Text us. Share your thoughts. Ask Questions. We would love to hear from you.
Have you ever considered that the echoes of your childhood could be steering your leadership style today? Today, we pull back the curtain on how those first memories from zero to five years old are not just fleeting moments but powerful conductors of our adult behaviors and responses. We delve into the narrative of our formative years and their profound influence on our emotional intelligence, using personal stories and universal insights to shine a light on the importance of self-awareness in leadership.
Imagine the threads of early experiences weaving through the fabric of your life, shaping who you are in the workplace and beyond. This episode reveals the connection between seemingly innocuous childhood antics, like my encounter with an electrical outlet, and the discipline and decision-making skills required in adulthood. We also discuss the 'pressure cooker' leadership style and other patterns that may have roots in our earliest years, prompting a vital conversation about tracing and understanding these behaviors for more effective guidance of others.
Join us as we explore the incredible neural development that occurs in those first few years, where every second counts in shaping a lifetime. We tackle the tough repercussions of early trauma, from the emergence of phobias to startling links with chronic illnesses like multiple sclerosis. Our discussion underscores the importance of mental health support and the power of relationships in fostering growth, both personally and professionally. We share our passion for nurturing leadership, emphasizing the tangible impact of fundamental strategies and invite you to connect with this journey of self-discovery and empowerment.
Text us. Share your thoughts. Ask Questions. We would love to hear from you.
Have you ever considered that the echoes of your childhood could be steering your leadership style today? Today, we pull back the curtain on how those first memories from zero to five years old are not just fleeting moments but powerful conductors of our adult behaviors and responses. We delve into the narrative of our formative years and their profound influence on our emotional intelligence, using personal stories and universal insights to shine a light on the importance of self-awareness in leadership.
Imagine the threads of early experiences weaving through the fabric of your life, shaping who you are in the workplace and beyond. This episode reveals the connection between seemingly innocuous childhood antics, like my encounter with an electrical outlet, and the discipline and decision-making skills required in adulthood. We also discuss the 'pressure cooker' leadership style and other patterns that may have roots in our earliest years, prompting a vital conversation about tracing and understanding these behaviors for more effective guidance of others.
Join us as we explore the incredible neural development that occurs in those first few years, where every second counts in shaping a lifetime. We tackle the tough repercussions of early trauma, from the emergence of phobias to startling links with chronic illnesses like multiple sclerosis. Our discussion underscores the importance of mental health support and the power of relationships in fostering growth, both personally and professionally. We share our passion for nurturing leadership, emphasizing the tangible impact of fundamental strategies and invite you to connect with this journey of self-discovery and empowerment.
I want you to think as an audience and I really want you to think through this, your earliest childhood memory and how you were, and just write that down.
Speaker 2:Welcome to First Lead you, a podcast dedicated to building leaders, expanding their capacity, improving their self-awareness through emotional intelligence and developing deeper understanding of selfless leadership.
Speaker 1:Hello American, welcome to First Lead you where we believe selfless leadership is essential. America is suffering a leadership crisis. Self-awareness and emotional intelligence is the key to developing selfless leaders.
Speaker 2:Now here is personal growth coach John Ballinger.
Speaker 1:Hello John, how are you today? I'm great. Douglas, how are you? I'm doing great. You know we talk about these episodes. In the past, I've listened to them and said you know, we're going to talk about a tough subject today, or we're going to go deep today and, as we're preparing for this podcast, knowing that I think this is one of the toughest podcast for a leader or just anyone to listen to, wouldn't you agree?
Speaker 3:Yeah, today's subject matter is definitely going to be as deep as we've gone anytime in the past, for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I would ask the audience to be very objective to what they're going to hear. I would ask them to process. Don't just listen to it once and walk away from it. You may have to listen to it two or three times to really understand the process. And I will begin with saying that this podcast is something that really started this whole thing of leadership because, as we've said in the past, root cause analysis what's causing leadership to fail at all four pillars of society, and that's the family, our faith, government and business. And it really is. You do a root cause analysis, you see that the people that end up in leadership positions do not have high emotional intelligence, they do not work on themselves in leadership, they do not have mentors that are mentoring them in leadership. They get on this island and think they can do it all themselves and nobody can tell them what to do, because they're the smartest people in the room. And it's just fractured Douglas, it's just absolutely fractured society.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I agree, I think there's. As we get into the subject today, people will hear that you know it's not just psychobabble when we talk about how different experiences in life impact us and how they stick with us across our lifetime. There truly are some scientific research that backs that up, that allows us to talk about some of the things and the ways that we talk about them, and there are really some key moments in life that, if you can understand how those impacted you and let those go, turn those loose, unlock them, unpack them whatever term you want to use it really can make for a more freeing future for yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the word freeing, you know you think about captivity. A lot of people I talk to feel like they are really captive inside their own self because of the trauma and the fear. Fear is a big one, like why don't you take that next step? Well, I'm afraid to. And then I ask so what's fearing you? I really don't know. Well, we got to figure out, figure that out. What's fearing you? So tell us today's topic Douglas.
Speaker 3:Well, today's topic is the earliest childhood memory and why it's so impactful on your life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and those that have been coached by me know that that's one of my first questions. It is Usually right out to shoot, right yeah. And what's the normal reaction when I ask that question?
Speaker 3:Well, that's going to take me a minute or I don't know. Let me think about it. I mean, there's usually a pause of some sort, there's usually some delay of some sort there's, and then there's maybe a few moments of silence and then they start to share that. And you know, I would say, just in the opportunities that I've had to be in meetings with you, where you've been talking with people and unpacking this, I would say at least six out of 10 times it's not a good memory.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think the other thing that happened, so that and let's not even talk about that, let's go. Is there any? What's the next question? There there will be people that absolutely quickly don't want to answer that question, and so they'll say let's just go to the next one, which makes me want to go back even harder and say, well, no, no, we're going to answer this one first. And sometimes I have to know not to push the gas down because I've touched a nerve, because it is a wound that's going on. That's making them want to move. Let's move on. We've heard that one. Let's just move on, right? Well, I've touched a nerve.
Speaker 1:So I want you to think as an audience, and I really want you to think through this your earliest childhood memory and how'd you were, and just write that down and it doesn't have to be like Doug has said there.
Speaker 1:You know, probably six out of 10 are traumatic, something negative. But it could be something that you remember you were at your grandmother's house and you were doing something outside or whatever it was. But then the age with which you remember is critical too, because in general we start remembering as adults around three and and. So if you say, well, I remember when I was seven and I say, well, no, let's stop, because there's something that went on between three and seven that you're really blocked out on. Right now we need to figure out what that is and we have we've we've unpacked that three to seven block that had been going on somebody's life several times. That's not an uncommon answer that somebody starts out at six or seven years old which tells me that very formative year of really zero and three, because that's really the out of the zero to five, that zero to three is really where you really get some formative years at. And so we'll go back and we'll unpack that. So I want to share with the audience mine, my earliest childhood memory.
Speaker 3:So so we're going to turn the tables a little bit today. Instead of you asking the question, you're going to answer the question. I'm going to answer the question.
Speaker 1:I remember it clearly and quickly and I'm able to understand it and what it's impacted. Through this, my own self development journeys I've been on. But I remember clearly that I was being told and had been told several times prior to me doing this not to stick a Bobby pin in an electrical outlet. And as a child I'm being told not to do something. So what's our nature to do it? To do it Like, why can't I do that, cause I want to do it. And so I did it. And I knocked myself 25 feet up and under my mom and dad's bed and I remember laying there, crunched down under the bed, thinking that's why I wasn't supposed to do it.
Speaker 1:Now fast forward through some formative years when my dad was trying to discipline me because I found out that, just in general, my nature is don't tell me, I can't do something, cause I'm going to figure out how to do it. And that kind of just kind of started playing out in my life, which not always was good from a discipline discipline standpoint, because my dad would then have to discipline me and it would start with you've got to learn the hard way. And then he would make this statement Doug, I don't know if you've heard this statement, for this is going to hurt me more than it does you.
Speaker 3:I've heard that statement a few times.
Speaker 1:And I remember, after the event, the disciplinary event, thinking how did that hurt him? Cause it's killing me, and he didn't. He did it, not into it to him. Fast forward, years later, when you have a child and you've got to discipline them, you realize what this is hurting me because it does hurt. You don't want to discipline your child because it does hurt, because some of that discipline that you're doing they may not necessarily understand, they really may not. You're having to discipline them on things I told you not to do it.
Speaker 1:Sometimes you don't tell them why you don't want them to do it. You just tell them because I said so, we grew you and I grew up in the because I said so society. Oh, absolutely, today you've got to give a dissertation. If you say I don't want you to do that, why? Well, no, I want to know why. Like, give me specifics, give me, I want to. Let's break this down. I want a PowerPoint presentation, douglas, for why I don't need to do that or why I should do that. We grew up in the because I said generation. So I want, I want the leaders to think about this and I really want you to put this in perspective with how you lead yourself and your people. Did you take some of the things that were taught to you that you reacted to generationally as a child and have you now absorbed those as a child and then put them in play in your personal and professional life? Because I'm going to say seven out of 10 or eight out of 10. If you were truthful, you've actually implemented things that have happened early in your childhood that are good, and you formulated that around you and your leadership style. And now that's who you are as a leader, and your people are looking at you as that leader, thinking why do they act like that? For example, the pressure cooker leader that just lets everything build and build and build and build, and then something happens one day. That's just very easy, should have been an easy task to deal with, and it just caused them to explode. And everybody's looking around like, hey, don't, didn't take much for them to explode. What's going on with their life? So I want to. I want to. I want to. I want to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to do what's going on with their life. So I want to. I want to.
Speaker 1:Listener who is either in a leadership position or aspires to be in a leadership position or is trying to better themselves as a leader. I want you to take that question what's my earliest childhood memory and how was I and write it down and just kind of pause and reflect on that, because I think it's going to allow you to start thinking through why you have anxiety, anger, frustrations, those things that we've talked about in one of the earlier podcasts. It's going to help you understand like that's why I react like that, and I think it's important for our listeners to really understand why the why of that. I also want to think about this so, as leaders, especially those with children, think through, you've made this statement either to your spouse, significant other or even to your children I'm not going to do what my parents did to me when it comes to rearing. You've made that statement. Or you're that parent that takes what you were, how you were raised, and just generationally takes it to the next child, your child, and I say it's kind of like the mayonnaise we eat or the ketchup we eat that's what we grew up on, and so it just becomes part of the refrigerator in our household and there are a lot of parents that just take how they were raised and just move it over and say this is how I'm being, this is how I'm going to raise my child. But there's another set of parents that say I will never raise my child like that. Some of that I'm never going to raise my child like that were disciplinarian issues and you didn't like it and so I'm not going to do it.
Speaker 1:Now I'm a believer in discipline, as a, as a military person, as someone that sees that a young child needs barriers. They need guardrails. If you don't put guardrails and barriers up, let me tell you what a child will do. They'll be all over the place, and part of that is our fault when we started this I'm going to count to 10, mess, who? I don't know who started that.
Speaker 1:That's probably good research for us to do, but whoever started, I'm going to count to 10 is allowing a child to learn how to get away with what they're doing wrong for at least 10 more seconds, and I've never heard 10 seconds become a minute as much as I do some of these 10 seconds One don't make me count the two to. I mean it could take a full minute and that child still doing what you told him not to do. It could be throwing a fit in the middle of a grocery store or a department store, throwing a fit because it didn't get a toy. But you're counting and they're continuing to do what they do. And then, oh, I've seen it, douglas, I've seen this, after that bit gets done, being pitched Well, let's go get that toy. What did you just do?
Speaker 3:You were awarded the behavior you were awarded the behavior that you just said.
Speaker 1:if you don't stop and I'm counting to 10, which took you 60 seconds, because you went to nine and five, eight, nine and seven, eights. You did all that and that and that kid's looking at you like, yeah right, what are you going to do? You're going to buy me a toy, because that's what happened last time. So we're actually fostering the behavior that we are living with, wondering why is this driving me crazy? What's because you did it? Now here's another thing we do.
Speaker 1:We know statistically, by the American Bar Association, that 50% of marriages end in divorce. Do we not know that? It's a statistical, very common statistic? We know it. What's that child seeing in that formative years with parents that are going through a divorce, so let's say pre-divorced behavior?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's usually the worst that the parents have to offer, at least to each other.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and there have been occasions and we've talked about this at the conference that we had, that we've talked about at other places, that we've been asked to speak at that something in society makes young couples that are at odds with each other think that having a child is going to fix their marriage. There's statistics out there that they will say, well, we just don't have anything in common. So maybe if we have a child, that'll give us something to have in common. And you're trying to fix your marriage through a child that's processing information from you in that zero to three range, while you're yelling and screaming at each other. And then, because you've not agreed almost everything, up to the point, they're born and now you got to agree on raising them, how to discipline them, what they're going to eat.
Speaker 1:Oh, I don't want to eat that. That's not organic, that's all right, it's not made, I know, but they need organic. Well, why do we have to spend them? We really don't have the money for them. They need organic and the child sees that like well, that says that. Mom says that. And then what do they do? The child knows you.
Speaker 3:Welcome back to First Lead U.
Speaker 3:Today we have been talking about the zero to five age range and all the development that happens during those early formative years and how some of your earliest memories, particularly your earliest memory, can really impact your life far beyond what you think that it does and how it can mold your life because of decisions you'll make after that point.
Speaker 3:And John shared his earliest childhood memory with us today of sticking the hairpin or bobby pin into the light socket and getting knocked back underneath his mom and dad's bed and how that impacted him. And so, as we progress through the next few minutes, we just want to share some information with you about how science is continuing to prove out that this is true, and we really don't want to always go back and say that a lot of our issues stem from our childhood, but science, over and over and over again, has proven that some of those formative years, some of those formative experiences, really do stick with us if we don't take the time and the effort to unpack them, to work through them, to not let them hinder us anymore, so that we can actually move forward in a much more open and freeing life.
Speaker 1:So I want to talk about some statistics, and this last half of this segment is going to be statistical driven, but it's also we're going to leave you with some homework that will allow you to start unpacking and being an impact on your life in a positive manner. But, douglas, in 2019, $225 billion was spent on private counseling. That's a big number.
Speaker 3:It's big.
Speaker 1:now it gets even worse when 2023 statistics from the national health expenditures that overall, the amount of money spent per person total and this is a total aggregate was $13,493 per person or $4.5 trillion.
Speaker 3:There's a lot of money being spent on our mental health.
Speaker 1:Yeah that's a T $4.5 trillion total when somebody goes and seeks it and continues spending money out trying to figure out, like, what's going on with me? And you know, I'm sure there were things like narcissism and bipolar disorder and anxiety disorder and all that stuff. That happened decades and decades. We just didn't know what it was and so mental health become a dirty word and we've had segments where we've talked about the difference in mental health and mental illness, which is two different things, and we can statistically show you we can unpack all that. But at some level every one of us has a mental illness that we have to deal with. I don't care anybody says they don't stay away from because they're liars to. We all have stuff we need to unpack, and the only way to unpack mental illness that happens in your life, especially early childhood development, is through mental health training. Some of that is seeking out help and talking through it. Some of it could be just going to a friend and just unpacking life with each other.
Speaker 1:We talk about mentorship in the business community. You know part of that is a lot of, a lot of mentors that I talk to say sometimes I feel like a psychologist, sometimes I feel like a psychiatrist, sometimes I feel like this because it doesn't just become just business coaching. You start doing life with that person. You find out that the reason their business is not as successful as it should could be, or their organization that they're in charge of is not developing and growing the way it should be, is we find out it's really not because they, it's not because they don't know what they're doing. It's because of the impact that something has happened in their personal life is is delaying or impacting their growth in a leadership standpoint and we had a, we had a podcast on where we talked about root cause analysis. The reason I'm and I don't know if harping is harping, am I harping on?
Speaker 3:this is a just keep coming back to this point.
Speaker 1:I make sure people understand because this is the thing I mean. If this is when we're born, which it is can we agree to that? Yes, at zero age and it's really we talk about the zero to three is really the impactful, because you're usually talking and able to communicate by then. That's why the zero to three is so important. But if that's where it begins at, and you've been in a family that the reason you were born and I've heard this I was an accident. My mom and dad should not had me. They had me because they were trying to fix something. And that's what you heard at zero to three.
Speaker 1:How do you think you are, your self esteem, your self confidence, your awareness of yourself and what's going on around you? I mean, all those things are impacted. And so what do you do? You burrow down and just try to exist and live. I'm speaking from experience. I've gone through these things. I know what I'm talking about. This isn't just me just spewing out hot air.
Speaker 1:I've had to tackle some of these things myself, and that's even hard for me to say, to expose myself and say you know what? I've been challenged and I had to have coaches. I've had to have mentors. I've had to have great friends like Mr Ford that would be willing to pour into me or challenge me and say I don't know if I'd do that for you or if you are, I would do it like this and kind of think through that If you can't surround yourself with people that are strong where you're weak at, that's a problem. You you ready for this?
Speaker 1:Leaders, listen to this. You are not right every time. You don't make every right decision. You are not perfect. You are actually imperfect in areas that you need someone else to be stronger in and you need to learn how to be vulnerable enough to say I don't know. I need someone else that's better than me in that area to come on alongside me and you need to write those things down and you need to look at them and you need to say am I like that? Am I always trying to have the answer, regardless of whether it's right or wrong, so I can say I have the answer? Are you always trying to have the answer to something you know nothing about and everybody's looking at you like and I know what they're talking about?
Speaker 3:I was doing some research this weekend on some other specific matter, and that's really one of the key definitions between a leader and a manager. A manager always feels like they have to have the right answer because they're the ones that are in charge, but if you are leading people, you've got much more room to be wrong, to accept input, to hear from your team as to how something should go, versus you being kind of that direct. This is the way it's going to be and out of several different pieces of research I looked at, that was one thing that showed up multiple times Is this idea of like managers always have to be right. So if you think you're a leader and you think you are always have to be right, maybe you're actually playing the role of a manager and you're just managing tasks.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, that's a tough one. That's probably a whole podcast task managing versus being a leader, because I think there's a ton of people in leadership positions that are order givers and order takers. But you know, you truly are in a leadership position if you know how to be vulnerable and your team trust you enough for that. You're approachable and you'll listen to things from them that could help you make a better decision as a leader. Vulnerability is critical and if you're, if you're not vulnerable as a leader, you're not really a leader. So so you have some statistics from some more research that we, that you did over the weekend.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely so. This is from an organization called zero to three and I'm sure they didn't originate this information, but that's where I found it. So when you're born, we literally have billions of neurons in our brain and we and you know, we talk about that and people say that all the time. But this was the thing I found surprising. So most of the time, those neurons aren't connected when you're born and so life experience connects them. They connect get ready for this a million neuron connections per second between the ages of zero and three.
Speaker 3:So just think about I mean every second, and we talked about this. You know if, if you have good experiences or bad experiences, and we talked about, you know, the traumatic experiences. It may not be something that is traditionally we might term as traumatic. It could just be you get scared about something, or it could be a mishap. It could be something you witness to be any number of things that we could turn term traumatic that happen. But just imagine if that happens over a sustained period of time, how many millions of neurons get connected with that as part of the imprint of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so think it. How many kids have you heard say I think there's something in my closet and they're really afraid to go to sleep in the dark because whatever is in their closet is going to come out. I mean, that's just one of those things. So then then you got to have the nightlight, you know, because you don't want it to be dark in there, but there's a fear of what's in the closet and I'll almost I want you to, I want to audience, it'll almost give you tingling sensation. Sensation when you think back to where you thought I heard something. All those neurons that are supposed to be connecting, soldered together to create this pathways of thinking and emotional intelligence, and IQ, eq and all this stuff, are actually being soldered improperly and sometimes not at all, and so we have these gaps in neurons that are going on between zero three and going back. Whatever is going on in your life that you're seeing and hearing can disjoint and hinder those neurons from joining together properly.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, and that's it doesn't always mean that's a mental thing.
Speaker 1:No, it could be. I told you one where my dad said jump off the refrigerator and I'll catch you, and he didn't, and so I'm like I'm afraid of heights, and so that led, that led through my life. So I'm afraid of heights. Because what happens if I don't get caught? Because I didn't get caught, I mean it didn't intentionally drop, he just missed it.
Speaker 3:Slippery fingers.
Speaker 1:Slippery fingers and I was probably rather than to when I went on the way down. So I mean just missed it, like dang, that hurt, and so it impacted. Well, that actually connected a fear in me Like I don't want to jump off that again. Or I don't want to be up here. And I had an aunt. She was scared to death to drive over a bridge. I mean literally scared to death, like what starts shaking. How's him you like? Stop the car, I'll get, I'll drive over. I can't drive. I can't even ride over the bridge, let alone drive I can't ride over. So she would plot her courses of driving around, not crossing bridges.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's tough. Yeah, I mean it's not always just mental. There's some physical things. There's several studies out that talk about how these experiences can literally impact you from a physical standpoint early in life. That can last throughout your lifetime, and I think you did some research that really explains that or shines a bright light on that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So if you think about the and I think everyone is impacted some way Like Douglas said, maybe six and 10 we deal with today it's some kind of severe trauma or trauma that's going on. Some of it could just be something that happened to them. It could be a fear moment to them or something they saw, or witness strength or anything like that. But I started doing this research because I'm really drilling down on the leaders that we are really coaching into the next level and the fear that goes in inside of them.
Speaker 1:And two, two in particular, very athletic I mean extremely athletic and on the ball field or the ball court, I mean they're making split second decisions and I mean they're moving and shaking. Incredible. Put them out in society. Can you make a decision? I'm like, so how do I take you in society and have you be able to move mentally? The same way you're moving on a court or on a field and that's I mean that's perplexing to them, like I don't want to go there. You know, let me go back on the court and I'll show you, but don't make me do that out here. So some of the research I did said that 24% right now of people that have a traumatic experience. It actually creates those neurons that aren't joining together, so it's not establishing a strong nervous system in your body. And they're saying that 24% of the people that have multiple sclerosis actually identify with having a traumatic experience early in that zero to five range.
Speaker 3:Wow, all right, say that again.
Speaker 1:So 24% of people that have multiple sclerosis. They've identified that the origin of that multiple sclerosis the nerves the multiple sclerosis your nerves stop working was caused by a traumatic experience that happened in their life that didn't allow their nerve system to mature properly.
Speaker 3:And that doesn't necessarily mean that was some physical thing that happened to them. It could be what we've been talking about, Like there was some sort of mental block that those neurons didn't make those connections to complete the circuitry that's needed to develop those nerves. So almost 25% I mean 75% they attribute, I guess, to physical. Just in things don't connect the way they're supposed to. But 24%, almost 25%, is due to some sort of mental block that happened in their life.
Speaker 1:So we don't realize how impactful a strong nervous system is. Somebody that has anxiety, that's nervous. And you know, I was talking to a gentleman today that he said he just came out of the shoot and this discussion. I said I'm a ADHD, I'm like all over the place. I'm like really, and the amount of people that are hanging their head on that is incredible. I'm just, that's just what I am. I'm just ADHD. Are you or did your neurons and nervous system just not mature and connect properly and so that's just a default?
Speaker 1:So take this medication and see if it helps. And I really think there are some people that do need it and have some challenges. But I think we started relying on pharmaceuticals and medication to try and cope, when I think a lot of this is just unpacking, reflecting, writing down, you know, working through and becoming a disciplined person that says I'm going to mature myself as a leader by facing the challenges that I could have possibly experienced in life and I'm not going to let those experiences just kind of drag me around through life. I'm going to, I'm going to defeat them, I'm going to overcome them. And so many of us don't do that because it's hard, mr Ford. I mean it is, it's not. I've said that it's not for the faint of heart.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's not easy work. It takes some dedication and some time, and I read recently that you don't want to. You wouldn't rush a farming process Like you wouldn't go through a growing season and wait until the last two weeks before the harvest is supposed to come in, and run out and plant the seeds and spray water on it and you know, expect that in two weeks you're going to have a harvest Like no, it's a natural process at that. You have to prepare the soil. You got to put the seed in the ground. You got to then fertilize the soil. You've got to tend the garden. You got to do all the things. You got to tend to the plants, make sure they're growing properly. You've got to do all that stuff to get the harvest.
Speaker 1:You know one of the most you just talking about that. You know, one of the most important things I heard growing up with my grandfather and even grandmas, is in the gardening process, how important that row was to be straight. You don't see gardens that are just kind of all over the place. You know, look like big, big murals and S's and Q's and all that stuff. You see straight rows and that's the way our brain should be working, but our brain's all over the place because we didn't connect neurons appropriately. And you can the body is a healing instrument and you can heal some of those neurons and things that didn't connect that nervous system. You can heal, but to do that you've got to face it and we're not good at facing. We want to help you with that. We want to help you face those challenges that you're challenged with and overcome that so you can be the best version of yourself that we know you can be for your leaders, for the leaders and the people you lead.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. As we get ready to close, we're going to leave you with our one item to our one task for this week and John's talked about it a couple of times already. It is think about that earliest childhood memory. Take some time, reflect, write it down, think through like how is that impacted my life? And use that going forward to make better decisions and to start the healing process.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and remember if it's, if it's anything later than three years old, if it's that six, seven or whatever it is, I need you to pause and reflect on it and see what happened between whatever that age. You remember six or seven and three, because there's a gap in there, that there's a void that you've got there intentionally, that you don't want to deal with and your brain has not connected neurons and you've packed that in the back so you can link down Facebook, the websites. This is so important to shore up the leadership in America for our teams that we're responsible for and we're not just saying that this is a passion. We know it works because it's working on people every day that we deal with it.
Speaker 3:Firstly, do you get more? Like John said, we're on LinkedIn. Firstly, you're looking for the number one ST and LEA LEAD and the letter you first lead you, and that's firstly docom. Same thing you can reach out to us through our website as well, so we look forward to hearing from you and we'll be back again with the next episode. Have a great week everyone.