nHe says, the idea that some lives matter less than others of the root of all that's wrong in the world. Let me read that one more time. The idea that some lives matter less than others is the root of all that's wrong in the world.
Doug Smith:This is the l three leadership podcast, episode number 171. What's up everyone, and welcome to another edition of the l three leadership podcast. My name is Doug Smith and I'm the founder of l three leadership. We are a leadership development company devoted to helping you become the best leader that you can be. In this episode you're going to get to your talk that was given by my friend and mentor, Brad Henderson and a recent l three leadership breakfast in the top. Brad talks about lessons that he's learned from completing 12 ironman races and he's about to do his 13th and so he's obviously a phenomenal athlete, but he's also a phenomenal leader. He is the president of the Pittsburgh Foundation. It's an organization that invests in the lives of local youth leaders and as a result, they impact thousands of kids locally every single year. They also run summer camps and fall retreats. They do a ton of work in Haiti and Brad is also the chaplain of the Pittsburgh pirates and the Pittsburgh penguins. So, uh, just a phenomenal leader. I've been friends with Brad for such a long time and he's been a huge mentor in my life and I'm just so appreciative of him. And I know you're going to love this talk. Before we jump into the talk, just a few announcements. I want to let you guys know that we recently introduced l three leadership membership. That's right. You can now become a member of l three leadership. You might say to me, well, Doug, why become a member? Because I believe every leader needs a group of leaders to go through life without a will. Encourage them, hold them accountable to their goals and help them reach their potential. And L, three leadership. We've developed a community of leaders that will help you do just that. As a member, you'll get access to our community of leaders. You'll have the ability to join a mastermind group, which I believe is absolutely critical to your success. You'll get access to extra resources, content, and a member only forum on our member only website. Membership is only$25 a month and you can sign up at l three, leadership.org, forward slash membership. I want to thank our sponsor, henny jewelers. They are jeweler, owned by my friend and mentor, John Henne, my wife Laura and I both got our engagement and wedding rings through Henny jewelers and they are just an incredible company. Not only do they have great jewelry, but they also invest in people. John Gave Laura and I a book to help us prepare for our marriage and he's been investing in me as a leader, a dad and a husband now for many years. So if you're in need of a good jeweler, checkout henny jewelers.com. I also want to thank our sponsor, Alex, to landon. Alex is a full time realtor with Keller Williams realty, whose team is committed to providing clients with highly effective premier real estate experiences throughout the Greater Pittsburgh region. He's a member in a supporter of l, three leadership and he would love the opportunity to connect with you if you'd like to learn more about Alex and ways to connect with them. Go to Pittsboro property showcase.com. And with all that being said, enjoy bradstock and I'll be back at the end with a few announcements.
Brad Henderson:This will be iron man number 13 for me, uh, this weekend. And, uh, I love the video because it kind of introduces what I'm going to talk about. Saves me some time, but I'm not here to brag about that this morning. What are the things that you realize when you go and watch an Ironman is it's just a lot of ordinary people, like you said in the video, that have set some goals and they're trying to get there. There's nothing that makes you a superstar for doing it. My wife thinks I'm a little crazy. I'm a little stupid. She's learned to support me in that. She's gotten to go some pretty exotic places, right? And one of those is Hawaii. And when you think about the whole ironman thing, that's immediately what most people think about, but the iron man is actually a distance. But I remember I, uh, we were talking a little bit about college days. I was an athlete in college and I came home from break, um, and realized that that was over right and I was ready to be done with that. But when you're a kid that's grown up and you've gone to practice every day, all year round was like, man, what am I, what am I gonna do with myself? Right? And I was 30 pounds heavier at the time and was looking at myself in the mirror thinking, man, I'm going to be one of those really short fat guys if I'm not careful. So I went down to the basement. I turned on the TV and his Hawaii ironman thing was on. I'd never heard of it before. I had grown up, fascinated with a why. Right. I don't know if you guys have ever seen that old brady bunch episode. I lived that right, I, you know, and had this thing, I was wanting to be a surfer and I'm watching this incredible thing and to this day the most famous race was the first time the broadcast. There was this woman who they didn't know who she was, right? She led the race out of the water and she had a huge lead on the bike and they're just like scrambling to figure out, you know, do the research. There's no internet these days or whatever. They find out this, this gal is like a college swimmer and she has such a big lead and the question is, is she going to be able to hang on? Right. So she gets all the way to the end of the run 26 miles, right. Last mile. She's really struggling to the point where she collapsed. Okay. And she's got like over an hour lead on the second place. Woman Who's really well known triathlete, right. So the whole last hour of this thing is just showing her and she would get up and jog a little bit and then collapse. Right. And eventually got the point where she would crawl a little bit and collapsed. Well, she literally got to the point where she was just a few feet from the finish line and uh, she's crawling towards the finish line and in a woman pastor, I mean, I was just like, this is unbelievable, right? She got second place right. And she'll always be known as that woman. They got second place in the iron man, right? And it wasn't pretty. But I remember watching that thinking I'm going to do that thing. Right? So I literally, the next day I went out and I bought a bike and I started doing triathlons. Right? And I had no idea how hard it was to get to Hawaii. It was a world championships. You've got to qualify, you got to do all this stuff. So literally had 20 years invested. Okay. And there's another story behind the story about it and we'll get to that. But, um, in 2006, I found myself treading water in Hawaii right during the big one in my whole family was there. And actually got to do it twice, you know. And you know, you're in Hawaii right when you look down and there's TV cameras under the water and there's divers down there and uh, you know, the first day I arrived in Hawaii, there's this really famous high where they do the MRI. It's called the queen quet. I get off the plane, I can't believe I'm like driving down the Queen k right. I've been watching this thing for years and years. So I grabbed, I jumped into Kona band, I'm doing a training swim and I'm literally, I'm good half mile out in the ocean, just, you know, it's over a reef and stuff and I go to swim and I put my fist for and it hits something really solid and I liked it. I get such as zone. Did I run into a buoy or something? I looked up and I'm looking nose to nose with a giant sea turtle and he's looking at me like, what the heck are you doing here? And I'm looking at him like, what the heck are you doing here? Right. But last year at the start of the iron man, they got this picture of this turtle. I think that's the same turtle, man, he's gone to. I think he was sending me a message, right? I wanted to come back bred, so I'm going to try to do that. But one of the really cool things about triathlon is that when you race, you race against the pros, right? So it's a really humbling thing, but it's kind of a fun thing. Right. And my daughter was a, she's a teenager and we went right? And uh, so she's in love with this guy, norman stadler. I mean, he's a stud, he's from Germany. He's got this accent. I can make a strong argument. This guy's the greatest athlete in the world at the time. You kind of brash, you know, world class swimmer, biker, runner. Alright. So this is what Norman stadler looked like when he came across the finish line and one of the ironman that year and, you know, a couple hours ahead of me, right? I remember I saw them at one loop in the run, got the watch, you know, the head guys. I'm going in, but this is a quick break here. I'll come back to Norman, uh, saw you guys all know King Saul was right. Old Testament saw not talking about new testament solid became Paul, but the first King of Israel, right? Israelites came to God and they said, hey, we want a king. God said, uh, you don't need a king. I'm your king, right? I mean, how stupid was that? They have the king of all kings and they want a human king. But he said, alright. Right. So they do the search for this. King says there was a Benjamite, a man of standing, whose name was Kish. He had a son named Saul and impressive young man without equal among the Israelites, a head taller than any of the others, right? So basically what he's saying is there was this Guy Saul, he was a stud. He says he was a benjamite. He came from this really well known community. He came from this really great family, went to a great school, got a great education, but saul was like a specimen. He looked kingly. He was a head and shoulders out. Everybody else, he had that charisma. Everybody said he's the king. He's the perfect guy to be king, right? But you guys know the story about Sol, right? He had all these really great human gifts to be a great king, but he didn't. He didn't have a spiritual center. He didn't have that inner inner drive that he needed the rule, the people, Gordon Macdonald, who was a famous pastor back in the day said, natural talent can become both a blessing and a curse. It can. Lawless into cheating are on our spiritual center. Right? And uh, this is what norm establish. I got to go to Kona twice, two years in a row, right? This is what he looked like when I passed him on the road the second year. Right? And, uh, yeah, yeah. You know, he a swim and you know, Norman Norman Standard is kind of a crash and burn kind of personality. Set the record on the bike course the year before and ally and people say, man, he's never going to be able to finish the race at that pace. But he did. The next year he did. He went a little too fast. He got halfway through the bike and I'll never forget, rod by Norman on the Saudi road thinking, man, slow it down a little bit. Brad, of Norman's laying there. You could be laying there next, right? But when I think about Solomon that, that saul got out of the gates. Well, and uh, you know, uh, one of the most famous stories in all of human history is a story of David and Goliath, right? The backdrop of that story is the crash assault. It was the king's job. You've gotten the battlefields, sols job to go out in the battlefield and fight against Goliath. He couldn't get himself to go out there, right? Didn't have that interfaith at that scrawny little 13 year old kid did. Solid ended up on the side of the road. And this is a talk about not in enough on the side of the road, um, run intentionally. Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it for a crown that will last forever. Therefore, I do not run like a man running aimlessly. You know, Apostle Paul wrote two thirds of the New Testament. I don't know if you guys, um, if ever, you know, studied much about Rome. Actually we were going to go to Italy. My wife wanted to celebrate our 30th kids son studying overseas. We postpone that trip to spend some time with him in Australia, which, which was a good move. But if you were to go to the Rome, one of the things you'd be struck by the ruins is just the number of these great stadiums. You know, there was a time when, when Paul was alive that there were, you know, we, we have Heinz field, we're proud of that PNC park. Um, well, think about, you know, there was a dozen of those stadiums at the time that Paul was reading the New Testament just in that general area. You think worst sports crazy. And we are, they were really sports crazy then. So that's the context in which he rollout out the attachment. One of the things I, you know, think about Paul, is he really, he really understand that if somebody is a runner, it's like, hey, you know, he might have actually participated in sports a little bit, but basically what Paul is saying here is mainly you got to have a focus. You got to have a plan. I know that's what you guys are spending here talking about. Um, you know, don't, you don't want to just go through life aimlessly, right? You don't want to just run a race and not know how long it is and, you know, not realize, man, if you go too fast the first 10 miles, you're not going to make it the last 16. But I'm amazed as I look around, most people live their lives that way. Um, you know, especially, uh, the gates and finding that balance in our lives is so important. You know, especially, um, from the start, from the get go. When I was a kid, I might, my dad had a Mustang, my dad loved cars and I would have to say, I still think maybe, and it's probably in the top five greatest cars I ever made that, that Ford Mustang. Yes. 60 seven. Right. And my dad had probably was like a 1969 Mustang. Right. So, you know, I'm dating myself a little bit, but I'm like, you know, five years old and for whatever reason I got to go with him to pick out the new car. This is like one of my most vivid childhood memories right now. The question is, I said ask him, did I get to go because I had done something good or did my mom just say, you know, where I got four kids, you got to get him out of the house tonight. I don't know what it was, but I remember he was haggling with a deal over price. And I remember crawling around, I think had black leather seats. Talk about a new car smell. And uh, you know, one of the great things about being a kid back then as you get to sit in the front seat, right, you kind of, you know, crazy now, no car seats, right? So my dad would drive that car and it was a, you know, it was a manual stick shift and had three dials on the dashboard. I remember seeing it and what brought this back to me is I rented a Mustang, you know, five or six years ago. It was on a business trip and you know, kind of the new knockoff man, they did a pretty good job, but I had got in there, I got behind the wheel, I looked at the dashboard and it just all came flooding back to me. They did a great job capturing it, but I remember he would drive and I would watch the dial and try to predict, you know, when, uh, when he was going to shift, you know, he'd read that thing up and the Rpms will go up. But here's a little homework for you guys, right? Just the simple takeaway from today, if you don't take anything else, go home sometime this weekend, you know, tomorrow's Sunday, uh, spent some time just on a piece of paper, draw three dials. Okay. Um, one for your faith life, right? Um, one for your family life, one for your vocational life. And honestly just say to yourself, how am I doing in those three areas of my life, you know, um, my doing. Okay. They pretty balanced, um, or either some flashing red lights on the dashboard, right? The whole idea is to avoid that. But the challenge is to keep those things in balance and keep them, keep them in focus and in our lives and what you want to, you know, kind of go away from is going three or four years without paying any attention to those styles and those flashing red lights. Um, we need to stop, pull over and really do an assessment and your life, but, you know, keep an eye on your gauges. You know, I don't know, um, if you guys have a regular time built into your routine where you're kind of evaluate your life, but if you don't, you really should, right? I mean, if even if you have a plan for life, he has ever done a personal mission statement. Anybody ever done that? Good for you guys. If you haven't done that, it's a good idea to do that. But I've got one. It's another talk. Just a real simple thing, but I pulled that thing out at least once a month and put it in front of me. I mean, it's just a real basic thing, but just to keep my focus, just to make sure, you know, I'm, I'm keeping those dials and balance and one of the challenges I worked with these athletes who have this life where they have this really intense eight, nine months of their life and they tried to live their life, come compartmentalize where they just do everything in the off season. They don't pay enough attention to their wives during the seasons, during the off season, their kids, their spiritual life. And, uh, these flashing red lights come, you know, most of us are in our situation where we've got no excuse to not keep things a little more balanced, be disciplined in your spiritual life or physical training is of some value. But Godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come. Right? Again, this is Paul and Timothy. I'm little timeout here. A physical exercise is a really good thing. I'm really important thing. I'm, I just read this book and Buddy of mind game is this book. It's called younger next year. He's like, you got to read this Brad. It'll change your life. Great Book. Um, and basically it says to somebody who's 50 year old, you need to make exercise your job. You need to exercise six days a week like it's your job. And I really agree with that. But I would say to you guys, when you're 25, you, you need to make exercise your job, right? All of us need that physical release that comes from exercise. You will be, uh, it's, it's crazy. But if you exercise an hour a day, you'll have a lot more energy for everything else. You'll have a lot more balance in your life. So if you're not doing that, man, I really, really challenged you guys. Okay? This isn't a talk about that. I want to talk about something even more important today and you know, that's, that's our spiritual lives. And I have to remind myself of this because there's been a tendency. I, I, I started playing golf. All right? I'm thinking some pretty simple game. I want to be a scratch golfer, right? I'll have you guys ever spend any time playing golf. Talk about a black hole man. I mean, you know, I got down to like a seven handicap. That's pretty good. But I realized, you know, I'm like spending all this time hitting this like stupid white ball around where they club and is a little physical value, you know, as walked and take carpet, but not much. Right? So I had to make a choice and I'm not. I Love Golf, you know, it was a great social thing and I might start playing golf again. Um, you know, I thought I'd start playing with my boys, they weren't interested in golf, so the golf clubs went in the closet. But all that to say is I gotta remind myself as developing that spiritual dial is as much more important and if I'm going to spend an hour a day, two hours a day exercising, I better be spending at least that much time on my spiritual life. And you know, I've did a demon and leadership or dissertation. I've read all the leadership stuff. You know, John Maxwell, I know bubbles boyfriend, that's all great and good and there's a ton of stuff out there. It's like overwhelming kind of gets recycled though. It's loud of the same stuff. Refurbished a, that's good. But the most important thing I do every morning is get up for me. It's spending time in God's word because that's the roadmap to my life. I'm not saying that has to be it for you. Um, I don't know where you guys are, but to have that time in the morning where you're getting focused for your day, where you're looking at what's in front of you and making sure that you're making the most important things, the most important things might be that big meeting that's coming up that's two weeks away that you need to start thinking about now it might be, um, you know, that big date with your wife this weekend and you need the plan. I'm even more important, right in the bigger scheme of things, but making sure you get that spiritual focus, that spiritual center I'm going on in your lives. Um, and I'm to. I'm going to take a little time out here. You know, I almost, uh, you know, I wanted to be relevant, um, this morning too, and this is another path that God's taken me on and I didn't want to spend our whole time thinking about this today, but I don't want to put this out here for you guys. Micah, alright, old testament. There's a, there's a, there's a few passages in scripture that I would say do a really great job of capturing the whole thing. This is one of them. He is an old testament prophet. It's kind of buried in. There might be something you guys have heard before, maybe not, but he's, he says, God has told you what is good and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God. Okay. Justice. I'm pretty hot topic in the world we live in today, right? And I really think as leaders in this day and age that needs to be something very near and dear to your hearts, that is the issue of the Times that we're living in. I've been a little surprised at how it's bubbled up again. Um, and I think some of us worked really hard. I worked really hard on this issue, still working on it and we kind of got to it on a very superficial level but didn't really, you know, dig into the, into the, in the core of the problems when it comes to the human justice. Um, you know, love and kindness, you know, if you want to know as a Christian, right? Somebody who follows you is Christ. Good question for me is, you know, how's my love life? Right? How am I doing a loving other people, not just my wife and my kids, but the people around me, right? Two greatest commandments while the other. Thanks simple thing, right? What is it? Love God. Love your neighbor. That's pretty simple, right? You know, I think of that movie, you know the grinch who stole Christmas, right? He's going up the mountain, they show his art. It's like the size of a pea. You getting that analogy, that a little box around it. I'm talking about the real grinch, the old grinch, the Dr Seuss grinch, not the Jim Carrey grinch, and they reinvent them so many times, but what happens, right? His little Cyndi Luu singing Christmas songs down there, the heartstart growing. That's a great visual for us. That's really what should be happening in our lives. And you know, the question I ask myself every morning I get up is my Hartford. God. Other people getting bigger or smaller. It's pretty simple question, right? Um, when we need to answer. Paul farmer says this, we thought about Paul farmer this morning. Famous doctor runs an organization, partners in health works for the poor UN world medical has some of the smartest guys that ever lived, right? He says the idea that some lives matter less than others of the root of all. It's wrong in the world. Let me read that one more time. The idea that some lives matter less than others as the root of all that's wrong in the world. Um, wow. That is profound. But that's the world that we live in. Okay. And another quick timeout is, I think it's important for us to know the context that we live in too. We live in the United States of America. I'm the wealthiest country in the world and it's pretty easy growing up in the United States of America thinking every, every place this way. Um, you know, I grew up with this invisible backpack on. I didn't even realize it until I was probably 40 years old. And what am I talking about? Well, I am, I am, I am a white American born citizen of the strongest nation in world and everywhere I go I carry that. It's a thing that puts me up on a podium. I didn't even realize it gives me this, you know, special place, um, in the world and uh, you know, in our country, um, you know, as I've gotten to know people of different races and spent some time with them here, here's a, here's a good story that captures this for you really quickly. So I don't spend too much time. Joel's, I, I'm my best buddy that I did. Uh, my, uh, Dr Ministry work with big guy named Ken Watson Pastors and Inner City Church. We look like Kinda tweedle dee and tweedle dumb more together. He's big. He's African American. He weighs almost 300 pounds. He played linebacker at University of Maryland, played for the Cleveland Browns, got a great guy, guy. We'd love to hang out together. Right? So his son, Benjamin, who I've been close to growing up gets played plays in the NFL, right? Benjamin gets to the superbowl and he says, Brad, I want you to come watch me in the superbowl. So being a great friend, I said, sure, I'll come watch. Unfortunately played for the New England patriots. Right. And they actually beat the steelers in the AFC championship game that year, but we are literally getting on the bus to go to the game. This is the New England patriots family bus. Okay. Now Ken has been one of these people that have pointed out this backpack to me that I didn't know I had that I didn't where to go. So we always have these bets going on. So he says, we got these passes to get on the bus, right? He's like, Brad, man, I'll bet you dinner at the game. Right. It's no small thing there at the superbowl that um, they won't give you a hard time at all if you don't have your pass. But if I don't have my pass out, they're not going to let me get on this bus. So I'm like, all right, I'm going to take this back. Right? This is the New England patriots bus look around. These are parents of players, I mean, do I look, maybe I could be related to the kicker, right? Can looks like he could still be playing. Man. The guy's totally jacked and he's like, he's obviously the data, one of the players. So I'm like, you go first can, I'm going to take this bed. I'm already thinking about what I want to eat, right. So sure enough, we put our pastors and our back pockets and he goes to get on the bus and the bus driver, it's white, won't let them get on the bus. He's like, you know, I'm Benjamin Watson's Dad. And the other people are saying is that so he's filming around, you know, finally fun fast, right? I got my past in the back pocket. I'm like, right after this, I'm the next guy in line. The guy just looks at him. He says, go get on the bus. I'm like, you've got to be kidding me, buddy. You just cost me dinner. Right? But that's the world we live in and that's what we have to embrace. You know, the other thing, you know, Doug didn't tie in and I understand it, one of the biggest reason he invited me, he hangs out with me is because I'm one of the guys in the world, you know, and uh, he didn't put that in my bio this morning because I don't like to put that out there, but it's true, right? If you put my income and my wife's income together, right? We're empty nesters. We're both working full time. We make just barely six figures over 100,000 dollars. Right. You know what that makes me one of the richest guys in the whole world. It does, like if you were to line up, people felt through the. I'm in the 99 point eight percent top point zero. Two percent of the people in the world make more than me.
Speaker 3:Right. Wow.
Brad Henderson:That's pretty amazing. Michael's thinking, man, I'm going to hang out with this guy bratty. He's a millionaire. I. Wow, that's, it's true. It's totally true. Go to this website. Friend of mine sent me their global rich list.com. You can punch in there how much you make. And, uh, it'll tell you based on a world scale, talk about an eyeopener for me. Not Know, mentioned I spent a lot of time in Haiti. That's been a good perspective with me. I spend time literally, there was a time when I was probably spending half of my life with the poorest people in the entire world. Um, that's been a, you know, some really good perspective for me. But what am I saying about all that? You guys got to embrace that, you know, when Jesus talks in scripture about the rich man, harder for a camel to go through Richmond and then Canaan, God, that should get your attention. Right? But here's the thing, I think I have a responsibility living in the most powerful country in the world hanging out. I mean, some of my friends, man, I mean, they're really dirty, stinking, rich. I mean, they're even rich from an American's perspective that I've got to be challenging them to be redistributed. Um, you know, God's resources. I mean, hey, take a step back, the perspectives here and why, why do I tell you that? I think that, that mindset's really important in terms of what you're doing with the rest of your life. Um, you know, we need to think globally and we've got a president is trying to think, trying to shrink our world right now and it just doesn't work. Hey Man, I was a part of the good old days back in 1976 right when we went to the Memorial Day parade. We did all that stuff. Those days are over. Those were, you know, they're not as bad as some people are making them out to be, but they're long, long. And as leaders next generational leaders, man, you gotta have you gotTa have a global mindset and you've got to realize where we fit and this global thing and how many people are really struggling out there just to survive. I'm going wrong. Layer life is full of quitting points. Um, first time I did the iron man, I was in the swim and jump in there with 2000 people. Adrenaline's flowing and you know, it takes about an hour to do that swim and I'm like 15 minutes into it and we swam through a bunch of jellyfish and the guy next to me got stung in the side of the face and couldn't breathe and uh, you know, they have lifeguards out there that he was fine and pull them out of water, but he was done. He was done and I got stung in my shoulder and I'm swimming thinking, man, I can't believe this. I worked 20 years to get here and I'm, I'm, I could be done. You know, there's no second chance. They're not going to say Alice, sorry. Breads got stung by a gentleman jellyfish. You can come back next year. Um, you know, luckily I was able to swim through that. Right next year I'm in a y and I'm feeling pretty good about how did the year before. So I'm thinking I'm going to go fast this year. I'm going to have the best race of my life. Not, not a good mindset. Start iron man. So literally swim goes really well. I get to the, the bike courses, I'm straight up this mountain, right? So the first half of this really tough winds in your face, so I'm going to have you. You make the turnaround, you come back and get the wind at your back and it's not, you know, like really downhill but downhill and pretty flat. Much easier. Right. So I get to the turnaround. I'm an hour ahead of my time from the year before. I'm thinking system can be the greatest race of my life. Right. But what happened was the wind shifted and I thought it was going to have the wind at my back. I'd worked really hard into the wind and not only did I have 56 miles into when I got 56, more than one. If you guys ever ridden your bike, you know what I'm talking about. Like as a little kid, you know, if the windblown and stuff totally deflating, you know, I got to the transition area and I was one minute slower than I'd been here before when I was putting my running shoes on. But the year before I was exhilarated. I didn't know if I was going to make to the finish line, man. I did not know. I'm thinking here I am in Hawaii. Galleys people follow me online and I might dnf right, do not, did not finish, um, was able to eat some stuff, kind of fight through it and actually ended up doing okay, you know, finished a couple of minutes behind time for the year before. But, you know, life is like that, you know, everyday. I don't know where you guys are in your business. Some of you guys might be doing really great right now. Some of you guys might be doing really great and your relationships, um, but there will come a time when, when you're gonna struggle, you're gonna, you're gonna hit a wall, um, in your life and whatever you're doing. My wife and I've been married 30 years. Um, you know, I think we have a great marriage, but we have a great marriage because we fought through a lot of quitting points along the way. You know, we do a lot. I do weddings. It's one of the great things about, you know, being an ordained pastor, but, you know, one of the real heart wrenching things is, you know, having those coffees with people that are 10 years into it that are calling it quits. And uh, you know, I, I think that, you know, we have quitting points everyday in our life, whether it's getting out of bed to exercise, getting out of bed on Monday morning to kind of get our focus for the week, whatever it is, but you got to learn to fight through those quitting points in your life. Even if they're little quitting points. It's pretty easy for people to become quitters, you know, across the board. And life's really about the decisions are making day in and day out. Leadership is really about the decisions or making day in and day out, um, to keep those priorities straight, to hang in or relationship. Um, you know, the, to stay focused on that goal, um, in your vocational life, even though everybody's saying, man, this is really stupid. You know, the people that are working around. Yeah. Um, but the fight to fight and keep fighting through, we're getting close to the end here. Uh, I keep going the wrong way. I'm going to finish with this. Um, you know, there's a, there's a passage of scripture that, um, I've told my wife, I've told my kids, I've told those around me, you know, someday I'd like to have this on my tombstone. That sounds like a morbid thought, but guess what, we all have 100 percent chance of dying some day and I add to changes. I'm not going to have a tombstone, right? I mean, you know, my wife and I are in Sydney, Australia, right? Probably the most beautiful city in the world. And we're walking along the coastal walk when most beautiful places I've ever been in, there's this huge cemetery. Somebody thought, man, this is like the perfect place for a cemetery, right? There's nothing around here. It's probably started, you know, a thousand years ago and here it is, right? I mean, really cemetery, grave stones, you know, I tell her, Mama, my wife, I want to be cremated. I don't want to take up any space. Right? But somewhere, whether it's on the fireplace or whatever, they got a little thing. I want this read at my funeral. Um, I fought the good fight. I finished the race, right? And, you know, life's a fight, man. I mean, like I said, you gotta be willing to fight through quitting, but you guys have learned in that, right? And, you know, I'm 53 and I'd have to say, yeah, life's a fight. Daily challenge. I finished the race, I've kept the faith. Now there is in store for me, the crown, which the Lord, the righteous judge will award to me on that day. You know, Eileen want this red if it fits, you know, at the end of the day, I really want my kids to be able to say, you know, my dad, he wasn't perfect. He, but you know what, he was a fighter, you know, God gave him a focus and a purpose in his life and he not only ran the race, but, but he finished. Well, he didn't crawl to the finish line. Um, he, he finished strong. And that's my hope and prayer for you guys. Um, you know, in, in your vocational lives, I know that's important, but more importantly in, in your, in your personalized, in your spiritual life, as I look around this room someday, you know, we'd all be in the Kim together and we'd be able to say, you know, crystal, how did it go? And she could say, you know what, there's a lot of things I'd do differently, but I finished strong, you know, I, I finished, well, I'm Max Doug, whoever it is. And uh, to finish well, you got to start well, and you got to run the race with intentional focus and purpose every step of the way. Um, you got to be willing to, you know, fight for those vocational goals. You've got to be willing to fight for your marriage. And some of you guys who are parents, you know, to have that focus, um, with your kids, it's a great thing to release them to and be an empty Nester that I could've given you great empty Nester talk, but you guys aren't there today. And also to embrace this, this place that God's put you in your life. When I first realized I had this backpack on, I went to this thing where I had this terrible sense of guilt about it, but then I realized, Hey, you know what? God chose my parents. God chose my race. Everything about me came from him. I need to be grateful for that and not feel guilty of that, but I need to embrace that responsibility. Right in the book of Matthew says, too much. Those are whom much has been given. Much is expected. I'm one of those guys, man, some day when I'm face to face with him, but most important I want him to say Brad, good job, man. He was a little little dicey there a few times. I thought you're going to quit, but, but to finished, you know and have that ultimate prize.
Doug Smith:Thank you so much for listening to Brad's talk. I really hope it added value to your life. You can find ways to connect with him and everything he's doing with the Pittsburgh kids foundation in the show notes@lthreeleadership.org, forward slash episode one 71. As always, thank you so much for being a listener and it would mean the world to me. If you would subscribe and leave a rating and review for this podcast, it really does help us grow. Our audience are. Thank you in advance. For that. I want to thank our sponsors, Bab[inaudible], led by my friend Russell Livingston. Bab is an insurance broker, third party administrator and consultant firm here in Pittsburgh. If your company has any insurance needs, I can't encourage you enough to check them out. They're incredible and they have a huge passion for developing next generation leaders. You can learn more at[inaudible] dot com. That's Ba bb ins.com. And lastly, if you want to stay up to date with everything we're doing here at l three leadership, you can simply sign up for our email list@lthreeleadership.org and you'll start getting weekly emails with everything that we're doing and as always I like to end with a quote and I'm going to use one that brad use because I thought it was that good by Dr Paul Farmer. He said this, he said, the idea that some lives matter less than others is the root of all this wrong in the world. The idea that some lives matter less than others is the root of all this wrong in the world. That is so good. Thank you so much for listening and a part of l three leadership, Laura, and I appreciate you so much and we'll be back next episode.