WEBVTT
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This program is designed to provide general information with regards
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to the subject matters covered. This information is given with
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the understanding that neither the hosts, guests, sponsors, or station
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are engaged in rendering any specific and personal medical, financial,
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legal counseling, professional service, or any advice. You should seek
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the services of competent professionals before applying or trying any
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suggested ideas.
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At the end of the day, it's not about what
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you have or even what you've accomplished. It's about what
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you've done with those accomplishments. It's about who you've lifted up,
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who you've made better. It's about what you've given back.
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Denzel Washington, Welcome to Inspire Vision. Our sole purpose is
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to elevate the lives of others and to inspire you
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to do the same.
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Great Welcome to the show, Doctor Doug. Thank you for
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having me here. I really appreciate you having me on today.
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I'm excited. I love looking to the bookcase behind you
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and all of your books there, so that's great. I
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keep wanting to write one, but well, I've written one book,
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but I'd love to write some more.
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Boy, I'll tell you what it's tough. It is Well,
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I have to say I've only written one. I'm on
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the second one right now, but all of those are
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programs i'm actually master certified in. I've been teaching all
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of those classes, like Crucial Conversations for more than twenty
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four years, so I've been doing that, but I put
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them back there because they're a big part of my life.
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Well, that's fantastic. What I'd like you to do is
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kind of shared quickly your background, who you are and
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what your background is.
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Yeah, I'm Greg Stevens and I went to Baylor University,
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put myself through in four years, worked in a lot
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of different sales jobs, and in back in nineteen ninety nine,
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I actually started my own business where I teach communication skills.
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I used to teach man women relationship programs. I became
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a master certified and Crucial Conversations, Crucial Accountability. Did that
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work for about twenty four years, and then I wrote
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my own book and called Build New Bridges The Art
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of Restoring Impossible Relationships, and I released that in January
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of this year, twenty twenty five. This might not air
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until twenty twenty six. It was January twenty twenty five
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when I actually actually released my book, and I teach
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people how to have the most difficult conversations of their life.
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I taught teaching crucial conversations was amazing, but I found
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people needed handholding to actually learn the skills. A consistency
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practice creates permanence in the insights you have. I find
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so often people have these insights, but they don't know
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how to make them permanent. And that's what I do
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with people, help them with that be able to have
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the most difficult.
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Conversations for their fantastic and you know, later on i'll
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share youty okay about that. But meanwhile, you who got
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a great story about your father and really kind.
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Of what led up?
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If I read the story right, it's kind of what
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led you to write your book. Is that a fair assessment?
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Yes, yeah, it is. As I was teaching crucial conversations,
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I thought, how can I be the type of leader
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that practices what they teach? And I had a crazy
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idea to go clean up all my past relationships. So
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when I say clean up a past relationship, people say,
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what does that mean? Well, if you're walking down a
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hall and you had an alternative route to go to
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your destination rather than past that person, you took the
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alternative route. That was a relationship I needed to clean up,
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real simple litmus test. So I had a list of
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thirty six people on the list, and it took me
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about two and a half years. And the first chapter
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of my book is about my relationship with my father
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because it is the very last conversation I had after
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two and a half years. I put it off until
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I couldn't put it off anymore, and I told my
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mom I was finally going to have the conversation with
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my father. She said, and she was always my cheerleader
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up to that point. She said, no, you don't. She said,
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I'll never see you again if you have that conversation
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with your father. Because my father was a very strict
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old time Southern Baptist Hellfire and Brimstone walk up in
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the aisle down the off, screaming preacher, and my life
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was very different than that, and I wanted to come
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clean with my dad about my life and so but
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I talked with her and she said, she said, I
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understand why you need to have it. So I had
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the conversation with my dad and it didn't go well
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at first. Needless to say, I approached him using all
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the skills I have, and at the end of me
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laying everything out to him, my dad looked at me
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straight in the face. He said, son, you're a hypocrite,
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You're a liar, and I never want to talk to
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you again. Wow.
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And here, and how how old were you at that time?
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I was thirty eight thirty eight of the time, and
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he looked at me when he said that. I think
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it was thirty eight, thirty six or thirty eight. I'm
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trying to remember right now, but yeah. And in that moment,
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everything in me said, I'm the hypocrite. You're the hypocrite,
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because I remembered all the things he had done, and
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in that moment I nearly called him a hypocrite. And
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we would have gotten to what we call a downward spiral.
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But something stopped me, and then all of my training
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started to kick in, and I asked myself questions. I
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turned my brain back on, and I thought, you know,
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what is it I really want here with my father?
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Why did I do this in the first place. Well,
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I was originally doing it to be able to stand
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in front of a group saying I practiced this, But
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in that moment, I realized, like every little boy, I
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wanted a relationship with my father, no matter what that was.
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And when that hit, everything started to change. What's my
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I roll in this? And I realized Dad was right.
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I was a hypocrite to him because I would tell
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him to his face what he wanted to hear, and
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I'd live my life a different way. But I was
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trying to get that cleaned up. And the next question
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is like, why would I reasonable, rational, decent person do
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what he's doing right now? He's not reasonable, rational or decent.
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But that's not what the question is about. It's about
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turning your own brain back on. And I realized the
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reason he's acting that way is he's fearful. He feels
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like a failure. Right now is my father and as
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my minister all my life. And then what do I
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need to do right now to actually move toward what
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I want? I knew what I needed to do, and
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I looked at him, and all my preparation went out
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the door, but my heart came out. I looked at
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him and said, Dad, you're right, I am a hypocrite
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to you. Mom knows what I do, my family knows,
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all my friends know. I live my life out in
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the open. I've kept it from you because I was
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worried you want to disown me, and I can see
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I was right right now, but that's not what I want.
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I said, you said you'd stay an entire week, you
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just got here. Would you give me just three more days?
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But if you stay those three days, we have to
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talk about everything we kept from each other. So if
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we never see each other again in this lifetime, at
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least we will know who we were to each other.
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My dad looked at me. He's crying. He said, son,
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it won't make a bit of difference, but I'll give
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you the three days. Then I never want to see
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your face again. I can't look at you right now.
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You make me sick. He walked out the door and
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slammed the door. So that was that conversation. But he
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came back in about two hours later after driving around
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and sat down and said, let's do this talking thing.
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So that was my audience. But over the next three
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days we talked about everything that really mattered, and it
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was the first time I ever had a connection with
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my father, and I was so happy because after three days,
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I thought, Wow, this is amazing. I've got the relationship
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with my father I've always wanted. And the next morning
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I woke up and he's standing at the door with
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his luggage. He said, well, I'm gonna go. I told
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you i'd gone after three days, and my heart sunk.
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I said, okay. I walked him out the door, and
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he throws his luggage in the trunk, closes it, looks
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me dead in the eye, says nothing gets in his car.
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He drives away and he dies three years later. Now
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the reason I start that with a book because when
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you show up for your conversations that I teach you
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can never change the other person. All you can do
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is do your best. But I also found out that day,
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when you do your best, you have no idea what
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can show up and happen. Because that car stopped about
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halfway down the street. It sat there, A second backed
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up pulled in. My dad got out, came running to me,
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hugged me and cry and he says, son, I love you,
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and I like you. I like the man you become.
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He said, honestly, I always wanted you to be a preacher.
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You like to party way too much for that, he said.
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I always me about the alcohol. But he said I'd
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like to start this relationship you're talking about. And once
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you get several days ago as a conversation, now it's
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a relationship. And before my dad passed away, he and
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I became amazing, amazingly closed, great friends. Everything was said,
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there was real completion, and it was interesting because my
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dad told me one time. I said, Dad, here's I
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would like to tell our story to people, and here's
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how I'd like to tell it. And I told it
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to him, just like I told you today, and he
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looked at me and said, son, I'm not that way anymore.
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And when I consistently tell people when I'm working with them,
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you have no ability to change another person. But if
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you change how you do things, they may have to
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change how they engage with you. And that's your real power.
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Most people get in these situations with people they want
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to blame them, They want to see them as the problem.
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I see each interaction like that as my ability and
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chance to grow to get better, to be able to
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speak into their listening. It's a hard thing to speak
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into someone else's listening because you've got to consider their view,
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their judgments, how they view the world, and understand love
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them through that care for him because they're just a
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hurting soul just like you are.
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So I have a very personal question for you. So
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as you as you made that difference in your relationship
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with your dad, and that relationship change, and you saw
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your dad change with his behavior towards you, did you
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see his behavior change towards his congregation or towards other
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people or was he still the same SOB that you
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had experienced as a preacher.
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Yeah, I saw him. I always. Here's what it was interesting.
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My dad always loved other people at a level that
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he knew how to connect. I believe that's where I
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got my understanding of how to connect with people. It
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was just his own kids. He didn't My mom even said,
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she said, son, your father was a great husband. He
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was just a terrible father. But you look at his
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parents and I understood why. But one of the things
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I do love is my father. Even when he could
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he had cancer, he couldn't get out and talk to people,
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he called people every day and said he went through
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you know, they had a small congregation, but he went
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every week. He called everyone in his in his congregation
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to be able to engage with well.
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And the reason I asked that is because as I
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interviewed a lot of people, I think one of the
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points that has really hit me strongly, and particularly for
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people who are in really difficult relationships. You know, you
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with your dad, but many times it's spouses, and you know,
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I need to change my spouse. I need to make
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them this way, I need to make them that way.
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And kind of the whole concept that we've talked about
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is that as you change and as you develop those
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skills of communication, of conversation and all of that, all
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of a sudden, many many times, maybe higher percentage than not,
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that person for some reason changes without going through that
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whole process of personal transformation and so forth. Have you
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seen that happen with the folks you work with every
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single time?
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Yeah, because there's a there's a connection that happens. Doesn't
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mean they do everything differently, but how they engage with
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the other person. There's also what I found is when
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someone has the courage to step up, there's a compassion
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and understanding that happens on the other side. Most people
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when I work with them, I don't want to have
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this conversation. I don't either. I want what's on the
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other side of the conversation. It's always hard. And but
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the question is are you trading your piece or what