Kevin Cullen Interview

Greg Voisen
Welcome back to Inside Personal Growth. This is Greg Voisen, the host of Inside Personal Growth. And Kevin, for all my listeners and for you as well. I've been doing this almost 15 years with 900 podcasts, I think you are actually 900 To be honest with you. And we have Kevin Cullen on with us this morning. And Kevin's going to be speaking about his new book called Swerve: Life Altering Wisdom from Saints, Masters, and People Like You and Me It's filled with great stories, anybody who's out there, we're going to have a link to Amazon, go pick this book up, if you actually want to get some great stories and ways you can alter your life and we're going to be talking to Kevin about that. But Kevin, I'm going to let the listeners know a little bit about you so that they know who you are. He's the president of Leadera Consulting Group. Kevin's expertise and commitment to the development of leadership skills within organizations is allowed business leaders to define and seize growth opportunities rapidly improve performance, build the culture and attain some specific, measurable business results within their organizations. He has over 30 years of experience providing business consulting, training and development to individuals and fortune 500 companies. He's trained and work with leaders at all levels of organization to design deliver and implement change initiatives to produce exceptional business results. Prior to this, Kevin delivered transformational courses and seminars over for over 15 years in the public sector for more than quarter of a million people. Kevin, it's great. What is the website you would direct people to go to learn more about you? It's www lead era, Lea de R A, C G for consulting group.com. So they're a cg.com? Well, it's great having you on and it's always an opportunity to learn from authors from their experiences, which I have learned a lot. So tell the listeners a little bit about yourself and why you chose to write swerve. This is your first book, you and I had a pre interview and you haven't written other books, and what you hope the listeners can take away from this book and literally implement in their life. Okay, I'll start by answering the first question a little bit about myself.

Kevin Cullen
I am born to two I'm an Irish immigrant. So I'm a first generation American. I grew up in Los Angeles in the 60s and 70s when Los Angeles was a really great place to live. I mean, it was it was it was miraculous. I have a you know, to a tee. I was two brothers and a sister. sisters name shirvan brother's name, Niall and Dermot. And so we all have Irish names. Okay, so we got we, our parents came over here, both of which became US citizens. I was raised in the Catholic faith that was you know, I was Catholic, 12 years of Catholic school nuns and Christian brothers. But I did grow up in LA and in LA in the 70s. It was quite an interesting place. So there was all the things that were happening in the 70s. But there was a lot to do is you know, so I grew up playing baseball, and the weather was always great. I served. I went to lots of concerts, I probably fanatical about live music, I just love live music, I got a lot. And to this day, I still do. When I you know, when a time came to go to college, I decided that my life was really about, you know, serving or making a difference. And so I wanted to go into politics. And my major was I chose political science as a major. And I was, you know, you're looking at the former future President of the United States or something like that. And so around that time, I got into an English class in college, and I had this very interesting professor. And it was very entertaining because he spoke differently than anybody I've ever met. So he would, he would talk and then he would say something like, and that's okay. Unless it's not, which is okay, too. And he would say he's just he just said this strange way of phrasing things and contextualizing things. So at the end of the one of the classes, I went up to him and I said, Can I ask you a question? Where did you learn to talk like that? I don't know anybody that talks like you He said to me got this very serious look. And he said, I attended a course, that took four days. And I learned more in that four days than I've learned in the course of my life. And I have two master's degrees, all my formal education. And he said that he said it. So matter of factly. And I said, I looked at him, you know, little flippantly, and I said, Well, what, what am I doing here? Where do I go? So he told me about this, this seminar that I went down and I took an introductory seminar, I went down, it was a Friday night, I was going to a party. I just wanted to go in sign up for whatever the hell he was talking about. And

Greg Voisen
at the time, was that asked, yeah, it was it was called asked, yeah, now it's a life's not Lifespring

Kevin Cullen
landmark forum, landmark forum. So that was a very significant moment in my life. Because when I went and did this, the actual senator, oh, by the way, in those days, it was, there was a six month wait to get into it. There'd been a lot of articles and Time Magazine, and Life magazine, all these magazines, all these movie stars were doing. So it was a six month wait, and I wasn't waiting. So I called him up. And I said, Look, you know, at the time I was working in the travel businesses, you got to have no shows. So how about if I just show up and stand by that made them laugh, because they didn't have any, you know, concept of that. So I just showed up on the SAT next Saturday at the thing. And I was 19 at the time, and there was nobody even close to my age doing this thing. It was all older people, you know, older was 30 at the time. But anyway, she just she just kind of took a liking to me and liked my persistence. And she said, Okay, you really want to do this thing. Hmm. And I said, yeah. So in in I went, and I sat there and probably was I got there early enough. I was in the first row. And I was sitting there. And I started talking to the gentleman next to me. And I said, Hi, what are you doing? And you know, what brings you here? And what do you think, what do you think of this thing? And we all had named tags, and I looked at his name tag, and his name tag said John Dean. I was sitting next to John Dean from Watergate. So I mean, how, how serendipitous that, so I, he says, Well, what are you doing here? I said, well, a lot of the reason I'm here is because of you. And he said, How so? And I said, Well, I really thought that my life's calling was going to be politics. But after what I've seen from you, you folks, you know, if that's what's happening at the top of the chain, you can only imagine what it takes to get there. And I don't think I want to be in politics. I don't think I want to be anywhere near politics. And he looked at me and he smiled. And he said, I think that's a really wise decision. It's not a very good business to get into, particularly now. And I looked at him, I said, Well, you've made up my mind. So I didn't, because so I you know, this thing that hadn't even started yet. And

Greg Voisen
that's a great starting for this book, you know, and I want to, I want to get into it. Because, you know, you have lots of stories to tell this book is filled with stories. So one of my listeners to know that Kevin has put in lots of stories, that opening story was great. And you stayed if we're interested in achieving almost unimaginable results, which is, you know, you look at us, that's where asked at the time and landmark forum tapes, people because they change their perception of reality. You are somebody who has embraced that through your trips to India through helping all kinds of people for working with Mother Teresa, understanding these elements. And my listeners know that, you know, all my listeners are pretty much in the same lane, that we must understand that breakthroughs require disruptions, right. So how do you help people get comfortable with the uncomfortable and unfamiliar so they can change things in their life? Because if you can't get comfortable with the uncomfortable, you're not going to most likely change much in your life.

Kevin Cullen
Yeah, fair enough. Well, it's not as hard as it sounds. And I don't mean it's easy because it isn't. But everybody wants things to be better. That's just our nature. So, you know, Maslow laid it out pretty clearly that if you attain a certain level in life, the next level appears and it's available and attainable, if you go after it and if you achieve certain things. So I noticed that for myself, that Whenever I ever something really great happens, it's not that I'm not satisfied, it's just that I see that there's something more possible. So if you can kind of get one foot in, you got to first be satisfied with what you got. And at the same time, you have to be kind of what John Brown of BP used to say is never be satisfied. I mean, don't be happy, just never be complacent, never, never rest on your laurels. So and I think we, I think part of our nature is to do that. So everybody can see that there's something possible for them in their life and the quality of their life in the way they live their life and the way they express their life that is attainable. But to your point, you know, you have to disrupt it, or you have to disrupt habits that have, you know, kind of got you set in your ways, and made you comfortable. So I don't know that anybody's ever comfortable with uncomfortable because, you know, it's like going to the gym, I just don't like doing it. That

Greg Voisen
wasn't one of the Buddhist precepts. You know, I think, look, you said disruption, and then you said, we always have to get better. So let's take those two things. And then in that process, there's a dissonance between better and where I am now. Yeah. And, and one of the Buddhist precepts is non attachment. Sure. So if you're attached to the outcome, that creates the dissonance. But if you're not so attached to the outcome, you can stay in the moment and achieve what you need to achieve.

Kevin Cullen
Yeah, I love that. I love the way you focus on that. Because in the Buddhist thing, it's like, okay, first life is not perfect, and it never will be right to trying to make it perfect, or trying to attain perfection is a source of suffering. So the first thing you got to get is life the way it is. And you got to get, you got to own that. But that doesn't mean accept and rollover. It's like you have to have one foot in this kind of Poland complete world. And then the other foot in, that there's something more possible for yourself, for humans, for your family, for the people around you. Yeah,

Greg Voisen
I think though, adding to that, and I will pardon for interrupting, but there's suffering and then there's the end of suffering. Yeah, right. And the end of suffering. tell listeners how you believe we get out of suffering?

Kevin Cullen
Well, I think it's back to what you were pointing at, which is a profound acceptance of what so

Greg Voisen
the way it is, but that's what this professor was talking to you about? Yeah, sure. When you win and as the first time, because you didn't understand what he was talking about. What he was saying is really not contrary, but the mind has a really hard time sticking it. It's like, okay, I hear what he's saying. But then I don't really get what he's saying, you know, and you know, you had this great opportunity to meet His Holiness the Dalai Lama, I actually went to an event in Arizona, I didn't get to meet him, but I was there for the full event. And you stated in this in the book that this is one of your greatest gifts. What impact did he have on you? And what do you did you learn from him about Buddhism?

Kevin Cullen
Well, let me just describe a little bit about what got me there and then and then it was like what it was like to be with him because what it was like to be with him is what I took away from them. So the internet Yeah, well, yeah. And kind of what surrounds the energy to Yeah, so I was invited to come I got a letter saying you are scheduled to have an appointment with His Holiness the Dalai Lama on April 24. Way back when and two o'clock did it arrived on Christmas Eve wood happens to be my birthday so I opened I couldn't believe it you know, and my mother and father were staying at for Christmas is my mother said are you going to go I said Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? Of course I'm going to go

Greg Voisen
well, that's all but maybe they didn't want to go

Kevin Cullen
she asked me she says you know he's not Catholic. Right. Let's work the words out about that. Yeah. So I you know, I started planning on going And so when we got to it, he lives up in a very small community called Dharamsala in the kind of the base of the Himalayas in India. Yeah, where they were, they escaped in the 50s. Because the Chinese were threatening to torture and remove their culture. So the Dalai Lama escaped India, and he's been living in India in exile since 1955. So we get to the, his residence, it's fairly large grounds. And ironically, the very first thing they do is they bring you into a room and Indian army people with AK 40, sevens do almost a strip search on yet to go to go meet, you know, the most probably the most peaceful human being on the planet. Yeah, but it's just very ironic. But anyway, uh, you know, you got to do what you got to do. And I appreciate what that they're taking care of his security. So in we go, the Dalai Lama Himself, His Holiness had not, had been in silent medication for six weeks. So I hadn't spoken to anybody, really. And we were kind of first. So in he walks, and he, you know, I mean, I'd never met him. So it's kind of like the first he walked in kind of briskly and he says, Welcome to our temporary home in Dharamsala, India, since 1955, and he let out this big laugh. Yeah. And it was like, so the first thing, the first thing you get is like this guy. He's actually very funny. He's got a great sense of humor. He's very funny. Yeah. And, and so he, so one of the things I took away to answer your question is, you know, the word Enlightenment means, you know, to lighten up, and he certainly has lightened up. There's not anything that we discussed. While he would take it seriously. He wouldn't get significant if you know what I mean. He, he

Greg Voisen
always he always has a tendency to laugh at the end. Exactly on a statement, because he wants to bring frivolity. Yeah. To the conversation.

Kevin Cullen
Yeah, well, that lightness adds to a certain deafness or a certain ability to navigate through life that you don't have when you're kind of stiff and tied to something and or attached, as you said earlier. So, you know, we talked to him, and he, he's very interested, very engaged, and very curious. He asked a lot of questions, who's interested in learning? So the second thing is, first thing I got was the lightening up thing. The second thing is, I was struck by how curious he was genuinely interested, genuinely wanted to know, where we came from, and what we thought and so forth. So that was the second thing. Then the third thing was this really bothered me, my friend Brooks, who was with me, asked him this question. It was like the best question, I was so jealous that I had this question. And it was simple as hell. But he asked the question, he said, Your Holiness, what do you consider to be the greatest gift in life? And there was this moment, and you know, you would think he has that kind of as this stat answer, right. And he said that he stopped. And he said, that's a really good question. And he scratched his head, he thought about it. There's like, one, Mississippi, two, you know? And then he said, Okay, I know the answer. Without a question. The greatest gift in life is compassion. And that was fried at the end of the meeting. So that was kind of what we walked out with, that, you know, kind of, okay, so

Greg Voisen
bear with that. Don't be attached. Be curious. And the greatest gift is to be compassionate. And I would say that's true. You know, I mean, you look at I have a thing hanging over on the other side of this room that has his quotes on it. But really, when you look at it, it's all about compassion. You know, I

Kevin Cullen
share, can I share with you? How that made an impact on me? Because that was part of your question. Sure. So I look, I you know, I, I've spent a lot of time looking inward if you will, but I don't think I really knew what compassion was. So I went out and I literally looked it up in the dictionary. That's like, what is this thing? It's a greatest gift in life. Because I didn't you know, that's certainly not what I've been focused on. So I spent about a year Greg, trying to be more compassionate trying to Get myself to get in people's world and sometimes, you know, but at some point, buddy, it took me about a year for this thing to get me over the head. The whole time, I would beat myself up for not being more compassionate. I was very tough on myself, I don't know if you know what I'm talking about, but very high standards for myself. So I could give somebody else a break. But I'd never give myself a break. And I realized, took me about a year that if I didn't have compassion for myself, if I didn't have room for me to not be perfect, then I had no business, trying to be compassionate. That's because it wasn't real compassion. So I discovered that one of the things you have to incorporate or embrace is, absolutely, yeah, that's one of the greatest gifts I've ever gotten.

Greg Voisen
You have to love yourself. I mean, yeah, that's the reality. And that's not from an ego standpoint, that's from a standpoint of having true love for yourself. Yeah, who you are and your contribution. You know, my nonprofit is called compassionate communications foundation. Yeah. So what we do is we help the homeless and the compassion by giving to them things they need. And I think you did this as well, with Mother Teresa. You ended up going to India and doing some work for the mission. Right?

Kevin Cullen
Just to show it's just for a short time. I wasn't there very long. But yes,

Greg Voisen
well, it was that you wrote about it in the book. But one of the things that I think people can learn from you, because every one of these chapters has another story. It has another theme. It has an it's great because it's stories from common people and it stories about you, and like the stories you've just told. And I think learning from stories is so valuable. But you mentioned that integrity, and oh, and you're talking about the Dalai Lama, probably most Integritas person around. It's very important. And you did some coaching with a woman by the name of Sarah cook Flatow. And you talked about how hard it was? What did this coaching or the coaching she did with you? Do for you that changed your life? And as a result of this intense coaching, what did you change? And how did you change?

Kevin Cullen
Yeah, well, fundamentally, what I discovered. Now, I probably knew this conceptually, but it's very different to discover it really, I discovered that I'm responsible for my life, the circumstances in my life, the quality of my life, how I relate to my life, how I see my life, how I see myself, that's all on me. And I have something to say about all of that. And I don't think I knew that, like, real access to it before I took this did this intense coaching, which, by the way our firm still offers, because it made such a huge difference for me, and our clients. So I shifted from having anything or anyone to blame or to assign cause to, in my life, to beginning to own every bit of it, every bit of it. And that predict that one thing produced an explosion in my life, that impacted the quality of my life, the circumstances in my life, the way I live life, my mood, lots of things. Because when, when, when you're the one causing it, it start you have more power, and I don't mean power, like force, I mean power, like, you're, you're at, you're at peace in a different way. So something shifted for me if I'm going to share a story from Sarah had this thing with me that I had, I agreed to, you know, when I came to the sessions, that I, you know, I wouldn't have caused upsets or I wouldn't be upset or like, you know, so I had to kind of sort my life out before I got this session. And I came to the thing and she said, how you doing? And she said, Are you upset? And I said, Yeah, she said, What are you upset about? I said, those days, voicemail was around. A boss of mine had left me a voicemail and he said that he was disappointed in me. That infuriated me. How I worked my butt off for this guy. How dare he be disappointed? You're disappointed in me? So I went in there I started I started ranting. And Sara asked me she has this, like, butter, you know, she said, Well, you are kind of a disappointment, aren't you? Is what it's like? And I looked at I said, Well, yeah. She said, Who have you disappointed? I said, I've disappointed my parents disappointed. And I started going down the list. It's like, God, I disappoint everybody. And I started laughing uncontrollably. I mean, it was just like, because all of a sudden, it wasn't the voicemail. It wasn't what he said, it was over here. And when I could own that, and would be responsible for that, and get enlightened up about it, it was gone. And it was and it was gone forever. It was just an amazing insight to have. And all she all she did was she said, Well, you're going to have a disappointment, aren't you? So anyway,

Greg Voisen
well, you know, perspective, again, you know, the forum, what you went through, it teaches integrity as a, as a big part of the course. You know, you are your word, you are your word. And I think it's, it's really, it's really important, you know, that, that people keep their word, and do it with grace. You know, there's no point to have anger in that situation. And you tell an interesting story. And I thought this was because I've been in this similar spot is you at the time you were like a speaker, you're out doing gigs, you are going around, you are a New York. And, you know, these guys that set up the stages and do the lighting and do all that kind of stuff and put the stools out and all that. I remember reading it plus, same thing happened to me. The union guys wanted 15,000. And then you ran into this guy that said, Put three $500 envelopes together. And give it to me, and I'll make sure this happens. Now, can you tell? Now when you talk about integrity, this is an interesting story. Can you tell the story of what you learned about how to do business? Now you say do business in New York, which is this fast paced? Always on money environment, and I think the point to the story, you need to tell the listeners is what happened? Because I thought Yeah, I thought as I was reading it, you were going to get duped? Yeah, I really thought you're going to I wasn't

Kevin Cullen
sure how that was going to turn out. So if you remember I wrote. So it was it was I wasn't speaking, Werner Erhard was speaking, I was producing the event for him. And so it was a big deal. I mean, Madison Square Gardens, a huge, you know, facility, and it's a big deal to be there. And they bring me into this room, and it's got the, it's probably about 15 people from different departments and all the people that run the facility, the venue, and they say, they're asking questions like, Okay, do you want lights? Yes. Okay, then you have to hire the lighting guy, and you have to hire the manager of the lighting department. And every time they'd asked me a question, I'd say, Yes, except pyrotechnics. But, you know, there's so an end up with five people I have to hire to do the thing. And five people that have to be the manager of the guy doing the thing. Even though I was bringing in my own lighting, I was bringing in my own sound. I was bringing my own stagehand. So, Out we go, and this fellow fellows in the in the meeting, his name is Tony, but his arm around me, and he says, Hey, can you come here for a second? I like you, you know, it, just I mean, it's it was like a scene from a movie. And he says to me, he says, yeah, yeah, I want to talk to you about that whole thing in there. You know, they're going to give you this bill for what $15,000 He goes, I can make all that go away. I'm not kidding. I'm the act of imitating pretty good. And he says, here's what you got to do. You just got to show up tomorrow. And give me four white envelopes. Each one's $500. Okay, all that goes away. You won't get a bill, because I'll see to it. And I didn't know what quite again, like you said, is this. Is this real? Is this is this guy really doing? If he part of this or so. I sorted myself out and I said I better do this. I think I think this is how it works here. So even though there's that whole thing that I just went in, I think this is what really happens. Okay, so I called the controller of the company, who was Miss goody two shoes. And I said Patricia's before ATMs and all that. And I said, Patricia, I need $2,000 They need to wire me $2,000. And she started asking all questions. And I remember Patricia saying is this legal? And I said at this point, I don't know if it's legal or not. I'm worried about getting whacked. I don't know what Tony is going to do, right? So she wired the money to me. She said, I need a receipt. And I said, Yeah, I don't think Tony gives receipts. So anyway, the next morning, I showed up, and I just did what he said, I showed up and he says, he got the and I said it handed out. I said, What do you guys he all his guys were there. And half of them were, you know, relatives and so forth. And I said, What are you going to do? Because you can do whatever you want here. We'll just take you know, if you need something, just let us know. And he goes to be nice if you've got some lunch. So of course, I got an Italian sub sandwiches. But yeah, it just what I discovered is there's a way to make something happen. That's not the typical normal. This is the way you do something. In New York, things happen in a different way. Yeah. And it's got its own kind of integrity. Yeah. And trying to get it done the other way doesn't work. So, you know, I was just in Cabo San Lucas, and we couldn't get reservations for Thanksgiving. And, you know, I said, Hang on, everybody's all worked up about I said, Hang on. I walked down there. I had $20. In my hand, I said, There's got to be something we can do. And it's amazing. A miracle happened, right? But it turns out that if you have $20, you can get a reservation for dinner on Thanksgiving anytime you want.

Greg Voisen
And, you know, your story rings of lightheartedness to me, and I'm thinking, My uncle had lived in Las Vegas for years and years, and he knew all the maitre D's. Sure, you'd see all these lines of people waiting to get in these shows. And we would show up with five or six of us. And my uncle would say, You know what, you just pass them all up, and they will be looking at us like, What the hell are you going to do that? You're passing us up? Then he walks to the front, he shakes this guy hand. And in his hand, he's got $100. Bill. Yeah, he literally just puts it in his hand, and they take us right to the front of the stage. Right? Absolutely. And, and all these other people like how we had tickets, we've been waiting in line you've been doing well, that's, you know, you're, you're all good friend. And you kind of feel a little bit embarrassed. But it was a great story. Now, these are learning lessons that people I think are going to learn from your book. But you speak about mistakes and learning lessons that we experienced, and the fact that we can process the pain, and thus avoid making more mistakes, which is how we learn. The pain is the one I want to talk to. You cited Edison and Abraham Lincoln Edison's 10,000 failures and Abraham Lincoln's running for office 67 times or whatever it was, what did you Why do you believe people need to understand about failure? I call them learning lessons. mistakes, and why are should they in embrace this? Whether it's a mistake, or you want to call it a failure? You want to call it a learning lesson? Why should embrace that?

Kevin Cullen
Well, fortunately, I learned what we're talking about, because I've had the good fortune to make lots of mistakes. So I've had lots of lessons to learn. At some point, you start to realize that back to what we were talking about earlier, that life isn't perfect, and it doesn't turn out perfectly doesn't turn out the way you thought it would be. You know, I have a golf coach that kind of follows a little bit of this kind of teaching. He's very, you know, I call him an enlightened golf coach. But he told me that one of the one of the most famous golfers was named Ben Hogan. And Ben Hogan said that golf is a game of MIS management. In other words, you're either going to miss it way off to the right or way off to the left, but you get better by controlling the amount by which you miss, you're never going to get it perfect. But if you can get it less miss, or closer to the target, you tend to be more effective. So the first thing is get that you're never going to get it right the first time you're never going to get it right every time. Second, every time you miss, there's a there's a lesson there's something to learn. There's something to discover about what had you miss that if you can correct it. You will get better or Your performance will improve. So, you know, there's a book out that I read a few years ago called failing forward. And I think that kind of captures what we're talking with.

Greg Voisen
She was on the show. Oh, great. Yeah. Her last name is Gould. Her first name is Elizabeth. Cool. Yeah. Endorsed by Tony Robbins. You're taking feelings and you're moving them into the future? Yeah. Yeah. So it's almost like it's almost Kevin, like, another lady was on here wrote a book called The million dollar adjustment. And believe it or not, she works with baseball players. You know, it's the you talk about golf, talk about baseball, talk about surfing doesn't matter what it is. It's a minor adjustments that you make, that actually help you hit a homerun. Right. But they're also the mental adjustments, because any of the players that she coaches, like people you coach, come from environments where they were impoverished. I mean, you're looking at all these people coming up from Dominican Republic, you becoming baseball players, right? So yeah, so that's my point. It's the adjustment. You're talking about Ben Hogan, I used to caddy on Torrey Pines. Yeah. And I caddy for some pretty amazing people, but it is about the adjustment. So you've learned to live a balanced life, which includes time for yourself, your family, we all know the importance of living a balanced life. But can you tell our listeners about creating the kind of life and really learning to let go because in your book, you comment about kind of the amount of vacation time you take the fact that you travel a lot. I thought all that was really quite interesting, but more importantly, what you're learning about. And I think, in this world today, we're always on fast paced. Everybody's trying to climb somewhere or get something. How do you as maybe, I won't call you a minimalist. But if we were to say, hey, minimalist lifestyle, and live without so much, still get the fulfillment inside and live this balanced life? What would you tell our listeners?

Kevin Cullen
Well, the first thing I would tell you is I, what, I did take a lot of vacations, I make a big point of it. But I also work my ass off. So I really work hard. And when I'm working, I work hard. And when I'm playing I play hard. So number one, I would say, Greg, that there's two things you have to attend to, you have to attend to internal and external, okay, so you got to take care of kind of your inner self and attend to, you know, kind of your spiritual self, you got to, and you also have to attend to yourself physically and mentally. So, when I'm going to coach somebody, when so I coach executives all the time, I swear, the very first thing I do is I say, let me see your calendar. And they open their calendar, and I say, show me where you're spending time with your family. When are your vacations planned? And what are you doing in terms of developing yourself, you know, hobbies and that kind of thing. So show me your free time, and show me what you're doing with that. And it's amazing, it I mean, it's invariably, it's so missing. And the first thing I say to them is, if I'm going to coach you, the first agreement we're going to make is that you are going to take on living a balanced life. That means you attend to your family, you attend to, you know, your spiritual church activities, and you take vacations, it's very important, it's very important for your well being and you will be more productive by doing that. And the thing they have to say talked about attachment or the thing they have to get and let go of is that they are not indispensable. That that if they leave for two weeks, no one's going to die. And it's you got to kind of pry them out of it at some at some point sometimes. So I practice what I preach day one, every January 1, I get out of bed. First thing I do. I print out 12 months of calendar. I take one of these yellow things, and I start yellowing out weeks where I'm going to go fishing this week. I go fishing on the same week with a bunch of guys every year. So I yellow that out. I go see Dave Matthews in a certain place every year on this. I just start yelling it out. And pretty soon there's a lot of yellow and I then enter it into my calendar and then when my assistant comes in, and wants to schedule me for something, those times aren't available so that she's, she or he has to fill in whatever is available. And I make so it's my number one thing I start with that, you know, when people coach you financially, they say pay yourself first. Well, it's kind of like that, it's kind of like, take your take your time, time is your most important asset and disperse of it intelligently, particularly and judiciously. And so when people do that, and they get their vacation all sorted out, they don't have to think about it anymore. It's like, we're going to Hawaii in July with the kids. Great, terrific. So and they have that to look forward to. And it's sort of like boy leading up to that vacation. Sometimes it's like, three more days, and I'm out of here, you know, so it turns out to be a real, you know, kind of a, a well being thing. It's like, you know, I'm going to be fine, because I'm out of here. So

Greg Voisen
well, I want to tell my listeners, you know, go get this book because it's full of wisdom. It's full of insight. It's been Kevin Collins been on the show with us today inside personal growth, the bit of wisdom that he just gave you about marking your calendar. If that's all you took away from this show, it was worth it. Get your yellow highlighter out, don't even have to wait till January one. You could do it this month, December. But go pick up a copy of this while the link to the book will have a link to Kevin's website. You can reach out to him through his website. I'm sure he'd be happy to speak with you. But again, Kevin calling the author of the book, swerve life altering wisdom from saints masters and people like you and me. And that's truly so quick read, easy read people go get the book, Kevin, thanks for being on inside personal growth and sharing some of your personal stories which we got a lot of them and some of the stories about the wisdom and advice you'd give people. And I appreciate having you on.

Kevin Cullen
So honor and privilege. Thanks really, really appreciate and thank you for inviting me. And thanks for your listeners for listening. No mistake to you my friend. Now let's say to you