Episode 3
Living on Purpose with Bret Magpiong
Can failure truly be a stepping stone to success? How might aligning your priorities, principles, and passion unveil your purpose and ignite a spark to start living on purpose? These intriguing questions form the basis of my heart-to-heart with retired executive, wealth manager, and now Amazon #1 bestselling author Bret Magpiong, who has a wealth of wisdom to share.
Bret's journey, from his humble beginnings in a blue-collar neighborhood in Southern California to managing wealth for ultra-high-net-worth individuals, is an inspiring tale of resilience, hard work, and the pursuit of purpose. In working with the ultra-wealthy for over 30 years, Bret shares how he discovered wealth is more than just financial - it's about relationships, mental health, time, and physical well-being.
This episode is a practical guide to living a purpose-driven life. Together, we challenge conventional ideas of wealth, success, and societal pressures often dictating our life's narrative. We navigate through the groundbreaking ideas from his book, The Delta Theorem, and how it serves as a blueprint to identify your life's purpose.
The Delta Theorem is not just a book; it's a transformative framework Bret created and has used to help countless individuals break free from life's constraints and truly "come alive." You'll learn about the Delta Theorem's potential to help you uncover your authentic identity, understand the the power of setting small, achievable goals, and the significance of having a strong 'why.'
So join us for an episode filled with insights, wisdom, and practical tips that could be the catalyst for your journey of self-discovery and living purposefully.
You can pick up a copy of the Delta Theorem, an amazon Best seller at https://www.amazon.com/Delta-Theorem-Innovative-Framework-Wealthy/dp/1952654734/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3OB0NTONHHZKI&keywords=delta+theorem&qid=1689020692&sprefix=delta+theorem%252Caps%252C125&sr=8-1&_encoding=UTF8&tag=stevecampbell-20&linkCode=ur2&linkId=57beaf2e723cc6d035be7df9d7b84d3c&camp=1789&creative=9325
Just to let you know, as an Amazon affiliate partner, if you purchase a book through this link, I may receive a commission as part o
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Transcript
Welcome to the One Big Thing podcast where inspiration meets transformation.
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Speaker A:Well, welcome back to the One Big Thing podcast with Steve Campbell, folks.
Speaker A:This is episode number three.
Speaker A:I have been blown away at the feedback that I've received from many of you that have listened to episodes one and two.
Speaker A:With episode one My Wife, episode two with my dear friend Rachel, where she talked about her identity and where comes from and we are not what we do.
Speaker A:Many of you have reached out to me and said that you've made the One Big Thing a part of your life's journey.
Speaker A:To let you know, this is available on every major podcast platform, but we're also on YouTube at NQR Media, so you can watch these conversations as they come out.
Speaker A:And I've heard from many of you that you make it a part of your nightly routine.
Speaker A:So I could not be more blessed and thankful that you guys have reached out to me and let you know how much this has impacted you.
Speaker A:And that's the whole goal of the One Big Thing is not just to bring you amazing guests like you're going to hear from today, but to actually get real practical insights from these guests that you can apply to your life if you see fit.
Speaker A:If it doesn't fit, that's okay too.
Speaker A:But I am very excited about my guest today.
Speaker A:Episode number going to three is going to feature Brett Magpion, and I'm going to give him a little bit of space to introduce himself here at the beginning so that you guys can be just as excited.
Speaker A:I am to hear from somebody who's made a tremendous impact on my life.
Speaker A:So, Brett, welcome to the One Big Thing.
Speaker A:Why don't you give us a little background as to who you are as a person.
Speaker B:Steve, it is so great to be with you.
Speaker B:I think the last time we saw each other was several years ago at a Schwab Impact meeting.
Speaker B:You came up to me afterwards after I had been on a panel and said a couple nice things to me.
Speaker B:So I really appreciate that we've been Able to hook up here.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I'm Brett Magpiong.
Speaker B:I am a retired executive and wealth manager.
Speaker B:But most importantly, I'm a father, a husband, and, and a writer.
Speaker B:I recently wrote a book and published it.
Speaker B:Self published it.
Speaker B:It's called the Delta Theorem.
Speaker B:I've been married for 30 plus years.
Speaker B:I live in Southern California.
Speaker B:And, you know, I'm just excited to be part of this One Thing, you know, the One Big Thing.
Speaker B:And really today, the one big thing is to be able to speak with you, Steve.
Speaker B:So it's really great to be here.
Speaker A:Well, and to give a little bit of a backstory.
Speaker A:When I launched the One Big Thing, I had no idea who's ever going to want to come on this show, who's going to want to be a guest.
Speaker A:And you start thinking about all the people you've crossed path with over the years and who's made an impact on you.
Speaker A: And in: Speaker A:I'm an east coast boy.
Speaker A:It was my first time being out on the West Coast.
Speaker A:I went for a work event and found myself being in a workshop that you were one of the three main panelists.
Speaker A:I didn't even know why I was going into that room.
Speaker A:It was packed, Brett.
Speaker A:There was 3, 400 people in there, and I thought this must be a popular segment.
Speaker A:And you were one of the three speakers.
Speaker A:And obviously, I don't shy away.
Speaker A:That faith is the biggest part of my life.
Speaker A:And as spoke, there was two other speakers.
Speaker A:But as you spoke, my heart just felt connected to you in a way that I just felt this stirring inside that when this is over, go wait in line and go introduce yourself and at least say hello.
Speaker A:So I think I waited through 40, 50 people that all wanted to speak to you because of, because of your acumen, what you've learned, what you were willing to share, you're top notch.
Speaker A:And I was in the back of the line, just a humble younger guy that wanted a chance to say hello and who would have known, couple years later that you'd be a guest on my show.
Speaker A:But that's, there's, there's a real thing that I believe is divine appointments.
Speaker A:And I believe that this, today is a divine conversation that really stemmed from, as Rachel and I kind of talked about, sometimes you don't know why you're in the rooms you're in or where you're going, but many times there are people along your path that you're going to meet that you have no idea that are going to help you.
Speaker A:So you gave us the really high level overview.
Speaker A:You mentioned a number of things in there, a book, and to give you a little bit of just accolades, it's become a number one Amazon best seller.
Speaker A:So I want to give you the space to just kind of dig a little bit deeper into who you are as a person and kind of how we got to where we are today.
Speaker B:Yeah, thank you so much for that.
Speaker B:Listen, I, I grew up in Southern California, middle class, you know, neighborhood.
Speaker B:The first test I ever failed as a kid to give you a little bit of a flavor of this was I was asked to name the four seasons and I said football, basketball, baseball and hockey.
Speaker B:In my family, those were the only seasons that I knew.
Speaker B:I didn't even know what winter, spring, summer, fall were.
Speaker B:Especially here in Southern California, we only have, it seems like a summer and spring.
Speaker B:But you know, my, my youth was filled with a lot of sports, a lot of athletics, all the way up actually through college even where I did not play a collegiate sport, I played a club sport called rugby.
Speaker B:In college I went to a school in San Luis Obispo, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.
Speaker B:It was a great experience there.
Speaker B:After school I graduated and I moved to, back to Southern California.
Speaker B:Started with a very large professional services firm as my first job.
Speaker B:I think I had probably three nickels to my name.
Speaker B:I had one suit, I bought three shirts and two ties and a couple pairs of, of of shoes.
Speaker B:And you know, each day I would go and just change the tie and the shirt and, and you know, that's how I basically got through my first six months before I could make any kind of money, you know, and was exposed to some really great situations at this firm.
Speaker B:Just top notch people, colleagues, clients.
Speaker B:It was just really fantastic and was really the launching pad for my career.
Speaker B:Shortly after I joined the firm, I met my wife.
Speaker B:We actually met at a church service.
Speaker B:She thought I was a pompous jock.
Speaker B:She wasn't all that far off based on what I told you about my, my, my upbringing.
Speaker B:But we ended up spending a lot of time together and just getting to know each other.
Speaker B:It's interesting how, you know, they say that opposites attract and, and we certainly have been opposites in many different ways.
Speaker B:But after 30 plus years of marriage, it's been really a terrific journey with, with my wife and, and best friend.
Speaker B:In the, in the probably the first eight years of that.
Speaker B:It was what I would call coupleness and in loveness.
Speaker B:And that soon changed to families because we adopted our daughter brooke, who's now 25 years old.
Speaker B:She's our only child, but she is definitely a gift from God.
Speaker B:It was a divine.
Speaker B:You said a divine appointment, and this was a divine delivery for us.
Speaker B:And she's been just absolutely the joy of our life and what have you.
Speaker B:As it pertains to my career, you know, I was.
Speaker B:I was with professional services firms, and what.
Speaker B:I ended up in a very unique niche that was serving the ultra, ultra high net worth.
Speaker B:And these are folks of what I would describe as the less than 1 percenters.
Speaker B:If there's the 1 percenters, then these folks truly are the less than 1 percenters, you know, multi, multi generations of wealth.
Speaker B:And that's where I ended up, you know, serving them in different capacities, whether it be for them personally inside of what's called a family office or in a multifamily office situation, the last of which, from where I retired, was a national firm that, you know, we had $15 billion of assets under management.
Speaker B:We had, you know, 2,500 clients, not all of them the ultra, ultra high net worth.
Speaker B:We had a segment that was the ultra, ultra high net worth.
Speaker B:And that was the panel that I was actually asked to talk on was, you know, how do we deal with family offices?
Speaker B:And, you know, what do you do in that particular niche?
Speaker B: I served there and retired in: Speaker B:You know, I'd read a book many years ago, was called Halftime, and it's, It's.
Speaker B:It was written by Bob Buford, and he talks about how, you know, that.
Speaker B:That life has two halves to it.
Speaker B:And the first half is.
Speaker B:Is geared towards success, if you will.
Speaker B:And the second half that he was suggesting is to have it be geared towards significance.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:And his kind of.
Speaker B:His push on significance was basically giving back.
Speaker B:And so, you know, I'm a relatively young man, not as young as I once was, but a relatively young man, and have a.
Speaker B:And really wanted to, you know, give back.
Speaker B:Thus the writing of the delta theorem.
Speaker B:And, you know, what I'm doing now with coaching and speaking and doing podcasting like this.
Speaker B:So, yeah, it's been a great and full life for me, for sure.
Speaker A:Well, so you have a lot of listeners.
Speaker A:You know, most of our listeners to the one big thing find themselves in their 30s and 40s.
Speaker A:We have everyone from singles to young married couples to families with young kids and everybody in between.
Speaker A:You're going to be our first guest on the show that is kind of years ahead of us sharing Wisdom backwards, where our first two guests, my wife and Rachel, were really in the thick of it with us, kind of sharing, here's how I'm surviving, here's how I'm trying to thrive.
Speaker A:But as you talked about this concept of a family office, again, somebody that works in the financial planning space, I now know what that means.
Speaker A:But when I was in San Diego, I don't know if I ever told you this story.
Speaker A:When you show up to the conference, they give you a list of all the upcoming workshops that you can attend and obviously one stick out to you.
Speaker A:And at the bottom, I saw this thing called the Family.
Speaker A:I know a lot about our industry, but that was the first time as an east coast kid I had heard of a family office.
Speaker A:And this is how humble or ignorant I am.
Speaker A:I thought, who wouldn't want to work in a family office?
Speaker A:That's fantastic.
Speaker A:So I signed up for this workshop to only find three to 400 other people that were also interested in working in a family style office.
Speaker A:I thought, this is great.
Speaker A:The future of America is bright.
Speaker A:We all want to be part of something together.
Speaker A:And when they introduced the very first speaker on the panel with you and they said, describe your average client and they said they have 50 to $100 million, I thought, I'm not in the right room at this point.
Speaker A:And, and then you spoke and it was fascinating to me that again, you had shared a little bit of your story, was starting your career with three shirts, one suit, couple nickels to your name.
Speaker A:And I think a lot of us in our 30s and 40s, no one would have batted an eye if I would have got up at the beginning of that talk and thought, I don't belong here.
Speaker A:I really don't fit the cut of what this room is trying to do.
Speaker A:But I'm a student, I'm hungry for information.
Speaker A:And what's the worst that can happen?
Speaker A:I'm going to learn something.
Speaker A:And who would have known this connection would have come through it?
Speaker A:So I think what I'm excited about as we jump into this book and where you are today as a leader, as a consultant, what you've learned over the years when you put a billion next to a name, there's many young people listening to this that are trying to make their money work.
Speaker A:They're trying to make their kids play sports.
Speaker A:And so to hear somebody, I think what you're going to do, a really nice job is sharing those real life, practical insights of what you've learned in the process.
Speaker A:But you started it by saying, you were in a similar position that many of our listeners are going to find themselves in, maybe in positions where, I don't know if I belong here.
Speaker A:You know, if only anybody knew the car I drove in or what my closet looks like.
Speaker A:And yet many of us young people are thrust into either positions of leadership where people are depending upon us.
Speaker A:And many times that's what Rachel talked about.
Speaker A:We don't even know who we are as people, let alone all the roles and responsibilities.
Speaker A:So I think that context is helpful for people to understand that you know your stuff and I've known you for the past few years, so I can speak to that.
Speaker A:But I think talking about the Delta theorem and kind of where this concept came from, do you kind of want to share what, what the original intent or vision was behind the book and maybe what you've learned since its release that maybe you didn't even realize was going to be an outcome?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:You know, listen, all of those things that you just described and that your listeners are maybe experiencing right now, I experienced those myself.
Speaker B:They ended up being a tremendous asset for me in what I did do.
Speaker B:Because what I found was that more times than not in working with these clients, there was this intimidation factor that they would kind of experience of others towards them.
Speaker B:And I didn't really have that.
Speaker B:I, I was simply who I was.
Speaker B:I know Rachel did talk about identity.
Speaker B:I knew who I was.
Speaker B:I was, you know, a kid who grew up with practically nothing, not really, but, you know, just not as much as what I was experiencing and, and had just a down to earth.
Speaker B:And I say this with all humility, a down to earth kind of sensibility about myself.
Speaker B:Here's what the Delta theorem really kind of like spawned off of that.
Speaker B:It was really two paths that happened for me.
Speaker B:One was in working with these clients.
Speaker B:Because what I found in working with these clients that while they came to me or us for wealth management, that we usually associate with the investment side of things, always what ended up happening with clients is that we would start talking about other areas of wealth?
Speaker B:And what I mean by that is that there are areas like relational wealth.
Speaker B:And where that would come up to play is they would ask me questions like, what did I think the money was going to do to their kids and how could we figure out what to do about that?
Speaker B:Or there were things like mental health or wealth.
Speaker B:They would say, I, I wish I had a peace of mind around some of these things.
Speaker B:Or there was physical wealth.
Speaker B:And it would be like, I, I, I'm just, I'm not in that great of health right now, or there's the wealth of time, you know, that.
Speaker B:That they just didn't feel like their time was their own.
Speaker B:And so in working with them, I.
Speaker B:I came to realize that a wealth manager was much more than just the financial wealth.
Speaker B:It was the.
Speaker B:All the aspects of wealth.
Speaker B:It was relational, financial, health, time, all of those things that were component of wealth.
Speaker B:Then I looked at my own life and my life was very similar.
Speaker B:I felt like I didn't have the same financial wealth, but they were still the same questions that I had.
Speaker B:And what would happen to me is that probably like some of the folks that are listening right now is that they find themselves like I did, driving to work one morning or every morning stuck on a freeway in traffic, kind of sighing a little bit of a sigh, like really this is it.
Speaker B:I mean, my life feels very large.
Speaker B:I have a wife, I have a daughter, I have a career, I've got a dog, I've got a car, I got a house.
Speaker B:But.
Speaker B:But man, it feels like this is a much larger story that is out there.
Speaker B:And what I found was that for me personally, as well as the same things that I felt like my clients, who you would think were part of that larger story, we're still feeling like there's got to be more here.
Speaker B:That that was really where the delta theorem came to be.
Speaker B:I started to look at.
Speaker B:All right, what are the things that really make you feel like you are tapped in to this much larger story now for you and I, I think that it's pretty safe to say that we understand that that larger story is divine in nature, that God in fact has a much larger story that's going on and that we are playing a part in.
Speaker B:I think you probably sense that that's what I was saying up on that panel when I was speaking in ways that I wouldn't just be flat out stating it like that, but still it was that sensibility that I would bring to the table.
Speaker B:I just wanted to take all the things that I had learned both for myself in reading in various things and put it into a way that can help people to tap into that larger story.
Speaker B:And what I like to say is come alive.
Speaker B:Because at the end of the day, it's about coming alive, man.
Speaker B:I remember a very, very important quote that, that, that I heard one time.
Speaker B:He said, it's from Howard Thurman, and he said this.
Speaker B:Don't ask what the world needs.
Speaker B:Ask what makes you come alive and do that.
Speaker B:Because what the world needs is More people who are really alive.
Speaker B:I love that.
Speaker B:Now it's dangerous as well, because we've been told, follow your passion.
Speaker B:And that passion feels like it's come alive and it can take you into places that it's taken me.
Speaker B:That's like not the right path.
Speaker B:But I'll give you an example of what I hear when I hear your first two episodes.
Speaker B:I hear you coming alive inside this podcast.
Speaker B:I dig that.
Speaker B:I wanted that to be the case in terms of, like, what I could help people tap into.
Speaker B:And there's what the delta theorem is all about.
Speaker A:Well, and I'm thinking about a couple of things that you have mentioned that I want to get into the delta theorem here in a minute.
Speaker A:But just even backing up from what you said, I think what a lot of people my age are struggling with is this idea of seasons in life and life will be easier when xyz.
Speaker A:You fill in the blank.
Speaker A:When I have more money, when my kids are older, when we have a bigger house, when my career takes off, when I get promoted in what you've alluded to in this story is that even the ultra, ultra high net worth that many of us probably could never identify with what they're going through as a human, the experience is very the same, the questions inside.
Speaker A:And I think what's hard for some of us is there's expectations that are put on you from society, from culture, from even your family, parents that expect you to be at a certain place through the way they ask you questions, through the way you see things, of where your life should be.
Speaker A:And it's a, it's always a constant measuring stick.
Speaker A:And what I love about the, the I had no idea where Rachel was going to go in episode two without episode two, episode three makes no sense because Rachel talked about identity.
Speaker A:And if you don't know who you are or you've unfortunately allowed a circumstance or people to speak things over you that aren't actually rooted in who you are as a person, then you can never break free from that.
Speaker A:So there may be people coming out of the last episode and if you didn't listen, go back.
Speaker A:Rachel did a masterful job of being vulnerable and explaining how she had figured her identity was in what she or the labels that she had.
Speaker A:But she helped listeners kind of break free from that and say, no, that thought pattern stops here today, because who am I?
Speaker A:You can't now begin to live on purpose in this episode if you don't first establish the root of your identity and who you are as a person.
Speaker A:So For a lot of the young people and listeners to this show, I think the challenging thing is you get a chance to choose your hard.
Speaker A:Right now, parenting is really hard.
Speaker A:Going to work every day is hard.
Speaker A:You know, having friendships is hard.
Speaker A:And it's almost like we.
Speaker A:We've taught ourselves to believe that there will be seasons in life where things won't be hard anymore, and that's when we know we've arrived.
Speaker A:But I think what you're going to talk about in the delta theorem, and I had heard this one time in a song that I heard where the.
Speaker A:Where he said, just because you're breathing doesn't mean you're alive.
Speaker A:And I think that there's a lot of people out there today that have a heartbeat, they have breath in their lungs, they have all the things on PA paper that you spoke about, maybe a marriage.
Speaker A:They have healthy kids.
Speaker A:They have a school, you know, that their kids go to, that they're pro.
Speaker A:They live in a community that they love, but at the end of the day, when they're in the car, they're by themselves.
Speaker A:Something still feels like it's missing.
Speaker A:And so, again, in part of getting to know you and looking into the book and the Delta theorem, I think this conversation is going to help that this is the starting point.
Speaker A:We all have these insecurities.
Speaker A:We all have these doubts, but some of us have this.
Speaker A:This thought that there's got to be more to life than maybe what I'm experiencing.
Speaker A:And if you're being honest, there are probably things within yourself that the world will throw circumstances at you all the time, things beyond your control.
Speaker A:We're not talking about that, but we're talking about, I think what you're going to break down into the vision behind this book, which is how.
Speaker A:How do I come alive, Brett?
Speaker A:What.
Speaker A:What's a starting point for me?
Speaker A:Because just to hear come alive.
Speaker A:I love that.
Speaker A:Let's come alive.
Speaker A:But.
Speaker A:But what does that actually look like in the life of.
Speaker A:As a coach, as a consultant that you walk people through?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So thank you.
Speaker B:That is exactly what the Delta theorem is intended to be all about.
Speaker B:So let me just go through the Delta theorem.
Speaker B:It's like the Delta theorem.
Speaker B:What.
Speaker B:What is that?
Speaker B:It is literally a math equation, and I'll go through it with you.
Speaker B:Don't be intimidated.
Speaker B:People, like, think, oh, gosh, I'm bad at math.
Speaker B:No, no, no, no.
Speaker B:Just go with me on this.
Speaker B:So here's what the Delta theorem is.
Speaker B:This.
Speaker B:It's alpha over P cubed by E F squared equals Delta.
Speaker B:Again, stick with me on this one because here's what it all means.
Speaker B:Alpha is the first letter in the Greek Alphabet.
Speaker B:And in this theorem or framework it represents your primary purpose, your one thing, your reason for being, what the Japanese called ikigai.
Speaker B:It sits on a foundation which is P cubed, which represents your priorities, your principles and your passion.
Speaker B:So just think about this for a second.
Speaker B:When I'm coaching somebody, I walk up to them and I say, hey, listen, tell me what your purpose is.
Speaker B:And this is what I get.
Speaker B:I have no idea.
Speaker B:It's too big of a question.
Speaker B:And by the way, if I tell you what it is, does that mean it can never change?
Speaker B:I don't like that optionality being taken away from me.
Speaker B:But if I say to them something like this, tell me what your priorities are.
Speaker B:Here's what you just talked about, Steve.
Speaker B:You talked about life stages.
Speaker B:Well, I'm married or I'm single, I have a career, or I'm in school, I'm retired, or you name it, I have kids.
Speaker B:Those are all life stages that say something about your priorities.
Speaker B:So you can start to talk about what your priorities are at this stage of life.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:If I say to you, tell me what your principles are.
Speaker B:Well, let your yes be yes and your no be no or I will not steal or you know, and where did they come from?
Speaker B:What are these things that are the non negotiables in your life life?
Speaker B:More times than not, people have not written them down, but they have them and they are the standard by which are a foundational for how you live, or at least they should be.
Speaker B:And then finally if I say to them, tell me what makes you just your hair on fire, what, what in any situation do you just love?
Speaker B:That's passion.
Speaker B:And so they can tell me those things.
Speaker B:Now think about that.
Speaker B:Priorities, principles and passion.
Speaker B:What I realized that was that if I started with those things in my own life, or even with my clients, which I did and started with, what are their priorities, what do they stand for, what do they want to do in the future, that suddenly their purpose started to unveil itself.
Speaker B:And that's where I start with, with people.
Speaker B:And that's what I encourage people to do.
Speaker B:Do look at your priorities, look at your principles, look at your passion, then kind of like see how they overlap.
Speaker B:If they're incongruent with each other, then it's not likely your purpose to be able to be unveiled inside of that particular thing.
Speaker B:So that's all the alpha, which is purpose over P cubed.
Speaker B:Part of the equation.
Speaker B:I'll pause there and see if like you have any thoughts because then we'll continue on with the second part, which is really critical inside of the delta theorem.
Speaker A:Well, I think that's really the big thing, right?
Speaker A:For all of us as people.
Speaker A:There's the, the high level visionary, like I want to live my life on purpose.
Speaker A:And then sometimes your kids walk into the room and disrupt your chain of thought or you have things you have to go do.
Speaker A:So you have moments of your gut, your heart, your faith telling you what am I designed for?
Speaker A:I have to live on purpose for a purpose, which is great.
Speaker A:But then a disruption happens and you don't ever have the mental space to like actually work through.
Speaker A:What does it actually mean?
Speaker A:And it' so lofty.
Speaker A:I think what you just did for listeners is to really just think about those underlying foundational parts as a starting point.
Speaker A:Like Rachel talked about in episode two.
Speaker A:Begin when you think about your identity, to journal what adjectives to describe you come to mind.
Speaker A:And if they're not in alignment with who you are, that's a real practical thing you can do, which most people have never done, which is sit down with a cup of coffee, what have you, cup of tea and write some of these things down.
Speaker A:So to me that makes sense because it's a practical small step that builds upon each other to get to the larger framework.
Speaker A:But I think without these last few that you're going to share, this is what then throws kind of gasoline into kind of where we're going to go.
Speaker B:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker B:That's right.
Speaker B:Listen, I mean the importance of purpose can't be understated, it just can't be.
Speaker B:I mean, I know that it sounds like aspirational and what have you, but this is why it's so important.
Speaker B:Because when that child comes in and disrupts something or when you're trying to do a workout because you're feeling like your health is not that, that great.
Speaker B:If you don't have a very powerful why, if you don't know why you're doing something, the likelihood of not pursuing or quitting is higher.
Speaker B:So doing the work up front of understanding what your powerful why is is really, really critical now for me, it's to inspire people to come alive.
Speaker B:That's, that's my why right now.
Speaker B:That's my alpha.
Speaker B:That's my one thing that's what I want to try to do is inspire people to come alive.
Speaker B:Because when they come alive, what happens is that they make a difference.
Speaker B:And when they make a difference.
Speaker B:They create value.
Speaker B:And when you create value, you create wealth.
Speaker B:Now it's financial.
Speaker B:It's worked in my career when I was a value creator.
Speaker B:I created financial wealth.
Speaker B:But I also created the other forms of wealth, relational wealth and time wealth and those, health wealth, those kinds of things.
Speaker B:So starting with coming alive and your powerful, why is why I think that's so critical.
Speaker B:But here's the deal, okay?
Speaker B:All that aspirational, and even for me, aspirational sounds great.
Speaker B:Put it in a nice little plaque, stick it up on my, in front of my desk, look at it every single day.
Speaker B:But guess what?
Speaker B:Nothing happens without E, which is alpha over PQ by E, supercharged by effort.
Speaker B:You have to do something.
Speaker B:You gotta make something happen here.
Speaker B:And so that's where things like training plans or having a coach that can help you, or just having something that is going to activate your purpose in ways that you know, really kind of of matter is critical.
Speaker B:And then the last part is F squared.
Speaker B:What I realized was that if I just stopped with purpose and effort, there was a component that in my life was missing, and that's failure.
Speaker B:Because inevitably inside my effort and even inside my best of intentions, oftentimes there was some form of failure.
Speaker B:But here's the only place where math comes up in this whole equation.
Speaker B:Because so far none of it is math.
Speaker B:It's just a framework that when we look at failure, we normally look at failure as a negative.
Speaker B:I did.
Speaker B:But in math, when you square a negative, it becomes a positive.
Speaker B:I don't understand it.
Speaker B:I don't know how minus 2 times minus 2 equals plus 4.
Speaker B:It doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever.
Speaker B:But what I have learned is that when I square up my failures by learning from them, then that is tremendous value for me inside of like, where I want to go with my life, how I'm going to make a difference, how do I come alive, those kinds of things.
Speaker B:So alpha over P cubed by E, F squared, all that equals delta, which is the name of the theorem, because delta is the symbol for change, for making a difference, for impact.
Speaker B:So the whole concept behind the book is simply this.
Speaker B:I believe, like Viktor Frankl did when he wrote about it in man's Search for Meaning, that a critical thing that we want to know is that our life has meaning.
Speaker B:And that's why I felt like that sigh on that 405 freeway or why my clients felt like this is it as well, that it is this desire for meaning.
Speaker B:And so this framework is a way to Help us put ourselves in the best position to where we can make an impact, make a difference, have change in our life.
Speaker B:Now I notice that I said the best position, there's no guarantees.
Speaker B:Let me tell you what happened to my daughter.
Speaker B:My daughter was graduated from college, had a job lined up in Boston at a very prestigious hotel that she had done an internship in.
Speaker B: It was March of: Speaker B: tart her job in June, June of: Speaker B:She was on the East Coast.
Speaker B:She came home, finished out the rest of her year, and they closed the hotel and rescinded her job offer.
Speaker B:And she was now at home finishing school, not able to walk through graduation, and didn't know what she was going to do.
Speaker B:That's.
Speaker B:That's hard.
Speaker A:She.
Speaker B:She knew what, like, her purpose, at least at the age of 23 was, she thought, but that was really, really difficult.
Speaker B:But what we encouraged her to do is to just kind of continue to explore.
Speaker B:And what she decided to do was, well, I'll apply to some grad schools.
Speaker A:And she did.
Speaker B:She applied to some grad schools, but she didn't hear back for a while.
Speaker B:And I got to tell you that her.
Speaker B:Her countenance just was hard.
Speaker B:She was challenged.
Speaker B:She was emotionally.
Speaker B:Like, it was just hard.
Speaker B: hen one day, middle of summer: Speaker B:And the letter was an acceptance letter to an Ivy League school for a master's program in her particular, you know, field of business.
Speaker B:And here's what I said to her, Brooke, never forget.
Speaker B:And then the letter came.
Speaker B:And then the letter came.
Speaker B:Like your listeners that are talking about, you know, I just don't know.
Speaker B:And then the letter came.
Speaker B:I've experienced the letter coming from my own life and for her life.
Speaker B:And the question is, are we putting ourselves in a position to be able to receive that letter in the best way?
Speaker B:That's what the delta theorem is really intended to do, is to put us in a position to be able to receive those letters and to move on with what we really want to do with our life and the meaning and.
Speaker A:Creating value in the components of the delta theorem, too.
Speaker A:Even just that idea of F squared being failure, you know, failure is something in society that we don't always do a great job of talking about or talking through.
Speaker A:Life is.
Speaker A:Life is meant to make mistakes.
Speaker A:It's meant to try things.
Speaker A:It's meant to try things as parents.
Speaker A:It's meant to try things in your career just because it didn't work out.
Speaker A:We always, at least in my life, I try to think why something didn't work out and how I could be better.
Speaker A:And I've.
Speaker A:I've noticed personally that some of my greatest advancements in life came from the things that didn't work out.
Speaker A:Usually achievement is hard because it's such a place of comfort that we normally we just move on because it worked the way it was supposed to.
Speaker A:But when something doesn't go right, a relationship falls apart.
Speaker A:We didn't get the job.
Speaker A:There's failures we would deem it.
Speaker A:I think that's where kind of those crisis moments come in, where we begin to think about ourselves and we're not worthy enough or we're not this and that.
Speaker A:And if you're a listener and you've experienced failure in your life, you have Brett, who's basically trying to let you know that's a part of the journey and that's what makes you who you are, and that's how you make a difference.
Speaker A:Some of my greatest failures in life have now become really the platform that allows me to connect with listeners in a real way because I've learned empathy.
Speaker A:I've gone through things myself.
Speaker A:I know now when people say things, yeah, me too.
Speaker A:I've been there.
Speaker A:And all of a sudden you connected to human beings in a way.
Speaker A:And it's more our failures that bring us together than our achievements.
Speaker A:Because you're going to have a listener who cannot identify.
Speaker A:You know, the cool thing about this show is I, in the intro, you hear, I have people from all walks of life.
Speaker A:I mean, you are an Amazon bestseller.
Speaker A:You had a prolific career.
Speaker A:You're doing incredible things into the stay at home mom or the person who's early in their career, they might go.
Speaker A:I mean, I don't really resonate with what Brett's saying, but what you're talking about with failure as a human, we can all say, wow, it's good to know even somebody of his stature in what he's gone through can admit that there's been things that have made him who he is and shaped it.
Speaker A:And one of the things you talked about with effort, as I was listening, a pastor once said, you can believe God for the impossible, you can believe God for miracles, you can believe God for provision in the form of a job.
Speaker A:But if you're not willing to go out and look for a job, God can't bless what you're not willing to do.
Speaker A:And I think sometimes that's what we Tell ourselves things in our head that make us feel good.
Speaker A:But if we're being honest, when you take that E for effort in the middle of this equation, the first part, you know, with the principles and the passions and the priorities, I think we kind of get that.
Speaker A:But it's the effort where I think most people stop, or if they're being honest with themselves, they're not doing the things or putting themselves in position that can make the letter come.
Speaker A:They're hoping it comes.
Speaker A:But if you're not going out and doing those things, knowing that failure is probably going to happen along the way, it creates a totally different frame of reference and gives people permission to know that you need to not only figure out the first part, but then be willing to, to go into the room, the break room or the, you know, like I did in San Diego, not knowing what you were going to get and look what came from it.
Speaker A:So, I mean, even just in what you've.
Speaker A:What you've gone through with, with talking about this delta theorem and coming alive on purpose, what are some other kind of areas that, as you started this process or the practicality of it that, you know, somebody can even kind of further.
Speaker A:Okay, how do I like.
Speaker A:Is it just really sitting down and starting and writing these things out or what would be.
Speaker A:Obviously, I'm going to put in the show notes, a copy link for your book.
Speaker A:I would encourage all of you guys to go out and get a copy of it.
Speaker A:I think this will be kind of a starter conversation to what the book will get into.
Speaker A:But what are some of those other areas, either personally in your life or through writing this book, that has, I think, really inspired you.
Speaker B:Yeah, let me, let me touch on something before I get to that.
Speaker B:And that is, you know, in, in writing about purpose, you know, I came to also recognize that it's really easy to talk about purpose and these kinds of things when you're at what I'll call the higher levels of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which are pretty basic things that, that have been talked about.
Speaker B:Like, you know, there's.
Speaker B:There's.
Speaker B:At the lowest level is just, just, you know, the needs of physiological needs, like just food.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Or.
Speaker B:Or the next level of safety.
Speaker B:I mean, it's almost cruel to talk about purpose if you don't really acknowledge that there are some people who are just trying to.
Speaker B:They're just trying to stay afloat.
Speaker B:I mean, they're just trying to stay afloat.
Speaker B:And when you and I even address this in the book, that, like, hey, if you're in those lowest level of needs.
Speaker B:You're probably not thinking about purpose and powerful whys at that time because you're just trying to survive.
Speaker B:Now as you move up in his hierarchy of needs, you know, things about love and belonging or esteem or, you know, self actualization.
Speaker B:These are all things that more likely tie in there.
Speaker B:So I, I just wanted to make sure that, you know, nobody's thinking, you know, that sounds great, but you don't even know my situation here.
Speaker B:No, no, no, no.
Speaker B:I, we've been there.
Speaker B:I mean, I remember being in, in, in line with my mom at grocery stores and she was using food stamps.
Speaker B:I mean, she was embarrassed as you couldn't imagine.
Speaker B:And I remember that now.
Speaker B:I was just a kid, but to talk to my mom about purpose at that point in time would have been almost cruel.
Speaker B:So I, I just want to make sure that we understand, like that's, you know, components of things and, and just being empathetic around that kind of thing.
Speaker B:To talk about what, you know, something that's important inside of effort.
Speaker B:Effort is, this is what I have also learned is that oftentimes what we do is we try to run when we try to do something.
Speaker B:And what I mean by that is that we just start off and we start to sprint.
Speaker B:And then invariably what happens is that we fail because we're sprinting instead.
Speaker B:Think about it from the standpoint of crawl, crawl, walk, run.
Speaker B:The first step is just crawl.
Speaker B:I mean, the crawl can be.
Speaker B:In this particular case, buy the book.
Speaker B:That's an example.
Speaker B:Just, that's a crawl step.
Speaker B:Buying the book.
Speaker B:Now, it may sit on your nightstand forever, but just that act of doing something or getting some sneakers, lacing up your shoelaces, these are just crawl acts.
Speaker B:Instead, let's put ourselves in a position where we're not failing.
Speaker B:Because, listen, I want to inspire liveness.
Speaker B:And what I'd love to do is I'd love to do a TED Talk.
Speaker B:And if that's what I thought that I could do, and I'm just going to go out and sprint and try to do a TED Talk, guess what's going to happen?
Speaker B:It's not going to happen for me.
Speaker B:So refine your craft.
Speaker B:Start with crawl, then learn to walk and then learn to run.
Speaker B:These are things that help us to be able to do stuff.
Speaker B:Let's think about it like this.
Speaker B:I, I share this with my clients that are, you know, I'm coaching.
Speaker B:Think of a thermometer.
Speaker B:1 through 10.
Speaker B:10 is sprinting, but crawling is 1 to 3, 1 to 3 on a thermometer.
Speaker B:If I got to 2, which is not hard, I'm 66% of the way to my goal.
Speaker B:That is a huge success.
Speaker B:So make your success in small micro goals like crawling is to get to three, because once you get to three, I'll guarantee you you're going to be pushing yourself to get to 4, 5, 6, 7, which is walk.
Speaker B:And now you're prepared to get to 8, 9, 10, which is the sprint.
Speaker B:Let's help ourselves inside of these things.
Speaker B:Let's not go out there and just try to do stuff that is just bound to like, fail inside of stuff.
Speaker B:Take small micro goals and crawl, walk, run is what I suggest to people.
Speaker A:Well, and to every young parent that's out there, you know, just.
Speaker A:Just the visualization.
Speaker A:When you got young kids, you, you know the maturation of an actual child or a baby that, you know, they start on their stomachs and they work their way.
Speaker A:But you.
Speaker A:Even if you struggle to understand what Brett's talking about.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:If you get to three to four, of course you're going to take off.
Speaker A:It happens with your own kids, is they learn to basically strengthen themselves or buoy themselves up against a coffee table that then them letting go and go to the couch.
Speaker A:And the next thing you know, they are anytime they don't want to be sitting still anymore because your body starts to realize, I could possibly do more.
Speaker A:I think we are.
Speaker A:God's designed us to be the same way.
Speaker A:He never shows us the entire picture of where our life is going to go.
Speaker A:And sometimes we wish he would, but it would cripple us if we knew of all the impending failures or things that was going to happen.
Speaker A:And so I think the hard part is you can, you can start to understand man, I come most alive when I do this.
Speaker A:But maybe you found yourself sprinting out the gate the first few times to only get exhausted and say, maybe I'm not what I thought I was.
Speaker A:But that even frame of reference to help people understand what are the actionable effort points that you can start to do that are going to be slower to go, that help you refine your craft as you go.
Speaker A:Because there really is a thing of momentum in life that there's a book that I'm reading right now with some of my business partners that looks at the background of a gentleman in business who is involved in.
Speaker A:Involved in some of the greatest breakthroughs in technology.
Speaker A:And many of those companies failed along the way.
Speaker A:And then, you know, he talked about versions one, versions two, versions three, bringing them to market and how it got better and better.
Speaker A:And I think sometimes we assume that even from a high level, an Amazon, a Google, a Facebook, they've always been what they are today.
Speaker A:Many of those companies, you know, starting off, had years of failure, not knowing if they were going to make it.
Speaker A:People that you see today in the media or that seem successful seem like they've always been that way.
Speaker A:Actors in Hollywood, and I know you've had a little bit of background being out in California, but in hearing people's stories, we assume many times when we're in a situation that when we are experiencing the life of somebody else through our own lens, that their life has always been as good as it seems.
Speaker A:And we, we kind of compare it to our own life.
Speaker A:So just even you acknowledging as a coach, as a consultant that you have to tell people to slow down and not sprint, we understand that you want to change and you're tired of being tired and you want to be healthier, you want to be in a better financial positions.
Speaker A:But we can go from where we are today to sprinting out the gate and wanting to do it all in one time.
Speaker A:And that's inevitably what leads to failure because our, our bodies, our minds, our spirits can't keep up with that amount of change because of what you kind of have to learn in the process.
Speaker B:Yeah, that's, that's, that's right.
Speaker B:Listen, you know, one of the, about the book that the publisher is like, you know, we'll put it in a category.
Speaker B:What categories?
Speaker B:You know, is this self help and what have you.
Speaker B:And listen, self help, really?
Speaker B:And I'm not saying like that that's not the category.
Speaker B:No, no.
Speaker B:None of these things should be, none of these books should be self help.
Speaker B:It should be relational.
Speaker B:You know, this framework is really great in the hands of a coach, coach working with somebody, you know, you go it alone, it's really, really hard.
Speaker B:There were reasons why clients hired me and us because they didn't want to go it alone.
Speaker B:They could have done it themselves, but they wanted somebody to walk beside them.
Speaker B:So this is a really critical thing.
Speaker B:It's also great in the hands of a parent.
Speaker B:I mean, these concepts that you can share.
Speaker B:In fact, let's listen.
Speaker B:I wrote this book for my daughter.
Speaker B:Literally.
Speaker B:I wrote it so that she could be in the best position to have meaning in her life.
Speaker B:That after all the years that I had seen of various things that I wanted to share with her, just some ideas of what I could see that's relational.
Speaker B:And I walked through these Things with her, you know, around that.
Speaker B:So no, not self help, like together, us.
Speaker B:Us helping each other is critical.
Speaker B:Your podcast, great example of that.
Speaker B:That's like you reaching out and helping others inside of this.
Speaker B:It's not self help.
Speaker B:When we go back and we just become these independent people, then invariably we don't follow through.
Speaker B:That's kind of what my experience has been in my own life, as well as with clients that have tried to do it on their own.
Speaker A:Well, and too, I know we didn't really talk about this leading into it, so we can back up.
Speaker A:We're many layers of things.
Speaker A:At the root level, we're all individuals.
Speaker A:You know, if you found in a situation with your wife, with my wife, you fell in love, you married somebody, you now add a second layer of doing life with somebody.
Speaker A:So at your root level, you're an individual person, individual emotions, mindsets.
Speaker A:But then you get married and you kind of have to do life together with each child that you bring into the world.
Speaker A:You're now adding another layer as a parent on top of that.
Speaker A:And so I can imagine that maybe there's a listene listener who's in their car or streaming this episode online.
Speaker A:Maybe they're all jazzed up, fired up, they want to sprint, but you just told them to slow down.
Speaker A:So they're willing to slow down, but they want what you're talking about.
Speaker A:They want to come on, live alive with purpose, but they can't do it by themselves because they're married and maybe their spouse didn't listen to this episode.
Speaker A:And so I think what I've even experienced, you know, with my wife and I personally, as one or both of you can get some resource that can inspire you.
Speaker A:But when you're not an individual person and there's other people that are counting on you, I can imagine that if I'm very excited about the Delta theorem and getting my life right.
Speaker A:But my, my wife hasn't heard what you're talking about.
Speaker A:You can almost like, want to be doing these incredible things as an individual person, but you still have to do it in line with your spouse or with your kids.
Speaker A:So, like, along those lines, because a lot of our listeners are, are young, married, kids, like, how do you begin to take what seems like a very individualistic mindset, but from a larger, like, scope, if you understand what I'm saying, when there's other people that are in this life with you making decisions and calendars, like, what's a starting point for somebody that might find themselves that, you know, they have Other people depending upon them.
Speaker B:Yeah, listen, it's.
Speaker B:It depends on the relationship and kind of the.
Speaker B:What I'll call the.
Speaker B:The.
Speaker B:It's going to sound wrong.
Speaker B:The power kind of like dynamic that's between it.
Speaker B:Like, you know, look, with a child, it's easy because the power dynamic is, is real, is different.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:You're the parent.
Speaker B:And so walking through a child with somebody, or let's say it's a colleague or, or you're in a position where you're a leader in an organization.
Speaker B:I mean, you know, it's just a different kind of thing.
Speaker B:With a spouse, it's.
Speaker B:It's just a, a challenge inside of that kind of thing.
Speaker B:And, and what I'd say around that, and this has been true in my own life life, is this commitment to the.
Speaker B:That you kind of described, which is the two become one.
Speaker B:It starts with that.
Speaker B:It starts with that powerful why.
Speaker B:Like, if that is the why the two become one, then those two individuals are committed to being as one.
Speaker B:And if there is that, that's in place.
Speaker B:If, well, first of all, if it's not in place, work on that first.
Speaker B:First.
Speaker B:Work on that first.
Speaker B:And then once it is in place, look, then it's.
Speaker B:They're interested, you know, they're sharing these kinds of things.
Speaker B:So, you know, it really does start with, I think, that powerful why as to, like, why you're doing this, why you're in this marriage, why you're in this relationship.
Speaker B:You know, what is it about that, that.
Speaker B:That's really, really critical.
Speaker B:But it's hard.
Speaker B:It's challenging.
Speaker A:Well, I was thinking about too, something that you said earlier.
Speaker A:Again.
Speaker A:Again, I've been in church most of my life, so a lot of my antidotes come with pastors.
Speaker A:He said all of us as people have a plate, a shelf and a garbage can.
Speaker A:When, when you're, when you receive new information, if it's good to eat, put it on the plate.
Speaker A:Consume it.
Speaker A:Build your life.
Speaker A:Get the truth.
Speaker A:If it's something you've never heard before, it's not evil.
Speaker A:It's not outright like, you know this is wrong, but you're not sure what to do with it.
Speaker A:Put it on the shelf.
Speaker A:Shelf, Come back to it another time, and if it's garbage, chuck it out.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I think just even having that frame of reference, what you're describing is that if you know what your purpose is and you've gone through this entire exercise on paper and you've written down your, Your priorities, your principles, your passions, you're now putting words to actual big, large themes of your life, and it's becoming more in line.
Speaker A:You're talking about your effort.
Speaker A:You're talking about, talking about your failures.
Speaker A:I got to imagine, because it's been my experience in my life, is that if I know what makes me come alive and I know my purpose, I know what doesn't serve my purpose.
Speaker A:So when the world tries to throw information at me on the news, in the media relationships, and it just doesn't resonate with the direction you're heading, it's much easier to shake those things off in life because you're able to proceed forward because it's.
Speaker A:It's not serving a purpose for you.
Speaker A:What I think is hard is because most people haven't done these things that you described every day is drinking out of a fire hose of anxiety.
Speaker A:What should I be doing?
Speaker A:This is Covid.
Speaker A:All these things are happening all around me all the time.
Speaker A:And I don't know if what I'm doing is what I should be doing as a parent.
Speaker A:I don't know if I should be raising my kids different.
Speaker A:I don't know if I'm a good friend.
Speaker A:I don't know if I'm good at my job.
Speaker A:And this will at least give you a foundation to come alive in a way that as new information or new experiences happen, kind of like Rachel talked about, it can allow you to have the emotional bandwidth to either affect you in a negative way, affect you in a positive way.
Speaker A:But just even that concept of a plate, a shelf, and a garbage can can give people permission to know that just because things are said to you or you receive information, you don't have to do anything with it.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:Really, really powerful.
Speaker B:And that's.
Speaker B:That is absolutely correct.
Speaker B:I.
Speaker B:You know, there's another component inside the failure.
Speaker B:I don't talk about this in the book, but.
Speaker B:But share it with you here.
Speaker B:It's been an important part of my life is that John Eldridge, who's written many, many books, Wild at Heart, one of my favorites, you know, he talks about this concept of the message of the arrow.
Speaker B:Arrows.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:And here's what the message of the arrows are, is that something happens, and it's usually a fail of some form or another.
Speaker B:And it's like it's an arrow that shot right into your heart.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:That's what it feels like in the moment.
Speaker B:And the question really for all of us is, is what's the message that we are taking from that arrow?
Speaker B:Arrow.
Speaker B:Now, we have a couple choices There, inside of there, we can say that the message of that arrow is, is I suck, right?
Speaker B:I suck.
Speaker B:Or.
Speaker B:And usually what that means is, is that we will make an agreement with ourselves to say this.
Speaker B:I'll never do that again.
Speaker B:I'll never do that again.
Speaker B:And that's the message of the error arrow.
Speaker B:But what he proposes is this.
Speaker B:Is that in fact, what can be the message of the arrow is this.
Speaker B:That thing was shot into my heart, and this is something that my heart actually really is made to be.
Speaker B:That this is what makes me come alive.
Speaker B:But there's a setback that I experience.
Speaker B:And what I can take from that message of the arrows is I.
Speaker B:Ah, okay, I get it.
Speaker B:There's opposition here.
Speaker B:There's opposition from keeping me from my strength.
Speaker B:Okay?
Speaker B:So, for instance, you know, somebody could be a lover.
Speaker B:Like, they just are a lover.
Speaker B:And then they put themselves out there and wham.
Speaker B:They get shot right in the heart.
Speaker B:And they say to themselves, I'll never do that again.
Speaker B:I'll never go out on another date.
Speaker B:I'll never put my heart out there again.
Speaker B:Again.
Speaker B:Or they could be a great worker, or they could be an entrepreneur, and they could, wham.
Speaker B:Gets hit.
Speaker B:I'll never do that again.
Speaker B:And so they go back and they shrink back.
Speaker B:That's what I call deadness.
Speaker B:Honestly.
Speaker B:That's what I'm trying to fight against.
Speaker B:The inspiring, the aliveness, is to say, no, no, wait a minute.
Speaker B:Your heart, your heart.
Speaker B:You are a lover or you're an entrepreneur, and this is your strength.
Speaker B:Now surround yourselves.
Speaker B:Learn from them.
Speaker B:This.
Speaker B:Surround yourselves with others to blow into this so that you can really be alive inside, what your strengths are.
Speaker B:I mean, I've always loved that kind of concept that, like, this message that we get and what we're doing with these arrows and these failures is so critical for how we treat our hearts.
Speaker B:It's important.
Speaker A:Well, I, you know, with raising kids, my wife and I have the four or each child has their own personality, their own way of how God has wired them.
Speaker A:And one of the challenges as a parent is how do you love them all equally, but as a father, as a mother, love them in a way that they respond to the world or, you know, we sometimes forget that God has wired us all very differently.
Speaker A:That's what brings us our uniqueness.
Speaker A:And you can't be something that you weren't wired to be.
Speaker A:And even if this concept is hard to understand, you know, when I talk to my kids, they're huge fan of the Avengers and Marvel comics.
Speaker A:The reason The Avengers work is because everyone knows who the Hulk is.
Speaker A:People know who Iron man is.
Speaker A:People.
Speaker A:They all know the skills that they bring to the table.
Speaker A:Sometimes we're trying to be a Hulk when we're not wired that way and we get frustrated that we're not able to smash things in life.
Speaker A:Part of.
Speaker A:I think what you are describing is almost such a practical, easy step that it's so easy to overlook sitting down with a piece of paper and really getting honest with your yourself in going through, through getting the book, listening to this episode, getting your spouse involved and getting down on paper.
Speaker A:How am I wired as a person?
Speaker A:What makes me come alive?
Speaker A:What?
Speaker A:What?
Speaker A:And it may not even be in what you do, but there could be an outlet that's out there waiting for you that your career, like Rachel talked about, isn't what makes you a person.
Speaker A:But maybe it's your career like me that gives you the ability to have a platform like this, which then feeds back into the things that I do every single day.
Speaker A:And so for you, I love this idea today because I think there are a lot of people that are struggling.
Speaker A:They've had family members, friends, bosses, colleagues, people that have told them what they are, what they're not, and they have these identities in their mind.
Speaker A:And we're trying to help people break through that.
Speaker A:I think what attracted me to you in a room full of 400 people, your heart was so prominent on your sleeve.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker A:That when you, when you spoke, no one would have blamed you if you would have been arrogant and politicians compass managing the kind of money that you did.
Speaker A:But there was something about you that, as I listened, resonated with me to the degree of I want to be like that.
Speaker A:I want to be in a room full of people.
Speaker A:And I think coming alive on purpose, with purpose, I think it's so easy that at least when you start to do that, I got to imagine that there's unintended positive consequences to that.
Speaker A:That when you start to come alive on purpose.
Speaker A:Purpose, you will intrinsically draw people to you that see the way that you are and they'll be drawn to you as a magnet that you're going to meet people in your life that on paper, you don't even know right now.
Speaker A:But it's so much more than just the purpose of what you've been called or created to do.
Speaker A:It's all the extracurricular benefits that come with that.
Speaker A:Because our world is looking for hope.
Speaker A:Our world is looking for inspiration.
Speaker A:We are looking for somebody to stand out from the crowd in a way that's meaningful, that when you see it, you go, man, I want.
Speaker A:I want my marriage to look like that.
Speaker A:I want my career to look like that.
Speaker A:I want to be the kind of dad Brett is.
Speaker A:I want to have the kind of impact and influence, but it can't.
Speaker A:The flip side is it can't be a measuring stick that makes me feel lesser than you because you're further along in your career, but learning how, through friendship, camaraderie, to build and realize.
Speaker A:Like I tell my kids and my family all the time, we're all links in a chain, and God has created us unique, uniquely, to discover this purpose.
Speaker A:So I think this conversation is, you know, so helpful today to help people understand that even if your story hasn't gone the way that you thought up until this moment or you found yourself sighing on the freeway, just know that there's a bread out there that's got a process that can actually help you maybe break free from some of this, you know, negative thoughts that have, you know, kind of been getting in the way, if you will.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:You know, listen, thank you so much for.
Speaker B:Yeah, for the.
Speaker B:For the.
Speaker B:For the honor of what you said about the impact that.
Speaker B:That I had in that room on you.
Speaker B:So thank you for that.
Speaker B:I.
Speaker B:You know, I would not expected that to be the case, but I really appreciate it.
Speaker B:You know, in the.
Speaker B:In the book I write this one, if you don't mind me sharing this story, it's kind of an interesting one, I think.
Speaker B:You know, after I graduated college, I.
Speaker B:As I said, I really didn't have.
Speaker B:Have financial means, but I did happen to be able to.
Speaker B:To scrape aside a little bit of money, and I had some time before I started.
Speaker B:Started work, so I.
Speaker B:I took a backpack trip to Europe for six weeks by myself.
Speaker B:I.
Speaker B:I took a backpack, a sleeping bag, which I knew I could sleep anywhere.
Speaker B:Basically a Eurail pass and a hitchhiker's thumb is the way I described it.
Speaker B:It.
Speaker B:And I went to Europe for six weeks.
Speaker B:It so happened that one of my stops was in Florence, Italy.
Speaker B:And, you know, I'm not a big museum guy, but when you're in Europe, that's kind of one of the things that you do.
Speaker B:And I happened to go to this one museum that was there in Florence.
Speaker B:And inside this museum were works of Michelangelo.
Speaker B:They were statues of Michelangelo.
Speaker B:It turns out in this one hall way, there are four blocks of marble that are called the Prisoners.
Speaker B:And the reason they're called the Prisoners is that they are the unfinished works of Michelangelo.
Speaker B:So one has a arm protruding out of it, and it is.
Speaker B:It's the perfect arm.
Speaker B:But the rest of it is just this block of marble.
Speaker B:Another one's got a torso, and there's these four things and.
Speaker B:And they're called the prisoners because they look like they are stuck, suck.
Speaker B:They're trying to get out from where they are, literally.
Speaker B:And that's how it impacts you.
Speaker B:And then as the curator has put this together, you turn this corner, and at the end of this long hallway, perfectly lit, is the David.
Speaker B:And the David is unbelievable.
Speaker B:I mean, it's 14ft tall.
Speaker B:It is.
Speaker B:It's just.
Speaker B:It takes your breath away.
Speaker B:And I mean, I was literally, like, just magnetized to it.
Speaker B:And that's the impact that something like that, fully alive can have.
Speaker B:Years later, I thought about that whole curation.
Speaker B:I thought, gosh, that feels like our lives.
Speaker B:Like, we start out as, like, blocks of marble.
Speaker B:And then people come along, be they parents, be they coaches, be they teachers, be they whoever who take chisels and help to, like, help us come alive.
Speaker B:But we feel like, I do, like that was a bad chip or, oh, the marble is not as good as what it is and that kind of stuff.
Speaker B:But eventually, if we allow ourselves to the.
Speaker B:The full kind of splendor of what we can be, can be on display, like the David.
Speaker B:And when it is, man, is it attractive.
Speaker B:It just draws people to you.
Speaker B:And that's really what I'm talking about inside of, you know, these, The.
Speaker B:The.
Speaker B:The delta theorem is to try to figure out maybe this is a tool, a chisel, to help to chip away at, like, unveiling that thing that you just know is, is, is, is.
Speaker B:Is.
Speaker B:Is what you're made for.
Speaker B:It's what gives your life meaning and how you're going to have an impact.
Speaker B:You know, that's the kind of thing that I saw years later inside that layout, you know, in.
Speaker B:In Florence.
Speaker A:Well, we may not have both operated a family office that may not bring us together, but I can say that I have also been to Florence, Italy.
Speaker A:I went when I was in ninth grade.
Speaker A:And I know what you are actually talking about.
Speaker A:And I think that's a perfect analogy to bring kind of this delta theorem all the way home.
Speaker A:Sometimes you have to experience the unbeautiful parts of life to appreciate.
Speaker A:To appreciate beauty.
Speaker A:If you just walked into that museum and saw the statue of David, it's breathtaking, but it's.
Speaker A:It's breathtaking for a moment because you have nothing to compare it.
Speaker A:It to.
Speaker A:I Think if we're being honest, the only reason you're able to behold that as the final piece is because of the experience of seeing the four marble pieces in feeling like there's no hope.
Speaker A:I mean, is this really all there is?
Speaker B:I'm stuck.
Speaker B:I'm a prisoner.
Speaker B:I'm.
Speaker B:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker B:Yep.
Speaker A:And so if you find yourself as a listener to this show and lifestyle, just a marble and you got an arm sticking out somewhere, part of your story is incomplete.
Speaker A:Just know the letter, the statue of David, it could be right around the corner.
Speaker B:That's right.
Speaker A:But are.
Speaker A:Are you putting in the effort to position yourself to.
Speaker A:To see what could be coming down the road and so don't be a prisoner.
Speaker A:That's just stuck from circumstance and failure.
Speaker A:So I love this idea of the delta theorem.
Speaker A:We are going to also bring the show to a close as we go through our stop, start and continue.
Speaker A:So I'm really excited to see what Brett has to go through with.
Speaker A:With us.
Speaker B:You know, this is the hardest part of this whole.
Speaker B:This whole show.
Speaker B:And I was prepared to like, you know, think about this in advance.
Speaker B:It turns out it's actually a little bit easier than I thought because as I thought about it, I thought this stop talking, start giving and continue to trust.
Speaker B:That's really what it kind of nails down for me.
Speaker B:You know, a lot of times talking is just intention.
Speaker B:You know, I talked about writing a book and then I did it.
Speaker B:Giving is what I said is this stage of my life.
Speaker B:And it's easy to talk about giving.
Speaker B:It's another thing to actually give of my time, my treasure, my talents, that part of it.
Speaker B:And when I was looking at marketing the book, you know, and I prayed about it, the one thing that I heard was, was trust me.
Speaker B:And so that's the continue is to just trust.
Speaker B:And it's not just over a book.
Speaker B:It's about my life.
Speaker B:It's about others life.
Speaker B:Just.
Speaker B:Just trust me.
Speaker B:Trust me.
Speaker B:So stop talking, start giving and continue to trust.
Speaker A:Well, and for episode three of the one big thing, talking about coming on, coming alive with purpose, on purpose.
Speaker A:I think that the natural maturation of these first three episodes, we couldn't have asked for any better leading up to this point to give people the mental space, the ability to think through what all of you have guests have brought, which is all very different to the table.
Speaker A:So I am very appreciative that even in my life, that small still voice of trust me doesn't always make sense.
Speaker A:It doesn't always feel good.
Speaker A:And I think that's the point is faith.
Speaker A:Whether you believe and what Brett and I have talked about or just whatever may be driving you in your life, there's a difference between feelings, emotions, what we're going through, and sometimes the most challenging situations in my.
Speaker A:In my life that scream at you.
Speaker A:There's been a small still voice that tells me, trust me and keep going.
Speaker A:If this episode three can be that for you today, I would encourage all of you guys, please head out, check out the show notes.
Speaker A:I'll have contact information for Brad.
Speaker A:If you want to send him an email or message, we'll have a link to his Amazon book.
Speaker A:Please go out, show him some love, get a copy of it.
Speaker A:Because again, the whole point of this show is to give you practical insights in this delta theorem.
Speaker A:There's no math involved, but it's a framework that if my heart and my passion, Brett, is not just so that I come alive, but I'd love for my wife and I to come alive together.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker A:Because if we come alive together, then my children will come alive, our family comes alive.
Speaker A:You are going to change the world.
Speaker B:That's right.
Speaker A:And so.
Speaker A:So there are layers to this thing.
Speaker A:Start with yourself, get your spouse involved.
Speaker A:Use this book as a guiding principle, but know that it's going to take you effort.
Speaker A:So, Brett, I appreciate you stopping by the One Big Thing podcast studio.
Speaker A:Thanks as always for giving us a chance and speaking to our listeners.
Speaker A:And we just appreciate you being here.
Speaker B:It's been great.
Speaker B:Thank you for the honor of having me on.
