Steve Anderson’s Greatest Hits: 10 Leadership Lessons That Stick

0:00 got him on too okay steve anderson welcome back to the show well thank you it's been a while I think it was during the pandemic we uh we did one so yeah and it's always fun to talk to other podcasters in the beginning it felt weird right it felt like self-aggrandizing like podcast it's obviously there's just like a uh a crossover episode remember back in the eighties They would do like character crossovers, like the Fonz would show up on some other show that didn't make any sense, but they'd crossover. Yeah, there you go. And now I feel like people get it. And it's like this Venn diagram where people might have but have never heard of my show. And now they listen to yours and vice versa. And it sort of works. Yeah, yeah, it does.

0:41 Well, thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. So give people the thirty thousand foot view if they haven't tuned in since since the throes of covid. You were the leader of a I mean, I guess a decently large organization up in the Pacific Northwest. You had a couple of clinics up there and then you've you've you've done other things in terms of coaching and things like that with your insight. So what do you when you're a cocktail party and someone say, what do you do, Steve? How do you answer? Well, I'll start from the current and go backwards. So what I do now is I'm semi-retired, but I do executive coaching. So I work with high-level executives, some in the physical therapy world, but not all.

1:22 And so I do that coaching, and then I have my podcast on the side. And the podcast is called Profiles in Leadership. I'm going on eight years now, which seems like a long time. Crazy. I've interviewed over two hundred and thirty, thirty five people and which is, you know, been very interesting, learned a ton. And then before that, what you're referring to, I was the CEO of Therapeutic Associates, which is a private practice physical therapy company in the Pacific Northwest, which I still I believe is still the largest privately owned company. uh private practice in the nation I think they're up to about a hundred and ten or or more clinics now and uh yeah it was a great experience I was a ceo there for nineteen years and so um that's uh let's say I'm a pt obviously and uh started out you know in a clinic as a staff pt became a clinic director and then eventually I was elected to the uh ceo of the company and did that for nineteen years Well, so obviously that that experience for nineteen years sort of qualifies you to give executive leadership advice to people, which is, you know, probably not easy to come by.

2:31 Right. There's not many people who've done something like that for nineteen years who are now also saying to someone who either wants to do it or who is doing it, wants to do it better. Not a whole lot of people who do what you do, I imagine. well it's you know it's interesting you say that because there's a million business coaches now and leadership coaches and whatever but uh it is I always do scratch my head sometimes when I see uh you know a business coach uh you know um uh this has never run a business yeah so it's kind of interesting so I do hope that it gives me some uh insight experience and and knowledge you know boots on the ground type of thing that I think is valuable and you know you can read the books and and uh you know hear the speeches and all that but experience I'm not sure you can buy so that's just something that you either have or you don't yeah you've you've been there done that fallen into a trap figured out how not to fall in that trap and that's what that's what you buy with insight is that person is seen and done even if it was twenty five years ago I imagine things like AI.

3:37 Well, how does Steve understand AI? But you're saying, okay, there's a new thing that's come on. How is my business going to react to it? It doesn't matter if it's AI or something different. I imagine the thought processes, at least, maybe not these steps, but the thought processes are probably pretty similar. Yeah, yeah. And another thing that... you know, people pay me for and they don't probably realize it when they hire me and sometimes don't even realize it when I'm working with them. But I feel like, you know, I have experience, so I know a lot. But what you're also paying for is I know a lot of people. So, you know, I can say, hey, you know, I don't maybe I'm not on the cutting edge of AI other than what we all know.

4:21 So here's a guy that I know that I've talked to, and then I can make that connection and make that introduction. Right. It's when people watch Shark Tank and they go, well, yeah, of course they're getting money from Cuban. That's valuable. I go, yeah, but they also now get a warm introduction. They know now they get they know what Cuban knows and they get to be introduced to people Cuban doesn't. And instead of you having to Google how to solve this problem, Cuban's like, I own a company that solves that problem. I'll get you a good rate and I'll introduce you to the manager. So it really is, you know, your network is your net worth. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm not sure people appreciate that until they experience it. So, yeah. Right. All right. So I've done a little bit of media consulting and I'm going to say I'm going to say a statement and you tell me if it's if you think it's true or not.

5:06 I went into doing some media consulting with PT organizations. And I thought it was going to be ninety percent communications and ten percent psychology. And what it wound up being was ninety percent psychology and ten percent media. Is that similar? Oh, yeah, I think so. I mean, you know, I focus pretty I have a niche, you know, which is leadership. training or development. So it's like helping the person I'm working with become a better leader, helping them work with their executive teams to communicate better, working with how to grow more leaders within their organization. You know, and that's all, you know, as you say, psychology, communication, human nature, understanding personalities, understanding what resonates and what doesn't, and that type of thing.

5:54 So yeah, that's kind of my niche. And yeah, I love doing that. And what you didn't include in your resume in the big picture is every once in a while you get a call from Jimmy McKay who goes, what am I supposed to do with my life, Steve? And you give me advice and you send me off in a better direction. So thank you for that. Yeah. And sometimes I have ideas and sometimes I'll refer you to somebody who I think I have a better idea. So yeah, exactly. All right, so you mentioned doing profiles and leadership for a long time. I think I saw you post something on LinkedIn a week or two ago, and I thought, man, you've been doing something so narrow in leadership and having conversations that if you're looking for that, that's the spot. You're the guy who's like, I just do this, but I go an inch wide, but I go a mile deep.

6:37 And I just sat there thinking – Man, if I forced Steve, if I put his feet to the fire and said, you got to give me ten of your best pieces of information, and he gave it to me, wow, what a treasure chest of info that would be. And I think I DMed you or texted you, and you're like, yeah, sure, let's do that. So, man, what was the process in sitting down and looking back over two hundred and something episodes and even finding that stuff? Well, that was a real chore or challenge, let's say, because when people ask me, why do I do this podcast? What's the motivation behind it? And I honestly say every time because I learn something every time I do it. Every time I do an interview, I learn something new and I didn't know that or that's so interesting and I'm a curious person to begin with.

7:23 So, you know, I started going back and looking. It's like every oh, I knew here I could have had maybe two hundred fifty, you know, impactful insights, you know. But I tried to narrow it down to ten. Obviously, didn't have the time or the bandwidth to re-listen to every single one of them. But the ones that I do remember that stuck in my brain, yeah, I wrote down some ideas. And so, yeah, I'd be happy to share them with you. hit us with uh with number one and if someone's being left off the list doesn't mean steve doesn't like you of course because people have asked me my favorite episodes and I'm like I'm not going down that road because I feel like I'd leave people off and just so you know you can find profiles and leadership like wherever podcasts uh are heard to get the the raw uh insights so what's number what's number ten or number one are we going ten well so I I've got ten here um but I'm not going to Rank them in order of the most significant.

8:14 OK, so here we go. So so the one that I had recently was Nancy Phillips, who is a founder and CEO of Rally Rally Day Partners. OK, so that's a private equity firm that is actually working with one of our colleagues we know well and love her so much, Michelle Colley. And so I was trying to push her like, OK, you're saying all the right things. I get it. You know, whatever. Boy, it really comes down to it. Isn't it all about making money and getting the best return on your investment? And she made this statement that I thought was profound. She said, look, Steve, you can't get a good return on your investment unless you focus on culture and leadership development within your organization.

9:00 and as I told her that's speaking my language because I've been promoting that for years and years and years and years that you know you got to focus on the people and the culture and the leadership development and things like that then your profits and your success will come where, you know, I think sometimes people get so focused on the numbers and that that they, you know, they forget about that kind of stuff, you know, and that's why people feel pushed and burned out and, you know, not not part of the organization decision making process and so on. So coming from her, who's in that world, I thought that was very profound. And I thought, wow, you know, if they all felt and talked like that, I'd be in a better, better spot.

9:43 And private equity is something that I haven't really been involved with a lot. But these are people who come into an organization. And you correct me if I'm wrong. I'll give you my version. They come into an organization and they look at what's there, the culture, the people, the land. What do they do? How do they do it? And who is involved in doing it now? And then they say, could our expertise and our funding make this thing go better? Could we be an element that we add so that that organization and our private equity organization both benefit from that? How do I do? Yeah, no, that's fine. And often what they do then is then they say, okay, so we're going to be in this business for, say, three to five years.

10:28 And then we're going to do the next thing, either find some other private equity company to buy this or maybe sell it to somebody else. So that's how they make their money. So it's it's and it's often that they would come in and say, OK, we need to be more productive. We need to cut expenses. We need to do this, you know. Yet a lot of times they sell because we have more money. We have more resources to provide to your company. So I will say that over my experience, the private equity is changing its tune a bit, and I think they're getting better in the physical therapy market than they used to be. But there's still that pressure like, okay, how do I get my maximum return out of this in three to five years? Well, if you're a numbers data guru guy, you're going to say, you know, make people more productive, treat more patients and cut expenses.

11:17 That's how I make my money. Well, as we know, most PTs we know don't do well with that. Okay. So so to me, what Nancy's saying is, no, what we need to do is invest in the people and the culture and get them excited about things. Therefore, they will become more efficient and more productive because they love what they're doing. That's how we get our return. Yeah. Take care of the big thing. Take care of the big thing in culture and people. Exactly. So I was I was thrilled to hear that. Love that. All right. So that was that was actually the one that was the one you shared on LinkedIn. Yeah. And I just thought, man, if that's good advice, what are the other, you know, two hundred plus episodes? What's next? Well, the next one is I like to try and get some really.

11:57 So the theme is leadership, but I can see leadership in so many different aspects of our life. OK, so this next one is a woman by the name of Mary Gauthier. And she is a singer-songwriter from Nashville, Tennessee. And I saw her at a TEDx event in New York once. And she just, gosh, there's just something about her that I thought, this woman is amazing. So I DMed her on Instagram. And believe it or not, she answered me. And so so here she is. And what she kind of does is her, you know, to give back to the community, so to speak, is she sits down with wounded warriors from the military and they're having trouble with PTSD or whatever.

12:40 Sometimes they have these horrible things they're dealing with. And then she spends a weekend with them in a songwriting workshop. And they write a song together about their story. and then she plays it and often records it and when when they do that it like it just gives voice to what they went through and it's just very profound but anyway she's an amazing uh artist in person and so her quote um we're talking about imposter syndrome And she says, even in music, too, we have imposter syndrome, like, you know, I'm not that good or people are going to think, you know, gosh, do they like this? Do they not like that? They're going to think, you know, whatever. So they have it as well that we talk about all the time in the business world.

13:25 And she said about imposter syndrome, she said, it's just an ego problem. She goes, I'm just trying to be to be of service and connect with people. I don't think ranking people by value is a healthy way to look at the world. So she just says, man, I just, you know, I'm going to connect with this person. I'm going to provide a service that I can maybe do for them. And between those two things, if I do that, then I'm good. I don't have to get seven million followers or I don't have to do this or that. I connected with a person. I made a difference. That's what it's all about. Ironically, if you want seven million followers, doing what she does is the way to actually get there.

14:08 Yeah. Focus on one person at a time. Yeah. You know, share one good minute with seven million people. That's how you get seven million people to buy in. And it's not that different than what we just talked about. Correct. Correct. You know, because you're focusing on that one person doing that one thing and that translates to bigger numbers. So, yeah. And what was her name again? Her name is Mary Gaucher and it's spelled, I think she's from Louisiana, probably Cajun country. It's G-A-U-T-H-I-E-R. Somehow that that spells Gaucher. All right. I like that. Sliding into the DMs, as the kids call it on. Yeah. Yeah.

14:48 So, I mean, it's one thing I've always said is I've never been afraid to ask the question. So sometimes you just reach out and you get some people that will respond. And so it's awesome. I tell people all the time. The great Terry Gross is an interviewer on NPR. Her her biography was called All I Did Was Ask. Yeah, that's true. Sometimes that's hard. It is hard. It is hard. All right. What's next? You led off with two good ones. Yeah. Number three, Rich Devaney, who is a Navy SEAL. OK. And Rich not only became a Navy SEAL, but he also then became a trainer of Navy SEALs.

15:28 And so he was telling me about the process. And, you know, they have this Navy SEAL training. They have this thing called the Bud's Week or whatever it is, which is they do all these horrific endurance things that don't make any sense, but you just have to keep doing them. And the dropout rate on that is eighty percent. So eighty percent of the guys that get the Bud's don't make it. And getting there isn't easy either. And getting there is not easy either. So he said that I said, well, who makes it? Who becomes a Navy SEAL? And his answer, I thought, was perfect. He said, I can always tell when someone's going to make it. When they make the step between worrying about their own suffering and worrying about the guy beside them and helping them get through their suffering.

16:14 When a guy makes that step, that's the guy that'll make it. And again, I mean, take that to business. As soon as you start being a team member that helps others and helps them rise and helps them become better at their job and whatever, you both rise. You both get better. And I think that was profound because he says at the beginning of the BUDS training, all people can worry about is how bad me, me, me, me, me is suffering. But when I start helping other people, I make the jump. So I think I thought that was profound. That is, I mean, I've seen videos and documentaries on that training and it is even the stuff that I imagine there's some stuff we don't see, but the stuff that you see is pretty horrific, but it's, they've said it before.

16:54 It's a, they're testing your mind. Yes, it is a ridiculous endurance and strength test, but what they're really trying to see you do is how do you work with others? What are you focused on? If you're focused on you, you, you, when we get out there in a real situation, you're going to be focused on you, you, you. We don't want those guys. We want people who are focused on we. Exactly. A hundred percent. All right, what's up next? Somewhat related, I interviewed a guy by the name of Walter Bond. Probably never heard of him. Walter Bond was a Division I basketball player for the University of Minnesota. He played all four years in college, never started a game. He was the sixth man coming in off the bench. And his coach would always tell him, when I look at my players, you're not one of the five best players, so I don't start you.

17:40 But whenever you're in the game, we're better. So he usually would go in early and play a lot of the game. And so amazingly enough, now think of the NBA. There's only four hundred and fifty five, I think, players in the in the world that play in the NBA at any one time. So, you know, that all those guys have come from being the best player on their team by a mile. That's who makes the NBA. Well, somehow, some coach hears and knows about Walter Bond. So he drafts him or chooses him to come into the NBA as the sixth man off a University of Minnesota basketball team that wasn't necessarily the national champion or anything.

18:21 Walter Bond played eight years in the NBA. And I said, well, what did you do? I mean, what was the difference? And he said, again, what I think, you know, I learned. He said, well, when I come into the game, what most players do, they come into the game and they say, OK, this is what I do. I'm a great three point shooter, so I'm going to make three pointers or I'm a great rebounder. So I'm going to go get the rebounds or I'm a good defensive player. So I'm going to play defense. And he goes, I go into the game and I'm sitting on the bench. Watch. I go, what do we need right now? What does the team need me to do so that we're better? Sometimes I need to rebound. Sometimes I do need to shoot a three pointer. Sometimes I need to play a really tough defense on the guy that's killing us.

19:05 He goes, so that was my approach to every every job, which, again, it's not about him. It's about the team. So what can I do to help the team? And again, fantastic story. And, you know, eight years in the NBA, having never started a game in his college career. Yeah, he doesn't think about me. He thinks about we. And it goes back to what you said that his coach said about him. When I look at you, you're not one of my best five, but when you're in the game, we play better. It's because he tailors his game and where he's going to put his effort on what's needed now. Yeah, exactly. Of course it's going to get better. We need this now. So I'm going to do that. And sometimes, you know, you see good leaders do that too. Like sometimes, you know, they, they don't lead from the highest level.

19:46 They might roll up their sleeves and help dig a ditch, you know, or something, if that's what's needed, you know? So it's just somebody who's able to see what is needed at the time. And that's what I do. That's smart. Yeah. See, I always like when I look at your show, it's not always the same. guess. You just talked to me about P.E. and Navy SEALs and basketball players and musical artists. Leadership isn't about just being in a boardroom. Yeah, one hundred percent, one hundred percent. And that's why that's why I try to look at all aspects. You know, the next one on the list is is Gabby Reese. Oh, yeah. So, you know, Gabby Reese, for those who don't know, is a professional volleyball player and a model and, you know, very successful.

20:27 And What I asked her a question, I don't remember exactly how I said it, but basically People Magazine in the nineteen ninety somewhere in the mid nineteen nineties said that she was one of the ten most beautiful women in the world. Now she's a professional athlete and they made that statement as well. So my question more was like, how at a young age do you deal with that? I mean, holy cow. And she said, she goes, as I've gotten older, I've learned that people may thank you for this or that, or sometimes it can be very flattering. But I just focus on holding the line for myself to live up to.

21:11 And realizing what other people think is their issue, not mine. So she said, so People Magazine is going to find somebody next week the next pretty face and whatever. And if I focus on that and I just think I'm all that, you know, it's just, yeah, like it's a roller coaster. So I thought that was pretty profound at her young age that she was able to think that. And then now she's lived that her whole life and, you know, she's doing great things and she's not a model right now and she's not a professional athlete, but she's still doing great things. Yeah, this reminds me of, do you know who Mel Robbins, you heard of Mel Robbins? Oh, yeah. She's got that let them theory.

21:52 It almost sounds like Gabby Reese understood that a long time ago, which is whatever you're going to think, I'm flattered. Thank you. But if I put too much stock and too much stake into that of you hyping me up, when you stop, I'm going to crash. So don't do either. Just let them. Yeah, I got a funny story on Mel Robbins. She was a keynote speaker at the PPS one year. I didn't know that. Yeah, and so I was in the back of the room and I wasn't president at the time. I think it's after I was the president. And so I know a lot of people at that conference, right? And I see this woman like in a flowing skirt and high top red tennis shoes and she's kind of pacing back and forth in the back of the room.

22:35 And my first thought, well, who is that? And then my second thought was, I like her style. She just seems like she's got something going. And then the person says, and our keynote speaker today is Mel Robbins. She goes running down the main aisle, gets up on the deck, and that's who it was. So I thought, yeah, she's amazing. Yeah, the reason that comes to mind is I just started reading her book just a couple of just a couple of days ago. But it it really is like if you look at her book and what Gabby said, it's not rocket science. It's also one of the hardest things to do. But when you figure it out, as Mel says in her book, and it sounds like Gabby understood, you take your own power back when you stop either blaming other people for how they made you feel or just owning how I feel should be how I feel or my perception should be my.

23:19 Yeah. And sometimes we look at false... accolades you know like for me and you you know sometimes you get a little caught up like what are my downloads what are my downloads and I'm like and my wife is great because she always says well do you care and I go what do you mean she goes well if you had ten times as many downloads would it make any difference what you're doing and I go no and she goes well why do you do what you do and I go because I love it and I learn something every time she goes then forget about the downloads it doesn't really matter I did some media training every day. Someone found me through LinkedIn and asked to talk to me, and she's trying to become a media writer.

24:00 And she said, what do I need to do? And I took someone else's quote was, if you want to be a better writer, you don't need more readers. You need to write more. If you want to be a better podcaster, you don't need more listeners. You need to podcast more. And I think she I don't think she liked my I don't think she liked my advice because I said, listen, do you want to know why I've been successful? I showed up twice a week, every week for ten years. And it was easier for me to show up because I really just liked doing it. I'm like, I'm very sorry, but how come you haven't written? And she's like, well, I'm waiting. And I said, no, can't do that. Can't wait. No, that's it reminds me, too. I'm a guitar player. So you have an acoustic guitar.

24:42 A lot of people say, God, your guitar sounds so good. How can my guitar sound better? Well, if you know anything, you know anything about the wood and an acoustic guitar, it it. vibrates and it expands and it you know it it has a life so the answer is just what you said you might want to make your guitar sound better play it more often play it more because that's what the wood wants to do it gets warmer the more you play it so yeah I think that's interesting all right where are we at now five okay so we're going to go to another navy seal uh this guy's name is uh earl dobler and he gave what I think is really profound advice he said whatever you do make sure that your identity is something that no one can take away from you.

25:25 Okay. And I said, okay, explain that further. He says, okay, for instance, he said, ever since I was a teenager, all I wanted to be was a Navy SEAL. Everything I did was to be to prepare for a Navy SEAL. I go to the training. I make it through BUDS. I get selected. I'm a Navy SEAL. I'm doing all I ever wanted to do in my life. And then I got injured. And I couldn't be a Navy SEAL anymore. And he says, I went into a spiral for two years. I didn't know who I was, what I wanted to do. He said it was just brutal. So he said, so now I learned that my identity shouldn't be a Navy SEAL. It should be something like...

26:08 I give back to my community or I'm kind or I help others or something that no matter what happens, no one can ever take that away from me. Yeah. And I thought that was really amazing advice. Yeah. Yeah, take apart the elements of what a Navy SEAL is. It's someone who shows up, cares about his team over himself. You can do that lots of different places. So if you can't be the Navy SEAL, you can still be that person who shows up early and goes to the nth degree and cares about the team. You can plug that in lots of different places. Yeah, absolutely. That's great advice. I like that one. So here's another one. So Brad Zimmerman, just a leadership coach and been around a long time.

26:48 And he wrote this book and there was a story in it that really caught my attention. So if it's OK with you, it comes off better if I just read it. Yeah. So so listen to this and see what you think. So in his book, he says, tells a story. An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. A fight is going on inside me, he said to the boy. It's a terrible fight. It's between two wolves. One is evil. He is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

27:30 The other one is good. He is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside of you and inside of every other person too. The grandson thought about it for a minute. Then he asked his grandfather, which wolf will win? The old Cherokee simply replied, the one you feed. Isn't that awesome? It's just a great way to look at it. It doesn't say that there aren't bad ideas or bad thoughts in you and that would make you bad.

28:13 It says there is. Yeah. But you can decide which one will win by which one you feed. Yeah. Where you spend your most time is what's going to happen. So it's just one of those things where... Easier said than done often. But I do think that it's a mindset. It's the Carol Dweck mindset theory that, you know, what you focus on and what you think and how you think makes a difference on what you do. Yeah, there's some people that say, you know, it sounds real new agey and self-helpy. But when you really start practicing it, there are people that say, like, I don't even don't speak negatively about yourself, even in your own head.

28:53 like make sure that you're only feeding that other wolf, like even in your own thoughts, because that's where it starts. Because when you start thinking, you start becoming. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. That's a good one. So are we still going? Another one? Absolutely. Okay. Daniel Pink, who I did a long time ago. And so there were a lot of good ones out of that one. But one that I thought was interesting is he said, you know, great leaders are incredibly generous with their teammates. He said they are not dictatorial leaders. They provide vision, provide direct feedback in the moment, not at performance reviews.

29:34 but at the moment and connect with them in a very deep level, not afraid to use the word love when having discussions with them, you know, to show that empathy and that caring and whatever. And he says that and then just genuinely ask their opinion and listen. You know, again, not anything we haven't heard before, but but I think it's true. And then we went into a real deep discussion, too, about, what I felt for a long time is that a lot of ceos of companies often come up through the finance side of things and in the finance world there's a lot more left brain thinkers than right brain thinkers and you know left brain is more data analytics numbers spreadsheets you know whatever and the right side of the brain is is kind of what he just described there And so we had a lot of talk, and he thinks that as companies move forward and as we evolve in business in the world, that there's going to be a lot more right brain leaders in our future than in the past.

30:43 So I think the right brain leader is getting a lot of traction in the sense of these are the leaders our companies want because they Help us discover purpose. They help us work together as a team. They help us give back, you know, to our communities. And it's not all about the numbers and the spreadsheets. Yeah. Yeah. We dealt with this a lot in radio. There were very much left brain, right brain. programming versus sales. It was always that programming versus sales. It was like, hey, what should lead? Should the creative people lead and the logical left brain people figure out how to make it happen, right? I set the vision, figure out how to pay for it, man, because that's where we're here.

31:25 I'm going to set course, you set the sales. And I think we had the most success It for me anyway, in my radio career is when I realized it wasn't left versus right. It was how do we figure out how do we get the most almost back to your baseball analogy or sorry, basketball, six man. How do we get the most out of both? What do we need right now from each side and how can we apply that right now? It shouldn't be all or none. It shouldn't be that forever. It's what's needed now. And that that is exactly true what you said. And I think Daniel Pink said this in the interview, too, is that the best leader is one who can do both, you know, because you don't want somebody who's so far right brain that they don't even look at the numbers and then you probably get in trouble.

32:08 Sure. You know, so it is somewhere in the middle. And a good leader is someone who can access both sides of their brains when they need it. And know when to do which. Isn't that the hard part? It's like, well, when do I do that? It's like, well, you got to figure it out. You got to feel it. You got to see it. Exactly. That's not a small guess there. Okay. Okay. Another one. Vivian James Rigney. So this is a guy who I think he's from Ireland originally, and he was one of these guys. It was everything was accomplished achievement. I got to do these things. So he set out in his life to climb the seven summits, which is the highest summit on each continent.

32:51 And so he got to this point where he was at the top of Everest climbing. The weather turned. It was miserable. He was only six hundred feet from the summit. He couldn't see where he was going. His body hurt terribly. And he actually said, I went into a space where I don't I don't think I'm going to make it out. I don't think I'm going to get there. And so then he said he started thinking and he says. Let me just read it here. What will people remember me for? All these amazing accomplishments I've done? Or will they remember me on how I made them feel and how I helped them improve their life?

33:36 Again, we're talking about a common theme here, right? Other people said that in different ways. But he said he had that thought and he said it's obvious that, you know, the latter was more important. And just then the Sherpa came and grabbed him by his goggles and said, follow me. And he said at the time that he thought, oh, thank God, he's going to take me to the bottom. And the Sherpa, so he followed him, not even knowing which direction he was going. The Sherpa took him up to the top, to the summit. He summited. And then he said, follow me. And the Sherpa got him back down. But, you know, it was just a really profound story that all of a sudden it was like, oh, my whole life was focused on doing these seven summits and saying how great I am to do that.

34:19 And it's not really the answer. Yeah, there's so many lessons there. In climbing a mountain, right? I mean, I climbed a couple mountains and I heard a great quote. I think it was in a book I was reading before I climbed my first mountain. Just a spoiler, it was not Everest. And someone said, do you climb the mountains so the world can see you or do you climb the mountains so you can see the world? And it was like, it goes back to, is it about me or is it about we? And if you do it for that second one, the we reason, things get a little better. Maybe not at first. Right. Let's say you were working with a team and you were going to split up commissions or you could keep all the commission. Well, keeping that commission is going to make you feel good and feel rich.

35:02 But if you spread it out five years from now, you might have ten or a hundred times that. But it's simple to say, but it is not easy to do. Yeah, no, it's true. And I mean, it's all these things that I've brought up with you all kind of have a common theme, you know, which is it's not about me. It's about the team or it's about the group. And then my final one here that I wrote down of my ten that you had talked to me about was Jan Jensen, who is the head coach of the Iowa Women's Basketball Program. And, you know, you know the success they've had and what they've done. And her quote that I thought was amazing in that, she says, my goal is not to win at any cost.

35:45 Although winning is great, it is developing amazing women, doing their time in the program to prepare, then to serve in the greater good. bit of life after basketball. I've heard Coach K say a very similar thing, which is, you know what? I'm here to help people develop and become better and prepare them for life, not to just win a basketball game. And again, looking at the big picture and looking at what I can do to help others that really make a difference. So, again, I could have pulled a quote or multiple quotes out of all those interviews, but those are kind of the ten that came to mind.

36:30 Yeah. Well, on my show, I do a thing called the parting shot. Yeah. And did I ever tell you why I did that? why I started doing that. So I was talking to people. I started this podcast when I was a student, second year PT student. And I did it because I just want to learn stuff and realize with my radio background, I learned best like this. And this was back when you had to explain to people, like when you started your show, we had to explain to people first what a podcast was and how they should listen to it. Now I think it's a little more mainstream. But what I realized was I was talking to all these people I looked up to, clinical leaders, professors, leaders in business, things I wanted to learn. And I didn't know how to wrap up the conversation without cutting them off. So I stole an idea from P.T.

37:11 Barnum, who used to have the Barnum & Bailey Circus, the big top. They used to have the sideshow where you'd go and you'd pay a nickel, and you could go see the bearded lady and the sword swallower, and you could just sort of walk around the tent. And his problem was when people paid their nickel, they wanted to spend all day there, but he had to get people out. So he put up a sign that said, an arrow on a sign that said, see the egress around the corner. So people would get to the end and see the egress. They'd walk through it. And egress, of course, is exit. So he changed the meaning to make people enticed about the exit. But I did parting shot because I wanted to sort of say, hey, listen, that was great. Let's wrap it up.

37:52 But give me one overarching idea or sentiment because we know when people at the end, they'll pay attention. You've got their attention. What would you want your parting shot to be? What's something that maybe was a common theme amongst all these ten ideas that you shared with us today from your two hundred episodes of Profiles in Leadership? Gosh, parting shot. I would just say that people are amazing, but they are more amazing and accomplish greater things when they focus on helping others reach their goals. So like one of my mantras has always been, what do I do?

38:33 And I always say, I help leaders grow. And so it gives me the greatest amount of joy if I can see other leaders start from here and get to there. And that just warms my heart, probably even more so than seeing what I've been able to do. So I think that if you can just focus on all these things we talked about today, um you know kind of relate to that same thing and one other thing I might say is uh so you know um uh copying somebody is the greatest form of flattery right so you're ahead of me so I copied you too so I I needed I needed something that I could say at the end so in my interviews I I say the same thing I say at this point in the interview I always ask my guests the same common question And that question is, in relation to leadership, what is a pearl of wisdom that you can leave us with today?

39:27 And, you know, again, great quotes, great things. And so it's very similar to your parting shot, but it's something that we could kind of end the show with. and whatever good artists borrow great artists steal Picasso said that he wasn't he wasn't too shabby uh check out profiles and leadership uh just google Steve Anderson he's had a track record he's not he doesn't really have to tell you uh about what he's done he can sort of just point to a few things and show you and show Trump's tell every single time show is better than tell so Steve thanks for doing what you're doing and thanks for doing it here uh on the show Well, thank you for having me, Jimmy. It's always a pleasure. And I enjoy seeing your continued success. So keep on rolling. Perfect.