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Well, welcome back to Inside Personal Growth. Welcome to another episode of our podcast. And joining me from Chicago is Donzel Leggett. Denzel, how are you doing today? I'm doing great. Great. Thank you for having me on your podcast. Actually, my name is pronounced Denzel, but I'm so used to everyone calling me Denzel an A-plus. It reminds people of Denzel, and he always associated with Denzel Washington would be good.

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Yeah, you kind of look like him. So. And we're going to be talking about his new book called Make Your Destiny happen. You want to he's just got the proof copy. But so for all my listeners who are hearing this on YouTube, you will see we'll also have a book flash across the screen. For all of you listening on the podcast, you can't see it anyway.

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But you'll see the book jacket, when we post that to all the podcast. So, we appreciate having you on. Let me let the listeners know he's an extraordinary guest. And as I said, he's joining us from Chicago, airy, author of this new transformative book, due out when does Denzel. August 26th, when he's six.

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So right around the corner from the recording of this. But after decades of leadership experience at fortune 500 companies guiding high performing teams across continents from America to Asia, Latin America, Europe, he has distilled his hard earned wisdom into the powerful blueprint for personal transformation. We're living in a world now where many of us feel like it's happening to us, rather than feeling in control of our own destiny.

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And what, Denzel is going to do is he's going to give us a book and some ideas on how to create that change that we need in your life. So he owns Destiny development. Delta. This is the company that he has, and you can get to his website just by going Destiny. Del dev. Dev delta.com there.

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You're also going to see that he's got a brand new podcast. He was telling me is on his third episode. So congrats on that. And the podcast is called make Your Destiny happen podcast. And you can check him out. As I said, we're all kind of living in a world of ambiguity at these times. We need a little help, and this just isn't another self-help book filled with empty promises.

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It's a practical, actionable guy born from real experience, vulnerability, and purpose. What makes Denzel approach unique to how he combines relatable, personal stories with a clear, articulated system that helps readers break free from the cycle of feeling stuck and take command of their future. His framework will empower you to rise after failure, find clarity and chaos, and design a destiny that's authentically your own.

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As one of the endorsers put it, this is more than a book. It's a call to action for anyone ready to break free from limitation. Whether you're just starting your career or looking to transition from success to significant, doubt, Denzel's insights will help you envision your destiny, establish a life and a plan. So, Denzel, welcome to the show.

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You've got quite a book and quite a story. So let's start with that, because you know, everybody has a story and it's important to them and it should be important to other people because that's how we learn about other people. You quit college football in your senior year, and it was a decision that kind of shocked everybody. Take us back to that moment.

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What was going through your mind when you walked away from something you'd worked really for years to get to and decided, Now I'm giving it up. I'm. Yeah. Again. Great. Thank you for having me. And, your introduction. Wow. It's almost like you did the podcast. All you saw for me, I mean, everything, you know, there we die.

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This is done. Okay, everybody. We're done. Three minutes. Are you good? Hey, I really appreciate it, I really do, and, you're right. You know, the decision to walk away from college football and not play my fifth year? That was a difficult call. And it was, a seminal moment in my life because it really forced me to have to think about what I truly wanted.

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Sometimes, you know, as we as we're growing up, especially as young people, we have ideas about what we should do, but not all, all the time where those ideas genuinely are. Sometimes they're things that people expect you to do or what you think you're supposed to do, not necessarily what you want to do. And for a long time, you know, I really wanted to play college football, and professional football is what I thought.

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But as, as my career went on, as injuries started to mount and as I really started thinking about what is it that I want out of my life, I realized that that wasn't it. And it became, a decision that I had to make. Now, like I said, part of it was spurred on by the fact that I had several injuries, and, and those injuries were taking their toll.

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But I knew that there was a choice I could make. And there are a lot of guys I play with the many different choices. I could have maybe done some different things, to get through those injuries and maybe have a more negative effect on my long term physical well-being, and even my mental well-being. But the bottom line is, it came down to what do I really want to do long term.

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And I felt like I could make a bigger difference not only in my life, but in the lives of so many others. If I really focused my attention, number one, on my studies, number two, on making sure that I was truly being myself authentically, and then I was setting myself up to be the best leader that I could be long term.

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And I felt like moving on in making that decision at that time was the best thing for me to do. And it was funny because getting the decision was hard. But once I made it, it was like, you know, the the waters parted, the sea started, and and there was this whole new world ahead of me. And I never looked back.

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Well, you know, I just had a a really cool interview with doctor. Jim. Laura, he is a performance coach, and he started the, and I'm trying to remember the huge company that Johnson and Johnson brought out around performance, coaching and used coach CEOs. And it's interesting, the book is called Wise Decisions. Yeah. And he talks about and this is something that I'm sure you asked your Yoda inside of you.

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You have to learn how to be intuitive and listen to the Yoda. That's going to help you make the decision. And I think what's important is if everybody can take a moment to reflect, you're being guided all the time. It's just that you're not listening. So when you tune in to the right channel, you'll get the message and you'll feel okay about the decision.

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Right now you're going to get feedback from other people. They're going to say, oh no, Denzel, you shouldn't do that or you shouldn't do this. You didn't do that. In the end, it's your decision, right? And you get to live with it. Now, one of the things you mentioned in your book, you became a father at 24. Well, that's that's not so, young, but it is a seminal moment for you.

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You said it was a transformation. How did holding your newborn son literally change your trajectory of your entire life? Because I think I was a father at 24 to to be honest with you, I was either 24 or 26. You know, let me let me comment on Yoda first, because Yoda is one of my leadership sort of icons.

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And there's two comments that Yoda makes that that really impact me and make me think, you know, reflect it. Kind of been in the book in my philosophy. One is be mindful. And that can be left up to interpretation, but my interpretation is not enough. People take the time to think, to just sit back and think about their future and about making wise decisions and what the impact those decisions are.

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And that, to me, is what being mindful is. We rush through life without taking the time to sit back. What do you want to call it? You know, whether it's, taking the time to reflect or whether there's taking the time to meditate, to me, it's simply thinking. Thinking about the future, about the decisions I'm making and where I really want to be in how that's going to make me feel.

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So be mindful and then do or do not. There is no try, right? There is no such thing as try, right? So if you want to do something, you do it. It may not work. You get knocked down, you get up, you do it again, or you make an adjustment. You learn from that and you just keep going forward.

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So be mindful and do or do not. And then for me, it wasn't holding my son. It was the moment I realized that it was a reality that my girlfriend was having a baby. That's the moment I remember. And I literally because I, I'd had plans for what I wanted to do. And, and so when, when she communicated, hey, this is real.

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And that reality hit me, it was I literally remember what she told me on the phone, and I just fell back on my bed at my parents house. I was home visiting. And literally I sat there, laid there and thought about, okay, it's time to grow up. I'm only focused on like a late age, but, you know, a lot of a lot of, you know, even today, a lot of kids are and they're not having children.

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32, 3335 so 24 was for me. I was not anticipating it. But right then I made a decision. Life's got to change. And everything I'd been planning to do, that was more related to, let's say self, aggrandizement all went away and immediately became, here's what I have to do for my family going forward. That's what happened to me in that moment.

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And it was another, again, seminal moment, like walking away from football. That moment was probably one of the biggest ones that changed my view and really made me focus on what being mindful with Destiny I want to have. And back to Yoda. There is no such thing as trial. I'm not going to try to be a good father.

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I'm not going to try to be a good. I'm going to do it. And that's what happened to me in that moment. Well, they say, you know, God has plans for us. We're thinking about other plans, right? So the point is, is it your wife gets or your girlfriend gets pregnant and you now have this son that had something to do with it, and just a lot of it, I it was it just you got me.

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I had a lot to do with it. I know it wasn't Immaculate conception. We'll say that for certain. So look, you you make a point of this in the book. You grew up in Key West. You you had incredible women in your life as family members and leaders. Your great grandmother, you said, was 106 and she was still babysitting you 106.

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It's like, wow, we should all live so long. And obviously to still be babysitting you at 106. What's the most important, powerful lesson that these strong women taught you that you carry today that actually helped you make your destiny happen? Yeah, and Imma tell a quick story about my great grandmother. So she actually was babysitting me in her 80s.

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She died at 107, so she lived to be a over 100 years old. So just a great, great strong person. But just to give you perspective how strong she was as a presence, I mean, she was probably 5152, you know, and maybe at 140 pounds. I mean, to put it in perspective, by the time I was 14, I was already 65 and 240 pounds.

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I was big, big, big kid. And but she demanded respect. And so she was, a person that would look up at me and make her points. And I understood if I didn't listen, there would be consequences. And I didn't want those consequences. So I listened to my great grandmother when she said something. It was it was like, yeah, fun for the young people.

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Don't remember it when you have her and talks, you listen, but the lessons I learned from an articulate in this book, in there, a couple there really were clear for me. And that was, the first one is, you know, nobody was better than me. So my great grandmother, my grandmother would always tell me, nobody's better than you, but you're not being anybody else either.

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The difference is going to be a hard you're going to work because they had to work hard. Neither of my grandmother, my great grandmother, got to even get to high school. They had to quit school to work. They didn't have the opportunities that I had. And so they instilled in me, you have the opportunity to do something great, but it only going to happen if you work hard.

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So take their work ethic. Couple that with education and nothing can stop me. But then the other lesson he taught me was wherever you go, no matter how high you get or what you accomplish, remember your position in society is what you earned by how you treat others. It's not based on you being a vice president or you being the mayor, or you're being in some big job.

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You could be like my grandmother, who was a maid and be highly respected in the community because of your deeds. So it was work hard. Don't think you're being anybody else, but make sure that you carry yourself with confidence and achieve based on your hard work, but bring others with you. Do everything you can to help others and that's one of the reason why I wrote this book.

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I see that there's so many people that, like you said, you'll start. They'll help held back, feel defeated, feel small. I want everyone to know you can achieve your destiny. You can create your agency. It's there for you. I want to help people do that well in your destiny. Development Delta model. You talk about the cycle of no destiny control.

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Yes. And you describe people as either flywheel hamsters. You said floating dandelions or head in the sand ostriches. Right. So which one were you before your transformation, and which one do most people listening right now, you know, that want to probably become right? Yeah, yeah. I was and just a quick summary. The the the hamster in the flywheel are people who, really, they believe they have a plan to move forward, but they don't really believe in it.

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They haven't authentically done the work to know what I want to do. Right. So they have a kind of a plan, but it's not an authentic plan because they don't really believe in it. They don't have hope. And then the folks who are kind of the dandelions, they just wait for someone to tell them what to do, and they do that.

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And then if that doesn't work with someone else to tell them where they read an article, oh, I should do this, that. So they're always kind of taking the path that the of chance where they leave everything in chance. And then the folks who kind of have their their head in the sand, you know, they're just so afraid that no matter what they do is can fail.

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So they don't really want to do anything. They just want to hopefully stay safe and not try anything. And and by doing that, they don't go anywhere. Where I was, I was the person who, again, I thought I had a plan, but it was it was not there any place I mentioned I want to play in the NFL?

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I want to do this. I want to do that. Those were not my authentic plans. I did not do the authentic work of getting to know myself, and really being mindful of what my future needed to be. So I was working, doing a lot of stuff, doing a lot of hard work, but it wasn't leading to any specific direction.

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So I had to break out of that cycle. In those seminal moments, I thought about leaving football birth of my son. But then there was a point where I said to myself, well, when my wife and I were getting married, I've gotta I gotta actually lay things out for myself. And I laid out a life plan up until I was 65.

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I was 26 at the time, 25 at the time. Late on a 40 year plan. And and in that plan, I had to ask myself, what do I really want to do? And I forced myself to write down milestones all the way up to 65, stating this is where I want it to be. This is what I wanted to do.

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That forced me into the reality of of being mindful about my future. And at that point, I had an authentic plan that I could really believe in, and that's what broke me out of that cycle. Most people that I've spent, I've had one on one meetings with over 10,000 people. I spent over 100,000 hours talking to people. So I have a lot of experience in kind of where most people stand.

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And I'd say most people fall into one of these three categories. Yeah, I'd say, and one, though, is the most common. One is the dandy line. It's because a lot of people don't really have the the confidence or the knowledge at the time or really feel like they, they know enough to make a decision. It is scary sometimes, especially for young people to think 20 years ahead, 30 years and 40 years ahead.

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And so they tend to let me well, I just do what my dad did. I'll just do what my mom. Well, I think well, fine. I you as a performance coach, you know, and somebody starting people the, the floating dandelions are inertia, right. It literally, you know, to make this destiny happening. It isn't just work. It's you've got to prepare all aspects of your human soul.

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Have your mind, your body, your spirit, everything. Right. And they have to work in unison for you to be cognizant. And you use this concept of a caterpillar. Caterpillar versus a, chameleon. Yes. And explain this to someone who's tired of just changing colors. Yeah, it's really scared to death. And the crystal is phrase because, look, you work in big companies.

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You've gone through change management programs. We know 85% of change management programs fail. Yes. So do 85% of personal growth plans. That means only 15%. Yes. Yeah. That's right. There are formulas that you can use and mindsets you can use and things you can apply. After doing a podcast on personal growth for 18 years now, I've heard them all.

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And the reality is it is, as you know, Danzo, about application of all of these elements. So tell our listeners who are scared right now to go through that phase. How can they eliminate that fear? Yeah, it starts with, inspiring yourself. You know, one of the reasons why we changes and even people call them transform without truly transformation transformations fail is there's not alignment on what the true objective is and how important it is to the people.

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So as an individual, if you truly want to transform you and it gets back to this idea of be mindful of what your future holds and what you want it to hold. If you can't motivate yourself and inspire yourself when where I want to be in the future, what are the goals I want to accomplish? You have to think through that.

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Spend the time and and make sure you identify it. And I'm in the book. I have a process to to help you do that. But by doing that, you then have something to shoot for and strive for. If it just because someone told you to change, someone told you to transform, what, because you think, this person's doing it, I should it can't come.

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It's got to be your own personal agency. That's going to drive you to make that transformation. Because it is hard. It is hard to do. The difference between change and transformation is change is just making some behavioral adjustments. But with the things, you know, kind of get tough, you go right back to the old behavior. A transformation is completely changing the way you are in the way to do that.

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Again, I want this other thing. I want to be here in the future. I want to have this. I want to have this kind of life. I want to have my well-being be strong. And this is how it looks. And to get there, I've got to make a drastic transformation that motivates you to keep going, because there going to be days where you're not going to want to do it.

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There's going to be days you're not going to want to, make the day, continue to make adjustments, continue to envelop yourself. You need that motivation to keep you moving forward. So it starts with identifying what you truly want and making sure that you've talked to yourself and made the agreement with yourself. I'm going to strive to make that happen.

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Then you make the plan, and then you actively follow that plan. What did you, Denzel, do? I've done interviews numerous with Marshall Goldsmith, who, yeah, talks about this. We we achieve achieve achieve achieve. And it's good to achieve. But along the way happiness eludes a lot of those people. Yes, contentment eludes a lot of those people because they are strivers or Cheever.

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They get all the things that money will buy, right? But in the end, they don't get the happiness. They've been through a couple divorces, they've lost certain things. Family members, they, they've alienated relationships. I mean, I know people's, actually speak about Steve Jobs a lot when this comes up, right? They say he was a tough guy and he was hard to get along with, and he was unhappy.

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And he, you know, whatever else you want to say, the point is, we need to have this attitude and mindset and physical ability to achieve. But we also need to learn how to understand how to live in unison with the other things, like it doesn't always turn out the way we expect it. We have these grand expectations. But the reality is, as I said, sometimes God has a different plan.

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You have to be okay with that. So how did you kind of deal with that as you 24 gave up football? You know, you have all these strong leaders around you. How did you manage to do it and get to the point you are in your life today and still keep this balance with happiness and contentment? Yeah. So I again, I developed the life plan and in that life plan, it was all specific to what did I want to achieve in life and what would make me happy.

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And I sat down with my wife and we talked about, hey, here's what I want to do. What do you want to do? And how does that fit? And let's see if we can come together on a plan where both of us are going to be achieving the things we want and the happiness and balance that we want in life.

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And so once we did that, I just started activating my plans. I made decisions, you know, when it was time for advancement opportunity, I made it very clear, hey, I'll take this opportunity. But here's what comes with it. I'm going to need time for my family. I want to coach my son. I want to be there for my daughter.

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I want to do this. I want to do you know, I'm not going to live in certain places. That's going to put my family at risk or caused me to have to be away for two minutes. So I put those parameters in. You set boundaries? Yeah, I set boundaries, right. You set boundaries with the people that wanted you to do the position.

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That's right. That's important. It's important to speak your truth. Yes, but the most important thing is deciding what is achievement for me. And that's where people get kind of screwed up. And that's why the dandelion tends to be the most common, because people tend to associate success of others with success for them, and that necessarily isn't the case.

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You have to decide what level of achievement you want, what do you want to do, and what's the balance for happiness for you? So in my podcast, you mentioned I talk about my dad. Me and my dad were very different, but the one thing I talk about that's very specific to him is he was extremely happy and content with his life.

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He was not a guy that looked to strive for the ultimate achievement. That was not his intent. To him, happiness was he having the balance he wanted his life and his own well-being. And if you didn't agree with that that's on you. You didn't care. As long as he was happy, what was important to him. And so to me, that's I took that lesson, said, you know what?

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It's not about what someone else's definition of achievement is. It's what mine is and how that fits in with my own personal well-being and my own balance in my life. Everyone has to find that for themselves and what I believe. One of the reasons why 85% of these self-help programs don't work for most people is because they're taking the success definition of what someone else's success and trying to apply it to them again, instead of identifying what truly is success for them, you know, listen.

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Listen to the voice inside, you know, look, you you get pretty practical in this book and you spend, as you say, 147 minutes a day, and that most people spend on social media, scrolling it, going through it. Right. And instead you dedicate it to personal development. Okay. So 147 minutes, 60 and 60 is 120. It's about 2.5 hours, right?

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Yeah. So what does your daily development delta routine actually look like. So again for my listeners this is Denzel's one. What he's saying is take the pieces that apply to you. You put them into your life. But here's one that he's going to tell you or inform you of that could help you. Yes. What is it? What does it look like?

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Yeah, I mean, it it's, it's reading is the first thing that I tend to do, so I try not to, spend a lot of time on social media marketing a book right now. And so you're going to see that there's some things I'm putting out there, but I do not spend a lot of time scrolling social media.

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I spend time reading to learn. So I'll spend 30 minutes just kind of perusing the news of the day. I'll spend another 30 minutes learning about technology. So there's news headlines, but then there's technology. So one of the things I want to learn about, I want to learn more about cryptocurrency because I don't know a lot about it.

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So every morning I've spent about 30 minutes learning about just reading about cryptocurrency, understanding how it works, that type of thing. So I spend another 30 minutes trying to pick up new information that I haven't had before. So an example of that might be, in the New place that we, we live, we have a lot of trees in our.

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You're a lot more grown up in Key West. We a lot of palm trees. We have a lot of tropical fruit trees, but not a lot of, what I call, you know, big Park Oaks, things like that. Nothing like that. So I spent time out here, and this is some me my wife can do together, because she has a lot of passion about this.

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Asking about and learning about the trees, looking up the trees, trying to understand what's specific about them, that type of thing. I spent time learning about history. Why do I do that? Because I think it's important to learn from our past to apply to our future. So I'll learn about things like, well, now I'm now I understand that it's no longer.

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When I was growing up, you know, there was a linear sort of evolution of the human species. Now there's a multiple human species that have been identified. Why is that important? It's important to learn and expand our thought process. So I tend to try to figure out as many things as I can. And then what I try to do is also pick up knowledge and information to make myself physically better.

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I'm getting older, so I'm always trying to figure out, okay, how can I what were some new developments that were happening? On on joint health, that type of thing. Then I'll spend another ten, 15, 20 minutes sometimes brushing up on languages, going in, and I can speak a little bit Spanish, I can speak a little Portuguese.

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So I'll go and spend time relooking up code. Little Mandarin two, don't you? Didn't you have a funny thing? I can say a few words. I can pronounce things well in Mandarin. The vocabulary in the script is very, very difficult. So that just gives you a taste of kind of what I try to do across, across a day.

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And that doesn't include if I meet someone interesting like a great Boysen or someone like that, I'm going to pick up the phone maybe, or hey, Greg, tell me a little bit about this, this and this to learn more about you. So are you are you journaling Denzel? Are you are you doing a gratitude thing? Are you doing yoga every day?

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Do you meditate? What other things do you put in that 147 minutes? Sounds like you spend a lot of it learning. Yeah, I do it okay. I walk a lot. So, you know, to me, walking is part of meditation. So when I'm, you know, walk about an hour in 20 minutes, hour and a half a day, kind of speed walking.

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But while I'm walking, I'm thinking it's a, you know, there's a lot of research around, you know, kind of human evolution. Evolution and and running and walking back when we were had to be hunter gatherers, everyone. You had to process information and think and learn and make judgments on the run. So walking actually spurs our creativity in our thinking.

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So I bring this idea is come just walking. Do you look for do you look for signs and symbols along the way? You know, I tend to look more for again, I'm thinking so I'm also always thinking about ideas, but I tend to be looking more around, you know, appreciating nature when I'm walking. Okay. That's good. Yeah, I, I just feel like it's one of those things where don't let the don't don't, let the grass grow and you take your time and see it, you know what I mean?

00;30;21;01 - 00;30;44;10

And so I just wanted to give you. I just wanted to give you a little tip, because I've had so many people on this show. And from a spiritual aspect, if you're walking an hour and a half a day, you're saying stop signs and road signs and this and that and other signs and for sale signs and you're seeing signs, you're seeing birds, you're seeing butterflies, you're seeing things.

00;30;44;12 - 00;31;07;06

If you stop for a minute and you reflect on what you've seen, the reality is the universe is sending you a message. Yeah. And I believe in this truly, because you can look at something and you go, well, why did I see that? What was it? So you saw a stop sign. Maybe something was going on that you needed help make a decision.

00;31;07;06 - 00;31;35;24

Can I make the correlation between that sign that really triggered me? Whatever it might be. So, look, you talk about inspiring people to rise to their own bar rather than motivating them. What's the difference? And how did you turn around that struggling manufacturing plant when you were working there with this approach? Because inspiring people to rise to their own bar is different, as you say.

00;31;35;27 - 00;32;06;26

Then motivating them. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, The, the the the key is helping people. Number one see that there is a possibility greater than maybe what they thought before and then giving them a reason to strive for that without telling them either one. And so that's, that's where people right. When you, when you, when you put it.

00;32;06;29 - 00;32;23;27

So it's kind of motivation away. But you're not actively motivating. Sometimes people think active motivation is what they saw in the movies, where they have a coach that gets up in front of the team and gives them a big motivational talk. We got to go win the game, that type of thing. You know, Newt Rockne and you all this kind of thing.

00;32;23;29 - 00;32;45;18

And that works for a short period of time when you have people that have been working at the same job for 30 years, 40 years, they've heard the talks, they've had the pep talk, that's not going to work. Right. So there's got to be something else. And so what I did, at the plant was not intended to go out and tell people to do something different.

00;32;45;20 - 00;33;10;00

It was simply caring for people, listening to people, treating people as if they cared or did. They were individuals, not numbers. Even though there were 400 people in the area not treating them as one monolithic group going out. You know, each one of them understanding who their family was, what was important to them, just taking the time to do that.

00;33;10;02 - 00;33;37;16

I didn't talk about it. We got to get better. We got to turn this thing around. I was 26 years old. I was really just trying to get to know people and show them that I cared, and trying to find ways to make their jobs easier and better. But because I did that, they then saw with different eyes where we were and they thought that, wow, we should be much better.

00;33;37;19 - 00;34;08;03

And we like this guy. We'd like him to stay around, and it's on us to step up our performance, to prove to everyone that we can do better. If we have leaders, they care about us. That's why they rose the bar. It was because the way I treated them that inspired them to do something different, to identify that, hey, we can outperform and we're going to outperform because we want to show this is the way we should be treated.

00;34;08;06 - 00;34;31;06

That's what caused everyone to raise their own bar. And so sometimes it's not about the speech you get. It's do you really care about people? Do you really want those people to succeed and why? And but one of one of the old to through for them one of the old statements, Denzel is eat of people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care, right?

00;34;31;12 - 00;34;58;26

Absolutely. Sometimes I heard that if I had a dollar for every time I've said this on a podcast, I'd be a rich man. The reality is, is that it's it is so important. They don't want to know that you know, everything. They want to know that you care about them. And when you whether it's in sales or whatever it might be or you're running a plant that's the most important thing now is authentic care.

00;34;58;26 - 00;35;29;01

It's all people have to feel it in. What I've what I've seen over the course of my career is if you are truly authentic and if you are truly assured in yourself and you really do care about people, people can feel it whether you speak their language or not. I learned to speak from Spanish and Portuguese. I can say a few words in Mandarin, but for the most part, many of the times I was in these these countries and working with these folks that were on my team, I couldn't speak the language, but they could feel that I cared about them.

00;35;29;02 - 00;35;51;21

Authentic, right? If you were authentic with the way that you really care about people, it will translate across languages. Well, it's so important and you've kept, poem in front of your computer for 30 years. It's called person in the glass. Model. You keep this poem by your computer for 30 years. It's got to have significant meaning for you.

00;35;51;23 - 00;36;20;23

So if you would read us your favorite line and tell us about a time it stopped you from making your decision that you might have regret it. Yeah it is. It's the last line that basically says something about you can't fool the person in the glass. You can fool everyone else as you go and as you walk. Throughout the, you know, your awkward course of your past, you can, you know, create a false narrative.

00;36;20;28 - 00;36;40;18

But when you look at the person in the glass, you can't fool that person. The person the glass knows the truth. And that ultimately is what it comes down to. Can I look at myself in the mirror every day and feel good? You mentioned earlier it's not about achievement. Sometimes it's about how do you feel? How do you make people around you feel?

00;36;40;21 - 00;37;00;02

I can't speak to Steve Jobs or any of these other people. All I can speak about is me. And when I look into the glass, I want to be able to have it reflect back the character of me that I am still who I was at 25 years old, at 30 years old at 35. I'm the same guy in terms of my character now.

00;37;00;02 - 00;37;21;10

I've learned a lot more. So there's no question different than what my character is the same. And if people who have known me over the course of the years, they would say that I'm that same guy, the same guy that cares about people, that tells the truth, that makes decisions to help people, that will stand up for those who can't stand up for themselves.

00;37;21;15 - 00;37;36;21

So to me, that is the true test of that poem. And that's what the guy's name was. Still, the gave me that poem when I was promoted for the first time, and the people in the plant fought for me to get that promotion, he gave that to me. He said, we did that because of you, because of who you are.

00;37;36;23 - 00;37;55;22

This poem, read it, keep it anywhere you came near you so you never change. And that's that's what I think about when I, when I think about that poem and look at the mirror every day and I still feel great. I know the decisions that I've made that have been all about character, not about achievement. I could have more money.

00;37;55;24 - 00;38;18;11

I could have achieved more. I made decisions not to for my character and for people. Well, look, one of the things you did and you mentioned it in the book is and I'm actually disappointed you didn't make Congress because you would have been a great congressman. And actually, we might have been able to get something done with somebody like you in Congress.

00;38;18;13 - 00;38;43;29

But you ran and you came with 116 votes of winning. Yes. Any political aspirations left? Do you focus on transforming lives one person at a time? Now I am really focused on transforming lives one person at a time. Two man, I thought we'd get you back in the Congress train. You know, I thought about it long and hard, but, I really feel like I can make a bigger impact.

00;38;44;01 - 00;39;06;17

Working outside of that formal system. It's a very difficult, system to work within. Yeah. And we have a lot of a lot more freedom to work outside of that system and work directly with people across the aisle. So many of the stories that I have in the book talk about, you know, people who we may have been completely different, you know, different ends of the spectrum, have had different character beliefs.

00;39;06;19 - 00;39;25;00

But just because they were able to work with me and get to know me and see how I operate, it changed their entire view. And I feel like I can have that kind of impact. As I talk to people, as people read the book, as I interact with them, I can. And I've had this happen in the course of my history.

00;39;25;02 - 00;39;53;26

I can help people to see a different reality, not only for themselves, but for society, and help them make their lives better. And that's really what I want to do, and that's what I'm focused on helping individuals transform their lives to achieve their agency and achieve their destiny. Well, you're doing a great job of it. And I think for somebody listening right now and thinking, this sounds great, but I'm 35, 45, 55 and I feel stuck.

00;39;53;28 - 00;40;21;12

What's the first thing that you do today to start this transformation process? In other words, they're saying, hey, am I maybe I'm too old? We want some actionable advice, from your book. And what would you tell them to help them make their destiny happen in? Because they're feel like, hey, I'm too old to do this now or it's not the right time.

00;40;21;18 - 00;40;44;26

There's never a wrong time. I know you're going to say that, but, What what would you advise people today to do? Yeah, it's, it's a great question. And I would say, I mean, the book's not out yet, but August 26th. Get the book, read the book, because I think there's a lot that, there's no simple one answer in terms of do this one thing.

00;40;44;29 - 00;41;04;24

The book lays out several steps with that you can follow that you should follow. But if there's one thing that you should do that everyone should do, and like I said, I've spent 100,000 hours, with 10,000 different individuals. And I can tell you, most of them don't do this over 90% of people just don't do this. And that is take the time to be mindful.

00;41;04;24 - 00;41;26;04

Going back to Yoda to think about what do you truly want authentically? What do you want for your life? What would make you the most happy? What would make you the most content? And define it. Write it down. And it doesn't have to be a perfect sentence. Just write down the things that come to your mind. That's the first step you have to take.

00;41;26;06 - 00;41;45;21

And it doesn't matter how old you are, what your age is, how young you are, what does it? None of that matters. All the message. If you take the time to really get in touch with yourself, be authentic. And here's what's important to me. Then you can start the process of figuring out what steps do I have to take to make that happen?

00;41;45;21 - 00;42;06;25

What changes do I have to make for me to transform to make this happen? But it all starts with you have to define what's important to you. As Greg said before, it's not about achievement. It's what about what are what are the achievements that you want? What makes you happy? Don't try to be the next Jeff Bezos. Don't try to be the next whoever.

00;42;06;28 - 00;42;31;21

Insert a name, be yourself. What if, what if, be yourself and get to know who you are. Sometimes we fool ourselves who we think we are. You've got to sit down and really answer the tough questions who really am I? And what really do I want? What's important to me, those are important questions. There's tough. I don't get me wrong, it's hard to do, but you have to do it.

00;42;31;23 - 00;42;47;16

That's what the first that's the first step. If you want to transform and you want to take charge of your destiny and make whatever time you have left happen, and remember, none of us know how much time we have left. That's why it gets back. It doesn't matter who you are. People ask me all the time, why are you working so hard, you know?

00;42;47;16 - 00;43;07;29

Hey, made something happen to you tomorrow? Yeah, it can, but I would rather be on track to making my destiny happen. And some happens to me tomorrow. Okay, great. I was on track. I feel good my well-being is strong. What I don't want is to wait ten years because I thought of something and nothing happened. And I'm still in the same place I was ten years ago.

00;43;08;01 - 00;43;38;01

That's what we don't want. So please, if you're listening, you're watching this. Take the time to get to know yourself. Authentically. Identify what you want out of life. Very well said, Denzel. And again, I want to direct the listeners to your website. It's destiny dev Delta to also there we'll see it a bar but the podcast these are little five and six minute episodes filled with actionable insight.

00;43;38;03 - 00;44;09;06

So go click the button. You can also just type in, anywhere on your browser, make your destiny happen, a podcast, and you'll be able to get there as well. So absolutely. And Greg, I'll just interrupt you again for those who are watching, here's the book again. The titles make your destiny happen. And for those who are listening, you can also get to my website by going make my Destiny happen, dot com that will also take you to the web, make your destiny happen.com that will take you to the website as well.

00;44;09;12 - 00;44;30;21

So if you type in make your destiny happen, you type in my name, you type in Destiny dev Delta. You're going to find some information. It'll come up well. You're truly helping people by giving them the opportunity, as you said, to be mindful, reflect, look at what it is that they need to do and who they need to become.

00;44;30;24 - 00;44;56;03

How do they need to transform their character as an individual? I've always said this if somebody took a camera for 24 hours, a video and followed you around, how much of it as it's played back to you, would you like? Yes. Okay. And if you see things you don't like, those are the actions that you're taking that you want to modify, okay.

00;44;56;05 - 00;45;15;18

And it's very easy when you observe what you do every day to change what you do. But you have to actually be aware of what it is you're doing. The camera makes you aware. And I'm saying most people, they're not going to have someone run around with a camera and do a reality TV show them, but it really shows who your character is.

00;45;15;21 - 00;45;38;29

You are wonderful, individual and person, and I want to thank you for being on the show, taking this time to expose our listeners to your new book, hold It Up again. Make Your Destiny happen. It's coming out, as he said, the 26th. We'll put a link in the show notes below when you're watching this to, not only his website, but to Amazon and to his LinkedIn.

00;45;39;07 - 00;46;01;04

So feel free to reach out to him. There's a contact Us button there. You can book speaking with him. He can come into your company and work with your employees. There's many areas that, Denzel can work in. So thanks so much for being on the show. Now instead of you. Thanks for this time to spend some time with my listeners.

00;46;01;07 - 00;46;24;21

Thank you so much, Greg. It was an honor and a pleasure. Thank you so much for all the deep research you did. It really makes a pleasure in your introduction. Man was perfect. Right on point. You know, it's like, wow, that's that's pretty awesome. To hear, I thank you for all your positive comments and all your support and for the listeners, thank you for your time and your ears.

00;46;24;23 - 00;46;30;01

Much appreciate it. Thank you. You have a good rest of your day.