S2 EP 19 Leadership Has To Be Learned with John Maxwell

WEBVTT - Leadership Has To Be Learned with John Maxwell Welcome. To building billions. Building a 10 billion, 100 million, billion, or multi-billion dollar business is actually based on three things consistency, velocity and results. I built, scaled and exited and rebuilt many businesses in my career.

If you're serious about creating something that has real enterprise value, stay tuned. This is building billions with Brandon Dawson. All right, well, I'm sitting here with one of my most favorite human beings in the world. I call you dad number two.

That's. I'll take dad number two because I know dad number one. Yes. And I want to tell you, he's a great one.

So if I could, you know, if I can just every once in a while, pinch hit. You know what? I'll do that. Yeah.

Good. Well, I mean, you two have been, you know, the biggest influencers on me. I thought maybe I could get into this podcast, talk about a lot of things, not get emotional, but it's hard for me not to just have so much gratitude and appreciation. Yeah.

You know, one of the things Brad and I love so much about you is how you love your father, and he's marked your life. It's very obvious. Uh, you're caring for people. Uh, most people that are highly successful, that are builders rainmakers like you, honestly, they just kind of push and move ahead.

And if people get it, fine. If they don't get it, they move. But I think your secret sauce is not only your great success in growing things and building things and you figure it out, you you could put you anywhere with any company or business. And if they'll just give you a little time, you'll figure out how to get it going.

Usually people like that lack the heart. And what I have seen from day one, if you go back to when you were back in Audiology and Las Vegas and the 21 laws and I met you the first time, I saw your heart immediately and I. When I pray for you, what I pray for more than anything else, I don't pray for your success. Good Lord, You.

You don't need any prayer on being successful or helping people or building. So you don't need that. But I pray that you always have a heart tender toward God and a heart tender toward people, because I think that is your secret sauce. You carry enough that you will not only make a difference in the business, you care enough that you'll make a difference in the people.

And there's a difference between building a company and building a business and building people. And you have that ability to understand that and put each leg in those two streams and do it really well. So, and I think a lot of that comes from your dad, I think. Well, it took it took reading your books to understand.

I wasn't listening to my dad. You want to lower that mic? It's fine. It it took me a lot, uh, to really reflect after reading your books.

The lessons that I didn't listen to as a kid from my dad. Right? But when you have those two, I always say there's two things you need business to be successful. Context and contrast.

Yeah. And most people get their contacts and their contrast through trial and error. But what I found with me and the different person that I am today is that I would justify and rationalize the air. Yeah.

Somebody else's fault circumstances outside of my control. Somebody did something to somebody. The victimization perspective versus just owning that I created those conditions. And I remember the first time that struck me was when Hector gave me 21 irrefutable laws of leadership after forcing me to identify what my weaknesses were.

And I had to go home. And I'll never forget this because we were playing golf. I was being a drainer, and I was complaining about all those other people causing those conditions. And he's like, dude, pull the card over.

Like, I'm not going to listen to you anymore. You are a superhero. You're now a zero. You got it.

You got to get back to superhero status. I refuse to spend time with you. Make a list of what you did. Great.

Make a bigger list of what you did wrong and put me through that whole cycle. And then when I went over to his house after creating this massive list, he's like, here's this first book was 21 Irrefutable Laws. Here's this book on operations. Here's this book on finance with Sharon Lechter.

Here's this book. And go read these books and find the phraseology that lines up with where you identified. And I created this literal grid of 585 tabs I had in 12 books. Wow.

Three of them were yours. The 53 laws that I put together, I think it was maybe it might have been 54 or 17, 16 and 21. Um, and then this little algorithm and, and the, the, the thing that's evolved from then is when I ran my first meetings of what I did, then what I'm doing differently and why you should Follow me, which was the launch of Audigy and in June of 2005. Wow.

I had given I had 12 books with 575 tabs with my notes, and that's what people would have to move books around to try to figure out what I was talking about. Yeah. And I remember Brandon just jumping in, I bet I could. I'll never forget when I came out to Vegas and we talked and you talk to me what you were doing and the 21 last night you got up and I thought, oh my gosh, he took my 20 year old laws, turned them all, just turned them over and said, okay, how do we apply it here?

And I found out right then that you have the ability to take something that's given and then weave it and put it in a form that makes sense that you can follow. And, and I that day I said, this guy is very unusual. He has the ability to take what is given to him and make it better. So every time I, when you say you read a book or have something in mind, all I know is you took my book and you just made it better.

Yeah. Well, and so the getting practical. And here's the thing though, the first massive epiphany of that whole process, which is why I like to bring it up, is because people always want to know what's the big thing. Sometimes it's just one thing.

Yeah. And I opened your book up in the first of all, the books that eventually became what We are today. The first book, First Law. I was done for the day.

Love the. Law of the lid. And I kept reading it, kept reading it, kept reading it. And I said to myself, I was the lid on leadership.

I was the lid on effectiveness. I was the lid on not creating a team. I was the lid on not understanding and working with the teams on what we were doing. Setting the vision.

I was in constant reactive mode to the environment around me, panicking most of the time. Yeah. And I think this is a great way to kick the podcast off because my experience now with working with at this point, I've tracked it, it's about $48 billion of small business owners. Wow.

This is how most of them operate. Yeah, the way I operated the first time around. And you know, you can't fix what you're unaware of. And so when people come to me and they say, what if I want to make a turnaround, I say, the first thing you need is you need to be aware.

And that goes back to your story. When he came over and he said, look, what are your weaknesses? What are your strengths? Always try and do is say you're going to have to become aware because you can't.

You have to know it before you can fix it. And I think one of the big misses is so many times we're not aware. And so therefore we we're we're walking on a minefield, just waiting for something to blow up. And I think you got that awareness.

And then all of a sudden, everything began to come together for you. And, I think you're the number one leadership authority on the planet. Talk a little bit because what I said I noticed is it takes two things to run a business context contact contrast. And if every time you bump into a problem or an issue or a person or something that's not working, you tend to look externally as to.

That's why. Yeah. Until I own that I created all that I created who is around me, I created the conversations taking place, I created who I attracted into me. I create talk a little bit about how a person based on you being the authority in leadership.

I'm asked all the time, Brandon, what's your greatest leadership challenge? And I always surprised him. I said, well, that's so easy. That's an easy question.

My greatest leadership challenge is me. It's not other people. My greatest leadership challenge is me fixing me. Because I can promise you, if I can get it right here, I can get it right over there.

But if I can't fix it here, I can't fix it over there. And I think leadership so often we're again, we look and say, well, you know, I got to go over there and do that. And I sit there and my first question always is, what do I need to know about me before I go over to those people? In fact, sometimes I'll ask people, what's it like to be on the other side of me?

And what I'm trying to do is get their perspective of how they see me, because I don't see me as other people see me. And when I have a counseling degree and I used to do some of it, I don't think I was any good at it. I used to I'm not a good I'm a good quipper. A quipper is a person who takes people and their their strengths and works on them.

A counselor works on weaknesses. I'm not really good at working on other people's weaknesses. I sometimes, after counseling, wanted to tell them to go jump off the bridge sometimes. Sometimes I want to say, could I go with you?

I'll jump with you. You've got me so down now I don't even know. I don't even know what to do with it myself. But I do know this for an absolute fact that if I can get my act together, I can help other people get their act together.

And the most beneficial thing I can ever do for a leader is to be at the right person. You know, I wrote a book recently called High Road Leadership and Brandon, it's all about doing the right things for the right reason, wanting more for others than you even want for yourself. And there's a level of living that if you live it, people begin to see it and they're very attracted to it because now you're a leader, that is, they know that you're a leader that's there to build into them and help them get better.

And I think so many times it's just easy. It's easier for me to tell you what to do than for me to do it. But until I do it, I have no moral authority or credibility or gravitas to tell you to do it. So people do what people see, not what they hear.

So when the leader is out there and they're saying, this is what I want you to do, and this is they're listening to all those words and they're putting it through one simple grid. Does John live that? Does he do that? If the answer is yes, those words have great weight.

If those if the answer is no, it goes in one ear and out the other. So I think in leadership, again, uh, the self-aware leader, the leader that absolutely can understand himself herself. I'm writing a book right now called The Leader Meter. And most all leadership books are on the traits of a leader.

This one's on the state of a leader. And I tell people all the time, it's the state of the leader is how am I behaving right now? And I have to understand that state to know if it's effective leadership or if it's not. So the ability to be aware and have a Um, willingness.

I mean, when he talked to you about go make this to your weaknesses, you could have written him off saying, oh my gosh, you know, but you, you know what you did? You owned up. You said, okay, I'm going to own up to these areas that I need to fix. And that's the first step of, of anybody improving their life and getting better because you've done that now, Brandon, look at how you're helping other people do it.

But you have that moral authority. You're not asking anybody in the businesses that you helped build to do anything that you haven't done. Yep. So you're not saying, I think this will work.

You say, I know it works. Now how do you know it works? Because it worked for me. So now let's figure out how it's going to work for you.

There's that moral authority and integrity that leadership has that I think makes all the difference in the world, in leadership. You and I. I was reading your books and then I started using them. And then in 2011, we met.

And then in 2012, you talked to my group of 1000 business owners, and that was the first time. And you did your keynote. Yeah. And then you and I did an hour Q&A for 1100 people.

I remember it well. And I remember you looked at me and you said, this was so much fun. I would have paid you to do that. That's right.

I was surprised, knowing you that you didn't make me pay. I that that was the one curve you gave me because I thought, oh, Brad's gonna say now, that's a good idea. Let's do that. But I remember.

I'll tell you what I remember about that hour. It was magic. And I'll tell you what made it magic. You were taking principles and laws that I had written about, and you had applied them.

And it was so fun for me to see the things that I wrote about being worked out. And so it was kind of like, and look at what she's doing. That one. And oh my gosh, look how that would work.

And so I was just like a kid in a candy store, seeing all those laws come alive. You made the laws come alive and you made them practical. And I remember we just went back and forth and it was kind of like, oh my gosh, we have to stop. Because it was, it was magic.

It was magic. And I remember then you said to me, can you come in and work with my team in my business? So I got the joy of coming out and I brought Natalie and the whole team, and we spent time with you guys. And then the following year, we came back and and that's when I released the Transformational Growth platform, which was all the work we were doing and all the concepts we were putting together.

Um, and, and that was really the kickoff to where I'm at today. So that's literally 13 years ago. And that's you and I have been working together 14 years and you've watched every evolution, including some of the trials I went through. You watch me have to.

You watch me go through a divorce. You watch me. In fact, we were on the verge of doing something. And I told your team, hey, I don't know that now's a good time because I got some problems at home and I don't want that to rub off on John.

We had such a deep rooted relationship and transparent relationship. One of the things I wanted to ask you, because we're above it now, but one of the struggles Natalie and I have had is the age gap. Yeah. And the fact that I knew her and the fact that I got divorced and the fact.

But you knew me before and you know me now. Yeah. I'd really love your reflection on what you think as somebody that I actually care about their opinion and perspective and actually listen to because everybody else doesn't really care. I mean, my dad, of course, but everyone else doesn't matter.

When you knew me then and you see me and Natalie now, what's your reflection on us? Yeah. Well, three things. First of all, my first reflection has nothing to do with Natalie.

It has everything to do with you. You've changed. You've grown. You've listened.

You've learned. You've pivoted. You've done that. And that allows you to have a phenomenal marriage today.

But but Natalie, isn't that good to take the old Brandon or she isn't that good to take the old John? Yep. So. So step one is you have taken control of your life and said, let's get this stuff fixed.

That's number one. The second thing is you married a magnificent lady. The more I'm around her, the more I love her and appreciate her and value her. And I'll tell you why I'm with her.

When? When the two of us talk the other night, or when you went into the restaurant to get our food and I'm talking to Natalie. I thought to myself, I wish that I wish Brandon could be in the car because she talked about how she values you, how she respects you, how you care. I mean, I it was so beautiful to hear her talk about her admiration and respect for you.

Of course she loves you, but but you got to have you got to have respect for people. And I thought, my gosh, I should have gone in and got the food. I should have asked the question, jumped out of the car and said, no, but I know she tells you that. So I'm not giving you any news.

But but you changed and you married a marvelous person, a really a person I greatly look up to greatly. She's young, but she's extremely mature way, way, way beyond her years. Yeah, that's number two. Number three is you two are better together than you are separately.

You yin and yang. What? She does really well. I mean, while you're traveling to Dubai and building businesses.

I. First of all, I've never known. I don't know anybody. I have no friends.

I have no business friends that I know. I mean, if somebody said, who's the one person you want to take whatever you got and make it work and make it better? Brandon Dawson I don't even have like a two, a three, a four. I don't have a b, c, d I don't know anybody that has the gifts that you have.

You can take Zippo and get it moving. So while you're doing your thing, your strength and helping business people get their act together and build their business, and that reason you're so successful is because it works. And when you help somebody, they say, hey, Brandon's the person to help you. So that's contagious itself.

But while you're doing that, she's anchoring the home. She's anchoring the office. She's leading the day to day stuff. And they don't need you.

They go to her. They they understand. Who? That she's the glue.

And so you both, you complement each other in such wonderful. You know, you complete one another. You don't compete with one another. And so when I think of the two of you today, I just smile.

I remember when I flew in last night and and getting ready for you to pick me up. I thought, my greatest joy is going to be watching the two of you love each other. That's my greatest joy. And to see you have the person that you needed and have her see her.

Have somebody that she just absolutely adores and respects. I'm telling you, I saw the other side. I was with you. Yes, I was with you on the other side.

But. But you changed. You've got a great one. But the two of you, you've got these gifts that just complete one another and makes me just makes me feel it makes me feel really good for you.

Because I just want to say one other thing. I care for you and you. You live a very fast paced life. The people that are your inner circle people every day, they have one prayer.

Dear God, help me to keep up with Brandon. That's their prayer. Oh dear Lord, where did he go? What did he say?

What, what? And I'm not talking about fickle, but your mind never stops. You are. You are constantly churning that mind and creating and thinking and and adjusting and doing all the things that great people do.

So your team, I mean, their, their whole goal is, can I just keep up with you, that whole process? But what you need is you needed that stability. You needed that anchor. You needed that person that she was going to be there and you could can count on her.

And she was going to love you unconditionally. And that's what makes it work. And so I think I talked probably longer, but I. I can talk an hour about you too.

I can talk an hour about. Well, you've met a lot of people. It's hard for me to express and tell people, uh, why I equally love her so much and respect her because they see what they see. The worldly view.

Yeah, but you've seen me for a long time, and you see us and you see her and you've been around us and I've just. We are good with it. We don't. We actually feel like it's actually a private superpower, because people will see things and make all sorts of assumptions.

And then that allows us the opening to move within, to get to where we need to get and filter out the ones that we don't need, because that's a natural filter for us. When you think of. The power of combining the right people. Yeah.

And this goes to the whole point with teams. Yeah. Because it's not just at the household. It's also teams of people.

And you've written a lot of books about the importance of being a strong enough leader to build a dynamic and enriched team. Correct. Talk a little bit about because all these small business owners, what gets them into business is the thing they do, then they're so terrified they won't admit this. They're so terrified of losing control of the thing they do that they don't trust anybody else to do it.

Sure, sure. And because they're not good at the things that actually allow the business to get big, but they don't want to admit that, so they delegate it or abdicate it to a third party in their organization. And then they sit or they go out of business, and then they come up with a million reasons why. If we were to identify, because there's a lot of conversation about AI and disruption and people losing their jobs and this and that and the economy, blah, blah, blah.

What I try to tell people, and I'd love to get your perspective on this, is that fundamentally, even if we reverted back to the Stone age, the number one quality a human being has to have to actually succeed. The only one thing every human can choose to develop is their ability to first lead themselves, then lead others, and then create a a village or a community or an army of leaders. No question. Talk about how someone right now, because they have to look at themselves.

The way I had to look at myself or myself. And that is. I might have multiple personalities actually, but but the way I had to look at myself, which is when I left my first company, nobody said goodbye, nobody said thank you and nobody followed me. So I wasn't leading anybody.

I was pushing everybody. Yeah. How does somebody who's sitting there and actually just had the epiphany that I have people around me, but I'm not leading them. And if I'm ultimately going to be successful, no matter what happens, I have to master the ability to find, attract, align, inspire, and lead people.

What is the thing that we could get across to every person watching this? It is the central thing that has to happen for scalability to happen in a business. It cannot happen without it. It's, you know, it's in the laws of leadership.

It's the law of the inner circle. When I was 40, I looked at my life and I thought, I'm not really connecting and kicking on all levels like I really need to, and yet I'm really working hard on myself. And it hit me. If your work is hard on the people as you've been working on yourself, now, you've got to go to your inner circle.

Those closest to you determine the level of your success. That was that was a life change for me at 40. And I said, I'm going to spend the rest of my life developing people because it's the only way, as you know, Brandon, that you can compound anything. How do you compound time, influence money?

You have to do it with people. I mean, so there's only so much I can do, only so much you can do. When I started, I said, I want to make a difference. And then I realized I couldn't make enough difference myself.

So I said, I want to make a difference with people. That was a good thought, but it wasn't a mature thought so that I got people. But I still didn't develop it. Some were good, some were bad.

Some wanted to just have a free ride and all of a sudden realized, I don't need people. I need the right kind of people. Well, how am I going to get the right kind of people? I've got to develop those people now.

I've got to know how do I develop those people? And I have to know what is the picture of the kind of person that I want. Three things. First of all, when you bring the people around you, it just takes a little time.

But there has to be developed a real, real sense of trust that I trust them and they trust me. This, this, this has to happen. This has to happen. Because to use and take people and develop them, you've got to do a lot of equipping and empowering.

You've got to let go. You've got to let go. You can't control. You just can't hold on.

You've got to you've got to let them. You've got to let them run. There's a time the quarterback literally has to say, I think I need to give the ball to the running back now. The linemen are coming in.

Probably. I better give it to. Somebody can do something with it. So so there has to be a and you know, trust, you know how you have to almost test trust to be trusted.

But but you have to have that. So I look at anybody and I say, I think they've got some really good potential. Now let's make sure that we develop a trust level. So that's where you sit down with them and say, look, let's let's help each other.

And you have an openness. You're you can come and talk. I have an open ear policy, not an open door policy. Yeah.

Whenever you can always talk to me, I will always listen. And you've got to have that kind of a spirit. So developing a sense of trust is number one. After you do that, the second thing I make sure is I want people around me that have strengths greater than mine that are different than mine.

I need people to compliment me, not compliment me with words, but compliment my work. Do things that I don't do very well that can complete me. Now this takes security. This takes inner security.

This takes you've got to be a secure person. Because now, if they could do certain things better than you, they're going to show up better than you on those things. And now you got to say, am I going to am I going to hold them down so I still look good, or am I going to let them go and say, look, look what they're doing? And and point to them?

Do the John Wooden thing. Point to the guy that gave you the pass before you scored the bucket. And so I spent, I've got, I've got to get people around me that can compliment me, complete me, which means they have to have skill sets that are different than, than my skill sets, just so that we can be completely well-rounded. So if I could get that trust thing, and the thing I'm talking about now is really a security issue.

When when I don't see that happen, it's almost always the fact that leaders are just, they're just insecure and they're just, they're afraid of other people getting credit or they're afraid of what, what happens. Maybe I'll get replaced in that whole process. So that that. But you've got to have those two things.

Third thing then after you have to have is you have to have what I call this great continual honest communication. Because if things are moving, things change. And if you don't have continual honest communication, what you said three months ago may not hold the weight that it needs to hold today because you're shifting and you're moving. And now it's constantly.

And so I always tell my people is, don't wait for a three month review. We're not, you know, it's in April, we got our review time and then they come in. I said, well, now here's a list of seven things. If that list is seven things, why didn't you handle it when it happened?

Why didn't you at that very moment catch them and say, hey, let's talk about this? I think that was really good. Let's let's do more of that. Hey, let's talk about maybe we don't need to do this as much.

And I think that when you can put those three things, you can develop a total trust environment. You can get people that are different than you, that you can then applaud and let them rise and, and get some glory in that whole process because they're complimenting what you could do. And then if you then communication has to be continual. I mean, just think, just think of you and Natalie.

Just say, let's, let's just take a month and not talk. Well, you take a month and it's terrible every day. Well, here's where I am, and here's some good things. here's some things we got to work on.

And I think when you can put those three things together, you develop a real good team. Again, you don't need more people. You just need better people. And so how do you get better people develop trust, get, keep people, have complementary skills and then have continual communication.

Does that make sense? 100%. And it's important for, I think, my audience and all audiences to understand that no matter what happens around the world, if you can't create that in your current environment, you'll be the benefactor of a reaction to a destructive environment. Always.

If your own that and embrace it, you'll be the creator of a constructive opportunity. And I think those just that one thing is the difference, honestly, between success and failure. And you create has the word react in it. It's just got a C on the front of it.

So there's not much difference. and you better. So you got to ask yourself, am I constantly, every day getting up and am I. AM I like a fireman?

Oh, there's a fire over there. Let's get the hose. Let's go. AM I reacting?

And if I am reacting, why am I not up front? And what I find is this. Almost all reaction is based on the fact that the communication doesn't flow enough so that people aren't in the know. Here's where I am, here's what I'm doing, here's why I'm doing it.

And, and you're kind of, I say all the time, just put the people right beside you. But, you know, sit beside you. It's kind of like, let's get in the car and let's do this together. And I think that when you have these upfront expectations and you have this continual communication, I think that's what keeps everybody on the same page, same paragraph, the same sentence, and it keeps them going.

All right. I don't need to beat that to death because that was phenomenal. And I think people that hear that need to ask themselves, are they creating or are they reacting? Because if they're reacting, they're in trouble in all aspects.

If they're creating, they at least have an opportunity to evolve. And what you said about people need to be fluid, they need to complement each other. They need to work as an organism that moves around because in all environments, in all times, it's going to change. And if a cancer attaches to that organism.

Just one more thing. The fastest person doesn't win the race is the person who gets started first. And when somebody says, what's creativity? It's starting first.

It's getting on the front end. It's, it's it's already. I know you haven't come to the bridge, but you've already figured out what you're going to do when you get there. So creativity is I get in front of the gate.

Reactivity is always I'm behind. Oh, oh my gosh. And what do all great leaders do? They see more than others see, but they see before others see too.

They see a bigger picture, but they see it quicker. And that ability to see it and seize it at the moment. That's why that fluidness, that's why pivoting is so essential. That's why what we talked about three weeks ago, we're not doing right now because here's what we discovered, because the the discoveries in leadership is based on action.

I, you know, when I think when, you know, when I think of planning, you know, as well as I do, you can really think it through and plan it well. But the moment you take action, everything changes everything. Now, we're not taking away from planning. It's.

You want to be a thoughtful. You want to think. But what you know, the discovery is in the action. And the moment that we really understand.

Peter Drucker, who is a mentor of mine and was a great friend, he said, John, I've I'm known for planning. But he said, I want to tell people the plan. You never know how good it is until you take action. And he said, you will always change it.

It's like kind of like it's wonderful. I have plan A, but understand you're going to be on plan B real quick. And because you're going to constantly be moving and you constantly be fluid. And I think that's the big difference.

And when we're insecure, we like to defend our thoughts. And I say, when you're defending your thoughts, you're in trouble. Instead of defending your thoughts. Expand them.

You expand them by action. You defend them by inaction. There's a world of difference between those two things. 100%.

Well, I know you and I have another commitment, and I was trying to save this for last because it could have the tendency to make me emotional. But topic is my dad. Yeah. You've known my dad since you've known me.

Beautiful. Beautiful man. He's always been with me. You're a lucky guy.

My favorite picture because my dad was a pastor. And you were a mentor. Yeah. And the first time you came to speak at my event in 2012.

I never said this to him, but I was so proud to have built the company big enough that it could literally attract you to want and to accept speaking at it. And for me to be a conduit. Yes. You're the guy.

For my dad to get to meet you. Yeah. And my mom at the time. Yes.

And so that was 14 years ago. Yeah. And you met my father. And the picture is you and I walking with our arms around each other.

It's a black and white picture somebody took. And then my dad and my mom behind us, walking arm in arm together. Oh my gosh. It's such a great picture.

And. He was so proud that I created something that brought you to that environment. And now over the last 14 years, you've been instrumental because you were also the person that called when my mom was dying. Yeah, I remember.

And you were the last person with just my dad and you praying over my mom. That's right. And that was quite a few years ago, too. So here.

You've known me for a long time, and you know my dad. I just love for you to state for the record what your thoughts of my dad are. Wow. Well, first of all, you won the parent lottery.

Okay, let's just start there because we're talking to a lot of people that don't have that joy and that advantage that we had. They didn't have the father or the mother that they really, really needed. And I can relate to you because I had a great parent. Dad and mom too.

My father was very. He was my hero. He he he was he was my lifetime lifelong mentor. And your father and my father have a lot in common.

Okay. He just passed away in Covid year. Uh, he was 90. He was 98.

Wow. And worked full time through his 95th year. And, um, but but let me, let me let me let me pull out the commonalities of our fathers. That's why I can so understand your love for him.

And I also can understand, uh, this kind of a conversation. First of all, your father loves you. Yeah. And he's proud of you.

My dad said this. He said a good father always wants his son to do better than him. He wants his son to stand on his shoulders. He wants his son to pass him.

And when I see your father. When I see how he looks at you. When I saw in Vegas the first time when we were together, he was so proud. He was so proud.

There's nothing that feeds a son and his needs more than a proud father. Nothing. A father that's proud of a son makes that son so thrilled to be his boy. A lot of people and I, you know, I equate that spiritually to when Jesus was baptized in God, the Father said, this is my son, whom I am well pleased.

And I've always said, I believe that was Jesus high water mark on earth. It's it's good to teach the people, but to have the father publicly say, that's my son. So your father is proud of you and he loves you and you know that. And so that is a incredible emotional reservoir that you have within yourself that allows you to have strength that you wouldn't normally have.

And, and, and move forward. So, so that another thing your father is, was like, my dad is he's just a good example. Yep. People do what people see.

Your father visually has never let you down. Now he's human. All of us are human. So it's not that we don't make mistakes.

But here's what I'm speaking of. A good example is not a person that's error free or mistake free, but it's a person who says, oops, I didn't do that well. Got to get back up. Got to apologize.

I told Margaret with our children, some of our best moments with our children is when we come to them and apologize as parents for something that we didn't do good. Oh, we we had a parent blow. We did, you know, and, and our kids would just kind of migrate to us because all of a sudden we're just being open and honest with him, and your father has. He has that love for you, and he has that example for you.

And so. I have a teaching saying that you better love your mentors, and you better just absolutely make every moment count because you never replace them. You don't replace your mentors. They have such an important part in your life that they're irreplaceable.

Now you have other mentors that'll come in, but you don't replace your great mentors. I look back and I've had probably I've had hundreds of mentors, but I've had probably a dozen. They're not replaceable. Yeah.

So, so I cherish in fact, I right now I have one that's 93 and I just went to see him at Margaret went to see in Thanksgiving because he's getting close to to death and I had to go back to him and I, I took um, the ten most important lessons he taught me And I sat down with him, got real close to him, and I said, let me tell you what you've taught me and how I've applied it to my life. And we just cried. And I just thanked him and I thanked him for that. With all of my mentors, I tried to make a last turn with him.

I could say I did that with John Wooden. I did that with Fred Smith. I tried to, I tried to, I tried to come back to them one last time and make sure that they knew because you don't replace them. But here's what here's the big thing on father.

When your father is one of your mentors. You talk about being. You put irreplaceable in all capital letters and there's a whole. When I lost my dad, it was, oh, now I'm going to tell you the positive side to it.

When I lost him, I got him back because every day He's with me, with the memories, the teachings, the things. It's I mean, every day I say, hey, dad. He's in heaven. He's rejoicing with me.

And so it's kind of like I lost him. He's not replaceable, but he's here. I would rather have him here than have him here. Here.

See you tomorrow, dad. Boom. Here. He never leaves you.

That's how my father has affected me. And that's the same thing that's going to happen. It's happening with you. Yeah, but let me just say.

Fortunately for me, I'm still. My dad's here. Yeah. You know, and I, I just, uh.

Well, let me say something else. One more thing, Brandon, because I watch you with your dad. Yeah. And you do what I did with my dad.

You make every moment count. You're present with him. You're hanging in there. And when?

Every time I was with my dad for the last couple of years, I would mentally take a picture. I'd just look at him and go, take the picture, John. Maybe the last time. And that's that sounds that sounds a little maybe melancholic for some people, but I wasn't feeling it that way.

It was just like, if you love somebody, you want more pictures and you want more memories. And, and, but I watch you with your dad and you love him, respect him. And you're, you're giving him that love and respect right now. And I think that's a big miss.

I think a lot of children, they feel it, but they never say it. They feel it, but they never do it. And so then when they lose their parent, they think, oh man. And I always said, don't miss the opportunity to love on them, care for them, do something for them, you know, be with them.

And you do you do that really well. You're very present with him. And I love that. Yeah, well, thank you.

And I agree with every sentiment and everything you said about my dad. Well, I know we have a couple hundred people waiting on us right now that are excited to see us and see you. Most importantly, and Obviously you and I have shared a lot of time together. I just love you to death.

I could keep you in the studio for eight hours and we could. We could get into it. Uh, but, um, it's been 25 years you've been impacting my life. I just want to tell you.

Thank you. And you're always. Not only have you been the greatest mentor to me, but you've always been available to me and you've always been willing to help me. And Brandon every time.

I mean, we'll be gone. We won't see each other for a period of time, but every time we get together, it's like we were never apart. Yeah. You know, it's just like we're right back.

It's just we just kind of pick right back up, don't we? Yeah. And I love you. And I love what you do.

And I love how you help people. But every day I just I say keep God, keep Brandon's heart loving you and loving people because I think that's your secret sauce that sets you apart. There are other brilliant strategist and builders, but you put that with a heart for people. Brandon.

That's your secret sauce. Thank you John.