Episode 142. Finding Joy Again with John O’Leary

Unedited Transcript

John. I am so excited to have you back on the show. Thanks for, yeah. Hey, it is an honor, Rebecca. Thank you for the time. This is so fun. I always love you. Can, you know, when it's going to be a good conversation when you've been talking for 13 minutes and then you realize like, oh crap, I need to hit record.

So that's what we're going to do now. And I'm so excited about this new book of yours. It's called in all. We talked briefly about it on our first episode together. Um, but man, John. If anybody's the man for this job, for this message, I think it's you. And I just want to hear kind of the backstory of this message, our listeners, some of them will remember our first episode we did together and we'll know a little bit of your story, but for those that don't give us an intro.

I'll give you a short intro and then encourage folks to check out our last conversation. Cause it was a blast. When I was nine years old and some of your listeners will remember this. I was in a house fire and burned on 100% of my body. 87% of those burns were third degree. And the math on this one in 2021, Rebecca, is that they take the percentage of the body burned.

So at home, do the math, grab a piece of paper, write down the numbers, 100, they add age nine and that's mortality. So in 2021, this little boy would have had 109% chance of passing away back in 1987. There's really no earthly chance of survival. And yet here we are, 34 years later having a conversation about life.

So th th that's the beginning of my story. I spent five and a half months in hospital and the entire goal for me, it was really two-fold number one, get out. I just wanted to get out and get home. And then secondly, to have a normal life that the goal wasn't to be a speaker or an author or an influencer or exceptional in any way.

I just wanted to be a normal little boy again, that was the big dream. And so for the majority of my life, that's what I pursued just, and not, not even ordinary necessarily in the positive way. I just wanted to kind of disappear and fit in with everybody else. I've really changed was when I'm like 28 years old.

Uh, a group of girl Scouts had heard about my story in one of the little third graders asked Mr. O'Leary that's me apparently wait at age 28. Would you speak to my troop? And so I, I said, yes, you know, even if you don't feel like worthy, even if you don't feel like, you know how to string together, a couple of sentences, my mom and dad had taught me the answer is yes to serve.

And so I said, yes. And I spoke to these little girls. That was my first speech. It led to another one. And then another one, and in the last 17 years have spoken to a couple million people live far more than that. Virtually 50 states, a couple dozen countries. The story of redemption and the story of overcoming, but ultimately the story of recognizing there's more for you in your life.

Yeah. Yeah, it's so good. Okay. My first you'll remember that. Well, you won't remember this cause I was in the crowd and you were speaking, but I told this in our first episode together, my first exposure to you was at an HR conference back. Is it sharp? And it was back like five or six years ago. And it was when I was still in my like corporate HR commuting to an office every day.

Wasn't that? The life like five years ago before the world was like, it is today, but I went to Sherm and. It was, it's a great conference, amazing conference, but it was a lot of, it was a lot, it was a lot of HR. Right. And I remember, um, I remember looking at the schedule and whatever slot you were in, you know, there's like, you know, the seven keys to a great benefit plan and you know, all these other things.

And then it's like Jonathan, and I remember talking the friend I was with into going to your session and. I just remember sitting there like weepy, we beat crying as you told your story. And so it's funny to look back on now because when I started the podcast, this is related unrelated to everything you just said.

When I started the podcast, I made a list of just like, Hey, be really fun to talk to. You know, these people, you have a podcast yourself, so you get it, you get it. And you were one of the first people outside of. Fellow rider friend that I met at a conference or whatever that said yes to coming on the podcast a year and a half ago, which it's funny looking back now because I remember being so nervous to talk to you for the first time.

Cause you know, when you're like learning how to be a good interviewer and you have no idea. Yeah. We all are. But you, you remember those interviews where you're, you you're sitting there on zoom before the person gets on and it's like, One of your heroes for whatever reason, right? Like their story, what they have to share their book, et cetera.

And so anyway, I have just always been a fan of how you have allowed God to work through what you've been through, how you inspire people as a result of that. So I love this message. I'm excited about it. So, yeah. And let me just add, so person, thank you. Like I don't take anything you just said there for granted.

And, uh, I also don't take anything that you said there as if I did it. I am. I'm the recipient of amazing grace and profound love and people who kept showing up in my life serving me. So anything that I've ultimately been able to achieve, it's on the shoulders of giants, like my mom and dad, you know, their story from our previous conversation and mine.

My siblings and the staff and volunteers and prayer, prayer warriors, and a whole lot of other folks who just serve me. So when I get a call, whether it's from a big network or from Rebecca or anybody else, we try to say yes, because it's good, man. Like, it's good. And if you can influence as you and I were talking about before you hit record one person, In my world, that's a win.

And if you can do that again, now you got to that's huge. You've got three. I, we got something. So when I think about changing the world, which I'm after in a mighty way, it's actually not in the next presidential election that I care about. It's actually not next in a year and a half at the next senatorial run.

I think you changed the world one life at a time. So that that's what I'm you and I are. We're trying to do that work together today. And then when the interview ends and I go off for a coffee and meet with a barista and lover. Uh, no, it's it's on again. And so all day long it's how do we have interactions that lift the life of the one in front of you?

Mm that's so good. Okay. There are several sort of themes in this new book that I'm really excited about and we can't talk about them all, but I cherry picked a few and there's a story it's sort of a, why not story that you tell in the book? Um, I'd love for you to share with listeners a little bit of that story and why this, why not mentality is so important for us to have, so there's a whole lot of answers to that beautiful question you laid out.

It comes from the sense of wonder in our research around like kids. Like, why are they so joyful? Why did they raise their hands so high when you speak to them? And you ask a question of the class. Third graders. For instance, if I ask a question to them, every hand goes up when I speak to Sherm in DC on a Sunday, and it's filled with HR leaders and I ask the question, why do you know hands pop up?

Yeah, what's the difference between the way a child naturally presents and engages and connects and skips through life and the way we adults manage and lead and endure the mundane challenges and the arc difficult work. Why w w w what did we have? Why did we lose it and how do we return to it? And so we, we found that there were five senses that children have, that we can return to.

And one of them is the sense of wonder. And a wonder could be, um, like awe for everything. That's part of wonder like, oh man, it's just so good. Life is so big. The sky is so high. There's so many stars look how big the ocean is. Like when was the last time we adults were truly deeply, profoundly moved by the gift of nature or the gift of the majesty of your own life, really?

Or the ability for a plane, a jumble jet plane to take off. You know, we fall asleep during takeoff kids are looking at the windows. Well, so that's part of one or the other part of wonders. They ask questions always like what if you know why and ultimately why not? And so the question why not is for us to ask this question of ourselves, why ultimately we can ask questions that will allow us to put away the excuses we previously been given ourselves.

Hmm. So, um, for you years ago, you said like, gosh, it'd be cool to do a podcast. Uh, and then you get probably, and we even talked about this, Rebecca, but I would imagine you gave yourself a million rates. People won't tune in people won't say yes, I won't get any good guests. I'm not an interview. I've never done it before.

I don't know how to work like every reason, but ultimately you came to a different question. Why not, why not? And so why not is kind of the cherry on top of, on a whole bunch of questions that open up our minds and our hearts and how we can live a better, more impactful life. Whether that's in our marriage, our singleness, our faith, life, generosity, professionally, any area of life in all these excuses we've been making all.

Ultimately the final question we should ask is. And why not? Why not? Yeah. Yeah. That's so good. Have you read or seen any interviews by Annie F downs cons about her recent release of, so she has a podcast called that sounds fun. And her recent book was called. That sounds fun. And one of the things that she talks about that I love so much is our need as adults of having hobbies, things that.

Don't matter. Don't make us money. There's we're not gonna win any awards for him, but we just do them because they bring us joy. And because they take our minds off the harder stuff of life and, and in that, the importance of allowing yourself to be an amateur at something. And I think that's, I think that's so powerful because a lot of us will try something.

And as an adult, we've we automatically feel this need of, oh, well I have to be awesome at it. I can't do it if I'm not awesome at it, I have to be an expert from jump street. Right. Which is, which is typically not the case. I remember when I started podcasting to your earlier question, right? My first 25 interviews were terrible.

I mean, I go back and listen to him now. And I'm mortified. Do you feel the same way? Like, can you see in your work too? How you just, by like the doing of the thing of course show, right. It's like, you know, for the basketball fans in the world, it'd be like shooting a free throw for the first time air balling.

And then as basketball is not, my deal may not be your deal, but once we throw our one, layup is not ultimately, what's going to define what your deal is. And I came home yesterday from work and I have four little kids. Two of them have blonde hair and they were both outside doing chalk art. And when they were really little, it was like goofy, a little, you know, figure, stick figures with like five massive fingers and five massive toes and eyes that were aside.

Like everything was wrong about them, but it was good. It was good art. Now I came home yesterday. I'm like, guys, this is like really good Nick concern for kids. And this is my concern for us is they will get to a point where they put the chalk away. And they will realize I'm not an artist. I've been told that I got a C last year and I got to be the year before.

And I got an aide that year before. That's a clearly I'm trending in the wrong way. My art teacher keeps saying that to me, the work's not coming up home anymore. I'm not hanging it on the fridge anymore. I'm not an artist. So I'm done. So I would just encourage all of us who feel as if we're not artists or a basketball players or podcasts or whatever else.

The thing is that we're doing for fun as amateurs. Keep going, you will look back whether it's 26 episodes and, or a couple of hundred shots. And there's a book called the tipping point where 10 years ago, I think by Gladwell, who said, you need 10,000 hours to find that if you're an expert or not 10,000, so keep playing and don't ultimately play.

Don't ultimately create to become an expert create because it's fun. And it lends itself to creativity and collect and connection. And ultimately the reduction of stress, like what a gift to just be free of that weight for an hour. Yeah. Yeah, that's good. Okay. Another one of my favorite pieces that I came away with, I'm so excited to read the book.

I have it. And, um, I just got an email the other day and I'm, I'm excited, but just from skimming it so far, is this idea of bringing your glove? I love this story so much. I want you to share it. You know, I've always worded in an interview like, well, they asked me a question that I wrote about three years ago.

Heck, you're talking about here. No, but on this one, I remembered well, and for those, I don't know if your viewers can see or they're just listening, but on the wall behind me, it's like my family wall. And so Rebecca right now is looking at me and behind me are my kids, my wife, my parents, my siblings, her family, her siblings.

Uh, moments from our travels, but there's also a little picture of a at that would probably ten-year-old boy named Patrick Michael he's my second born son. He loves baseball. And the story goes like this. When his daddy goes on trips during the year, they can't travel, they've got school and stuff, but on the summertime, they all get to pick one daddy trip.

So Patrick picked a daddy trip four years ago now to Kansas city. That's about a four hour drive or so from where we are. And the reason he picked that meeting is because the St. Louis Cardinals were playing the Kansas city Royals. The following day that, that following evening. So he, he picks it because he wants to go, not only to a speech with his daddy, but to a baseball game.

And as we're getting ready to pack up, I noticed next to his bag, a baseball glove. And I just think it wasn't that cute. You know, a little boy bringing his glove. If he only knew how bad our seats were, if he only knew, but there's no way he would bring that glove because we're not going to get up all. So not only does he bring the glove, he wears the glove, the four hour drive to Kansas city.

We go into the baseball stadium. We sit down, the glove is on the entire time. This is a true story. You can ask him, he doesn't lie in the eighth any, and there's a foul ball that is ripped. Down the left field line. As an adult, I wisely do the courageous thing, which is to duck. My little boy stands, puts up his left hand.

He's a righty. So he puts up his left hand and I hear this big boom. And then I look up and I see this massive grin on his face and he's got the glove and inside the glove is a baseball. And I remember thinking to myself, if he only knew how lucky he was, if he only knew how lucky he was. But the thing about luck is if you don't bring the glove.

It's less likely. You're going to be lucky if you don't watch every single pitch, it's less likely you're going to be lucky if you're not ready while everybody else's kneeling and covering themselves for protection and not a fear to stand and rise out of faith, it's far less likely that you're going to ultimately be lucky.

And so I think Patrick was proven to us. This on that day. And by the way, you're pulling that story from sense number two, which is expectancy, which is this belief that what you look for, you find there's science around this. The news, for instance, does a phenomenal job seeking tragic stories and every night, believe it or not every night, they are able to report out on the very thing they saw throughout the day.

The shootings and the fires and the puppy mills and everything else bad in society, they sought it and they find it. Patrick, not only at baseball games, but in life seeks the good. And he brings his glove and it never surprises him or me when he finds it to put a quick bow on this story. The following year, we went to Pittsburgh.

Broadest glove and this a true story. It's crazy. I know, but it's a true story. He caught up, he caught a home run ball that time crate catches balls. When they're that far in the outfit. Well he did. And then the following year, this is a true story. I know this sounds like John. Now you're just making it up.

There was a foul ball. Hit, done the left-field we're in Cincinnati. It's a blowout game. It's 147 degrees. I'm melting, I'm miserable. But the glove is on a foul ball is hit down the line. The third base coach Katz, you said flips it to the, to the kids in the stands. Patrick stands and he comes home with the third consecutive ball.

What you seek, you find you don't always get it, but you far increase the likelihood of you ended up in quotes being lucky. Yeah, that's so good. And if he wouldn't have brought his glove, he couldn't have caught the ball. I mean, it's just, there's so many pieces of that that we can take and put into our lives.

I love that so much. Okay. So shifting from the book a little bit, how we talked about this a little bit before we got started, but in terms of speaking and all the things that we both do, right? Like what is John's life like right now? Are you getting back on the road? What's what's new. And what are you excited about right now?

So I'm excited about serving, which sounds so, uh, but it is true and, and serving the one in front of us when COVID happened. 96% of our speaking revenue disappeared starting like March 13th and, and isn't a guys built a business and a platform. Through that lens that's, that's painful, but we wanted to not only write about in all and write about generosity and write about a spirit of compassion and vibrancy, but to live it.

So Beth and I made a commitment early on to model this, not only in the way we talked about challenges as a family together as a couple, my wife has her name, but also the way we modeled it with, with our kids. And so we were thinking early on like, man, how do we do this? Well, And so, um, one of the things we did is we decided to give away a hundred percent of the profits in the weeks leading up to the sale of the book in awe to a charity that models this.

And for us, they're called big brothers, big sisters as. Racial tensions and poverty issues and everything else was an unfolding last year due to COVID and due to a whole lot of other things in our society. One organization that I think does a phenomenal job can be like building the bridge, making an actual difference.

One at a time is big brothers, big sister. So we decided, Hey, everything that comes through, we're giving away at a season when it would have been better. I think for us to just hoard. But at the end of the day, we were able to write a check for $30,000 to big brothers and big sisters. And they were able to make a mighty difference in the community for people that actually needed that, you know, like we're fine.

We really are fine. So that was something really cool where we were able to do as a family. And also led eventually to us coming off the road where I spent a lot of my time previously, Rebecca and doing a whole lot of work virtually. So the past 15 months we spoke in hundreds of times to organizations around the world.

We've been in Paris and Madrid, but without being on an airplane. So that's been really, really, really cool to do work that matters to encourage people, to give them actual tactical steps and to be home for lunch. And to be home and to be a better spouse and a better son and a better dad. So that's been cool.

What's coming out of this next then is yeah, the airports are beginning to open up, but we don't want to lose sight of what we learned. I don't want to say yes to everything. We, we want to make a difference in the community. We want to say yes to the right organizations on, on the road, but what we'd learned perhaps more than anything else is like th the, the opportunity to love the one in front of you.

And so like I've hired someone to work. Full-time in this office, our community developer and his job, Matt Miller sustained his entire job is to receive the needs that are coming in and to say yes to them. So to hear the story of the widow and to serve her, to hear the story of the family that lost a one-year-old and a pool last year, and to figure out a way, man, what can we do for this little boy named Ambrose to just take story after story, after story and one by one, trying to make a difference for them.

So we're going to continue to do the work as a speaker. And I run a show called the live inspired podcast and we've got a couple of books out there in the marketplace. But I think our best work is going to be done in the trenches with one person. Yeah. I remember having a conversation with my husband, not super far into COVID and he shared something with me that was so impactful to me and think about the life of Moses.

And he said, you know, most of the days of our lives, especially right now being in the, in the thick of COVID. He said most of those days are not going to be burning Bush days, if you think in Moses terms. Right. And that's so true. I remember being at the grocery store and, you know, Other than running into maybe a church member here, a friend there, the girl who checked me out at the grocery store was one of the only people that life-on-life, I was able to share, share the love of Christ with, to encourage.

And I remember one particular time I was standing in line and I realized that girl is the same girl that has checked me out for the last. I don't know how many weeks in a row, but I don't know her name. I don't know anything about her. And so I just remember that being a time where I just began to ask God, Hey, show me how I can love her.

Well, in, in this moment, and in, in moments like this, that I typically pass by, I think one of the great things that the pandemic, um, gave me was just a greater. Um, awareness of the moments that I missed when I was in the midst of just normal, busy, whatever that means life. You know what I mean? I do know exactly what you mean and the chance for you to slow down and then to think through.

So how do I slow down long enough to influence someone else's life for good? Yeah. Yeah. One thing COVID I think showed all of us is that many folks were able to work safely from their basements. Mm, you know, hunker down. They, they refer to it as, yeah. That girl was at the grocery store every day. And people were coming by breathing and coughing and everything else on her as she's checking us out.

And there were boys in the back stocking shelves and there were guys driving trucks, making sure that the green beans were there and there were guys, you know, processing chicken and pork to make sure that you and I had our sandwiches and in front of our kids. And so I just, it for me, COVID just humbles me, man.

So rich to recognize. What, what exceptional leadership looks like? Cause it's usually not the folks who are speaking at the Sherm conference. No offense to guys like me who fly in and fly out and wear nice suits. When we're in front of audiences, it is the least among us man who are not at all least. Uh, they are making such a difference.

They always have, but during COVID we got to celebrate their work at a higher level. And so I just hope we never forgot what selfless leadership look like in action, because that's what fed us when everybody else was too scared to leave their house. Yeah. Yeah. That's so true. That's so good. Okay. Before we head on over to our Patrion community, John, I want to give you the chance to just share with everybody how they can connect with you and all the awesome stuff you're creating.

So my website is called John O'Leary inspires.com. So it's John O'Leary inspires.com. When you visit me over there, you'll see our social media links. You'll see opportunities to learn more about our book. The first one's called on fire. The one that Rebecca and I have been talking about today a little bit is called in awe.

I've got a great podcast called the live inspired podcast with John O'Leary. And even throughout those pages, you can read not only more about me, but our work in the community. So that's called John O'Leary inspires.com. Awesome. Good deal. Well, I am so grateful for you and I just want to thank you again for being with me today.

I could afford a party with you and your Patriot members. So I know it's going to be a packed house, but for those who aren't yet with us, uh, let your fingers do the walking right now and join us on the, on the after hours with Rebecca and John.