A Call To Leadership

EP250: Letting Go with Joe Thompson

• Dr. Nate Salah

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Are you weighed down by past mistakes or struggling to let go of burdens that keep you stuck? Join Joe Thompson as he explores the weight of the past and the steps to move forward with grace. From learning to trust in a higher power to finding freedom in acceptance, this episode is packed with insights on overcoming guilt, cultivating self-love, and creating a mindset that fosters both personal and professional growth. Tune in for a transformative discussion that will help you let go and find peace.



Key Takeaways To Listen For

  • Why we struggle to release past mistakes and how they shape our present
  • The power of acceptance in navigating unpredictable situations without fear
  • How authentic love and care can replace adversarial tactics in sales and strengthen client relationships
  • Simple practices to help free ourselves from anxiety and guilt
  • Benefits of viewing challenges as opportunities to grow, whether in business, family, or personal life



Resources Mentioned In This Episode



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[00:00:00] Dr. Nate Salah
Have you ever been burdened so heavily by something that you feel at times you can't even breathe? The stress levels, the tension are almost unbearable and you're holding on, you know that it is not healthy, but you don't know what to do. Joe Thompson is back on the show. We're going to talk about this subject of What it means to truly let go of the situation, not forget about it, not be irresponsible, but give it up. Give it up to our creator. Give it up to the circumstance and let yourself be unburdened. In the moment so that you could focus on how to move forward. I can't wait for you to listen in. I'm Dr. Nate Salah, and this is A Call to Leadership. Joe, welcome back. Dr. Salah. How are you? Doctors in the house. Good to see you, man.

[00:01:03] Joe Thompson
That's nice to be here. 

[00:01:04] Dr. Nate Salah
You are a man who is a problem solver. You help people solve problems. Sometimes there are things that people have done in the past or some circumstance that's happened. You can't do much about the past is the past, but people have problems sometimes, you know. 

[00:01:24] Joe Thompson
The problems can follow you. You know, you make a mistake, it could follow you for months or years, depending on what it is. 

[00:01:29] Dr. Nate Salah
Or the rest of your life sometimes. Not going to go there with any dating things. That's just a clean show. That's a family show. Yeah. So when you're consulting or when, let's just take the business out of these ways, it's just a human, the human condition. Talk about life. Life and problems we face, some things that happened in the past. 

[00:01:50] Joe Thompson
They parallel each other so well. Life and business. Cause they're both a stream of living, right? You got to nurture one, you got to, same thing you have to do in your regular life. You have to nurture people around you and yourself. So I think this is kind of crosses over from business to life pretty easily. 

[00:02:09] Dr. Nate Salah
There's a saying in scripture that says to not be anxious about anything. Don't worry. and there's a difference between worry and concern in terms of the linguistics of it, but holding on, really holding on to the baggage of a decision in the past that's on your shoulders. Someone listening now, that's me. Right now. I'm in a place where I'm carrying the weight of perhaps some decisions that were not ideal. They were mistakes, missteps. And that's heavy. When I was younger, it's so weird. When I wake up in the morning, every single morning I wake up, I felt this like weight on my shoulders. Like I would equate it to putting on a backpack full of heavy gym weights, bowling balls. And I wake up and I'm like, man, I have so many responsibilities, so much that is relying on me, so many things that I've got to crawl out of this hole, especially early in life. And it's not just Yeah. Yeah. Part of the problem was that I didn't know at the time that later in life, most of that didn't matter so much anymore, I wasn't going to be dealing with that situation forever, time would pass, but we hold on, I guess the point is we hold on, we don't let go, it's hard to let go, why is it so hard for us to let go of either a mistake that we made or mistakes that someone else made? We're dealing with it. 

[00:03:39] Joe Thompson
I think some of it is how you're built. Some people shoulder a lot of burdens because they're built for it. I think some people carry guilt. You know, I carry guilt for a ton of things that sometimes had nothing to do with me at all, but like I was creating this guilt. It's, it's not a real thing. And I mean, it's the voice in your head that's telling you don't do that. But when it starts to, you know, Eat you up a little bit. That's a bad place to be. And some of it is thrust upon you, whatever situation you're in. Some people, the burden is survival, like to survive every day. Some people, the burden is I have to thrive. I have to do more. I have to go to school. I have to get a job. I have to get a family. And we pile all these things on us at a very young age, I think. Especially Americans, we pile all this stuff on us and we carry it throughout our lives. And unfortunately, as we get older, we pack more and more on until we get to a place where there's a deep understanding, which we'll talk about where you can unburden yourself of it. And that's the journey. That's the real journey. 

[00:04:53] Dr. Nate Salah
It reminds me of this concept of how humans are wired differently than the rest of creation, if you will. And you know, I've talked about this. We talked about it in our leadership group is the ability to have hindsight. Keep all of the memories tight of life. Not that the animal kingdom can't do that, but humans have a special memory for all of that holding on to it. We have tremendous foresight in prediction of what we expect to happen. And of course we have insight and that makes us uniquely human because it gives us this wide range of Vision, if you will, from the past to the future, and of course, into the present, and it's a double-edged sword, because if I didn't have any foresight, I wouldn't be thinking about who's going to be president or if I'm going to die of a heart attack or just fill in the blank on all the things that could go wrong in humanity and in life and every day, if I didn't have hindsight, I wouldn't be thinking so much about what happened in the past. And of course that. Speaks to my insight on what's going on today, it could be a tool either way, it could be a tool that we could use to build or we can use it to destroy ourselves in some ways. And I wonder how many of us, including myself, really think about that. Okay. What am I going to do with the information?

[00:06:26] 
Because really, like to, to unpack the emotional side of it and say, okay, let's just look at it. Like it's information, so whatever happened in the past going to inform my decisions today in the future you say, yeah, but you're dealing with the consequences of it. Okay. So that's more information. But I think also it's part of an expectation because what I think tends to burden us is the expectation that should have been different. Because if you expect things to go wrong, and they will, then it's okay. I don't want to say part of the plan, but indeed, in some ways, it is. Say I'm a baby. I like the baby analogy. And I'm a novice at walking because I've never walked before. And I fall. And all the other babies around me. Are they mocking me? What a loser. Look at that dumb baby. Why'd you do it? But no, nobody does that. Not even parents. Can you imagine? You idiot. I will never let you live that down. Wait till you're 40. No, you don't. In a similar way, whatever it is that we're going through in life, if we made. A misstep with a business. If we made a misstep in, in our personal life journey, if you expect to land every single time, you're going to be as a point, but if you say, Hey, you know what, I'm still learning so much of life, I think is discovery. Now, if you keep making the same mistake after you've discovered a way to achieve and you keep making that same mistake, that's a different conversation. Maybe it's a conversation, but that's not the role for you. 

[00:08:04] Joe Thompson
Yeah, maybe you shouldn't be the decision maker either for your family or right. Yeah, we expect the hindsight is going to gain us knowledge for our insight. Correct. There's an expectation of that. 

[00:08:20] Dr. Nate Salah
That's important. So that's the expectation. The expectation isn't that I knock out of the park every time I step up to bat. The expectation is, okay, I learned from the past, the hindsight, and so that I can make different moves today. It's data. To me, it's data. It's like all of the data, like the whole cliche of people say Edison a thousand times, and I figured a thousand ways not to make a light bulb. The same construct. Now you say some things are much more life threatening, I guess you'd say dire. Yeah. Then filaments. 

[00:08:52] Joe Thompson
Yeah. Like murder. Yeah. Some things are going to weigh heavier on you. 

[00:08:57] Dr. Nate Salah
Cain and Abel. I'm sure there had to be some criminal. Oh man. What's a bonehead move? Killing my brother. 

[00:09:03] Joe Thompson
Look at my forehead. But here's one of the great things about. Whether you're trying to invent a light bulb and you're failing, or you committed a crime and someone died, or you're facing a terminal illness, right? Whatever it is, the key in this whole thing, because you have these expectations and the key is. Accepting the outcome. This was supposed to go this way and it didn't. Now I could carry that and I could just go over it and over it in my head. And the, this becomes worry, right? Or this manifest is guilt. Like, how could I have done that? And that happened. But if you can accept it, right, then you're taking the power away from what has had, you take the power away from the anxiety that it causes or the construct of it being a problem in the first place, right? You dismantle it because. If I let it overtake everything I do, if it becomes who I am, like if I'm walking around carrying this thing, I'm making decisions because of this thing, I'm acting out because of this thing. Right. And it's all because I haven't accepted it yet. So like even people, and I've been through several people inside and outside of my family who've had terminal illnesses, who've known from the beginning, I am going to die from this.

[00:10:31] 
Right. And they go through all the state, we know the stages, but. It's the acceptance part where suddenly you see them like, you know, okay, I know what this is and I'm too small. I'm not powerful enough to handle this. So I got to give it up. I got to turn it over. When you have a belief system that there's something much bigger and more powerful than you accepting death or sometimes punishment. Or sometimes just failure after failure, it's too big for you to handle. It's too big for you to carry. You have to let it go. That's when the anxiety and the worry and all those things go away. And I think for most people who aren't in an extreme situation, those are extreme situations. But most people day to day, they worry about getting their kids to school. They worry about some very small things. And, If you're that type of person, if you're wired that way, try accepting that you're not going to accomplish everything, maybe. 

[00:11:40] Dr. Nate Salah
Back to the expectation, except it, except that there's things beyond our control. 

[00:11:47] Joe Thompson
Everything is out of our control. And I need a psychiatrist that said the biggest mistake everyone makes is believing the illusion that you are in control because you're not, you control very little. Yeah. When you think about the decisions you make throughout the day. Any one of those decisions can be blindsided by something at any moment instantaneously. So you have the greatest plan. You can have this great plan that you're going to go to the beach and you're going to build the biggest sandcastle that has ever been built ever. Right. And you go out in the water with your bucket, you get your water, make your wet sand and a shark bite your leg off. Planned are. Right? Because you don't control the shark. Now the rest of the day is definitely shot. The rest of the day, you're not building that sandcastle. Right? So great plan, great plan, but so little of what we do is really in our control. Only thing we really truly control is our thoughts, our reactions to things. 

[00:12:56] Dr. Nate Salah
Which is questionable.

[00:12:58] Joe Thompson
Even at times, depending on who's driving the car. 

[00:13:01] Dr. Nate Salah
Yeah. What thoughts are held and I love the scripture says, hold all your thoughts captive. That would indicate that sometimes our thoughts are not even in our own control because of whatever stimuli and, and a lack sometimes of mental discipline as well. You said something about control and planning that struck me. I was talking with a friend not too long ago who has a lot of kids. Yeah. And I asked, what's the plan 12 dozen and the response I got was really good because it speaks to this conversation. The response was just one word obedience. I was like, interesting. Of course, this is obedience. We're talking about. In a spiritual sense, right? Obedience to God. The point is that whether it's kids or anything else, I can make plans. I can make lots of plans in life. But really, as you said, there's very little in my control. Those plans can change at any time, at any place, in any context without my ability to influence that change whatsoever.

[00:14:09]
 But what I can do, and this is what you're talking about, is I can walk in obedience. I can walk in obedience to God and whatever the plan is or whatever changes, I can still be obedient. I can still do that and not be concerned with if the plan went the way I thought it was going to go or if it didn't. Generally speaking, if I have an idea of how I think things should go the way I want them to go and they don't go that way. I'm usually not feeling too good about myself. That's disappointing. Yeah. But what was the catalyst for that? The catalyst was, and this is where you and I have talked about this, where our thinking is messed up. They use a technical term. We're starting with the wrong framework of thinking. We're starting with the framework that, oh, I'm in control. That doesn't mean that you don't take responsibility. That doesn't mean that you don't make corrections. That doesn't mean you don't add it to the playbook. It just means that perhaps give yourself a little bit of grace and recognize that some things you couldn't have seen based on the information you had at the time, based on your skill, your quality, whatever it is, you may not have taken advice that someone gave you that you look back. Oh, I should have taken that advice. Okay. 

[00:15:33] Joe Thompson
Being Sicilian and growing up Catholic, we learn about guilt right away, right? You learn how to feel guilty. So I'm a person who holds on to things. Like I would like to say, Oh, Nate, when that goes wrong, I just let that go. I don't think about it again. Just keep moving forward. But I'm not, I'm not that guy. I'm not built that way. I'm not wired that way. I want to take all of your problems on, right? And then I'm going to feel bad if I don't solve them. Right? Or if I make a mistake, I'm gonna hold on to it, right? Even on my love of martial arts over the years. I was in an Aikido class one time, um, just cause it looked cool. And we were doing an exercise called Rondori where three people attack you and you run around the room and you don't want them take you down. And in the process of me like living in the hood, we both been there too. If that process of me doing that, I can't remember either. I fell backwards into the wall or someone else was thrown into a wall, but the drywall broke, and it left a huge hole and there was a gun shop on the other side, and we hit the wall so hard that the guns fell off of the rack and started setting off all the alarms.

[00:16:53] 
Uh, police show up. The owner has to come out and my teacher's apologizing or very, sorry, is never happened before, blah, blah, blah. I was devastated. I felt so bad about everything. The police being calm, the guy having to come out and it was probably around nine o'clock at night, we were doing a late class and it was just really weighing on me. Hey, I'm a, I'm a young guy at the time. I'm in my late twenties. And the instructor came up to me and he goes, Oh, this is weighing on you. Right. And I said, yeah, I feel terrible. This is your studio. I broke it up. I'll come up and fix it. He goes, Hey, let it go. It's done. It happened. It's it's over with we'll fix it. Don't worry about it. Let it go. Put yourself back into the mind frame. You were in when you were doing Rondori that stuck with me for a long time to, to try and let things go. And then as I went different ways in my career, I got burdened again, by all of corporate or owning your own business and all of the problems that come with trying to be successful.

[00:18:05]
 And as a consultant, trying to help other people be successful, it weighs on me, like it weighs heavily on me. And like, sometimes I have to really get to a bad place before I stop and remind myself to let it go. Let God take over, put it in his hands. I know it sounds cliche to say put it in his hands, but if you're really capable of doing that, like the relief you feel, it's just an overwhelming sense of relief. Okay. I'm doing my best here and markets are changing and elections are happening and things are slowing down. And you know, I take, I hold on all this stuff. I have to stop and remind myself this isn't how I actually believe. My true belief is that God will help me through it. God will take the burden. And the outcome of it will be a partnership between me and God. That's where the outcome's gonna come. And if it's not the results I want it, then I have to have acceptance. And that's what kind of gets you, because in my job, like, I would have a heart attack by now if I couldn't let things go. What my stress would be. Crazy. Right. But I am able at times to let it go. I'll hold on to more of it later. And I'll have to remind myself when I start to get really grouchy, but that's the only direction you can go. And that is something you can control. You can control giving it up. Yes. See what I mean? Yes. You can control letting it go and no one can stop you from doing that because this is your relationship, right?

[00:19:49] Dr. Nate Salah
There's a time when I had a lot of trouble letting go. It was during COVID early, early stages of COVID. And I think letting go also is tougher sometimes when again, back to the expectation, but there's something you want. So, so intently, you desire something so much. Perhaps there's an error or misstep that prohibits or prevents that from happening for me. I love to create an environment where people know that they are appreciated and that we do great work together in a very team oriented environment. I want to provide for the resources and the needs of the team. And most of the people who I've worked alongside of for several years, if not more, it takes a usually maybe a year or two for people to generally start to recognize that it's real, like not just checking a box or, Hey, this is the real culture. Yeah. The real culture is we truly care. Like it's, we, that's who we want to care. So I had a, one of my team members during COVID early stage COVID kind of worked for me for too long. And when COVID happened, The everything shut down and I said, Hey, look, I'm gonna let you go on unemployment for until this.

[00:21:15]
 Gets all worked out. The signal was, you don't want me here anymore. And, uh, I got a response the next day that was just, just cut me to the heart. And it was like, oh my goodness, that wasn't my intention at all. No, I just wanted you to get paid while we weren't doing any business because we were having to shut down. We had, we were on a skeletal crew. We were, we were an essential business, but there was no, nobody was doing taxes. Even the IRS wasn't doing taxes. Right, nobody was doing taxes. So I was like, okay. And I felt terrible. And for weeks, Joe, I was just in my wife's, you need to let it go. I'm like, I don't know how I feel so bad. I tried to respond and that wasn't my intention. I care. I, I, I'd have been one. This is true, but not at this point. And it was like, my goodness, Nate, you're letting it eat you up. Just letting it eat you from the inside. Now, that's one of the consequences of that. And it's just so unhealthy and it doesn't help anyone else either. By the way, that the other person. Didn't help them. They didn't care at that point. The rest of my team's dude, you need everybody saying the same thing. Let it go. I can't, I don't know how what I realized later. And this is where some of the conversations around in terms of faith in God. I read a book called Leadership, not by the book, CEO, the founder of Hobby Lobby, David Creek.

[00:22:52] 
And he talked about at some point in his business life, he turned the business over. Yeah. He said, this is your business. It's not my business. I'm not going to function as this belongs to me. Whatever happens here, it's yours. I'm gonna give away most of the profits to charities and and so on. And it's not gonna be like inherited by my kids business. He said the burden that was lifted off of his shoulders when he made that decision, because then it was like you said, it was this partnership. Now, look, I'm a steward. I am entrusted with guiding this business. Until I can't guide anymore. And that's everything in life, by the way, like everything in life, everything that we own eventually will belong to someone else or it'll end up in a trash heap or whatever, clothes, cars, house, money, everything were just caretakers were wisp of time. We're here on this planet and to reframe that entire journey around it. While I'm here, I'm going to do my best to take care of what you're entrusting me with in partnership with you. Sometimes I'm going to miss it. Sometimes I'm going to make it. That particular incident for me, if I would have had that mindset of, Hey, you know what, God?

[00:24:15] 
Yeah, I didn't see that one coming. And if God's audible, like, yeah, I did, but it's okay. Because did you learn from it? Absolutely. Like every conversation since then around anything that might, you know, Be conceived ambiguously, I explain it in advance. Hey, not that we've had COVID again, not that I've ever had to do that again. But now I understand that maybe people aren't always thinking like I am. Maybe people aren't always thinking like you are. Maybe they don't know that your intentions are actually designed to be beneficial and helpful rather than, uh, a shot at someone. 

[00:24:50] Joe Thompson
Because all their hindsight is listening to what you're telling them. And that's where their insights coming from. So something like this may have happened to him in the past where the person didn't have the really good intentions of, Hey, I just want you to get paid. Yeah. And I'm gonna bring you back. Right. This is over. 

[00:25:08] Dr. Nate Salah
They were firing them. And that was it. It was see you later. Goodbye. Or maybe there could have been some kind of issue that was. Well, triggering rejection, whatever it looks like. I don't know. Uh, the point is that living in a state where I'm not going to carry the burden of that decision. I'm going to be responsible for it. I'm gonna take ownership, be responsible for whatever correction I can make again. I can't be responsible for how everyone else feels either. If I've done everything that I possibly can and you still feel the way you feel, I have to let it go. I've done everything I could do. Maybe someone listening is in that place right now where they're in a place where they've done everything they could do.

[00:25:56] Joe Thompson
Okay, let it go. If someone's in a place right now where they feel they're responsible for making others happy, get out of that place. Right now, it's not your burden, right? It feels like that sometimes with the people around us. Oh, I'm going to cater to this person, make sure they're fabulous. And what you do is you keep burdening yourself and you keep stacking all this weight upon you, right? And, and it's hard, it's hard to give that away because you feel like the thing I'm doing is a good thing. I'm making others happy before myself, psychologically, it's not a healthy place to, to be right. And I don't mean to say you make your wife happy because you take her out on your anniversary. The difference between real happiness and like, I'm happy about something, or I have happiness, two completely different things, right?

[00:26:52]
 It's like being sad and being depressed, two completely different things, right? And I think people who are people pleasers run into that a lot. They really feel that way. And then this is going to touch back on, on, on what you were saying. You can do a thousand things, right? You can get a million compliments, but like that one negative thing that comes at you and all you feel like, I'm trying to do the right thing. I'm trying to help everybody. I'm trying to get rid of it. And then you feel unappreciated or someone says, Hey, you're not doing a very good job at this. That stings us way beyond. Thousands and thousands of compliments you get, right? Because what does that negative comment do? Praise on our past, on past traumas. It, it hits us where it really hurts. And it hurts because we don't immediately let it go. If sometimes we could say, Hey, your opinion of me is none of my business. Like. What a great way to live. 

[00:28:03] Dr. Nate Salah
Yeah. Oh my goodness. I had a conversation with a friend a couple of years ago, along those same lines, who was really upset because someone important to him didn't like it. That's not your concern to be burdened by whether or not someone likes you. Like someone telling me, we both have beautiful, expressive Roman noses. You know that, right? And someone say, Nate, I don't like your big nose. Like, that's your problem. I love my nose. I'm not gonna even go there. Nose. It's part of my face. If you don't like it, that's you. Don't look at it. I'm not gonna lose any sleep. I'm not gonna be tossing like, Robert said my nose is. He doesn't like it. 

[00:28:51] Joe Thompson
Changing names, fictitious. That's an entire society though. You're too fat. You're too skinny. Your hair isn't nice. You don't look like this. Your eyes are That is a societal thing that we burden ourselves with. Yeah. All the time. 

[00:29:07] Dr. Nate Salah
You're too tall. You're too short. You're too skinny. 

[00:29:09] Joe Thompson
Never ending. And those negative comments that come at you, they sting so bad because they relate to something else in your past. Usually, right? Some other time it hurt as you grow older. And someone says, Hey, you got a big nose. I'm like, yeah, yeah, matches my big wall, but you don't carry or when you're younger, like something like that is, is devastating. 

[00:29:34] Dr. Nate Salah
Yeah, because we as human beings, we want to be, we want to be accepted. And, and it's been said that conformity is the price you pay for inclusion. James McGregor Burns said that. And it's interesting because we as communal creatures, However, back to full circle about letting go and let go, let God. I've heard that statement before. If my only true desire is to please God, so to speak, then that's the conformity that's necessary, which is the price to pay for inclusion. And really pleasing God is pretty easy. It's not as complicated as we like to make it out to be. No, it's just love God, love others. That's it's pretty. It's a pretty simple formula. And even that has so much range. 

[00:30:25] Joe Thompson
The sliding scale on how you can worship or pray or whatever can be as simple as I have a belief. I believe God loves me. I love him and I live my life in his obedience. Two, you could be part of a religion that has a canon book that's, you know, this is 12 inches thick, right? But you'd have to find a comfort level in that too, because then sometimes, and I can only speak for me as a Catholic growing up. Sometimes. Worshipping God can become a burden when we have all these man laws that we're trying to follow. You can't eat this before that, you got to kneel during this, you got to put something on your head, like all these dumb things that we created traditions out of that really barely tie back to the Bible in any way. Right? Corporations grow and they develop a hierarchy. Things often become more complicated. You start to get more people and you start to have more rules. And a lot of times you can lose your sense of self. And I think a lot of times that happened to me, like where it almost became a burden. To, to get through the holidays and keep up with every, Oh my gosh, it's Holy Thursday. It's Ash Wednesday. It's Good Friday. And when really what's the most important thing? Love and serve God here so that you can know love and serve God. When you die forever, it's a pretty easy formula. And how do you serve God by serving others? It's pretty easy. Now, I'm not saying you have to serve others to be saved.

[00:32:17]
 I don't wanna hear the right rhetoric. Right? Right. You're saved. Right? It's important to remember that there is a simplicity in a relationship with God, a very simple understanding of, look, I love you, right? I know you love me. Make that your basis when you're giving away that burden, just be like, God, I love you. And because I love you and I know you love me, that's why I'm able to give you this with the trust that you're going to help me through it. If you go to a church and you dance with snakes, fine, dance with the snakes, but just don't forget that the relationship you have with God is a very simple primal kind of beginning of time sort of love. Right. And it's real easy to give up something to someone who loves you, regardless of what has no boundaries of how much he can love you. Right. And what an easy relationship that becomes. If we could do it with others in our lives, if you could develop, look, I just love you. Okay. Know that, know that I just love you. Right. And because of that, everything that I do has an intention not to hurt you. Am I going to, am I going to say the wrong thing? Am I going to do the wrong thing? Probably will. But I always want you to remember back like that. I love you. Right. And I trust that you love me too. So if I stumble, if I mess up and I hold on to that, like I'm really, you.

[00:34:01]
 Ruining a lot of that relationship, I'm spending a lot of time in the wrong place where I should just be focused on, Hey, sorry, I said the wrong thing, you know, how much, you know, how much I love you. Right. Always take it back to that. Yeah. And that's been, I've been through a lot of things, and I've heard a lot of people in my life, right? Going through those things. And, uh, the people that are still around me are around me because like, they knew when I was going through that stuff that I loved them and they loved me, and regardless of who I appeared to be at the time, they knew where my heart would be. And those are the people that are around me today, where everyone else ran off, those are the people around me today. So it's important to remember because I have to remind myself of this all the time. I stumble all the time. 

[00:34:50] Dr. Nate Salah
When the basis is love. And I'm so glad you brought that up when the basis is love, it's so much easier to take that step to let go. Say you made a mistake in business, say you made a mistake three, four years ago, and it's catching up with you today and your team knows that and I think that love is still an applicable aspect of your business life just as much as your personal life because love is not just an emotion. It's an action, right? Love is patient. It's kind of doesn't envy, boast, pride and so on and so on and so forth. Right. So it's action items that make love impactful and when they know that you are someone who is still trustworthy, even though you made an error because you truly love and that changes the entire dynamic of it, it makes it easier, I think, also for us to let go that said, though, we have to, and we talk about from a perspective of knowing that God loves us to accept it. 

[00:35:51]
You can't give away something that you haven't accepted. So you accept the love, say, I receive it, now you can turn around and give it away. And that overshadows, it engulfs and dissipates all that guilt, all that shame, all of those negative feelings that keep you from truly moving forward. The anchor, you, You pull the anchor up so that you can begin to really let your sail unwind and take you to where God is calling you. And that love is the heart. It's the heart of your release of those types of feelings that may be haunting you from the past to the present and maybe something you're thinking about in the future. 

[00:36:36] Joe Thompson
I'm glad you brought this up. Back to a business thing, because you have a great story around this. And this actually happened today. I was in a meeting with some salespeople and salespeople, if you've had the pleasure of being around lots of salespeople and they come in all shapes and sizes, the thing they're always looking for is that silver bullet. What's that phrase that brings this person over to my sale, like, what is this clever thing I can do or become to make them want what I'm selling? And I simply told my sales staff today, I don't want you to be anybody that you're not, and I don't want you to look for phrases or slick things that bring someone over to our product. Here's what I want you to do. I just want you to love them, love them. Because the love tells you whether or not you're pushing them into something they don't need, or you're putting them into something that will help them.

[00:37:41] 
I said, quit with all the sales training, mumble jumble, all the, the, the books and the ridiculousness, and I've seen sales consultants come in and they give you all these, no one ever says, be yourself. No, your product and know whether or not it's going to help the person you're selling it to make a conversation. But in the end, whether they want it or not, just show them some love, some real love from your heart, right? Because if you can start loving strangers like that, the people around you, they're going to benefit big time from it because love is a muscle memory. It's a thing that if you practice. Loving people. It becomes easier to love people. It becomes easier to forgive people. It becomes easier to forgive yourself when you make mistakes and the hand things over when they burden you too much. But love is that heartbeat. 

[00:38:39] Dr. Nate Salah
It is. And you move from becoming from being an adversary. Because sales is adversarial to an ally because you ally with someone when they know that you care for them, regardless of the exchange. There's no exchange necessary in love, by the way, if I love you, I don't have to receive that love from you back. It's just a gift at this moment. I'm just going to give it to you. It doesn't have to come back to me. That's important. And that changes the entire dynamic of every relationship. Then it's just, wow, this person impacted me. They gave me something without any expectation that something had to be given in return. If you're going to sell, that's the way you're going to sell. 

[00:39:27] Joe Thompson
That's a career in sales, not just a flash. You know what I mean? That's a success that's going to be everywhere in your life. That's right. 

[00:39:36] Dr. Nate Salah
So start there and guess what? You won't be holding on. You'll be letting go. It's good stuff, bro. It's good to see you. Well, my friend, thank you for joining me on this episode of A Call to Leadership. If you've been listening, you've probably heard me talk about our accounting and advisory business. And this show was actually born out of that. That business those relationships. I found that entrepreneurs and professionals were missing Aspects of their leadership that fed into their bottom line and help their businesses be successful So I'm so thankful that I've had all those years in that area to feed into this, and the truth is that so many people still need Accounting and advisory help and they don't know where to go if you're In that place where you feel, Oh my goodness, my tax person or my accountant, I can't find them or maybe the service wasn't up to my expectations, do not despair. I'll leave how you can find us in the show notes and one of my team members can do some discovery and help you along your journey. You're not alone, my friend. You always have help. I'm Dr. Nate Salah. Can't wait to see you on the next show, A Call to Leadership.







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