Hi team, I'm Fitz Kohler, your very noisy fitness expert and race announcer from Fitsness.com and welcome to The Fitsness Show. Today, I am bringing in a man who I think has so much valuable information in his head. I'm surprised his skull stays intact because there's so much info in there. At some point, it's just got to burst, right? But his name is John Spence and I've known him for decades.
He's someone I know from Gainesville and he's always been so kind to me, so generous with advice and guidance and friendship, just a very sweet man with a wonderful wife. But that's not really what you care about. You care to know that he's considered one of the top business thought leaders in the world. He's one of the top leadership development speakers, and he has traveled the world speaking at some of the biggest companies. Yes, all the ones that are in your cabinets he has spoken for.
He has been a guest lecturer at more than 90 universities worldwide, including MIT and Stanford, and he's the ultimate CEO. He's the ultimate board member. He just knows so much. And I know if you stay the course and listen in, you are going to walk away with golden nuggets galore. And that's really what I want you to have every time you listen to the Fitz and the show, except when I'm rambling about nonsense. I want you to always take a golden nugget so you can do better and be better.
So now it's time for me to shut up a little more and welcome John Spence to the show. Howdy, John Spence. I'm doing good, Fitz. How are you? I am so good. How does that skull of yours stay intact? I don't know who this John Spence guy is. I want to meet him. I know. I want to find out who he is. How many books have you read? Nonfiction, educational books. I've been reading about 120 nonfiction, business or soft-help type books,
120 years since 1989. took several thousand, Normally, I would be shooting in my office, which has a giant bookcase. There's actually 13 giant bookcases in my office. Powers down in my office because the hurricanes went through Florida. But yeah, I do a lot of it that fits during travel. When I'm on airplanes and airports, and I don't watch TV and I don't watch movies and stuff. I'd rather people, doesn't it take a lot of discipline to do that? Not if you like it. And it's kind of my job.
And are you reading all with your eyes or do you listen to audiobooks? I listen to audiobooks and I listen to podcasts when I'm in my car. For a couple of years there, I was living in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and commuting to Palm Beach every day for work. It was about an hour and a half each way. And I was able to listen to a book every day. So I was back and forth. I think I went through 700 books during that time. But I'm a visual learner. And what I'll do is I'll listen to an audiobook.
And if I really like it, I'll go buy the book so I can underline it. Plus, I like having them.
So it's funny my daughter she loves books and she loves having them and i said ginger, at some point you're going to have to move these books so they like they're cute when they're on the shelf but when you move to another location they become a real burden she's like i know but i love them so hey if that's going to be her guilty pleasure fine yeah that's a good yeah we, do you see behind me the the shelves here empty it's we just had our floors redone and we had to move everything out and
when my wife sheila said i'm like all ever you mean you know we're gonna have to get all those books down and put them in storage and then bring them all back but uh yeah i she keeps asking me can't you get rid of a few no they're like little babies i can't get rid of them that's right well and and then eventually in 50 years when you pass she could bury the books and put you on the shelf yeah that's my terrible idea for the day Okay.
So I've asked you, I've actually, guys, I've given John an assignment. I said, listen, I want you to come on my show, but I want you to create the content for the show. I said, John, give me your top 10 tips, just things you want people to know. And I gave you no direction at all. I just 10 things you want them and me to know. So what's, what do you want to go for from 10 to one or from your most important to somewhere else? Let's, let's go from 10 to one.
Okay. Let's start with number 10. What you got for us? Number 10 is it's essential, critical, important to know your personal core values and live by them every day. This is not a topic, you know, self-help or, you know, personal development is not something I normally focus on. I'm usually focused on business, but I've been a guest lecturer at the Wharton School of Business now for about 25 years. And they asked me to teach a class on self-leadership.
And I, the first question I ask, and these are all senior level executives. I mean, you got to be running a multi-billion dollar company to get into the program where I teach. And at the beginning of this self-leadership class, I ask everyone the same question. How many of you currently have a written list of your personal core values that you use to live your life by on a daily basis and to make all the major decisions in your life out of a hundred people in the room,
roughly how many people do you think raised their hands? Fitz? Two, maximum. One or two. And it's hard for me to believe that someone could get in their 40s and 50s and not have a clear idea of what they really believe in and the kind of life they want to create for themselves. And I got a great Walt Disney quote I love, when values are clear, decisions are easy. When you're clear about your personal core values, even the most challenging decisions become obvious.
And how you should act and behave throughout the day also becomes obvious I said, does this align with my values? Doesn't it? Does this take me in the direction of the life I want to live and the person I want to be, or does it take me in the wrong direction? So, you know, I, I challenge your listeners that if you don't have a list of your personal core values, sit down, take some time. And the important thing here is it's, this isn't anyone else's core values.
It isn't maybe what you've brought up with your religion or society or family. If those are, if those are them, fantastic. it. But it, it, this is a chance for you to say in my life, in my world, what do I truly value the most? So that's number 10. Any questions? Yeah. Yeah. Which I love. I mean, brilliant, but give folks a couple of examples of what those core values might be. Cause somebody might be thinking, I don't really get where to go here.
I'll give you mine. Honesty, health, love, laughter, learning contribution. Yeah. Honesty first period all the time. Now it's interesting when you and I knew each other way back and you've seen me since health, wasn't one of my values. I was a really healthy person. I was playing sports and all that stuff. And then you'll remember I gained a ton of weight and I've taken off as of today, 98 pounds and kept it off for five years and I'm still doing good.
But it wasn't until I took that value and moved it further up the chain that I said is what I'm going to eat right now or skipping exercise. You're doing this. Does that match my value of health? And the main reason, honesty, health, love, the main reason that I wanted to be healthy was to take care of my family and be here for them. So I use those and they're in priority order for me. So it might be adventure. It might be curiosity.
It might be integrity. It might be honesty. It might be God, might be family, but the things that really drive your decisions. And I think intuitively most people know some of them, but I had a woman in one of my classes start crying when we were going this. Cause what I do is I ask people to rate it on a scale of one to 10. After you write them 10 is I live this every day. I'm totally in integrity with my values. One is I wrote it down here and I don't do this at all.
And she started crying. I said, what's going on? She goes, God and family are my top two values. I haven't been to church in five years and I barely see my kids for 15 or 20 minutes a night. And then I luckily got an email back from her six months later saying, I've been to church every weekend. My family goes with me and we have dinner together every night.
So it was that, like, I see a lot of pain and frustration in people's lives because they either knowingly or unknowingly are out of alignment with their values. And when you get clearer, and again, I want to say this again, when values are clear, decisions are easy. It just makes life so much less complicated when you have something to weigh it against and say, is this the person that I want to be? I love it. I love it. When values are clear, decisions are easy. Brilliant.
All right. Number two, Mr. Spence. Number two. Oh, this is a good one for marriage, but I use this one in business too. Good question to add. There's two. I'm going to add one to this. Two questions I love to ask yourself. Number one, is what I'm about to say right now going to add any value at all to this conversation? And number two, do I want to be right or do I want to be happy? Total husband rule. That's right.
But yeah, this is in a business setting too, is you're in the middle of a meeting and you decided, I've got someone I coach right now that just can't shut up.
In the middle of the meeting, you would say, go down, go down, I say, hey man, is everything you're saying adding value so that was a question now he asked himself and the other one do I want to be right or do I want to be happy I think is just a good universal question which is actually in a lead up to number eight kind of so let me go from do I want to be right or do you want to be happy number eight for me was the three most important phrases thank you I'm sorry and I love you yeah.
And there's other ones, but do I want to be right? Do I want to be happy? I want to be in love. And that's what everybody, I want, I want to treat everybody with love and kindness. So very rarely do I, do I believe very rarely do you need to prove you're right. Even if you think you are, and the truth of matters, you're probably not. There's very few things that are black and white. Everything else is just a point of view and opinion.
So if someone else has a different opinion, just be kind to them always. That's right. You know, it's interesting. I was raised in a family where my mother was very feisty and she was always right. And you fought to get what was right. And I developed that mindset. You know, I was scrappy and threatening and things like that when I was younger. And then I came up to the University of Florida and I started to learn that I catch more bees with honey.
And the kinder I was, the better I felt. And I mean, that's my purpose is to take care of people, to support people. And the ugly stuff just doesn't feel good. I mean, A, I probably tell too many people I love them. There's probably enough people walking around going, what is wrong with her? What does she mean she loves me? She just met me. How strange. Or we've never met. I'm on a microphone telling every runner, like, I love you. But I mean it. You know, I see the goodness in them.
Thank you should always come when someone makes an effort for you. And I'm sorry. That's probably the most difficult for most people. But you know what? Perfect's boring. we're all capable of getting it wrong sometimes. And if you get companies saying, whoops, life gets easier. Yeah. You know, this kind of, I had this epiphany in my early thirties when I was doing consulting to Fortune 100 companies.
I would stand toe to toe with the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company in my thirties and try to prove I was right. Then one day I realized, I'm not right. It's not my job to be right. It's my job to be thoughtful and have a, you know, a clear, well-reasoned opinion. And as soon as I gave up trying to be right, actually, I turned 60 this year,
but last year I was 59. I came up with this saying for myself, I now realize I know very little about almost nothing and almost nothing about everything else. I've got a very small area of expertise. I happen to be, you know, good at that. Everything else I got no idea. So I just go along and say, okay, that's, that's interesting. Well, more to learn. That's I usually say, I'm usually right about this one thing, this fitness thing and everything else. I'm, I'm usually wrong.
We'll just, we'll just hold myself to that standard and that'll be good enough. Usually wrong. Fine. Ding me. Okay. And we will be right back. Are you looking for the perfect gift for a loved one battling cancer? The Cancer Comeback Series by Fitz Kohler offers hope, inspiration, and practical guidance. With Your Healthy Cancer Comeback, My Noisy Cancer Comeback, and The Healthy Cancer Comeback Journal. These books are a lifeline for all patients and survivors.
Right now, you can order autographed copies at a special discount. Show your support and help a loved one go from sick to strong.
Visit Fitzness.com today. That's F-I-T-Z-N-E-S-S.com. fitness.com we're back okay i love those john are we on to number seven now seven seven i study a lot of stoicism and i actually these i'll take two and put them together seven and five seven is and these are sort of the two foundational ideas of the philosophy of stoicism number one is it's not what happens to you in life it's how you choose to respond to it and this is a very very big one you know some people get cancer and
it's the end of their life it's over they give up it's i'm just done with it it's i'm gonna die it's not a lethal form of cancer yeah yeah yeah it's like you know and other things and some people go you know i've talked to you might i haven't asked you this but i talked to other people got serious illness stuff say one of the greatest things that ever happened to me and it taught me it gave me a whole new view on life it was a great lesson i'm gonna talk about
one of those so and this is the hard part for people to understand though no matter what happens, no matter what happens, you always have a choice of how to respond. You know, there's only, so I'll go to the other one, number five, another Stoic philosophy is figure out what you can control in your life and take massive control of that and figure out all of the things in your life you cannot control. And as much as possible, learn to just completely let go of them.
When you can get to that point where you say, it doesn't matter what happens to me, I can choose how I'm going to respond and I'm not going to spend a lot of time, energy, anguish, stress over something that I absolutely cannot impact, influence, or control. The weather, other people, taxes, on and on and on. Again, I see a lot of pain caused in people's lives because they're trying to control something that they will never be able to change. Does that make sense?
Oh, you are, you know what? Thank you, world-famous thought leader, John Spence, for reinforcing the thing I tell people every single week on this show is control what you can. And you know what you can control? What you put in your mouth. Unless you are full-blown paralyzed, there's nobody where, you know, other people walk up to you and jack up your jaw and shove unhealthy food into your mouth. That you can control.
You can control whether you move your body or not. So you're preaching exactly what I hoped you would preach because that philosophy works in fitness and it works in so many other places in life. And if you're not taking control, you're a victim. And what less attractive thing could there be? Well, and if you boil it all down really, really to its essential element, there's only two things you can completely control, your thoughts and your behavior. Yeah.
And you have complete control over those. No one else can make you think something or eat something or do something. No one else makes you angry. You anger yourself. No one else makes you happy. You find joy yourself. And you have a choice. Part of it, it's what I call telling a story. You know, something bad happens and a pessimist, there's three Ps of your explanatory style. How you explain to yourself why things happen. A pessimist, it's permanence, pervasiveness, personalization.
Pessimism says, oh, horrible. It's going to last forever. It's going to ruin my life. It's going to ruin all parts of my life. And it's all my fault. And I'm doing the extreme here, but it's going to last a long time. It's going to affect a lot of my life negatively. And I'm the one, you know, I should be blamed for this. Someone who's optimistic or has a better explanatory style says, this is bad, but it's not going to last that long.
It's going to affect this part of my life negatively for sure, but there's the other big part of my life that's going to be absolutely fine. And yeah, I'll take some accountability for this part of it, but this whole other thing over here, I was out of my control. So at the end of the day, I hate that phrase, by the way, I hate, I can't, you're just telling yourself a story, but nobody knows the future.
So I'm of the philosophy of why not, if you're kind of lying to yourself, you know, the positive, why not just tell a good story? Why not just tell an uplifting story? It's just a story. And I believe at some level you live into it. If you have positive thoughts and positive beliefs, you're going to, you know, look for the positive in things. So I always choose the good story, the fun story, the happy story. I'm with you.
That's great. That's great. You know what? As every word you say, I think hooray that I invited him on my show and hooray that he said yes. Exactly what I hoped for. Thank you, John Spence. It's my honor. It's my pleasure. Keep going.
Okay and then i you keep an eye on time and let me know how much time we have left i could just keep talking or be quiet so we did number seven it's not what happens to you in your life but how you choose to respond to it and we did number five understand the things you can control and not control take as much control as possible of the things you can and let go of everything else oh so this leads perfectly into this one i grew i was living in miami during hurricane andrew,
and my house was just a few yards from the shore. And after the hurricane, my house was completely gone. I lost everything I owned in the world. I packed a little bit of water and a bit of food. I went inland about 15 miles. The house that I went to, the roof tore off at three o'clock in the morning. I ended up having to live out of my car for like two months. Then I lived in an abandoned apartment with a giant hole in the roof and fiberglass and dead cockroaches everywhere.
And I mean, it was hot. It was 4 million degrees humidity and just brutal. And what I found out after all of it, I learned two lessons that were life-changing for me. One of them is this one. First one is no matter how bad things get, you know, I look back that now and go, man, if I can make it through Hurricane Andrew, I'd make it through just about anything.
Might put my head down and live in my car and do that stuff and in the heat and take care of my company, I can pretty much get through anything or I can look at something and go, this is bad, but it's not near as bad as hurricane Andrew was. And the other one, which is a totally life-changing thing to me is it's just stuff. When everything you own in the world is taken away from you, you can't get it back. I had insurance, but all the art, the pictures, the stuff, you know, gone, totally gone.
Okay. It's just stuff. I mean, if my house, we just had hurricanes go through here when we're homeless. But if my house had been damaged or if my house burned down, as long as my wife and my dogs are okay, it would literally not impact me at all. I would just like, okay, we'll go to a hotel. We can rebuild. We have drugs. No big deal. I love it. I love it. I often feel like people might think I'm just insensitive. I'm like, okay, if your house burns down, fine, but go for a walk and cry.
Like get up and just, it's just your things. And you know what? When I was sick and I, you know, cancer makes you think about your own death quite a bit. I remember sitting in this office. I'm in looking around at all the things in here that are mine thinking, this is all garbage. If I die in two months, literally people are going to come and just throw everything in here away. It is literally just stuff. And so I don't have any tears for things.
If things disappear, oh, well, you know, I'll figure it out. But good for you. That's a really good lesson learned and perspective. I like stuff. I'm not against stuff. But I have zero attachment to it. Just doesn't matter at all. We, you know, those things happen and part of life. So wise. So wise. Thank you, John. Next. We're getting, this is number four. So we're getting to the last four. This is an interesting one. And I might add a little bit more to it.
Everyone you meet is fighting a mighty battle. You know nothing about. Be kind always. Everybody's got baggage. Everybody's got pain. Everybody's got something that's happened to them. Maybe they're in a lot of pain now. Maybe they have cancer. You can't see it. Maybe they just got divorced or their brother or sister or mother or child died, or maybe they just lost their job. or maybe today's a good day, but some other time in their life, it's been rough.
There's, I read a book years ago called A Course in Miracles. It's about 1100 pages. I'm not recommending you read it, but I learned two key things from it. And it kind of goes along with this. Whenever anybody is ugly or rude or nasty or prejudicial or mean to you, it's one of two things. It's a cry for help, or it's a loving response. They're either trying to tell you, I am in massive pain and I can't stand to see you happy.
So I'm going to make you unhappy. I'm going to throw that pain at you. And we, you know, I've had it at people that yell at me or whatever, an airport or people yelling at each other. And I look at it and go, you're just doing the best they can with what they have. And it doesn't make it right. But I realized that that's someone who's really hurting bad. And I need to understand that they're not mad at me.
They're mad at themselves in their life that's a cry for help the other one is a loving response and i don't know if you remember matt davis in town but when i was 348 pounds 350 pounds he signed me up to be the keynote speaker at the ceo conference for the american heart association heart healthy conference okay and i said yeah i said i will kill you I'm huge. I'm on a collision course with death here. And I said, I can't do this.
He goes, you're already signed up. Your fat face is on the poster. So you're going to be there. And I stood on that stage and looked at people and said, this is when I changed the priority and my value. I said, I'm totally out of integrity here. I'm not heart healthy. I'm in terrible shape. I don't exercise at all. I can't stand here and talk about this. So I'm going to come back next year and I'm going to do this again. I'm going to be a hundred pounds lighter.
I didn't make a hundred. I made 78. And that year through just changing, by the way, not major changes or anything, I just changing the way I ate, eating healthy things and tripling the amount of exercise I did. When I say triple, that was like, instead of walk one, you know, walk three feet. Right. Right. Yeah. But, you know, starting to walk, starting to go to the gym, things like that. But that was when I, I really had this epiphany on that stage.
I say that I value health, but I'm not living it at all. But it wasn't. But when Matt told me I'm making you do this, I was so mad at him. Now I realize that's one of the most loving things that anyone has ever done for me. He put me in a position where I had to face the fact that I wasn't living my values. And he still checks up on me. He, you know, send me a picture, send me a picture of the scale. I mean, he still checks up on me. I'm waiting five years later.
And I thank him every day for being, I won't use profanity on your show, but at the time I was not happy about it. I look back now, that was a kind, extremely loving and courageous thing for him to do. Well, good for Matt Davis. And yeah, I get called the pain in the ass. I call it the PETA treatment. I give people the PETA treatment. I'm okay being in pain in the ass as long as it helps propel you to do better. That's fine. I love you enough for you to think I'm a jerk once in a while.
That's fair. Good for him. He did the right thing. That's a really good philosophy, too. It's you have to sometimes you have to be courageous enough to not be liked. Yeah, I mean, yes, that's kind of my MO, John, is I think some people hear me and they go, oh, she's so pointed, but I get away with it because people know I love them, right? So I can be pointed and firm and some much uglier words, but when people know you care, it's okay. What about the people that are staying silent?
Those are the ones we should have a problem with. When you're in despair, when you're going in the wrong direction and others stay quiet, then those are the ones we should have a problem with, right? Yeah, you know, well, is that conflict with number two, John? Yeah, number two. All right, let's hear it. Well, number two is ask for help. And I learned this a long time ago. I suffer from depression and maybe eight years ago, I had a really rough patch.
I mean, it was bad and I didn't want anyone to know and I didn't want to talk about it. I didn't want to interact with anybody. And when I finally admitted I needed help, everybody rushed in. They were waiting for me to just to throw up even a slight little white flag and go, I'm not doing good over here. I need a little help. I also learned that in college, but it wasn't until it was as an adult, which was just going to lead me to number one.
So number three, we talked about, which was reading one business book, quickly, reading one business or self-help or what I would call self-improvement book. Every other month, six puts you in the top three to 5% in the world for self-development. Reading 12 books a year, or the equivalent thereof, podcasts, audiobooks, things like that, puts you in the top 1% on the face of the earth.
If you were to commit 15 minutes a day, five days a week, do nothing but study something of important, health, fitness, cooking, communication skills, marketing, advertising, sale, whatever it might be, leadership. At the end of three or four years, you would be close to considered an expert. You were kind to say I am one of the top 50 thought leaders in the world at what I do. It's not because I'm a genius. It's because I have 30 years of reading 100 books a year on the same few subjects.
I just have access to more information. And I know the information alone is not useful. It has to be added to action. You can read exercise books all day long or diet, but if you're not taking the appropriate actions, you're not going to get any results. So I'm a fan for being a fanatic personal development, self-development. So ask for help. How are we doing on time, Fitz? I'm just checking. We're just fine. We're just fine, John. You keep talking.
Well, this is, I was asked to do a TED Talk years ago on the most important thing I've ever learned. And I actually did it here at the University of Thomas Center, or no, at the big place. Never mind. Nobody on listening knows. And I went back to a story. Pause a second. That's the Phillips Center at the University of Florida. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for fixing me. So I grew up in Miami, Florida. My father was a very, very famous and wealthy malpractice attorney.
I went to one of the top prep schools in the country, got great grades. When I graduated, I got accepted to tons of universities and stuff. But I chose the University of Miami because it was close to the beach and my girlfriend. Not unwise. Well, not wise either because I rarely went to class and after three semesters, I got kicked out of the University of Miami with a 1.6 GPA.
Yikes. Now it's bad to get kicked out of college. However, the University of Miami has a thing called the Order of the Iron Arrow. It's the highest award they can give to an alumni. My father was Order of the Iron Arrow. It gets even better. The year I got kicked out of the University of Miami, my father was on the board of directors of the university. It gets better. Part of the law school was named after my dad.
You know, I really screwed up bad and get kicked out of university where there's a building named after your family. So I basically got disowned in all seriousness. I was kicked out of the, not only kicked out of the university, but kicked out of my family. And I came up here to Gainesville where we both live.
And I applied at the university of Florida. And this was a life-changing thing too, is I handed the woman my transcripts and she looked down and read him and we don't take people like you and i went what she said that yeah she said we don't take people like you i really want to go to the university of florida she goes we don't want you to go here and then she said two words that were again life-changing next please and i stood stepped out of line walked
down the stairs was on university and 13th, Tigard Hall, and sat on the steps and cried and realized that no one was going to fix this for me. My dad wouldn't fix it, couldn't fix it. My mom, my, you know, I had a 1.6, all my friends at that time had a 1.0, a 0.9, and I had the highest GPA of all my friends. I was the academic stud of my group at a 1.6. So I went to Santa Fe Community College here and I applied there and I got in on probation.
And one day I was in class and one of my professors, roger strickland who i'm still very close friends with i have breakfast with him about it once a month this is 35 years later or so he heard me tell one of my friends that i had to get good grades i had to get in the university of florida and he said there's only you can see me in my office after class and you get there because there's only three things it takes to be successful in college just three things i'm like yeah
he said number one read the books he said at least in college, 95% of the answers are in the books. I'm like, okay, I haven't been doing that up till now. I can start reading the books. He said, number two, ask for help. So go to the TAs, go to the professor, go to the, go to other students, you know, constantly ask for help. And what I found out is if you ask for a lot of help, you get a lot of help. People are happy to help you. And then the last thing he said was start study groups.
And so I get up at the beginning of every class, go, I'm John, really want to do well in this class this year. I'm going to start a study group. My apartment, 7 to 10 on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, we'll study and then we'll all go out and get a beer together. Anyone's welcome to be in the study group, as long as you have a 3.6 GPA or higher. Nobody asked my GPA because I said the thing that set it up, but it went from about 20 to 15 to 10, and it got down to six of us.
Six of us went to class together. We all had the same major. We took the same classes. College became really easy. Fitz, you read chapters one through five, you know, Tony, you read six through 10. I'll go visit the professor. You go get copies of the A plus notes. I had five people helping me. We ended up graduating number one through six from our college at the University College of Journalism and Communications. I graduated number four in the United States in my major.
I got hired by the Rockefeller Foundation directly out of college and then became CEO of an international Rockefeller Foundation with offices in 20 countries around the world when I was 26. So here's what I learned from that. You know, you just heard it. Read the books, then take action, ask for help. But here's the main thing. And this is really important. You become what you focus on and similar to the people you surround yourself with.
Whatever you think about, whatever you're reading, whatever you focus on, whatever you fill your mind with and whoever you choose to spend your time with directly determines the path of your life. You become what you focus on and like the people you surround yourself with. So in my classes, I often ask people to list out what are you focused on right now in your life and who do you choose to spend time with? And then I say, rate them both. Scale of one to 10.
10 is this is awesome use of my time. Fantastic. It's making me healthy. I'm eating better. I'm exercising. I'm reading. I, you know, and then these people are supporting me or I've got one over here that every time I want to go to the gym, they're like, oh, let's skip and go to pizza, you know, or, and here's a tough one fits for a lot of people. Someone on that list that has a really low number might have the same last name as you or sign your paycheck.
And we're going back to choice. you are choosing to be in that relationship. It may be really, really hard. That's why we have a thing in America called divorce, or you can quit. But if you continue to go back to that person, you are asking for pain. You are making the choice to give your very precious time to someone who does not value it or you. And that can often be the hardest decision in people's lives. I have any idea how happy I am right now.
It's funny. I wrote the list down off the top of my head when you asked me to do it, but I sent it to the folks that work with me, that are on my team, and each of them sent back their list. So it was your questions to me became a gift to our whole company and hopefully a gift to your listeners today. Well, you're damn skippy. This is a gift to my listeners. And here's the other thing. This is where you get screwed. As I'm thinking, he's probably got another 20 up his sleeve. Yeah.
If we did business or something else. Yeah. You're so nice. I know you would say yes. So just start thinking of that, John. Because I want another 10. Give me a topic. Those are the 10 most important things I could want to teach someone. If we want to do business or something, just give me a shot. You know, I'll be happy to. I know you do. I know you do. One of the reasons I love you. You're so kind. And you're so generous with your time and your intellect.
And it's so, so fortunate for us to have you. So this is a, I do two things at the end of every show. You are now in charge of those two things. So the first thing is a communication tip. And so, for example, some of my tips have been stop using the word like every other word. It's not a filler sound. You shouldn't, I like him Fitz Kohler. Like I like exercise. Like I have a dog. Like, okay. So that's one looking at people in the face when you're talking to them.
So what is a communication tip you would share that you think people could really use some work on? Listening more. Yeah, it's, you know, I hate the old saying, that's why I have two years, only one mouth. But most people be more curious, want to understand people, want to understand situations.
You know, listen, not to respond, listen to understand. Most people that I know, me included, would be a much better communicator if they cut what they say by about 60% and just focus more on the other person, understanding them, understanding what they're talking about, how they're feeling. So listen more than you are now. Be curious.
Brilliant. And then the last thing, which I think is a very fun tip to give out is my audience likes to exercise and whether, well, yes, I'm just declaring them all people who like to exercise and they will be exercising today or tomorrow. And I'm declaring that as well. But I want you to suggest a song. That they should exercise to, if they're going to play racquetball and go running or lift weights or stretch, what song do you want them to add to their playlist today?
Well, I'm smiling like hell because I'm doing a big speech in Annapolis next week and they asked me for walk-on music. And you and I know what that is. As you know, as you come up to the stage, they play the music and I never asked for walk-on music. I'm like, I just walk up, you know, and start teaching.
So they said, no we have to use it so i said i want the darth vader song from star wars that's awesome i don't know if they'll play it or not you know i'm trying to think i mean you do the same ones like chariots or fire stuff but i listen still like i listen to sister hazel because i know the guys in the band you do too and it makes me happy because they're people i know and they're and their songs are up tune and and a lot
of them are songs that have a good beat and they have great memories so i'm big on tying memories with things together. So my playlist around things I did with my wife, other times I, you know, I, I had fun, did stuff like that. Cause it brings back all the good memories. So it makes you happy. What is your favorite Sister Hazel song? We're going to have them. We need to give them something specific. So A, everybody must add the Darth Vader song.
You've got to have it because that's freaking hilarious. But give me a good Sister Hazel song. Just use it when you walk in the gym. Oh, yeah. It's all for you is probably my favorite Sister Hazel tune. And, you know, like, you know, knowing their families and knowing the background of the guys in the band.
There's amazing real stories behind all those songs i love i love those songs before i ever met him and once i met him i realized wow there's some if you listen to this a couple of times, you know it's all for you and then what's the other one they have a kink at the end of the name change your mind change your mind that is an awesome song man for everything we talked about today yeah that's a home run on that one so for folks if you don't know who sister hazel is you're probably 25 or less.
So you're going to have to look them up. Everybody else should know who Sister Hazel is. The leads are Ken and Andrew, who were an acoustical duo. Back when I was in college, I met them when they were playing every frat party I went to for pretty much three nights a week. Ken and Andrew were always there. They're always playing Brown Eyed Girl and whatever. And so darn sweet. And yeah, I mean, they still tour and they have a great band.
But I remember when my daughter was in baby gymnastics class, Ken was there with his daughter and he told me he had just wrote this song called change your mind. And it's about doing better and so forth. And what a home run. I had no idea what he was referencing at the time, but that's a humdinger and it's a meaningful song, right? Powerful. Unbelievably powerful. If you listen to the words.
It's a well actually just got goosebumps there you go it's a it is a absolutely super impactful song with an incredible message much like you much like you we're gonna have to we're gonna have to put all your words to music in a little bit oh and i'm playing guitar now john very mediocrely but maybe i'll i'll flick a few strings for you so thank you so much for coming on my show you know i adore you i adore you too and we've been friends like you said for decades and it's
a joy to be on your show and to see i i feel like i've watched you grow up and watched you become so successful so i'm proud of you i'm super proud of you fits well that means a lot to me okay and the final task of the entire show is there you have to with gusto tell everybody get to work.
Oh wait a minute i almost got profanity again get to work everybody love you love you too babe hi this is rudy novotny the voice of america's marathons we all love how much running has benefited every aspect of our lives so much so that most of us only wish we'd started sooner wouldn't it be wonderful to give the opportunity to children of today well you can the morning mile is a before school walking and running program that gives children a chance to start each
day in an active way while enjoying fun music and friends that's every child every day it's also supported by a wonderful system of rewards which keeps students highly motivated and frequently congratulated created by our favorite fitness expert fitz kohler morning milers across the country have run over two million miles and are having greater success with academics behavior and sports because of it the morning mile is free to the child free to the school
and is inexpensively funded by businesses or generous individuals help more kids get moving in the morning by visiting morningmile.com. Champion the program at your favorite school or find out more about sponsorship opportunities. That's morningmile.com. Long may you run.