goals that we know we can attain because we don’t want to fail and so we limit our own potential because we hold ourselves back from going after a bigger Vision maybe than we even believe possible but sometimes if we’re more comfortable with failing we’re more comfortable chasing after bigger ideas right and what I love about the work that you all do and if we are in it to help other people these Big Dreams and these big Visions are actually to make an impact on more people to help more people win and so get comfortable failing because we’re going to yeah and let’s not let that fear of failure hold us back from making the kind of impact that is possible for all of us in our lives I just wholeheartedly love that I know so many leaders in our industry because of the challenges we experience with in our industry where fear is pervasive and it gets in the way of things all the way the financials and if that falls then this Falls and you know just so for the leaders out there certainly encourage you know the reading of the book but to fully Embrace I think this concept not just within our industry but all Industries in that regard and um you know being at the 12th hour of this episode now uh just wonderful to have you and before I take it out as well too um I could certainly describe what I think is the culminating feature here but I think everybody should be getting this audible book not only because you narrated it so brilliantly you get to hear his smiles and his cheers and his narration all throughout the audible it’s brilliant you also get the you know the build winning team several episodes of those podcasts within it as well too um so without me telling the viewers what I think they should take away from the book when they finish the book um when or when they get to the end of the book what are you hopeful that they’ll receive as the final message the ultimate stamp on why you wrote it in the first place yeah on my podcast uh every episode I ask the guests all right finish the sentence for me success is and it’s interesting to hear what people say people I’m inspired by none of them have said fame money power they never said that yeah if I were to answer that question and what I hope people walk away from learning in this book is success is helping others win that to me is that you know the heart of it that the foundation the the the through line from all these people that I’ve been inspired by in the secret society and if there’s been a North star for me there’s this quote that I really love by Albert Schweitzer and kind of leave you all with this so you know he says I don’t know what your destiny will be some of you will perhaps occupy remarkable positions some are some of you will perhaps you know become famous by your pens or as artists but I know one thing the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve and I think that’s it right like if we can be people who show up wanting to serve help others win help others be at their best I feel like we do that I think the rest is going to take care of itself yeah I love that the tension right of existing between the service of others and the spotlight mentality the spotlight is this pervasive thing and this is the hopeful thing and I think if we find ourselves as leaders in this world within your own organizations living within this tension and being truthful about it I think beautiful things come and I think that’s what you’ve shared with us in your book so well written uh so grateful to have you on this podcast before I take the readers out I’m gonna do a little plug of your own podcast projects things you’ve got going on that you want to remind the the viewers to check out on the side here so I do have that podcast build a winning team there’s 20 episodes of some of my favorite people yeah I feel like I’m always walking away from those episodes inspired um but yeah I mean the the fact that I got to read the audiobook is so fun and I’ve been surprised I’ve sold more audio books Than Physical books yeah which is crazy yeah but I just I love being able to kind of put that emotion and feeling into it um and so you know I I just I love there is one thing that I hope people do walking away from this episode whether or not they buy the book is to just start to think about what success is for you and to have a conversation whether it’s with your leadership team or whether it’s with your family what is success and how maybe can we think about this a little differently in a way that has us living differently because so many people they’ve not taken the time to get clear about what that definition is and so they just subconsciously are living in a lot in in alignment with these definitions that have just been handed to them from other people but we got to get clear about what success is for us and start to live in that way so that is the thing that I hope people walk away from this conversation thinking about absolutely well you have you have our attention at yes Recovery Center certainly uh we’re so grateful for you to be speaking with our team for all the folks out there you know do your staff your leadership teams that favor the benefit invite this gentleman on he’s got so many great things to say such a positive uh energy that um you know it’s just it’s just a just a powerful sort of wake you kind of leave behind and it’s worth embracing and so also check out his book of course the secret society of success I’ve read it so many times uh in a in over and over and over again it just continues to you know feed my my soul and my leadership and my value system that I try to bring to Peaks each and every day continue to check out his podcast all those things and for uh everybody out there thanks again for joining us uh finding Peaks at peaksrecovery.com let us know your thoughts ideas next episodes around next episodes and so forth also check us out on the socials the Facebook the twitters the tick tocks all the things right that exist out there today in that regard thank you all so much for sticking through this with us and Joanie and Tim Sher here today until next time everybody foreign