What Are You Dying For? | Ep 051

In a world obsessed with living, have we forgotten how to die well?

➡️  Meet the Guest: Blaine Bartlett, Master Coach

✨ Keynote Speaker
✨ Best Selling Author
✨ Executive & Leadership Coach
✨ Bloomberg TV & Apple TV Co-Host
✨ Consultant

Join us as we explore life's most profound questions with Blaine Bartlett, a visionary and certified 'Master Coach' and TV Host who, as a Coach has challenged leaders at Apple, Microsoft, Starbucks, and The World Bank to rethink success.

Discover:

✨  The courage to lead with authenticity
✨  How businesses can nurture the human spirit
✨  Why vulnerability might be your greatest strength

This isn't just about leadership—it's about living a life true to yourself.

Are you ready to confront what truly matters?

➡️ Chapters
(00:02) - Master Coach on Living Well
(04:16) - Navigating Authenticity in Leadership
(17:12) - The Aha of New Possibilities
(26:10) - The Soul of Business

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Connect with our Hosts:
Stacey: https://www.instagram.com/staceymgrant/
Mark: https://www.instagram.com/mark_lubragge_onair/

➡️ More about the guest:  
About: https://www.blainebartlett.com/about-blaine/
Website: https://www.blainebartlett.com/
Books: https://www.blainebartlett.com/books/
Tedx:

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Transcript

00:02 - Stacey (Host)
Mark. Hi, that was a really good get. He's really an incredible guest. 

00:08 - Mark (Host)
He was so well-spoken and full of great content, I mean, what else do you want from? 

00:11 - Stacey (Host)
him. I mean he's got TV shows, he's on Bloomberg, he talks with David Meltzer, he's talked to CEOs of companies that you didn't even know. 

00:17 - Mark (Host)
Yeah, massive companies. 

00:19 - Stacey (Host)
You can't even imagine. 

00:20 - Mark (Host)
Top-level execs Go to him. A CEO would call him like an Elon Musk. 

00:24 - Stacey (Host)
I'm not sure he's spoken to him, but someone would call him and say, hey, I have this challenge, can you help me through it? 

00:31 - Mark (Host)
Or whether it's a leadership challenge, a big decision. 

00:33 - Stacey (Host)
He's like a CEO secret weapon. 

00:36 - Mark (Host)
It's a special red badge phone. Do you think he would let? 

00:39 - Stacey (Host)
me call him and ask him questions about my $20 deals. 

00:49 - Mark (Host)
Well, he probably would, because he's super nice. That's true, he's a nice guy. We've talked to him. Your typical executive coach may not, but he was full of great content. This is not just about succeeding in business, it's not. He's a leadership coach to super high level executives at massive international firms right, but what he's teaching them, the things he's sharing with them, apply to everyone. He even said as a parent, as part of your household, that's what we really wanted to have that conversation. 

01:11 - Stacey (Host)
And he delivered in spades and he talks about businesses having soul, and I love that. And it's not just about business, but that does apply to you as a human being. Right Going to work. We spend so much time at work. Wouldn't it be great if every business had soul. And we, just like, loved it you loved going to work because you felt supported. You felt safe. 

01:30 - Mark (Host)
Yeah, and he talked about what it's like when you work at a company that doesn't have a soul, and I can think of three companies just him saying that and I'm sure people can as well. There's no soul in that business. Sadly, it might be where you work. 

01:49 - Stacey (Host)
Sorry about that. If you work there, this is. This is a really good. This is a good one. You're gonna enjoy this, blaine bartlett. 

01:52 - Mark (Host)
Hi, I'm stacy and I am mark, and this is the gurus at game changers podcast. Hey, welcome everybody. So did you ever wonder how titans of industry become titans of industry like? 

02:05 - Warren Buffet (Guest)
what do they have? 

02:06 - Mark (Host)
that you don't have. I'll tell you one thing they have is today's guest blaine bartlett on speed dial. Blaine is a master coach. He's worked one-on-one with some of the biggest names in the world and we're talking top level players at the world bank, international governments, at&t, starbucks, asteneca the list is huge, and what he does for them today he's going to do for you. We're going to get access to one of the best of the best coaches who's going to help you dominate your day every day, so you yourself can become that Titan. 

02:40
Welcome how you doing buddy Good to see you. 

02:43 - Blaine Barlett (Guest)
Hey, it's great to be here. Mark Staceyacy, thank you for the invitation. I love. I love what you're up to. 

02:49 - Stacey (Host)
I love what this show's about wow, you're definitely fitting the guru and game changer mold for sure so we're happy to have you here, and it's I. I know this is kind of weird, but I want to start off with kind of something a tiny bit dark, because I watched your tedx talk, okay, and I heard you speak about like the way you described how we live our lives. Well, I'm kind of reading this too by dying the right way yeah what are we dying for? 

03:15 - Blaine Barlett (Guest)
that's a great question. Yeah, I get one life and you know, I was actually asked this question on an interview yesterday actually. 

03:24 - Stacey (Host)
I thought we were the first ones. 

03:26 - Blaine Barlett (Guest)
Well, he asked it in a different way, but the aphorism that most people are familiar with is we only live once and the messaging there is go for it. The truth is we only die once. So the question then is how do we live and what do we populate our life with? How do we actually fill it up so that it's by the time we get to the end, we are able to die well, and by dying well? I'm talking about looking back over the cast of my life, going this worked out pretty good. So what do I do between that spot where I, you know, kind of come out howling and go quietly into the night? That's the space I want to fill up. 

04:12 - Mark (Host)
What is the filler for that space that you think most people need? 

04:16 - Blaine Barlett (Guest)
Trust A lot of the coaching work I do with executives. Every organization has got trust issues. We've got trust issues here, and most people think that trust is about the other person, it's about the other team, it's about the other. Whatever Trust has to do with, do I trust myself to be able to handle the consequences of being direct, open and honest, of being authentic? Do I trust myself to handle the consequences of being authentic in this moment in time? And if I trust myself to do that, I will be authentic, and it's in that authenticity that life actually comes to bloom. And that's what I want to play with. 

04:58 - Stacey (Host)
Hmm, what about purpose? Is that something that's important too for people at the end of time? 

05:03 - Blaine Barlett (Guest)
So, rather than, you know, stressing about landing on a purpose, it's a living question what's my purpose? And if I can keep that living question in front of me, I'll be able to calibrate what's needed now what do I need to hold on to, what do I need to let go of and what do I need to take on new? I love that. 

05:27 - Stacey (Host)
It's a moving target because I'm always thinking like what will my purpose be? You know, where am I? What do I want my life to be like? And it changes, but it doesn't. You don't have to land on one thing. 

05:37 - Blaine Barlett (Guest)
Right, yeah, if I land on one thing, when you look at nature, nature doesn't land on one thing and go this is it, this is all that it's going, this is all it's ever going to be. Nature evolves, it is, it's continuously an evolutionary process. And you know, I've got 11 acres here, yeah, on this island that I live on and I go walking in the woods, and what was there yesterday has now moved a little bit and has the purpose changed? I don't know, but something has changed, something has moved and the purpose there has to do with full expression. 

06:21 - Mark (Host)
I think the purpose in life is to express myself as authentically as I possibly can. Whatever that may look like, it's deep, he's a rabbit hole. We're down there. 

06:26 - Stacey (Host)
Authenticity. It's deep, he said, rabbit hole. We're down there, authenticity. So that's kind of the first time I've heard that like that. That is the true meaning, I guess, of life I don't know. Like authenticity. I think it's so hard for people to be themselves. 

06:36 - Mark (Host)
It is we've had other people say that too. 

06:38 - Blaine Barlett (Guest)
I do a program for the american association of physician leaders, and I've been doing this program almost 15 years for them now, and it's called leadership, authenticity. And when I first for the American Association of Physician Leaders and I've been doing this program almost 15 years for them now and it's called Leadership, authenticity. And when I first started doing the program, I had all these docs, these hospital administrators go. What do you mean by authentic? And I wrestled with that definition. I really did. I went to the dictionary, I looked at Kierkegaard, I looked at the philosophers and I finally landed on a definition. Authenticity is what I'm left with when I stop trying to manage your perception of me. 

07:13
Say that one more time Authenticity is what I'm left with when I stop trying to manage your perceptions of me. 

07:22 - Mark (Host)
Just being and not worrying about your perception, yeah. 

07:28 - Stacey (Host)
I love that. 

07:29 - Warren Buffet (Guest)
That's deep. 

07:30 - Stacey (Host)
I heard someone say recently, I can't remember, I think Mark Manson said practice feeling, practice having people not like you, because that it looking for people to like you is like a prison yeah and it's the same type of thing with authenticity, like you're trying to be something for someone else. 

07:52 - Mark (Host)
Right, but wouldn't you just be better off not caring like why isn't that? What kind of what I'm saying, I guess I just I'm sort of detaching, like can we just detach from the idea of what does this person think about me? I think that's where true happiness lies. 

08:09 - Stacey (Host)
Yeah, but there's going to be people that dislike you. You just have to either get on the train or yeah, yeah. 

08:16 - Blaine Barlett (Guest)
I mean, I don't want this attributed to me. But yeah, what you think of me is none of my business. 

08:21 - Stacey (Host)
Yeah, oh, that's good. Oh, I like that. 

08:26 - Blaine Barlett (Guest)
It my business. Yeah, oh, that's good. Oh, I like that. It's so true. Yeah, if I make it my business, then we're going down all kinds of places we don't want to go. 

08:30 - Mark (Host)
Yeah well, you're working with, like these top level thinkers and doers, and are they concerned about that? They're probably not right. 

08:38 - Blaine Barlett (Guest)
They've probably evolved maybe or ascended past, know surprisingly, a lot of these folks have pretty good sized egos. 

08:47 - Mark (Host)
Oh, that's not surprising. 

08:49 - Blaine Barlett (Guest)
Yeah, and part of the challenge is getting them to step away from their ego. And this is where the question of authenticity comes in. Now, at a leadership level, particularly in some of these larger organizations and this is true, I think, in families. It's also true in midsize and smaller organizations, organizations and this is true, I think, in families, it's also true in midsize and smaller organizations the perception that people have of me as a leader makes a difference. It really is, but I don't want to be run by my need to have that perception. 

09:16
You know, be, you know, whatever I think it should be, I have to be available, and this is, you know, authenticity allows me to be available. Now, I've got a persona. I'm always going to have a persona that I'm projecting. I can't not do that. I mean, we work in this physical space and my ego is what my ego is. The ego is designed to kind of show up, but I don't. I'm not my ego, I am not my behaviors. There's something else behind that. People connect through vulnerability, yeah, and when people are vulnerable which is another way of saying authentic it gives room for people to connect with me. You know, there's now access. Now, vulnerability is scary, you know, because I'm exposed. 

10:03 - Mark (Host)
So you've been brought in right to many companies over the years exposed. So you've been brought in right to many companies over the years. I said in the intro very big companies, very, very big players. What's the number one type of resistance that you get? 

10:38 - Blaine Barlett (Guest)
You mentioned ego. I mean, maybe it's centered in ego, but what stops you from being as effective for that person as a coach? And, yeah, being able to break through that mindset. Most people would rather be right than get what they say they want, and I think that's just a universal human condition. 

10:54
We'd rather be right than get what we say we want. So having people begin to let go of the death grip that they have on their belief about what things could be, should be, or how they're supposed to be, because when they let go of that they're really not holding on to anything, and that is a scary place to be. So part of my role is to create that safety net so that they have enough latitude to explore how do you do that. 

11:23
Conversation is primarily it. Coaching is a conversational activity, the conversation everything is a relationship. I mean, at the end of the day, that's all an organization is, is a collection of people that are in relationship. That's all an organization is. Now, the easy, you know, visible piece is the interpersonal relations. But they also, uh, have relationships with values, with beliefs, with work process, with vision, with goals. There's a relational component to all of that. So they have a relationship with their chairs, the people that are sitting in them, and if all of these varied relationships are working pretty good, you got a pretty good shot at being successful. 

12:04
But most leaders don't pay attention to the qualitative nature of those relationships and they live in conversation. The qualitative nature of relationship lives in conversation. Yeah, how I describe something to myself determines how I feel about it. How I feel about it generates my behavior, and a lot of people will spend a lot of time and this is particularly true in organizations trying to change people's behavior so that they can get a different result. Trying to change somebody's behavior I mean, I'm married that's a fool's errand. 

12:39 - Stacey (Host)
She's pretty awesome, though we met her too. 

12:41 - Mark (Host)
Not that we're taking sides. 

12:45 - Blaine Barlett (Guest)
But if I can change somebody's's description how they're describing something to themselves, it changes the nature of the relationship that they have with that thing, and at that point in time we've got some room to move that's great that was like leading right into my next question, which was how important are human relationships for happiness? 

13:07
I think that's all there is. I mean truly. First of all, happiness is an internally generated state. We tend to assign happiness things around us. There's no thing out there but me. Everything is a projection of my internal conversation. It's an internal state projected externally, and so I'm continuously interacting with versions of myself, the good sides and the bad sides, the shadow side, the light side. I'm continuously interacting. If I get triggered by somebody, it's my stuff. They generally don't have a problem with what they're doing. It's my stuff that got triggered. How? 

13:42 - Stacey (Host)
about that so deep? 

13:43 - Blaine Barlett (Guest)
There's learning. 

13:44 - Mark (Host)
Oh boy. 

13:45 - Blaine Barlett (Guest)
If I can work with that for myself. That's interesting. I just got triggered by that, and this is part of what emotional intelligence is about. What's the trigger mechanism? Why would that be so triggering to me and this goes to Viktor Frankl's point of so that the reaction can now be a uh, can become an intentional response? 

14:13 - Mark (Host)
right, that is more generative than it is destructive you're talking to stacy, who is a small, medium mid-sized business owner many times over small small and myself similar. Um why are we not elon musk? Why are we not this top tier? Um yeah, what executive? 

14:35 - Stacey (Host)
happen to us what? 

14:36 - Mark (Host)
what is it? Is it the lack of ego? 

14:39 - Stacey (Host)
um, you're saying you have no beg to differ. 

14:43 - Blaine Barlett (Guest)
Sorry, go ahead I mean, I don't know you guys real well, but I've got a that you're actually doing some pretty good stuff in your life. 

14:49 - Stacey (Host)
Is there a difference and I'm not saying comparatively Is there a difference between someone like an Elon Musk, when you talk to that person that you know, okay, this person has this certain something that is going to make them a billionaire a hundred times over. Is there something? 

15:08 - Blaine Barlett (Guest)
If there's anything that I could put my finger on it would be singularity of focus. You know they are hyper, hyper focused on what it is that they're doing. I mean, it's not an accident. 

15:26
I think that some of these folks legitimately could be diagnosed as being on the spectrum in some way shape or form and that's a beautiful thing a particular way of being and thinking and doing that allows for them to cut out all the noise. And it's the cutting out of the noise that allows them to be particularly effective in those domains of the noise. That allows them to be particularly effective in those domains and the experience that people have around them sometimes is they're ruthless, they're single-minded, they're selfish, they're egocentric, I mean maybe even sociopathic. But, they're focused. They're really really really, really really focused. 

16:04 - Stacey (Host)
So Warren Buffett and Bill Gates actually there's a video of them and someone asked them what makes you? If there's one word for success, what is it? And they both were separate and they both wrote it down on a piece of paper and when they lifted up the piece of paper, it was focus. Yeah, love it, it was focus. 

16:24 - Warren Buffet (Guest)
His father, many years ago, right after we met, had a group of about 20 write down on a sheet of paper one word that they thought accounted for their success, and Bill and I, who may have only met twice, didn't know what the other one was writing down. We both wrote down the same word, which was focus, and he was focused on software. I was focused on investments and it gave me a big advantage to start very young. There's no question about it. 

16:49 - Mark (Host)
That's exactly what Blaine just said, I know. That's why I'm reiterating that, isn't that crazy. And I'm ADD, so that's never going to happen, I know. So that's the answer right there. Focus on one thing. Good luck with that. 

16:59 - Stacey (Host)
Dang it. 

17:00 - Blaine Barlett (Guest)
All right, some people ADD. It drives them crazy being focused. 

17:07 - Stacey (Host)
Oh squirrel, yeah, yeah, let's do this, let's do that, let's do this. Oh, this is going to be fun. 

17:12 - Mark (Host)
Aside from the relationship thing, which I 100% agree with, what's the most common maybe I don't know how to put this the most common aha moment that the people you work with have? 

17:26 - Blaine Barlett (Guest)
The most common aha moment. Huh, you know, I've never, I've literally never been asked that question. Aha, aha, well there, must be. 

17:38 - Mark (Host)
I mean, I'm sure there's differences in every individual, but there has to be some sort of theme when you're working with these high level executives that they say you know what. That's a good point. 

17:48 - Blaine Barlett (Guest)
Like wow, I really can't believe you yeah I need to employ that yeah, and that's, I think it is going to be very situational, but I think I know that something has dropped. When I mean literally dropped, I mean the penny drops, you know, so to speak, it's kind of like there's a shift in in the shift in thinking happens when there's, when there's a shift in physiology, and that's I mean when all of a sudden somebody, I mean literally, will light up. They kind of sit up, they go oh, I see, yeah, never thought of that. Or wow, I think we could do this. That epiphany, you know that moment that tells me that the old paradigm now is on its last legs and now we need to start, you know, reinforcing the new to move the old out of the way. But it's that opening and I guess this is a more clinical answer is we behave in habitual ways. 

18:51
Everybody behaves in habitual ways. 95% of our behavior, blah, blah, blah, all that kind of stuff. So we're always operating out of patterns. I got up in the morning on the same side of the bed. I got up yesterday. I've got my favorite cup for my coffee. I brush my teeth with my same hand. You have patterns, it's all patterns, and there's a great conservation of energy component to that. I don't want to have to think about it every time, but it makes it really difficult to introduce something new as long as the patterns are running. 

19:23 - Mark (Host)
Hey guys, thanks for listening. If you like what you're hearing, please leave us a review, give us a follow, subscribe. Thanks for listening. If you like what you're hearing, please leave us a review, Give us a follow, subscribe all those things. We love it because we read each and every comment and it helps shape the show, so we would appreciate it. 

19:36 - Stacey (Host)
Please, and back to the show. 

19:39 - Blaine Barlett (Guest)
When you can interrupt the pattern, it makes it possible to put something else in place, and until the pattern can be interrupted and that's what the aha signals, aha, the pattern has been interrupted. When aha happens, then something new can be dropped in and if it's, you know, worked well, you can actually take root and flourish and grow. But it's, you know, the ahana's is the. Is the pattern interrupt? 

20:09 - Mark (Host)
let me restate what's on the other side. What's the, what's the payoff? 

20:16 - Blaine Barlett (Guest)
who was it? Oscar wilde, I think. Uh, talked about utopia. You know the ever uh. You know, having landed at the shore of utopia, we cast our eyes out across the ocean again and we see another land, another utopia. And so that's how humankind, that's how humans progress in life, is imagining utopias. Part of the way that I define success has to do with the pursuit of a worthy ideal. That ideal continues to evolve and this kind of goes back to the notion of purpose. Again, stacey, it's an evolutionary question. So when people have to your point, mark, when they kind of got on the other side, they can't afford to rest on their laurels, in one sense, because that will. The spirit wants to continuously express itself, and this expression manifested in this way, boy, that was cool. How else does it want to now manifest this book, compassionate Capitalism. In my lifetime, compassionate Capitalism will probably not see the light of day. 

21:21
There will be organizations and some companies that actually begin to do some stuff with it. But yeah, I kind of I played with the notion of a thousand-year vision, sometimes with my clients, not a three-year vision, but a thousand-year vision and that begins to take all the constraints off. If it could be a perfect, if you could have this perfect thing, whatever this thing might be, your company, whatever it is, yeah, what would it look like, feel like, smell like, taste like in a thousand years? I, yeah, what would it look like, feel like, smell like, taste like in a thousand years? I've never thought about that. That interrupts a pattern. That's a great question. Let's play with that. So we, we play with that and sometimes I'll spend an hour, two hours, three hours just looking at a thousand year vision with a client and it begins to open up all kinds of parameters for what could be possible. What would we need to do today to make that happen in a thousand years? 

22:07
For me, compassionate capitalism, what I could do when I wrote that was write the book, get some tenants in place and then daily I begin to do some work around that with my clients and whatnot, because it completely changes the way that capitalism is thought of. Most people don't think of compassion and capitalism in the same same sentence. When I was 18, I put together a bucket list. I didn't have that, you know that word for it. I didn't even know what a bucket list was, but I sat down and I wrote a list of 10 things that I wanted to have do or be by the time I was yeah, done with my life by 20. 

22:44
You know, by the time I was 24, I'd done them all oh nice and I went okay, well, I think I need to start thinking a little bigger here. But at the time when I was 18, looking out at that threshold, it was kind of like, oh my god, because I knew nobody that had ever done any of these things. I'd read about them, uh, read about in books and you know that kind of stuff. 

23:06 - Stacey (Host)
So, stretching a little bit more, what are a couple of those things on your on that were on your list, that you did, that are that were mind-blowing yeah, uh, one of them was I wanted to be speaking internationally. 

23:24 - Blaine Barlett (Guest)
Well, I yeah wow, 24. 24. That time I was 24. Yeah, wow good for you so yeah, and it was just a small, thing, it was in canada, but, but it was international it counts, it counts, it counts across the border, across the border. Um, yeah, I wanted to fly an airplane. I wanted to have a pilot's license, so I got a pilot's license. I got certified as an aerobatic pilot wow flew gliders, uh. 

23:54
So I kind of went down that path. Okay done, scuba diving. I wanted to dive some different oceans and nobody in my family had ever. I grew up on a small farm. I mean, nobody in my family went to university, that wasn't part of my world, and so I just started thinking and uh. 

24:21 - Stacey (Host)
So I just started thinking and, wow, that's so cool. So, blaine, what's what's? What is your, what is your 1000 year vision? 

24:24 - Blaine Barlett (Guest)
compassionate capitalism is a large part of that uh it really is. 

24:28
Uh, business is the most pervasive force on the planet today. It touches everything. I mean literally everything. Stacy is touched by the activities of business, and the activity of business has to have heart if it's going to be tenable long term. Here's the root of compassion. Compassion has to do with connection. I cannot behave compassionately and compassion is a behavior, it's not a feeling. I cannot behave compassionately towards something if I don't feel connected with it. So the idea of everything is touched by my activities as a business. 

25:07
When I start recognizing that there is a connection there that needs to be husbanded, that needs to be stewarded, that needs to be actually loved, I start making decisions in a little bit different way. I start conserving resources or deploying resources in different ways. I treat my people differently. I treat my customers differently. How do people feel about themselves when they're in the presence of my service or my business or my product? I mean, how do people feel if they feel uplifted? I'm doing a pretty good job and I think that the purpose of business is to enhance the quality of life on the planet you know, enhance the likelihood of thriving for people all you know, not just people, but for life on the planet. 

25:54
The purpose of business enhance the, you know, the likelihood of thriving on the planet. The purpose of business enhanced the likelihood of thriving on the planet and if you're doing that well, you're going to have no problem having customers. 

26:05 - Stacey (Host)
And that starts with the leaders of the companies who you're speaking with. And then do you think that businesses can have souls? 

26:14 - Blaine Barlett (Guest)
Businesses. I don't think anything can't not have a soul. 

26:18 - Stacey (Host)
Some of them seem like they don't just saying. 

26:21 - Blaine Barlett (Guest)
That's why when you look inside these organizations, people feel dead. They aren't alive, they're not creative. There's minimal amounts of ingenuity and creativity going on. Life is creative, life is generative. Life is creative. Life is generative, life is expressive, and every company started with that. 

26:44
Every company had a germ that wanted to flourish, that wanted to come out into the light of day and, at some point in time, the business systems. You know, we were an organization that had a purpose. We were a purpose that needed a business to facilitate its aggression and all of a sudden we became a business with a purpose as an afterthought and you get it reversed. We need to have that purpose and that purpose is continuously evolving. A purpose with a business to deliver on that purpose. And it's about a 51-49 split, because you got to run the business, you got to run it and it needs to be profitable in order to do it. So you need to be smart about how you're doing it. 

27:29
I mean, I worked with Nokia for about 12 years and led a good portion of their international leadership process over that 12-year period. When I started working with them in the mid-90s, they were selling rubber boots, they were selling TV sets, they were selling tires, they were selling farm implements, they were selling cable, they were a conglomerate and they were primarily focused in the Nordic area and they had this little division. They had telephony that they thought they could do something with and they ended up being the most dominant telephony player. They were the largest telephone manufacturer on the planet by the year 2000. And then they took their eye off the ball. There's a whole nother story there. 

28:15 - Mark (Host)
One of my questions was going to be do you feel like a business can have too much soul? 

28:19 - Stacey (Host)
Too much soul. I think I've answered that question. 

28:21 - Mark (Host)
I think it's obvious. No, but maybe it could be if it's at the detriment of the business. But I don't know how that would exist. I don't know. 

28:29 - Blaine Barlett (Guest)
Yeah, I don't either, but again, I, think it's a 51-49 proposition, 49 proposition in terms of you want to keep the 51 in front, which is the soul of the business, yeah, but you need to be able to operate the business, yeah. The oldest company on the planet today is a hotelier in Japan. I think it's almost 1800 years old. It's been in the same family for 1800 years. Round numbers, round numbers. They had no desire to be a Marriott, they had no desire to be a Hilton or any of these large chains. They're in the same location. They've been there for 1,800 years and owned by the same family, and they just keep coming back to who are we, how do we express who we are in our service? And they've changed the buildings, obviously, and all that kind of stuff, but the core has remained the same and they've run the business for again, round numbers, about 1,800 years. 

29:26 - Mark (Host)
That's crazy. You know it's interesting. I'm reflecting. When I first opened my agency, a talent agency, I still have it to this day, right next to my computer. On a sticky little yellow sticky, I wrote the word fair and I said that's going to be the guiding principle of this business. I'm going to be fair to my vendors. I'm going to be fair to my talent. I'm going to be fair, fair, fair. Everything has to work. Nobody can win or lose. It has to work for everybody. I may take that down now and put the word soul up there. I like that better. It's far more encompassing. 

29:55 - Warren Buffet (Guest)
Yeah. 

29:56 - Mark (Host)
And it just means more. And I love the 5149 angle. It's like it doesn't have to dominate, but it still dominates. Yeah, I love that. 

30:05 - Blaine Barlett (Guest)
Yeah, I can't remember a meeting that I was in with any executive at Nokia in the time that I was there where we did not begin the meeting with a review of the core values of the company. Wow, okay, we're going to be making decisions here's, and they had four core values. Here are the four core values. How do these line up? How does this decision we're about to make line up with these four core values and it wasn't about being perfect and hitting all four of them. Sometimes we missed one, but the values informed the decision making process and that's that 5149. You know we've got a decision to make here. It's a business decision, but it needs to be run through the filter of the soul of who we are. 

30:52 - Mark (Host)
I love that yes, it's great, it's good. 

30:55 - Stacey (Host)
So what's next for you, Blaine? Where are you going with this career? Because you're young. You're young in this career. 

31:01 - Blaine Barlett (Guest)
I'm a kid. 

31:03
You're just a kid, I want to do more speaking, I mean honestly. One of the grandkids asked me a couple years back when am I going to retire? And that word is so foreign to me. I cannot imagine not doing what I'm doing. I love it. I'm kind of going back to purpose. Yeah, my, my purpose in life is to teach. Um, and that's I light up when I'm teaching and and uh, teaching has all kinds of different attributes to it, but, yeah, when I'm actually engaging and actually making a difference with the people with whom I'm talking and working, boy, the world is my oyster at that point, I love it. I love it. 

31:46
I don't necessarily want to hop on an airplane every time to go do it, which is part of the nature of a consulting business. So I'm looking at different ways that I can deliver messages and deliver the work this. So I'm looking at different ways that I can deliver messages and deliver the work. You know and this certainly is one of them just being able to be on a show like this that has such a reach, so that people can actually access some information that they perhaps couldn't have gotten before or hadn't thought about before. That's what's up for me and I'm going to be doing this until you know, until I die Yay because we need you in the world. 

32:16 - Stacey (Host)
Um, and how can we help you get whatever you're looking for to get more of like? 

32:21 - Blaine Barlett (Guest)
oh, I mean, if you've got folks that want to talk where should they? Go to talk to them, uh, if there's a speaking engagement or yeah, I mean, yeah, any of that kind of stuff I, I mean I'd love to be able to talk about. You know just a number of different things that I think are germane to how people are living their lives today, particularly when we look around and go this sucks. 

32:44 - Stacey (Host)
And you have. How many books do you have now? 

32:47 - Blaine Barlett (Guest)
I've got five. 

32:48 - Stacey (Host)
Five. Can you just rail them off for me? 

32:51 - Blaine Barlett (Guest)
There was. The first one was a coaching book, three-dimensional Coaching. That came out a number of years ago. The one here, compassionate Capitalism. This one is the newest one, the Leadership Mindset Weekly, which is 52 weekly lessons in effective leadership. How do you lead a compassionately capital, uh, compassionately capitalistic organization? You follow the guidelines in that book. Um, uh, employee engagement, um. There was another book, and that was an ebook. Very first one I wrote was an anthology that I wrote with uh a couple of different folks uh, brian Tracy and uh Kenny Blanchard. Discover your inner strengths. 

33:41 - Stacey (Host)
This has been great. I have thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. I'm so glad Cynthia introduced us. Yes, thank you. 

33:47 - Blaine Barlett (Guest)
This has been wonderful. I'm glad she did too. You guys are delightful. I love the questions. 

33:52 - Stacey (Host)
Thanks. 

33:52 - Blaine Barlett (Guest)
That's fantastic. 

33:54 - Mark (Host)
Well, thank you for joining us, it's been wonderful, and thank you guys for watching. Thanks, that's fantastic. Well, thank you for joining us, it's been wonderful and thank you guys for watching. 

34:01 - Stacey (Host)
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