Live Life in Crescendo
Episode Stats
Summary
You ve heard of the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, but did you know that its author, Stephen Covey, wasn t in his late 50s when it came out? After it became a monumental bestseller, Covey continued to work on new book ideas, one of which encapsulated his own experience with late-in-life success and his commitment to having an ever forward-looking attitude. A decade after his death, that book has finally been brought to fruition by his daughter, Cynthia Covey Haller, and it s called Live Life and Crescendo: Your most important work is always ahead of you, and its contents really represent the capstone habit to those that came before it.
Transcript
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brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast you've heard of
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the seven habits of highly effective people but did you know that its author stephen covey wasn't
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in his late 50s when it came out after it became a monumental bestseller covey continued to work
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on new book ideas one of which encapsulated his own experience with late in life success
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and his commitment to having an ever forward-looking attitude a decade after his death that book has
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finally been brought to fruition by stephen's daughter cynthia covey haller it's called live
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life and crescendo your most important work is always ahead of you and its contents really
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represent the capstone habit to those that came before today on the show cynthia unpacks the
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crescendo mentality and how it represents a commitment to continual learning growth and
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change that you can adopt at any age we discuss how embracing the crescendo mentality is particularly
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important in midlife why that stage of life can be uniquely challenging whether you've achieved
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success or are struggling and the shifts people in each of these situations can make to find greater
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fulfillment after the show's over check out our show notes at aom.is slash crescendo
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all right cynthia covey holler welcome to the show thanks so much for having me brett i'm thrilled to be
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on with you so you are the daughter of the late stephen covey of seven habits of highly effective
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people fame and you co-authored a book with him started co-authoring a book with him before he passed
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away called live life and crescendo your most important work is always ahead of you and i'm
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looking forward to talking about this book but before we do i'm curious my wife and i often wonder
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what was it like growing up as a covey you know was it i don't know if you ever read the book uh
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cheaper by the dozen where it's you know this guy like the dad and mom are like efficiency experts and
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they use their kids as a laboratory for all their stuff they use for you know the companies they
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consult was it like that as a kid uh in a way guinea pigs no you know we we had nine there were nine
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kids i'm the oldest of nine so it was a little wild and crazy but my parents made the priority to my
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parents was our family and so each of us felt like we had a important part to play with them
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and somehow they managed to have each of us feel like we were important and that we we mattered and
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with nine kids i think that's pretty tough i had six and sometimes i'd think to myself gosh i don't
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think i've talked to one of my you know one of my my younger one or the middle one for a day or two
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so you know i think that they really when they made a mistake if they ever lost their temper or if
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they things didn't go well they didn't handle it well they were humble enough to apologize to us
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they would say i i'm sorry i blew it i shouldn't have overreacted you know you're right that was a
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good point you made and and we'd start over and i really appreciated that and i tried to implement
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that when i raised my own kids because you're not perfect you know you're you're just learning as you
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go along and but i i felt like more than anything they really tried to walk the talk they tried to
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teach us what true to their values and what they believed and when they felt they just kind of said
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they're sorry and we started over so let's talk about the story behind this book so you started
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working on this book with your father before he died but when did your father get the idea for this
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book you know clear back in 2008 is when i i talked to my dad about it he told me he was working on
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several different books and projects right then and he told me about live life and crescendo which at
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the time was his personal mission statement probably the last 10 years of his life and i think he
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adapted that because people were asking him gosh you're in your 60s steve when are you gonna you know
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are you gonna keep doing this for long or how much more do you have in you and that would really
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annoy him he just think you know i i still have so much more to contribute why i'm gonna i still feel
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passionate about it i feel like i'm making a difference why would i stop and so anyway he asked me
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when we were talking about all these different projects if i would help him with this live life
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crescendo book and by writing the stories and examples of people that either lived in crescendo
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or the opposite lived in diminuendo and i can explain those those terms a little further later
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but brett i think this was prompted because i foolishly asked him one time are you gonna ever
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write anything like the seven habits again you know is this you know is this going to be the best
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thing you've ever written and in a way it kind of insulted him that question he said gosh i wrote
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that in 1989 and so why do i get up every day if i don't intend to produce and contribute more besides
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the seven habits you know the seven habits may be my most prolific work and maybe i'll be most known
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by that but i still have so much more to contribute and ideas and books in my head that
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that um that motivates me to keep going and that was the that's the crescendo mentality
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of way of thinking a paradigm that your most important work is still ahead of you despite where you've
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been so it was kind of a you he threw down the gauntlet he's like all right you don't think i can do
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anything better well you're gonna work with me on this thing that's right i kind of yeah and so
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like okay you can take care of live life for crescendo
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and make it um kind of a different book than he'd written before because like i said it is filled
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with practical stories of famous and non-famous people to show people that gosh i can see myself
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in this i could do that i can make my life better than it is now i can keep contributing and so you
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wanted me to to do that for him so we worked on it together i interviewed him many times through the
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next few years and then he unexpectedly and i explain this later in the book but he died way before we
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ever thought he would and i had promised him that i would i would finish this for him so to me it's kind
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of been a sacred stewardship my goal was to be a faithful translator of his vision for live life
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and crescendo and i worked on it for about 10 years after he's passed away for 10 years now
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but i have six kids and lots of grandkids and i had some church jobs and community jobs that kept me
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from writing full-time but it took a while and i'm finally thrilled to talk simon and schuster into
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publishing his last book i said you published his first book and in 89 now publishes last and they
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were excited about it so here it is yeah and what you what i love about you did this book you wrote
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in his voice yes and then every now then you'd interject like this is cynthia here's my what i
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want to say about it but that was really it was really fun it's like i'm i was reading something
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from the beyond it was really cool well i i feel like well my greatest compliment has been if people
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say i can hear your dad's voice and that's because a lot of those are his very words through interviews
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and through other writings that aren't as well known and different things but i want it's his
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idea it was his unique idea live life from crescendo so i wanted to write it from his perspective so i i
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hope i accomplished that so you said uh your dad had this idea of the crescendo mentality because he
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was tired of people telling him like oh you know when are you going to retire and you know but when he
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talked to you about it how do you describe like what was the crescendo mentality well i love the
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analogy it's a musical analogy and everyone asks us oh you your family very musical and my dad couldn't
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sing at all i'm even worse my mom has a beautiful singing voice but crescendo in music that symbol if
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you look at the symbol it starts at a point and then the two lines spread outward and if you've ever
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been to a concert a crescendo is fantastic it grows in energy and influence and power and gets
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louder and it's and it's so amazing to hear it's very powerful and and it swells and it fills the
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whole arena wherever you're listening and in the same way uh diminuendo in the opposite way actually
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diminuendo starts wide the symbol starts wide two lines apart and then it comes to a point and it slows
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in power and energy and influence and it eventually literally comes to a stop and so the idea of crescendo
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it's like your art of manliness podcast brett you use the word maybe you can say it for me
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edamonia yeah eudaimonia eudaimonia which you describe as skill flourishing excellence virtue
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this is synonymous with crescendo it means that you keep learning you keep striving you keep you may
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have to redefine yourself you may have to start over but you keep increasing in what you learn and what
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you're contributing as you go along in your in your life even as you get older to the very end of your
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life that's the goal where the diminuendo is you're you know you're satisfied with where you are that you
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stop learning and growing and trying and experimenting and you basically just give up you just stop and
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accept what life has handed you which may not be good and you don't contribute anymore your influence
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comes to an end or crescendo the exact opposite is true and it sounds like your father was living
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this principle i mean he had like 10 projects going on before he died and how else was he like you know
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what did he beyond just doing stuff with the seven habits and the the franklin covey company like what
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else was he doing in his second half of life well like you said he was going a mile a minute you know he
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was going like crazy with different projects and books not to say that he neglected his most
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important roles which was in his family and that was a top priority to him but from 89 when he did
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seven habits he later produced the third alternative the eighth habit and i don't know what it is with
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numbers human numbers but the eighth habit find your voice and help others find theirs and then live life
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and crescendo this great book i mean this is evidence alone of his belief in this crescendo
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mentality which is kind of like a pair of glasses or a perspective a paradigm that you see everything
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through at any age and stage of your life the crescendo mentality sees the opportunity to change and
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improve and and get better and in his own life he kind of went through his own midlife crisis if you could
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call it that i don't know if he would have labeled it like that but looking back to me it was he was at a
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university and had been teaching for 20 years in organizational behavior and it was very successful
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that it was the the class to take on campus they said that if you didn't take this class you didn't get
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a degree and so he was an influential professor and with nine kids you know you don't make a lot as a
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professor but you know it was it was a steady income and job and yet he felt like i've got more to give
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and at this time he was developing the seven habits material and teaching it to his students and he
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didn't feel like they were really grasping and applying it you know they couldn't apply it in the
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marketplace in the workplace where he really wanted to see how this would work and so he started doing
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some consulting on the side and it was hard to do both and so he he and my mom decided we got to
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you know you may say he was a little bit stagnant and felt like i got something's holding me back i've
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got to keep growing and i feel like i have more to contribute and so he kind of took a leap of faith
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and put his house and cabin in hawk and just went out on his own steven covey and associates and later
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became covey leadership center but did his own business consulting and and for several years it
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was a little scary his own business and just starting out and left his comfortable job as a
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professor but if he never would have done that he never would have written the books that he did and
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the influence that he had throughout the whole world if he hadn't have taken that leap and decided
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that yeah i have more to contribute and i'm gonna take a little bit of a risk and and go with it and
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see what happens and that was when he was in his low 50s you know so definitely in the midlife stage
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but that was inspiring to look back and think you know he had his own uh chance to decide am i gonna
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you know live in diminuendo am i becoming stagnant or should i choose to live in crescendo and and go for
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this new opportunity well you talk about in the book i like how you organize the book um you start off
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there's a section about midlife and that's the moment where a lot of people have that decision
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like your dad did i can either live in crescendo or diminuendo like what is it about midlife that
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causes you to like that kind of forces that choice on you you know that's a good question brett because
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that's where a lot of people struggle i think i think everyone does it sometime the midlife stage
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of life where you know you kind of meet where you are with what you hoped you would be and maybe you
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feel like you know i haven't been successful i i haven't made a lot of money i'm not i don't have
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the career i wanted maybe you're divorced and feel like you're failing in your family roles maybe you
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haven't achieved what you what you dreamed of and you kind of wake up and think wow i you know
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what can i do i'm 50 and i'm not where i wanted to be and so my we we identify two perspectives in
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this midlife stage and one is to see true success for what it is without comparison to others society
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defines success so differently to how we're defining it here which is that success is is working to be
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successful in your most important roles in life in the roles that have great value to you most of
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those found in the family roles but also in humanitarian work you know sometimes you're more
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successful than you think you are i'll give the example of george bailey and it's a wonderful life
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we all know that story so well he thought he was he didn't think he was successful he thought he was
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kind of a failure because he didn't make a lot of money and he never left bedford falls and he never
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accomplished what he wanted to be but yet when he was taken out of it when the angel said okay it's
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like you've never been born he saw and the angel says what a big hole it leaves when you're not there
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you really did have a wonderful life he saw that he was important in all these people's lives and how
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much it meant to them to be able to get a decent home to live in and how he treated them and and you
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know he eventually comes back and his everybody saves him from financial ruin repaying all the kindnesses
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that he's given through the years and his brother toasts him to the to the most successful the greatest
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man in town and so sometimes we are successful but not by how society would measure it and then the
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second perspective is if you you don't like your job if you feel like you're in a dead-end career
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if you have relationship problems in your family and you feel like you're struggling identify what
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needs to be improved and changed in your life and courageously and proactively bring it about
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use what my father called resourcefulness and initiative he called it rni and make it happen
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and i tell a story about you know a principal who's who has a great vision for his school but yet he
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is weighs almost 400 pounds and his physical health is so bad that he can hardly make it through the day
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and how he takes control of that and decides i can choose you know to have this vision for our school
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but i have to take care of myself first and and how he gets in shape and and loses 150 pounds and
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actually becomes a marathon runner and and changes his his whole life and and therefore the school
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and his influence in the students or a lawyer who all of a sudden loses his job he formed a company
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and his partners force him out and he's 47 years old with four kids and no career well he has to look
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at himself and think you know what am i going to do am i going to just be bitter and end it here am i going
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to make a difference anymore what what are my choices he chooses a crescendo mentality and determines
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to go to law school at 47 the oldest in his class by far and he tells of of coming into the law school
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parking lot one cold winter morning at five in the morning when it's freezing and it's pitch dark and
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doom and despair comes over him and he thinks what have i done you know what what am i going to do how can i
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make it and he determines to use his rni and to dig deep and to see this through to the end and
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graduates in two and a half years and sets up a practice at 49 almost 50 and within a year or two
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has more work than he can handle so sorry to take a long time to answer but in the midlife stage
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you have to determine am i going to choose the crescendo mentality and keep learning and expanding
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and redefining myself or am i going to accept my fate what's happened to me and live in diminuendo
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and you know this is this is what this is the end it's really a choice yeah and i thought that was
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interesting the idea that one of the problems of midlife is we find out that maybe like how your dad
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uses like the measuring stick that we're using to gauge our life was the wrong one right like maybe
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that measuring stick you're using about career and you know sort of the external stuff was useful
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early on in your life so that's that it's important to get a job and things like that
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but at a certain point it stops becoming useful and then you have to decide i'm going to make a
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shift to a different measuring stick right and that was clay christensen clay christensen who with
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how do you measure your life saying you have to use the right measuring stick you know he he was at
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harvard with a lot of his friends and you know the first five years of the reunion they're all
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starting out with families and doing well starting their businesses and then within 10 and 15 years
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they meet together again and a lot of them are divorced and their families live across the
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country and they feel they're very successful some of them but they never thought that their family
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wouldn't be along on this journey and that they'd use the wrong measuring stick to measure success and
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kind of determining how are you going to measure your life and my father defines it by being
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successful in your most important roles and i guess i mean i imagine i don't know if you talked
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to your father about this when he was talking about success after the seven habits of highly
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effective people was it in terms of like well i gotta make another like a book that sells more than
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the seven habits of highly effective people or was it like he had he had a what was his measuring
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stick for success in his work that he did to make a difference to make a contribution
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that was always the priority to him it was never about money or prestige that was a a side thing
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that that came with success but it was he believed really strongly that life is about contribution
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not accumulation and he felt like i have so many um some other ideas like this idea of the crescendo
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mentality and of find your voice and help others find theirs that can give hope to people that can help
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them realize their worth and potential and hopefully see it in themselves his best best definition of
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leadership was communicating to another's worth and potential so clearly that they are inspired to see
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it in themselves and that's what that was his whole mission really to to unleash human potential and
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greatness within every person and a part of shifting that contribution mindset is your dad was a big
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believer in making service the priority of your life right service mindset you know it naturally grows
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we have a crescendo mentality you become service oriented you become a mentor to someone in your office
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that's struggling or to maybe you look around and you see a grandchild who is addicted to drugs or substances or is failing
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in school or maybe you've got a neighbor that admires you and that a younger person that that you could help mentor
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that you you look at life through the contribution mentality a great quote and i called it kind of the mission statement
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of the book is a quote by pablo picasso the meaning of life is to find your gift the purpose of life is to give it away
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and that can help you in a midlife struggle to to look outward to focus on others it can help you in the other
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areas we identify pinnacle of success life-changing setbacks and the second half of life the other areas that
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we'll probably discuss that as you look outward and serve other people you're able to find a lot of purpose in your life
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also as you make a difference in others and it helps you with your own problems i remember hearing my father talk about
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an orphanage in india that was doing so well the kids coming out of it were going to college and were you know really
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contributing and wonderful people and he talked to the woman in charge who kind of was you know supervising
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the curriculum and all that and what was happening with them and she said the only thing i can really
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identify is that we would challenge them when they were outside the orphanage to find someone in a worse
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situation than they were and to help them and focusing on others and looking outward and serving
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is is a key to happiness and a key to your own success we're gonna take a quick break for your
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and now back to the show okay so if you're approaching midlife and you're feeling that sort
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of midlife malaise where you just think well you know things i'm just kind of feeling uh restless
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on that word not sure what to do next the key there is think of that crescendo mentality you have more to
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offer and then shift to like maybe first figure out if you're using the right measuring stick
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right uh and then also use that resourcefulness and initiative well there's you also you mentioned
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there's two outcomes could possibly be facing in midlife the first is the pinnacle of success
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and then a big setback well let's talk about the pinnacle of success some people will think well
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you're a success like what problems could you have based on your experience and just what your father's
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done and his research what what problems come at midlife when you've you've got everything you
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got a house your family career's good what are the problems that can happen okay before i answer that
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let me just tell you something funny from our family about rni as kids we hated when my dad would say
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use your rni because we couldn't have any excuses you know we'd come home from school and say oh i hate
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my math teacher i'm flunking math he's he's awful we'd try to blame other people and he'd say well
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what does that have to do with it use your rni and we're like oh gosh dad you don't know this guy's
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really bad and he doesn't care about me and he doesn't know how to explain math oh you know not
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not not your problem use your rni and make it happen and so we were just like oh we could never
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blame other things we had to take responsibility for it and we kind of joked that we had a well-balanced
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parents because we our mom sometimes would let us blame other people and would take our side and
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say oh that's terrible that math teacher why he doesn't know who he's dealing with or you know
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should take our side a little bit so if we wanted our heart massage would go to our mom and we wanted
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to know the truth and how to solve our problems would go to our dad it was a good it was a good
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combination and a good mix but but pinnacle of success that's uh you know that's a great
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opportunity of you know like you say maybe you build a successful career and you have a home
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and you're and you're even making good money and you feel good about it and you've accomplished a
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lot well so what's next you know do you do you sit on your laurels and and that's kind of what my dad
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was challenged when he wrote seven habits is is this what is this all you've got you know are you
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going to produce anything else so the tendency with reaching the pinnacle of success is after you've
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reached it is to coast and to relax and to look in the rearview mirror at what you've accomplished and
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you know be proud of it and happy and pat yourself on the back which there's nothing wrong with that
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for a time but what about looking forward what's to come he always used the analogy of don't look in
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the rearview mirror so say that you're driving in a car and you're looking in your rearview mirror
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or even over your shoulder at what you've just left rather than looking ahead well pretty soon
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you're going to end up in a ditch you can't drive that way so we always would say look forward
00:25:44.280
look ahead and one of the best examples i can think of this we gave a lot of famous people examples and
00:25:51.100
regular everyday people but jimmy carter just comes to mind jimmy carter was not re-elected did not earn a
00:25:59.420
second term and imagine the humiliation of that going back to plains georgia he had a real choice
00:26:06.500
you know to live in crescendo or diminuendo and most presidents at that point you know kind of
00:26:12.600
retire they give expensive speeches and they might build a library in their name and different things
00:26:18.580
but carter within a year he and rosalind had established the carter center for peace and then
00:26:25.780
the the two of them have been the face of habitat for humanity i mean they're both in their 90s and yet
00:26:33.200
up until a year or two ago extremely active in you know this housing for for people that can't afford
00:26:40.340
it and all the involvement that president carter has had in history will not judge him as a great
00:26:47.720
president he had the the hostage situation and had so many hard things during his tenure but he is the
00:26:54.400
the best post president we've ever had so truly his most important work was really ahead of him
00:27:02.300
and he sees that you'd think the pinnacle of success is being the president united states
00:27:07.880
but actually no it's been his humanitarian work and so people who have been successful you're in
00:27:15.000
the greatest opportunity right then to bless others lives in other areas you've got the experience and
00:27:21.840
the and maybe the financial clout and the determination and the know-how to really bring some great things
00:27:29.700
about so why not lend it towards something else that could benefit other people and have that to have
00:27:36.640
your story be helping other people like mohammed yunas with the grimeer bank and micro loans i mean look at
00:27:45.180
look at the success that he's brought to thousands and thousands of people because of his determination
00:27:51.700
to help with poverty and what what is six you know there couldn't be anything more successful than
00:27:58.120
helping other people succeed so it sounds like you're at that pinnacle of success in your life sort
00:28:02.860
of mid part of your life and you're thinking like what's next what's next is become generative right
00:28:07.960
make other grow other help other people grow right yes find your voice and help others find theirs
00:28:15.320
you know paul newman is another person that had an amazing career in acting and yet his most important
00:28:23.300
work was literally his humanitarian work with he was embarrassed he said i i'm embarrassed that i made
00:28:30.700
more money on my salad dressings than i did on my movies but he determined he saw so much need and thought
00:28:38.160
if i can market this dressing and these other products and give it all away that was his motto
00:28:44.660
let's give it all away he said you can only stuff so much in your closet so let's give it away to to
00:28:51.400
charities and so far he has donated 730 million dollars to thousands of deserving charities doing so much good
00:29:00.840
and making an imprint in life and he tells of one story he has this these uh camps these family camps and
00:29:07.420
and he passed away in 2008 but his um foundation is still carrying on his good work so he established
00:29:15.820
these family camps for children who have terminal diseases and sicknesses are in the hospital much
00:29:23.760
of the year and it's the largest family camps in the world and kids can go free to these camps for a
00:29:30.680
whole week and enjoy all the things that you do in camping and really you know be kids forget about
00:29:36.600
their illnesses and their sicknesses and just enjoy kick back and be a child again and he said one day
00:29:43.660
he was walking to the dining hall and a little girl took his hand and said you know mr newman this is the
00:29:50.340
week i wait for all year this is what i live for and he said what could be greater applause than that
00:29:56.640
that's what that's what you want to hold your hand out to those who are less fortunate and be able to meet
00:30:02.360
and meet their needs so you know he's paul newman and the other ones have a lot of money and clout but
00:30:08.460
others that have reached pinnacle of success look around you in your families in your neighborhoods in
00:30:14.940
your community where can you lend that great the knowledge and things that you've accomplished by being
00:30:20.640
so successful what can you next lend that to and bless others well another possible outcome in midlife
00:30:27.320
is that you have a big setback could be divorce could be your career's over your business goes
00:30:33.720
bankrupt you get sick a loved one gets sick but even in those situations when things can seem just
00:30:41.280
utterly hopeless you say people can still keep that crescendo mentality and in a person that your father
00:30:49.100
looked to as you know someone who exemplified this of finding hope even when things seemed hopeless
00:30:54.420
was victor frankel uh he loved to quote victor frankel and that's because this is a guy who was
00:30:59.560
in a terrible terrible situation right he was in a nazi concentration camp but he still tried to find
00:31:05.000
meaning in it he always taught that you can't choose what happens to you you can't choose your
00:31:10.840
circumstance and your situation but you can choose how to react to that and he learned that from victor
00:31:16.500
frankel who in the midst of his torture and struggles had the wherewithal to see himself to envision himself
00:31:25.260
years later teaching to uh fellow students in psychology exactly what he was going through what
00:31:32.860
he's experiencing right then he saw himself years later having a great purpose and a work to do
00:31:39.160
and that's what he found he said he said he was surprised when he had analyzed why people would
00:31:45.580
survive who would survive and who wouldn't and he said the the main thing that they found is that if
00:31:51.700
someone had a why to live they could manage anyhow he said for one person he had his why and his purpose
00:31:59.460
was a child that was alive in another country that was waiting for him all alone and he knew it
00:32:05.800
and he wanted to survive for that child for another man it was a great scientific experiment that he was
00:32:13.280
halfway through before he was arrested and imprisoned and he wanted he knew that he
00:32:19.520
he could solve this scientific problem that would help with save people's lives and he wanted to get
00:32:25.540
back to finish that so they definitely had a why to live and they could manage anyhow
00:32:31.340
and so my father always taught that life is a mission and not a career
00:32:37.300
and that victor frankel taught that you detect you don't you don't invent but you detect your own
00:32:44.960
mission individual mission within you through listening to your conscience and through being
00:32:50.700
very aware of needs around you and as you detect your own mission and purpose then you can fulfill it
00:32:59.280
we can bring it about and offer something only you can offer each of us has something important to give
00:33:05.800
and to contribute we need to detect it take the time and make the effort to find out what that is
00:33:12.160
and then bring it about you gotta use that r and i right use your r and i use your r and i in a positive
00:33:18.820
way we like it now we tell it to our kids now and they hate it too you you give an example from your
00:33:24.640
own family of someone who dealt with a really terrible setback that's your brother sean yes tell us
00:33:30.040
he tells about that and how did he use these principles from your your father's work to help him
00:33:34.880
and his family navigate that problem right at the end of the book i tell three different stories
00:33:40.800
experiences of our family having to practice what we preach here and live in crescendo ourself
00:33:46.100
sometimes you look at other people and think oh they don't have any problems or issues but
00:33:51.120
all of us have things that we struggle with and if you haven't had a setback yet you just haven't
00:33:56.460
lived long enough it'll come so determine how you're going to respond beforehand my brother
00:34:03.400
sean this was a really hard thing for him and his wife rebecca and also our whole family
00:34:08.900
but his oldest daughter of eight kids passed away at 21 from effects of depression and this was
00:34:16.920
devastating to the entire family and somebody told him not meaning this to come across the wrong way
00:34:23.980
but they said you know sean it's sad but you'll always have a big hole in your heart because of what
00:34:30.620
happened to rachel and it's that's just kind of how it is it's going to be a big hole there
00:34:35.960
and sean thought about that and thought no that's that's not right i'm going to grow a muscle there
00:34:42.020
it's not going to be a hole and he decided he he thought about that i have three choices really
00:34:48.320
in this situation i can let this destroy me i can let it define me or i can let it strengthen me
00:34:56.360
and he chose and so did rebecca to let it strengthen them and so what they did was they they were talking
00:35:03.820
to some of rachel's friends and found that well they they knew that she'd always she had a passion
00:35:09.540
for horses she said she found her voice when she was riding horses and it was it helped her with her
00:35:15.540
depression and with things that she was experiencing and her friends came to them and said you know rachel i
00:35:21.840
was at a low point and rachel took me horseback riding and it helped me so much it it changed my
00:35:27.360
life it helped me deal with some of my problems and so they determined to do make something good out of
00:35:33.740
what had happened and help others and they talked openly about her passing away from depression they
00:35:39.960
got that out there that that this is what took her life and it freed other people to express that
00:35:46.280
also that that had happened to their families and then they decided to start um a place called bridle
00:35:53.200
up hope that has focuses on equestrian training because somehow horses and and girls and working
00:36:00.960
with horses is therapeutic and can really help people who are struggling especially with anxiety and
00:36:07.560
depression and abuse and and setbacks like that and so they set up bridle up hope and then they also
00:36:14.700
the first component is the equestrian training the second component is learning some life skills my
00:36:20.980
brother sean wrote seven habits of highly effective teens which is my dad's material of seven habits
00:36:28.020
for people but but specifically for teenagers that's really a great book that teaches life skills so they
00:36:35.420
go through these 13 or 14 classes and learn how to handle a horse and they have these life lessons that
00:36:42.200
that teach you about taking control of the horse like taking control of your life and and choosing to be
00:36:48.380
a leader and different things then they learn life skills through the seven habits for teens and the last
00:36:53.800
component is service they give back they help muck out stalls they they help teach other people they
00:37:01.200
mentor they do they give back and so it's been 10 years and a thousand girls more than a thousand girls
00:37:07.680
have gone through this program and many of them have said after that it changed their life and actually
00:37:13.320
saved their life i think 93 of the parents said that this was life-changing for their child
00:37:19.280
and so in their in their sorrow and this enormous life-changing experience that they had
00:37:25.460
they chose crescendo mentality and now it is blessing thousands of young girls who similarly struggle
00:37:32.760
so they found the why and then they use the resourcefulness and initiative it made something
00:37:37.960
good happen yes so we've been talking about middle age kind of how to navigate some of the problems
00:37:43.600
that can happen there but let's say you get past middle age right you're like in your
00:37:47.320
late 60s 70s you're retired and like i know a lot of our listeners are probably not there but
00:37:52.980
you're going to be that that age at some point so you got to think about this now what are the
00:37:56.540
challenges there that you face in trying to live life in crescendo and how can you counter those
00:38:01.760
challenges right brett you mentioned and i love the i love the mission of your of your work you know
00:38:08.660
to it's exactly living in crescendo for men encouraging and challenging men to produce more
00:38:15.560
and to assimilate what they learn and to be successful in their most important roles and
00:38:20.840
and it's a you know it's a great mission i've got to say brett that you're about i can see that it's
00:38:26.420
something that is important to you and your wife after reading about it and and i just wanted to
00:38:32.680
compliment you on that it's it's inspiring for me to read about it well thank you so much but you know
00:38:38.680
my father always quoted peter drucker and and abraham lincoln was also attributed to this quote so we
00:38:45.060
don't know who it is but he said the best way to predict your future is to create it and so if men are
00:38:52.060
in their 30s 40s 50s or whatever they're not in the second half of life stage that we call it now
00:38:57.900
then it's important to look ahead and think how how am i going to determine how am i going to respond
00:39:05.540
when i am old older and my father said it was a false dichotomy that society gives you to choose
00:39:13.800
keep working or retire and he said the third alternative is make a contribution which you can do
00:39:21.600
while you're still working which he chose to do into his 70s and he would have kept going if he
00:39:26.920
hadn't passed away but we all know people that are still very active and contribute in their 70s 80s
00:39:34.540
90s even and are working happy to do that and then others if they choose to retire from a job or he said
00:39:42.140
retire from your job or career but never retire from making meaningful contributions to others
00:39:48.340
and in our family retire was a bad word the r word we didn't say it it was a it was a a bad word
00:39:56.480
because in society it means to basically live in diminuendo and shut down don't accomplish a lot
00:40:03.440
don't don't give but let me tell you a story of a person named mike mason that i just heard about
00:40:09.600
63 year old man from virginia who served his country was a captain in the marines
00:40:15.840
and then became the number four man in the fbi and was in the fbi for many years you know sometimes
00:40:23.480
representing the fbi by speaking and pretty really high up and then he retired from that and became
00:40:30.560
an executive in a fortune 100 company finally was finished with his career and he said i retired to
00:40:37.520
the as a coo of a rocking chair and retirement did not sit well he said i still had a mind and had
00:40:44.980
things i was capable of doing he said but i determined if i was going to do something it had to be very
00:40:50.800
important and have a big payout and worthy of my time and he said the the choice was clear he looked
00:40:58.900
around in virginia in his chesterfield county school district and found that bus drivers were down 125
00:41:06.320
drivers and so he he gave his resume he turned in his resume to become a bus driver and somebody up
00:41:15.340
high uh called him and said um i'm just checking you're you're seriously going to you know you're
00:41:21.240
probably would be the most qualified school driver in america you've been the number four man in the fbi
00:41:26.960
and now you're going to be a bus driver and he said that there are no unimportant jobs here he said what
00:41:34.820
can be more important than the attention we give to our education system he said so yes i'm accepting
00:41:41.180
this job and i i am continuing to advance in my career i love how he said that so he advances in his
00:41:49.140
career by taking a thirty thousand dollar job which he donated the money to charity and he is transporting
00:41:56.520
kids to school which he felt like that's an important thing our education system so anyway i i really
00:42:04.680
you know in the second half of life that's the time where you have the most wisdom the most experience
00:42:11.660
the most time maybe the most money and influence and the most knowledge to really contribute so are you
00:42:20.900
going to you know retire to florida and and lay out and drink pina coladas and enjoy yourself and rest
00:42:28.120
where uh some a dr selvik says that you will get retirement disease kills people he said that you
00:42:36.960
need you stress in your life and that's the helpful beneficial stress so you need to have you know a lot
00:42:44.620
of people's tendency is to pull away socially and to not be as engaged as they are when they were working
00:42:51.320
in a job or a career but it's better to go with your foot fully on the accelerator rather than to
00:42:59.300
go in idle you need to keep contributing all right so shift from career to contribution and then another
00:43:05.040
principle your dad talks about in the second half of life is focus on creating memories what do you mean
00:43:09.800
by that that would go back to your most important roles creating memories with people that are important
00:43:17.920
to you the experiences and part of it could be in serving together create lasting memories like maybe
00:43:25.680
i'll share one with you that's personal to me i shared in the book when i was 12 years old my father
00:43:32.580
invited me to go on a trip with him for his work to san francisco and for a 12 year old who lived in
00:43:39.660
salt lake city to go to san francisco and hear about the famous trolley cars he described and all the
00:43:45.820
wonderful things that they had there this was just magical and so for a few months we part of the fun
00:43:52.700
was talking about it and planning what we were going to do and so the plan was that after his
00:43:57.860
after his speech his presentation he said oh you've heard me before just just go swimming at the hotel and
00:44:04.240
and do what you want during the day and then come join me the last 20 minutes and so after he was
00:44:10.920
going to finish his presentation our plan was to catch a trolley car and to drive ride all over the
00:44:16.800
hills and enjoy the magic of that and then we would go shopping in some of the famous stores i've heard
00:44:22.900
about that and maybe get a couple school clothes and then we had a plan to go to chinatown we both love
00:44:29.860
chinese food and so he was telling me about this authentic chinese food and how much we'd love it and
00:44:35.140
what chinatown was like and we're excited planning that and then we'd take a taxi back to the hotel
00:44:41.180
just in time to go swimming before it closed and then we'd order a hot fudge sundae and watch the
00:44:46.520
late show stay up late and we had this whole night planned and a 12 year old's mind it was it was just
00:44:52.480
the greatest thing we were ever going to do and so it was going according to plan i was at the back of
00:44:58.060
the room and he was making his way toward me when all of a sudden he ran into one of his old college
00:45:04.160
friends that he hadn't seen for a long time but a man that that he talked about one of his good friends
00:45:10.160
and i'd always heard about the stories and things that they'd done together and how much they loved each
00:45:14.980
other and this guy was so excited and said oh i'm so i came knowing you were speaking today we live in
00:45:20.520
the city and i'd like to invite you to come down on the wharf and have some seafood and we'll have a great
00:45:26.380
time and catch up and my dad seemed excited to see him and said oh you know i've got my daughter
00:45:32.220
here also and he looked over and said oh yeah well she could join us too and i thought oh gosh i just
00:45:38.680
want to spend my night with an old person i don't know and eat seafood which i hated and you know
00:45:44.760
where's my trolley car and i just kind of thought our whole plans were falling apart and my dad was
00:45:51.020
embracing him and said oh bob it's so great to see you and i would love to do that with you but not
00:45:57.840
tonight cynthia and i have a special date planned don't we honey and he winked at me and grabbed my
00:46:04.400
hand and we ran out the door and i saw my trolley car come back in view and it kind of choked me up
00:46:10.380
and i said but dad this is your good friend from college i'm sure you'd rather spend time with him
00:46:16.220
and you haven't seen him for so long and he said are you kidding i wouldn't miss this for anything
00:46:21.180
you'd rather have chinese food anyway wouldn't you let's go catch that trolley car and so this this
00:46:28.200
seemingly small inter you know exchange between us taught me so much about the priority i was in his
00:46:36.380
life and about first things first and about keeping promises and trust and it served as a foundation for
00:46:43.820
our relationship throughout our lives and so i think it's important to create meaningful memories
00:46:49.860
with your family and with in your most important roles that can mean a lot to people as they look
00:46:56.600
back on them and kind of serve as a foundation of of trust and love in their life yeah it's how you
00:47:02.860
create your legacy too that's right yeah create a legacy so at the end of the book you talk about
00:47:08.660
your father's end of life shortly before he died he was diagnosed with dementia how did he and your
00:47:17.260
family like start try to apply those live life and crescendo mentality to this diagnosis well brett we
00:47:25.200
had to practice what we were preaching about this because we had three really hard trials right in a
00:47:30.380
row within a couple years and one was one was my mom had back surgery that didn't go well and she
00:47:38.080
ended up in a wheelchair the rest of her life and about the same time our father started acting kind of
00:47:43.980
different he's so passionate and has so much empathy and cares so much and and he became you know kind of
00:47:52.420
estranged a little bit and not interested in what was going on apathetic and he was diagnosed with front
00:47:59.760
temple dementia which just stunned us they always say that if you use your mind you won't lose it but
00:48:06.080
apparently that wasn't the case and there's a lot of hereditary things that go into that
00:48:10.420
but so we had to face that we had a mother in a wheelchair physically couldn't do anything and
00:48:17.140
struggling and a father with dementia and us nine kids you know we had to determine you know how are
00:48:24.180
we going to respond to this and we pulled together our faith helped us our relationships with each other
00:48:30.700
and we determined we're going to we're going to get through it and make this the best we can and make
00:48:35.660
life wonderful for our parents just like they did for us and so we supported them both and did
00:48:41.700
everything we could to make their life comfortable and well and when our father passed away it was a
00:48:49.460
difficult thing but we felt like you know he was free of what happened to him and it was and it was a
00:48:54.340
blessing in the long run but with our mother and and to say something about my dad we determined that
00:49:00.100
he lived in crescendo until he couldn't do it anymore and sometimes people this is important
00:49:05.620
to know because sometimes you do have serious health issues and you have things that are so
00:49:11.100
challenging that take over your life and so you you do the best you can you he lived he lived in
00:49:18.140
crescendo life until he literally mentally couldn't do that anymore and then with our mother she was in this
00:49:25.420
wheelchair and you know part of it was you know she had the usual depression that came from all this and
00:49:30.800
things that happened and she took control of her life and bounced back in a beautiful way we needed our
00:49:37.560
mom and she she knew that she was the matriarch of you know nine kids and 55 grandkids and lots of
00:49:44.620
great grandkids and she she did what she could to she did everything that she did before but in a
00:49:51.620
wheelchair and she still went to football games and basketball and went to our events and was involved
00:49:57.580
in her lives as much as she could and she lived in crescendo to the very end she didn't let that
00:50:03.240
being in a wheelchair and having all these physical ailments determine what she was going to do it would
00:50:10.280
take her like two hours for someone to help her get ready in the morning and some people would have
00:50:14.900
thought just stay in your pajamas you don't need to dress up and she it was important to her to get ready
00:50:20.500
and have things to do that day and just just in closing telling about her she planned a 12th night
00:50:27.800
party i don't know if you remember in shakespeare the play the 12th night 12th night kind of represents
00:50:34.500
is january 12th and after christmas is over there's kind of a letdown and uh so january 12th she would
00:50:42.520
have 12th night parties throughout her life and she hosted one right before she died she she planned it
00:50:50.300
she didn't tell us because she knew we would have tried to stop her from doing it because every time
00:50:55.780
she tried to plan a big party or an event she would end up in the hospital so she did it privately and
00:51:02.620
when we found out about it we're like mom you can't do this again you always get sick after and she said
00:51:08.060
it's already planned i can do what i want it's you get all invited it's january 12th well she passed away
00:51:14.940
on that day that's the day she died and so living in crescendo to the very end planning something
00:51:21.380
wonderful for all of us to come to and enjoy with her family and friends um looking ahead from christmas
00:51:28.940
where you felt like it's over and some excitement to look forward to on this great 12th night party
00:51:34.500
and so it was it was fitting to us that that she planned that right and it happened on the day she
00:51:40.340
passed away that was 2020 well cynthia this has been a great conversation where can people go to
00:51:46.140
learn more about the book oh you're so nice brett for hosting me it's just on amazon or barnes and
00:51:52.820
noble and everywhere so you can look up cynthia covey howler i'm on twitter and instagram and facebook
00:51:59.920
but it's just been out a month and i'm thrilled that it's out because it was it was my father's i
00:52:07.980
shouldn't say last and final really because that would defeat the crescendo mentality model right
00:52:12.920
but but you can see that you know his legacy still is going on through this book and and his main goal
00:52:20.540
was to help inspire others to give them hope in their life that that they can do what they plan to do
00:52:28.720
that they can make their life wonderful even if it doesn't seem like it is that they still have a lot
00:52:34.660
to contribute ahead of them and to be hopeful cheerful and optimistic and to and to go for it
00:52:42.020
do it as long as you can live in crescendo well cynthia covey howler thanks so much time it's been
00:52:46.780
a pleasure thank you brett thanks for hosting me my guest today was cynthia covey howler she's the
00:52:53.160
co-author of the book live life in crescendo it's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere
00:52:57.300
make sure to check out our show notes at awm.is slash crescendo where you find links to resources
00:53:01.380
where you delve deeper into this topic well that wraps up another edition of the awm podcast make
00:53:12.720
sure to check out our website at artofmanly.com where you find our podcast archives as well as
00:53:16.600
thousands of articles written over the years about pretty much anything you'd think of and
00:53:19.660
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of it as always thank you for the continued support telex times brett mckay
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remind you how to listen to my podcast but put what you've heard into action