March 25, 2025 • 53 mins
Why are courage and critical thinking skills needed as a leader? How can you lead with love from a global perspective? In this episode, podcast host, Louie Sharp, interviews Danette Hughes, who transformed her life by moving across the world to teach and experience new cultures spanning 50+ countries.
Louie and Danette’s discussion details the connection between personal development and leadership. For instance, being open-minded and showing empathy are qualities essential to bringing out the best in others. Their discourse also delves into the import of critical thinking and effective listening (i.e., use active listening to understand rather than respond), along with reading and continuous learning.
Two of many books discussed in this episode include the following:
🌟 The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
🌟 Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success by Phil Jackson
Louie’s Leadership & Love Nugs (podcast time stamps)
- Be cognizant of open-mindedness and empathy in leadership roles (5:38)
- Avoid quick judgments and develop critical thinking skills (7:18)
- Practice active listening to understand rather than respond (11:27)
- Push yourself past what you think you can do. And, as a leader, remember to offer that when encouraging others (37:39)
- Challenge yourself with a word of the year for personal development (48:17)
#LeadershipandLove #empathy #criticalthinking #openminded #globaleducator #globalleader #lifelonglearning #readaboutleadership #Thegiftedleader #LouieSharp #Podcast
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Welcome to the Leadership and Love Podcast.
We will cover leadership, mindset, personal development,
and sales and marketing.
You'll experience thought-provoking conversations with both
nationally and internationally recognized leaders.
Our goal is to inspire you and deliver actionable items
that you can implement that will help you accelerate your
(00:22):
growth.
Get ready to discover the magic and the power when you lead
with love.
I'm here with a dear and lifelong friend of mine,
Dannette Hughes.
And Dannette and I crossed paths probably about 15 years
ago at this point.
And she was a teacher at the Wauconda High School at the
(00:45):
time,
and I had just started volunteering with the FBLA students.
And I can tell you a number of things about Dannette.
And first off, she's just an A1 teacher.
And I know that because after she left Wauconda,
the students talked about her for years.
So she had a big impression on them.
(01:06):
And what she's been doing since she left Wauconda is
literally teaching around the world to students in a bunch
of different countries.
And so I'll let her explain a little bit more about that.
And then now she's actually back for a semester here in
Illinois, which is just,
it made my day when I heard she was gonna be close enough
to like to go to lunch, have breakfast,
(01:27):
those kinds of things.
So Dannette, first off,
thank you very much for taking the time.
It's an honor to have you here.
Is there anything you'd like to add to your introduction so
people kind of get an idea/feel for who you are and what
you've been up to?
Oh, gosh, I'm kind of a spur of the moment type of person.
I like to travel a lot.
(01:47):
And I just decided one day to sell my house,
pack everything up,
put my life in four boxes and move to...
across the world.
So I like to try new experiences.
And so what was the impetus that started that whole thing,
that whole process?
I fluctuated between education and business,
(02:07):
and I was back in business,
and I was doing something that was good,
but I didn't find it as rewarding as teaching.
I really miss teaching.
But then I was at a point in my life where my kids were
grown, the house was up for sale, and I thought,
you know what, I want to go back into teaching, and heck,
I might as well just sell everything and move to the other
(02:28):
side of the world and try that.
Not knowing the language, never been to the country Taiwan,
so it was quite an experience.
So that's why probably this talk could focus more on
personal development for maybe those who are kind of
nervous about doing something like that and just by being
(02:49):
there, I've been able to travel, gosh,
to probably over 50 countries, so very, very lucky.
And so you bring up a couple of very good points.
One of the things that we're gonna talk about today with
Danette is leadership and how to lead yourself in that
personal development.
And so one of the things I find fascinating,
(03:10):
I actually have been kind of stalking Danette over the
years because she takes these beautiful pictures from
literally around the world.
And to her point, she's traveled all over the world,
the south,
the far Southeast in Indonesia and in those areas,
in Europe.
She's been, like she said, 50 countries.
She takes these magnificent pictures,
(03:31):
but that's probably a story for another day.
She's in the middle of doing a book with those pictures.
But for today, I'd like you to talk about, first off,
where did you find the courage as you had been married and
you were divorced?
So as a single woman to just break out,
and literally to your point move halfway around the world,
what had you done in personal development that had given
(03:53):
you the ability, the courage to think, well,
I'm gonna go do this?
Uh...
maybe by being independent for a while. I mean, boy,
you make it sound so fabulous it was basically uh...
life short and I've lived in the U.S.
for quite a long time obviously. And, uh I
thought you know what let's...I..I...just had the impetus
(04:16):
to travel when I was at Wauconda, I
was fortunate enough to go with the kids to a spring break
field trip to Europe and that kind of really started it. So
after that, um,
then after I left Wauconda and was in business and again
trying to realize what I want to do with my life, I
just decided this is probably as good as time as any and
(04:36):
so that was that's really it. You make it sound so much
more thought out and and practical and great,
but it was really just me deciding,
let's try something different. If it doesn't work,
and I can always come back, but it worked out really well.
It's worked out great,
but I'd like to point out to our listeners,
so one of the things that that just dropped is what I can
(04:58):
consider a golden nugget, and that is,
there's no time better than now.
And she said something very, very powerful.
She just had a choice.
And she chose what she wanted.
And was brave enough to follow through with it.
So when we talk about personal development and that,
can you tell our listeners,
what's something that you found over the years that you've
(05:18):
used to help you, you learn personally, to learn...
so you went to a country where you didn't know the
language. You didn't know the customs.
So what's something that you've used or you can share with
our leaders,
that's a habit or something that you've used to improve
your own personal development for your own learning.
Okay, probably number one, be open-minded.
(05:42):
Number two would be empathy.
I tend to talk about that quite a bit in my classes as
well.
You know,
put yourself obviously in the other person's situation and
try to understand it,
and just go with a positive attitude.
And if you don't know something, ask questions.
There's many times in Taiwan,
(06:03):
specifically where I will just smile and point to things
because I don't know what I'm eating.
And you know what,
people are generally very helpful and very kind.
I have not run into anyone who is rude in any of the
countries.
And yes, that includes France.
The French were, you know, I know that stereotype,
(06:25):
but I've never encountered anyone who was who was rude.
And if you just kind of go with a positive attitude,
and people in other countries appreciate when they have
tourists,
and they appreciate that we're coming there to learn from
them.
And I think that's part of it is just understanding that we
(06:46):
don't live in our little microcosm here that obviously the
world is huge.
And I think it's important for everyone to basically
travel,
just to learn about other customs and cultures. And again,
we have empathy.
So you touched on a couple of things and let's go back to
(07:09):
empathy for a minute.
So for you,
what does empathy look like in your day-to-day life and as
a leader and teacher of others?
Uh, I think, I think as a society because of social media,
um, we tend to judge quickly.
And, um, we listen for little sound bites.
(07:29):
I even tell my students sometimes we're just,
we're a Twitter or X speed, whatever that may be,
whatever you want to call it society where we know a little
bit about a lot.
But again,
even when I asked my students to go a little deeper,
I said, we know this part, but now what do we know here,
here, and here?
So I always ask those why or so what, you know, so can you,
(07:51):
can you dig a little deeper with that?
So in that you are using critical thinking skills.
And I think that's so important now is, um, again,
just to understand people and, um, you know, where...
we all have backgrounds, you know,
baggage and try to understand where other people are coming
(08:11):
from.
I just talked about that in my class today about judging
students.
And I said, I was a new teacher this semester,
and students are judging me as soon as I walk in the door,
whether they think I'm going to give them a lot of work or
not.
And then I tell them, and then that goes hand in hand.
You know, I'm looking at certain students, too.
And I've had this situation several times in my years of
(08:32):
teaching where I'm looking at some kids thinking, oh boy.
And it turns out I was telling the story today where this
one student of mine was actually, he didn't look the part,
but he was actually the smartest student in my class.
And by looking,
we were talking about direct and indirect characterization.
And he, and he came to my class kind of, you know,
the baggy black shirt, the baggy, saggy black pants.
(08:56):
And, uh, and I was, you know,
I judged him and I was telling my students today that he,
he was the smartest one in the class in terms of discussing
novels and just the critical thinking that he had,
that he contributed to the conversation.
So, so that's what I mean by that.
(09:19):
Yeah,
so this is beautiful because there's two things there that
I want to go a little deeper on.
The first one is judgment,
and then the second will be the critical thinking.
So it's fascinating to me, at one time in meditation,
the wisdom came to me that when we judge,
we eliminate the ability to love unconditionally.
(09:39):
And we all do it, right?
We've been raised that way.
We look at people, we judge them, and then bam.
And sometimes it blows up the relationship before we can
ever develop it.
So somebody that's in that kind of environment where
there's that many people that you, you know,
(10:00):
right off the bat,
you have to make some sort of assessment and then work with
them over the next semester or year.
What have you done to kind of help you take the edge off of
that judgment to give everybody a fair shake in the
classroom?
I always start with humor, and as I'm laughing now,
(10:21):
I just let them know that I'm here to help them.
You know, so when they complain about,
I'm kind of setting them up.
First of all, I'd love to give them food, you know,
but I'd pay them off.
And then it's basically letting them know that I'm here to
help them.
And if they don't understand something,
to be totally open about it.
(10:42):
And I guess that can apply to life,
that if you show you're open and willing to understand and
learn from people, because I tell my students,
we tend to listen to respond.
We don't listen to understand.
So sometimes when we're talking and someone says something,
and I can be kind of snarky too, you know,
(11:04):
we're already ready for that comeback,
and we're not listening to everything else you're saying,
because I've already got my mind, ooh,
that's a good zinger.
I'm going to...
I'm going to sing that person back with this.
And then you're,
you're not listening to anything else they say.
And so I try to tell my students, basically,
in our society, let's listen more instead of just respond.
(11:27):
Yeah, I would agree.
And I think that's very powerful for,
for leaders of any organization, right?
Whether you're in a family,
whether you're a teacher in a classroom,
whether you're in a company, I don't,
I would completely agree with you.
We don't listen and it's becoming a lost art, right?
It takes,
it takes practice to be a very good listener to listen long
(11:47):
enough.
One of the things I like to share with people,
I learned this, I forget where now,
but let somebody finish talking.
And then when they're done talking, take a breath,
because they're probably not done talking.
They're just causing to take a breath.
If you take a breath,
it's going to let them go on instead of you talking over
them.
One of the things I think that you're touching on just
(12:09):
such, such wisdom.
One of the things I like to go back to, well,
I think that this is what,
what's so fascinating for me about doing this podcast is
that as I talk to people everybody has wisdom in some way,
shape or form about something.
And so if you ask the right questions,
you said something very powerful earlier about,
(12:30):
and this is, again,
I'd like leaders to take this away for something they can
implement immediately,
whatever your challenges in your family,
in your organization, or whatever you may be,
if you ask everybody in the organization for help or a
solution,
you'll be amazed at who's going to have a wisdom that you
don't have.
And I've had in my, one of my own companies,
(12:51):
we had a problem in production with a body shop.
We had a problem with the guys in the back had a challenge
with production.
I got the entire company together.
And oddly enough, um,
one of the females that worked in the office never fixed a
car.
She had the solution,
but had we not been everybody in the room and asked the
question, we'd have never got her wisdom.
So what you said was very powerful about, you know,
(13:13):
asking people and understanding that you need to listen,
because they have wisdom and experience you don't have.
It's why I love doing this podcast,
because I get to talk to people like you, Danette,
who we've known each other for a long time.
But again,
these conversations bring out things that I don't know
about you.
And yet you might not even thought about.
(13:34):
So I'd like to go back to the other point that you touched
on (13:36):
critical thinking.
What do you do?
And I think this is on the verge of the listening too,
as well.
It's,
it's starting to be a lost art to be able to critically
think, right?
People just get information from these sound bites.
Like you were talking about in social media and other
places.
And then they, they just go with that being the gospel.
That's the truth.
(13:57):
That's the only option.
And I saw it on TV, so it must be true.
So what's one of the things that you teach people,
students specifically on how to critical think.
Okay, well,
it starts even with putting together a paragraph.
I start, you know, this is very simplistic,
but the PEE method, what's your point,
(14:18):
what's your evidence and what's your explanation?
Excuse me.
So, you know, if they make something,
I want them in the back of their mind,
I'm sitting here on their shoulder saying, so what?
So keep going.
Okay, so and, you know, and keep going like that.
So kind of, you know, that old, you know,
(14:38):
peeling away the onion layers, well,
that's what I want them to do.
Because just today,
I was talking about how a memory when I was in college,
I was in an art history class.
And we had to analyze.
And we had to go to an art exhibit and analyze a painting.
I wrote four pages on this one painting.
(15:00):
And it's basically, again,
staring at something and just looking at every little
nuance of it.
And then just, again, thinking, what is the...
what is the painter really trying to express here?
You know, what's his theme?
What's his tone?
All that.
And so that's what I try to instill in my in my students.
I said, for example, when we're reading poetry,
there's some poetry by the British Lit authors that I have
(15:23):
no idea what they're talking about.
So again, I have to research them.
But I always say, read the author, you know,
kind of do some background information and understand where
the author is coming from.
Because sometimes, you know,
if he's writing something about kind of negative about
women, like, oh, that guy just went through a divorce or,
you know,
just just something like that or mental health struggles.
(15:45):
So I always try to find out a little bit of background,
if possible.
But again, going back to your subject, your topic.
Again, just why why does the person look this way?
You know, why is what triggered the person to act this way?
And just and prove it in that, you know,
in that dialogue that you've read.
(16:07):
you
Right.
And I think,
I think that's a very good point because I think that that
kind of analysis and critical thinking can make it a whole
lot easier.
One, to be empathetic, which is what you've talked about.
And the other thing is,
is to try to get to the resolution or solution because to
your point,
you've got somebody kind of looking at the world through
(16:29):
your glasses, if you will.
Mm hmm.
Yeah, so it's kind of giving them a different perspective.
And I'll tell students if they have to write, for example,
a persuasive essay,
and it'll be on a piece that we've talked about.
And they always say, well, how many pages?
And I said, well, and I usually say enough to sell me.
(16:51):
So if you can pick a particular theme or topic,
this pertains to society,
if you can sell me on your belief, and then cite evidence,
you know, real evidence, you know,
like we always talk about your sources,
check your reliable sources.
And if you can sell me on it,
(17:11):
because sometimes it's a perspective that I never thought
of.
And that is in life as well.
It's not just reading a novel,
because I could walk away with my background,
something totally different than what a 16 or 17 year 18
year old student is going to walk away with, or any of us,
because we're all placing our perspectives into something
from our previous experiences.
(17:33):
So I say, Okay, be empathetic toward that.
And, you know, learn from each other.
Yeah,
I think that's fascinating because one of the things you
just touched on is check your sources.
One of the things that's become very evident to me in the
last, I don't know,
year or two specifically is gossip and how destructive that
(17:54):
is and how, you know,
as a leader somebody's going to tell you something and it's
just gossip, right?
They don't have, to your point,
they don't have any hard evidence, they have no proof,
it's just their idea of something or their point of view or
them just creating hate and discontent because they want to
(18:15):
create hate and discontent and often,
and I know I've been guilty of this in the past,
is that somebody will tell me something and then I'll run
with it, right?
And then, yeah, we're human.
Well, right,
and then I'll go say or do something that I regret later
because the information I got wasn't accurate.
So one of the things I like to ask is why, right?
(18:40):
It's what I learned in the Toyota way.
I don't know if you're familiar with lean manufacturing but
they teach the five whys.
If you ask why five times,
it doesn't always take five but usually you're going to get
to the root of the problem or what's going on. But at that
point, we're dealing with real evidence, not hearsay,
gossip, or whatever that may be.
(19:01):
What's one of the things that you've done because,
as I said at the top of the episode, it was amazing to me.
It was amazing to me how much the kids remembered you,
how highly they thought of you,
and how deeply you impacted them because I wasn't
(19:23):
exaggerating for years after you were gone.
Everybody's still talking about Miss Hughes.
So I'd like to share with our listeners as the leader in
front of that classroom,
there's no doubt you were leading with love because they
wouldn't be talking about the way that they wouldn't be
speaking of you the way they were had you not touched their
hearts.
(19:43):
So what do you do on a regular basis because it's clear
that and you may not even be aware of all of it at this
point right?
It's just become who you are in front of a classroom but
what are you aware of and the things that you do when
you're leading that classroom that touches their hearts?
Well,
I've had a couple of students tell me I treated them with
(20:05):
respect, and I treated them like adults.
That's number one.
And it's funny you mention that because I just had a couple
of students come into my class after school today,
and I've only been at my new school for about three weeks.
And the kids come in, and they say, oh, we always stop in.
And so I'm like, oh, hi.
And they told me, yeah, we missed the previous teacher.
(20:27):
And they, well,
what they'll say is they'll say some of the students said
they missed the previous teacher,
and they said they liked him because he gave lots of
packets.
Okay, and I said, okay.
And then two of the students said to me, they said,
but we like you because you make us think.
(20:48):
And so I thought, wow, and these are freshmen.
Wow.
And so, yeah, yeah, these are freshmen saying this.
So because they're always like, oh,
is she going to be hard?
She going to be easy.
But I already am questioning them, you know,
why did you write this down?
Or there was one assignment they did,
and it wasn't very good.
So I said, okay.
(21:09):
And I went to the board, you know, modeled it and said,
this is exactly what I want.
Ensure logical flow, but prove your point.
And I'm always quoted by my students,
I want to meet with that answer.
You know, give me like this much of a response.
So when I ask you about it,
you can cite evidence per that story or novel or whatever
that may be news piece that you can cite your evidence and
(21:33):
be able to explain why that proves your point.
And so how do you put love in that?
Because that's the process, and you said respect,
but what are you doing so that they know you care?
Because it's very evident that you do.
I bring in food.
(21:56):
I seriously have.
There was one situation where a student didn't do well.
He never did well on vocabulary quizzes.
I would give the vocabulary words on Monday,
and every Friday we'd have a vocab quiz.
That was my standard every week.
You know,
so some of the kids always knew Monday vocab words, Friday,
you know, the quiz.
So this one student in particular didn't ever do well.
(22:19):
So I told the class, I said on Monday, okay,
I'm going to give these words out.
I said, and if so and so gets a 100, Friday, pizza party.
They're like, what?
I said, yeah, no pizza party, pizza party for the class.
And there's about 25 kids in the class.
So I said pizza party.
So what was really interesting,
there was a couple of things that happened.
The kids would come into class and every day they would
(22:42):
quiz this particular student on some of the vocab words.
You know, that's really nice.
And it kind of built that family because that's another
thing that's really important to me.
I said, no one's better than anybody else ever anywhere.
You know,
I don't care how much money you have or what you look like
or anything like that.
We're all equal.
Okay.
(23:02):
And so they would quiz him on it.
And Friday, the test comes.
So everybody takes their test, they bring it up.
I grade his first (23:10):
100.
So I announced to the class, kids, so and so got 100.
And they're like, yeah, yeah,
slapping them on the back and everything.
And they're like pizza.
I'm like, yep, you're right pizza.
But the best part of that was not only did the student look
(23:30):
like a hero for the class, because thank you,
we have pizza now.
But he came up to me and after class and said that was the
first 100 he's ever received.
Oh my gosh, so for our listeners.
So I love the stories that come out of these episodes and
(23:50):
that,
that one brings tears to my eyes because she seriously,
Danette touched on a couple of really powerful things,
right?
She, she knew the team, it wasn't money.
She knew that pizza would make their hearts go pitter
patter.
And then she got the, she got the whole team,
the classroom involved.
I want you to think about how you can do this.
(24:11):
And here's, here's the beauty of how these things work.
So I'm going to tell you a story, Danette.
Uh, let me look at it.
So literally two hours ago, two hours ago at,
at one of my businesses, the body shop,
I bought everybody in the team ice cream.
And you'd have thought I'd given them gold.
You'd have thought I'd.
It's the little things, you know,
(24:32):
the spontaneous little things.
What?
And it's and it's to your point,
it's knowing them well enough to know that pizza party is
going to be a big deal.
I want to share with you and I want this to lead into
something else.
I read a book by Phil Jackson, The 11 Rings.
I don't know if you've read it,
but he had 11 championships and six of those were with the
(24:52):
Chicago Bulls.
And in part of that book,
he said when he was with the Chicago Bulls,
every year he would buy everybody on the team a book.
And but he wouldn't buy the same book.
He knew each player well enough to buy them a book for
their specific interests.
Wow.
Right.
Right.
Well,
(25:13):
I think that's like when I've gone into companies and corporations,
I've asked the leaders, managers, CEOs.
Could you buy your team a book?
Not the same book for everybody,
but a book for each of them.
Right.
Personal.
Right.
That would be something that's their their interest.
So let's talk about reading for a little bit.
(25:33):
I was...
There my favorite!
One of mine, too.
And so I'd like you to share with our listeners, w
hy is it important to read? When we talk about personal
development, I think...
I think it's at the top of my list,
but I'd like to know why you think it's so important to
read for personal development?
(25:54):
Oh, again, well, obviously, number one is become educated.
I like to read a lot of nonfiction, too.
I mean, in front of me, I have so many books,
Extreme Ownership, Dare to Lead, 48 Laws of Power,
Leaders Eat Last, all kinds of, you know, think again,
Atomic Habits.
I have all these self-help books, if you will,
(26:14):
that have been really instrumental in helping me kind of
figure out what I want to do with my life.
Because I think Life of Chapters, you know, yeah, you just,
you, it lets you think about other opportunities.
Also, again, when you read something, why, you know, again,
(26:35):
the critical thinking, you know, why,
what do you like about it?
What are the main ideas?
What are you extracting from that that you can apply to
your personal life?
So, obviously, reading, and it's fun.
There's so many cool things that you can learn.
Just, if you read, you know, just what, you know,
about other countries, I mean, it makes me want to go.
(26:56):
Being a better person, you know, I read, I'm reading,
I have read the book Flow, it's about happiness.
I mean, you know,
it just gives you a different frame of mind where you're
not walking around kind of all, you know, doom or,
you know, just in a bad situation.
It makes you think of the positive aspects of life.
(27:17):
Well, I would agree with you.
And I think that if you touched on something that's very
powerful there, and I like to share with our listeners,
one of the things that there are no magic books,
they're just the magic things you do...
that you do by taking action from something that you
learned in the book.
So thank you for pointing that out.
And you also pointed something else out that I'd like our
(27:37):
listeners to understand.
When I read a book,
I read it like I'm having a conversation with the author.
Do I agree with them?
Do I, do I not agree with them?
Do I have a question about something?
Do I believe that to be accurate?
Is that something I need to go,
like to your point earlier with empathy,
do I need to go investigate?
Is that really something that,
that is something that's the truth that I can,
(27:58):
I can hang my hat on and then also I'm not afraid to use a
book, like a learning tool, right?
I highlight stuff.
I dog, I dog-ear the pages and I'm also right.
I get a thumbs up for those of you that are listening,
they can't see.
Did that give me a big thumbs up?
And, but I, and so I think it's, you know, inner,
(28:21):
I'm literally interacting with the author, I'm, I'm having,
I'm engaged with what they're saying and what's going on in
that.
What are the things that you do when you,
when you read a book?
Oh, gosh.
Well, as a teacher, I mean,
I'm hardcore have to have my book,
have my highlighters out I write little notes on the side.
(28:42):
Again,
if I'm responsible for teaching these students something I
have to know more than they do.
And so my students are pretty smart.
So I always look for little fun facts I'm constantly
continually, even over all the years of teaching,
looking for new information to apply to, you know,
certain parts of the book.
(29:03):
OK, stop.
I want you to interrupt for just a second.
Yeah, yeah, sure.
So she just dropped more than a golden nugget.
I want you to understand that we're talking to a first
class teacher who is taught around the world.
And the reason why I know she's a first class teacher is
because she gets the same results wherever country she goes
to to teach.
But she just said something that I think everybody needs to
(29:25):
understand.
Even though she's a world class teacher,
she's consistently, consistently learning new things.
And I think a lot of people start to get stagnant because
they think they've gotten to some plateau,
and they don't need to learn anymore.
As a leader,
it's your responsibility to continue to learn and continue
to add value to those around you.
So I'm sorry to interrupt, but go on, please.
(29:47):
No, no, because I was going to say situations change.
People change.
So you continuously, I totally believe in that.
You have to be a lifelong learner.
I think it keeps you informed.
I think it keeps you engaged.
Do I want parallel structure here?
I think I have to think of another one, another verb.
(30:09):
You know what?
It keeps you exciting because people want to talk to you
because you're interesting.
And I think reading gives that to you.
Reading, traveling,
just talking to people makes you interesting.
And that's why, as I get older,
I still want to be interesting.
(30:31):
People want to hang out with me.
Preach it, sister, preach it.
I can tell you, well, because it's the truth, right?
I'm long over the boring conversations about the weather or
about what the Chicago Bears did or with your sports team
in your area, right?
I wanna talk about things that engage and stimulate my
mind.
And I love to have conversations with people that have a
(30:53):
different point of view because it opens my brain to a
whole different possibility,
but reading stimulates these powerful conversations with
people and that's when you learn, you know,
and I'd like you to talk about this for a little bit
because I've learned mentoring the high school kids with F
uture Business Leaders of America, FBLA.
(31:13):
I have gained so much wisdom from the students, right?
I am always a student myself.
Can you talk about that,
how you're constantly learning from people that some people
would, when we talked about kind of going full circle,
some people would judge somebody as young and say,
and they don't have wisdom,
they don't have anything I can learn from them.
Can you talk about that for a little bit, please?
(31:34):
Yeah,
because they definitely know more than myself in terms of
technology and social media.
And they can...
they can teach me about what it's like for them growing up
in this age, because I was saying, you know,
back in my day, you know, we didn't even have computers.
Right.
I remember when I was in college,
I had my Smith Corona electric typewriter,
(31:56):
and going to the computer lab at two or three in the
morning running, it was a PL one, or Fortran, you know,
and having the stacks of papers that you had to put into
the computer.
You know, and now they have, geez,
they have literally the world at their fingertips.
And it's it's interesting to me because you just said
(32:16):
something very powerful again And you just keep dropping
these golden nuggets that are big.
And one of them is is that we really truly live in an age
where you can...you can learn anything by going to the
computer Yeah, anything there's I have a friend of mine, s
he's in kentucky,
and she's actually building a little house and this is a
(32:39):
um,
a woman who's an event planner and she went on Youtube and
watch seven or eight nine videos and she's building walls.
Oh, my gosh.
Well, that's what I mean.
I mean, you you can it doesn't matter how old you are.
I mean, I don't judge people by their age.
Because you can learn from anybody.
(32:59):
I mean,
it's a simple matter of asking somebody for directions
somewhere, you know, in another country.
I mean,
I'm not gonna act like I know where where I'm going.
And oh, you're too young to know this information.
I think you have to go with that.
And the people now, nowadays, you know,
they do have different ideas.
And what's to say minds better than theirs or theirs is
(33:19):
better than mine.
But if we can kind of mesh them together, you know,
that's what makes it work.
You have to be open minded.
Right,
I think that that's very critical and very important,
especially in today's age, right?
We've gotten to a point where nobody's open to the
conversation.
You either completely agree with me or you're an idiot,
(33:40):
we're not gonna have a conversation.
And it's gotten us to where we are in the world today.
One of the things I'd like to share a quick story is I saw
Will Smith on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
And this is long before he slapped the crap out of Chris
Rock.
And talk about going from hero to zero to flash.
(34:01):
But he was promoting the movie Independence Day.
Yeah, love that movie
Yeah.
And Jay Leno asked him a question and said, Hey, you know,
what's your secret to success because he'd been a rap star
and then he'd been a sitcom TV star.
And at this point now he's a big movie star.
(34:21):
And Chris said, I'm sorry,
Will Smith said reading and running.
And so these are guys are naturally two comedians.
But Jay Leno doesn't get funny.
Jay Leno asks Will Smith to explain.
And Will Smith said running because he said when I had to
get in shape for this movie,
I realized my body could run further than my brain thought.
(34:45):
And he said reading because he said,
I don't care who you are or what your problem is.
Somebody's already had the same problem,
figured it out and wrote the answer down in a book.
And one of the things I share with people is an app out
there called Hoopla.
If you have a library card,
you can download audio books for free.
(35:07):
So if you're too darn lazy to actually read.
Now, I don't know about you,
but I love the feel of a book in my hands.
Me, too. Yeah.
Yeah, I you know, I listen to some books,
but I really still like to read what's up.
Is there anything else that you'd like to share with our
listeners on on how to develop personal development around
learning?
(35:28):
I mean,
I would just be kind of reiterating what I've mentioned
already is just be open-minded.
Be willing to learn.
And also understand.
Oh, and also, if you don't know vocabulary words,
look them up.
Because we tend to, I get lazy, too.
(35:49):
And I'm like, Oh, what's this word?
Because and the only reason I do is because I think a
student may ask me about it.
But it's so important,
because I don't think we're expanding our vocabulary
either.
So if there are some great imagery,
and they're using these awesome words,
I want to know exactly what they're saying.
And I'll ask the students,
why did they pick that particular word, or passage?
(36:10):
How profound is that?
Or an example of illusion, you know,
reference to the history, Bible, literature, any science,
anything like that?
I said, Well,
why would the author specifically pick that example versus
a different example?
And this is again, into that critical thinking, well,
maybe he or she really want to expand on the fact,
you know, whatever that may be.
(36:30):
So again, any little nugget in there,
I can analyze the heck out of, like I said,
I wrote a four page paper on one painting.
And then and then in high school,
my research paper was 40 pages long.
And I dressed as Gandalf to present because I had to talk
about the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings,
my dad brought in dry ice.
It was pretty cool.
(36:53):
But again,
reading and and I was telling my students this today,
as a matter of fact, I said all this, all the kids,
I was a senior, all the kids had one book to read.
And my teacher said,
you're going to read The Hobbit and the Trilogy.
And of course, me being a typical teenager said, well,
that's not fair.
Why do I have to read four books?
And all he said was, I know you can do it.
Oh, no, ifs, ands, or buts.
(37:15):
And you know what, he was right.
I had my little back then, you know, my,
my stack of note cards and, you know,
all rubber band together and I had my typewriter here.
And it kept me organized.
And I went to the library, as you mentioned, did, you know,
check out all the books and just did a bunch of research
(37:37):
that way.
Yeah,
so that just dropped a couple other things very powerful.
One of them is the ability to push yourself past what you
think you can do, right?
And as leaders,
we often have to put that into other people and let them
know that they can do that.
I read something that's very fascinating,
(37:58):
and I want you to, as our listeners,
to take this away with you.
She said, on my phone,
I have the every day I read something.
And I choose that specifically, right?
Something that I'm interested in.
And I'm like you, Danette,
I'm interested in darn near everything, right?
(38:19):
I'm curious about everything.
But my point to this is to what Danette said,
I learned that if you come to a word and you're learning
something or reading something and you don't know the
definition of that word,
your brain will not remember anything after that.
Right.
And so what I do now when I'm reading, I'll go to my phone,
(38:40):
I'll go to my Webster's dictionary app,
I look up that word, and then I go back.
And to your point, Danette,
I go back to the beginning of the sentence and start again.
And then I say the definition in my head when I get to that
word, and that whole sentence changes.
It completely morphs into something much richer and deeper
(39:01):
than it was initially.
And I'm always glad that I took the time to look up that
word, because it is people use those words,
not necessarily to impress you,
but to spin or to paint a picture that's going to be much
more precise to what they had in their mind.
(39:24):
Yeah, plus it always expands.
It's just good to expand your vocabulary.
I mean, it's always cool.
I love the word exacerbate and it was funny.
I had a friend of mine when I worked at Apple and, uh,
her dad told her,
she told me that her dad gave her a word of the week
forever, like she was little.
(39:44):
And I thought that's pretty cool.
She had a vocabulary.
Her dad gave her a vocabulary where one vocabulary word a
week for what?
Like 15 years, 10 years, you know, I'm spacing it out, but,
but I thought that was, wow, that's pretty fascinating.
And her dad was very high up in an organization, very,
(40:05):
very smart guy.
But I thought that was,
and I thought that was so cool that he did that.
Yeah.
And again,
another great story that's going to teach our listeners a
couple of things, right?
One, the power of little things done consistently,
one word, right?
Just one word a week, one word a week.
And this is what I like to share with people.
If you read one book a month, which is very doable,
(40:28):
you read one book a month, at the end of the year,
you've read 12 books, you realize how the average person,
the average American reads less than a book in their
lifetime. In their lifetime!
Sixth grade reading level, did I read somewhere?
I'll check my sources, because my daughter taught me that.
She's a journalist.
But when I heard that the average reading level of an
(40:53):
American is about definitely not higher than eighth grade,
I'm like, oh my gosh.
So that needs to change, because reading is just fun,
and educational, and just all that.
And I think it actually becomes a little addicting because
you for me I just I love that like I said I love the
(41:16):
conversation with these people that have life experiences
that I don't know or I haven't experienced.
So whether you want to you know, learn a new book...
I'm sorry learn a new word every week or read a book a
month and think about the span of a lifetime, right?
This is how I learned from Darren Hardy that you know,
these little incremental steps is how you change the game.
(41:38):
But it's little steps over a stretch of time, you know,
you've been a runner, you travel,
you do all these things...one of the things just a brief
comment about learning, s
o I've watched the net literally travel around the world
and she told me that she can pack and now this is a woman, f
or you the listeners this is a woman who can pack in a
(41:59):
backpack, right?
You can pack a backpack and you're gone for weeks
Oh weeks four months.
Well, there you go.
I was just I was just in Europe for four months,
and I had my osprey osprey 55L backpack,
and I'm really good.
and that was it really good
have packing yeah that was it. Yeah two pairs of shoes for
(42:21):
a woman what
What?
But that's the power of learning and that life experience,
right?
Of you did it, you tried it,
you revamped the process and you, yep,
and adapt to what you needed and what becomes,
what's really critically important and what's a bunch of
ways that people just drag around.
(42:44):
And that's what makes a good leader, be adaptable, too.
Right.
Without a doubt, you've got, as a leader,
you've got to be adaptable and flexible because nothing,
this is one of the things I've come to understand.
Nothing stays the same.
No, and how boring that would be.
Right, right.
(43:05):
And so in that moment of constant change,
you just have to be kind of calm and patient and kind of
like watching a show and be curious of what's going on in
front of you, but not react and blow up and you know,
be the crazy person,
because nobody likes that person as a leader.
Well,
and and I can relate to that just by traveling to all these
other countries and the transportation, you know,
(43:29):
looking for the trains and figuring out which way.
Oh, okay, looks like I'm going the wrong way.
So I have to look and, you know, in Chinese, okay,
I think I better get off here and take the other one go on
the other side.
And, and even when I was in Japan, you know,
they're very particular with how you go up and down the
stairs, you have to be on the opposite or the escalator.
And I think the stairs,
you have to go on and then the opposite side that we're
(43:51):
used to.
So you have to become accustomed to that.
I told the story today again about culture, you know, In
Japan, I'm at a ramen restaurant.
And all these all these guys are sitting next to me,
and they're all have their bowl of ramen,
they're go slurping really loud.
And I said, Oh, it is true.
You know, the louder you slurp,
(44:12):
the more that you enjoy the food.
And I'm like, wow, so what you read comes to fruition, too.
So that's another thing, you know,
especially reading about the other cultures, you're like,
Oh, that does happen.
Okay, all right.
But it was still interesting to, to hear that.
Yeah.
(44:32):
Well,
and I think that one of the things I've really gained from
traveling around the world is that at the end of the day,
the majority of us are living with just an extreme amount
of luxury, right?
We take running water, a roof over our head, food,
warm water, clean water.
We take it for granted.
And there's and you've been there too.
(44:52):
There's places in the world they don't have clean water or
they lay down at night.
They're under the stars.
Yes, that's absolutely true.
So it makes me appreciate what you have.
But I also found that we're really, we're all the same,
because people will ask me,
what are the kids like in this country?
(45:14):
Or this, you know, here, I said, kids are kids.
And you know what, as human beings, we all have the same,
for the most part, we have the same values,
we all care about family, we we're respectful.
We like to be with other people, we're social beings.
So that's what you find.
(45:34):
We're really, we're all the same.
Yeah, with a there's a great song by Styx.
I think it's off the ground.
Yeah, yeah.
But there's a there's a line in the song.
And that's exactly what it says.
Deep inside, we're all the same,
because we all want we all want to be respected.
We all want to be heard.
(45:54):
We all want to be loved.
We all want to be appreciated.
It's the same.
And we all and we all have the the natural desire to be
part of a community.
I think that's why leadership is.
Yeah, leadership is so important because, you know,
there were in our in our history,
there was a time when if you were banned from the group,
you would die.
Right?
(46:15):
Back in the day, you know,
when we were being chased by saber tooth tigers.
So we still have this.
You have to be faster.
That's right.
Faster than the other person.
Yeah, yeah,
you don't want to be the slowest one in the crowd.
But we have this innate desire to be part of a community.
And that's because it's it's it's passed down from
thousands of years because there was safety in that
(46:38):
community.
And there was there was longevity, right?
Because you could teach and I could go build a house and
somebody else could plant the food and that kind of stuff.
So and I think that's when we talk about leadership,
I think that's the importance.
And you said this earlier about your students.
And I'd like to share it with everybody.
(46:58):
In an organization,
there's really nobody any more important than anybody else.
Because it's like the line the line of dominoes, right?
You take one domino out, the thing stops.
Mm hmm.
Well,
and then and then I think we tend to forget how did these
people get to the top?
All the people underneath built that up to the top.
(47:19):
So everybody is part of that critical mass that made that
company or whatever that may be that organization
successful.
It's not just one person,
maybe one person has a great idea,
but you can have great ideas.
But if you don't know how to act upon them,
it doesn't matter.
No, it doesn't.
And one of the things I've come to understand is anybody
that we've ever known throughout history that's done
(47:40):
anything great on a big scale,
they've never done it by themselves.
Of course not.
Yeah, yeah.
Again,
I love that you were open to being interviewed and that we
didn't have any format because I love doing it that way
because your stories came out in all this great wisdom.
And really,
this is another one of those episodes where people should
(48:02):
listen to it a couple of times because you drop so many
golden nuggets about empathy and looking up vocabulary
words,
leading from the front with love and the importance of
reading, how to be courageous, those kinds of things.
I will share this one last thing with you.
When we talk about vocabulary words,
I would ask our leaders that are listening to challenge,
(48:26):
I challenge you to pick a word.
So for example, my word for this year is courage.
I'm stepping out of my comfort zone.
I never thought in a million years I'd be doing a podcast.
And as it's gonna launch,
we're recording this before it actually launches.
And so I have the fear of, well, people make fun of me,
(48:47):
am I good enough to do it and all those kinds of things.
And that's why my word for this year is courage.
And then all year long, I keep that word in my brain.
And I think, okay,
what can I do this week to step out of my comfort zone and
use courage to try something new?
And I think you model that better than anybody I've known
in my life in that.
And I spent time in the Marines for you to step out of your
(49:11):
comfort zone and be courageous enough to travel halfway
around the world all by yourself and then start teaching
and traveling the world is one of the most courageous
things I've ever watched anybody do.
Uh, thank you.
I just really enjoy it.
You made me think of a book.
I love the book called The Alchemist and I even have, uh,
you can't see it,
but I have a tattoo on my wrist and it's a picture of a man
(49:34):
and he's following like these rays of sunlight.
And then you have the sun over here and it kind of reminds
me to stay on my path.
You know, I have my goal, like you have your goals.
I think it's great that you're,
you're doing the podcast and the leadership, everything.
I'm like, that's fantastic.
My goal I think is now I've decided I probably am going to,
(49:55):
uh, be interested in tutoring, you know,
starting like a tutoring business,
because I would love what you're doing.
I think it's awesome what you're doing.
Um, but I think I'm going to, I'm going to do what I know,
and I tutored ACT for a long time.
I've been a teacher, and I've been to other countries and,
and I know there is a need for English,
(50:15):
so I'm probably going to pursue that route along with my,
my books that I'm writing right now, depending on my mood,
but I've got,
I've got several different novel book ideas and, um,
simultaneously working on those as well.
So, so yeah,
you're giving me the courage to just stay on my path
(50:37):
because it doesn't end no matter how old you are.
I don't, I don't buy into that.
Oh, you're a certain age.
You should be, why are you still working?
You know, you should be enjoying your leisure.
Well, what am I going to do when I'm not doing something?
Right.
I said you have to continuously learn.
It's so important and then find purpose.
(50:59):
I agree.
I couldn't agree with you more.
I think for me, people, people tell me all the time, Louie,
you don't act your age.
You don't look your age.
It's because I'm engaged in life.
I'm having fun, right?
My work is fun to me.
It's not work.
It's fun.
And I think there's, yeah.
And I think that's the power of being a, we can, we can,
you and I could go on for days at this point,
(51:20):
because if we let into purpose, because, and again,
when you're doing things that move your heart and you
touch,
and this is one of the reasons why I tell you all the time,
I love you because you touch people's hearts, right?
Seriously, you touch people's hearts and they don't,
they don't forget that.
And if you just did that to one person,
your whole life would be worthwhile,
(51:41):
but you do it to thought you've done it to thousands of
people.
You're going to do it to thousands of people more before
you take your last breath.
And that, my friend, is a beautiful thing.
Oh, well, thank you.
You're quite welcome and thanks again for taking the time i
really appreciate it and uh for all our listeners out there
uh you can track down Danette she's out there on the
(52:01):
internet she's on Facebook. I highly recommend you reach
out and watch and watch her on Facebook because she posts
some of the most beautiful pictures literally from around
the world. I've told her many times she's got a great eye
for color and a great eye for the angles of things and so
check her out on Facebook if you want to learn more about
her. And, again Danette,
thank you very much for being here,
(52:22):
and I love you and enjoy the rest of your evening.
Thank you, Louie
Thanks again for joining us and listening to this episode
of leadership and love. I would like to challenge you to
ask yourself what's one thing that you heard today that you
can implement immediately to improve your leadership and
accelerate your growth? If you've gotten value out of this
(52:44):
episode or learned something that you can implement today,
we'd ask that you please share it with those that you care
about. Our goal is to create more leaders who are leading
with love.
Welcome to the Leadership and Love Podcast.
We will cover leadership, mindset, personal development,
and sales and marketing.
You'll experience thought-provoking conversations with both
nationally and internationally recognized leaders.
Our goal is to inspire you and deliver actionable items
that you can implement that will help you accelerate your
(00:22):
growth.
Get ready to discover the magic and the power when you lead
with love.
I'm here with a dear and lifelong friend of mine,
Dannette Hughes.
And Dannette and I crossed paths probably about 15 years
ago at this point.
And she was a teacher at the Wauconda High School at the
(00:45):
time,
and I had just started volunteering with the FBLA students.
And I can tell you a number of things about Dannette.
And first off, she's just an A1 teacher.
And I know that because after she left Wauconda,
the students talked about her for years.
So she had a big impression on them.
(01:06):
And what she's been doing since she left Wauconda is
literally teaching around the world to students in a bunch
of different countries.
And so I'll let her explain a little bit more about that.
And then now she's actually back for a semester here in
Illinois, which is just,
it made my day when I heard she was gonna be close enough
to like to go to lunch, have breakfast,
(01:27):
those kinds of things.
So Dannette, first off,
thank you very much for taking the time.
It's an honor to have you here.
Is there anything you'd like to add to your introduction so
people kind of get an idea/feel for who you are and what
you've been up to?
Oh, gosh, I'm kind of a spur of the moment type of person.
I like to travel a lot.
(01:47):
And I just decided one day to sell my house,
pack everything up,
put my life in four boxes and move to...
across the world.
So I like to try new experiences.
And so what was the impetus that started that whole thing,
that whole process?
I fluctuated between education and business,
(02:07):
and I was back in business,
and I was doing something that was good,
but I didn't find it as rewarding as teaching.
I really miss teaching.
But then I was at a point in my life where my kids were
grown, the house was up for sale, and I thought,
you know what, I want to go back into teaching, and heck,
I might as well just sell everything and move to the other
(02:28):
side of the world and try that.
Not knowing the language, never been to the country Taiwan,
so it was quite an experience.
So that's why probably this talk could focus more on
personal development for maybe those who are kind of
nervous about doing something like that and just by being
(02:49):
there, I've been able to travel, gosh,
to probably over 50 countries, so very, very lucky.
And so you bring up a couple of very good points.
One of the things that we're gonna talk about today with
Danette is leadership and how to lead yourself in that
personal development.
And so one of the things I find fascinating,
(03:10):
I actually have been kind of stalking Danette over the
years because she takes these beautiful pictures from
literally around the world.
And to her point, she's traveled all over the world,
the south,
the far Southeast in Indonesia and in those areas,
in Europe.
She's been, like she said, 50 countries.
She takes these magnificent pictures,
(03:31):
but that's probably a story for another day.
She's in the middle of doing a book with those pictures.
But for today, I'd like you to talk about, first off,
where did you find the courage as you had been married and
you were divorced?
So as a single woman to just break out,
and literally to your point move halfway around the world,
what had you done in personal development that had given
(03:53):
you the ability, the courage to think, well,
I'm gonna go do this?
Uh...
maybe by being independent for a while. I mean, boy,
you make it sound so fabulous it was basically uh...
life short and I've lived in the U.S.
for quite a long time obviously. And, uh I
thought you know what let's...I..I...just had the impetus
(04:16):
to travel when I was at Wauconda, I
was fortunate enough to go with the kids to a spring break
field trip to Europe and that kind of really started it. So
after that, um,
then after I left Wauconda and was in business and again
trying to realize what I want to do with my life, I
just decided this is probably as good as time as any and
(04:36):
so that was that's really it. You make it sound so much
more thought out and and practical and great,
but it was really just me deciding,
let's try something different. If it doesn't work,
and I can always come back, but it worked out really well.
It's worked out great,
but I'd like to point out to our listeners,
so one of the things that that just dropped is what I can
(04:58):
consider a golden nugget, and that is,
there's no time better than now.
And she said something very, very powerful.
She just had a choice.
And she chose what she wanted.
And was brave enough to follow through with it.
So when we talk about personal development and that,
can you tell our listeners,
what's something that you found over the years that you've
(05:18):
used to help you, you learn personally, to learn...
so you went to a country where you didn't know the
language. You didn't know the customs.
So what's something that you've used or you can share with
our leaders,
that's a habit or something that you've used to improve
your own personal development for your own learning.
Okay, probably number one, be open-minded.
(05:42):
Number two would be empathy.
I tend to talk about that quite a bit in my classes as
well.
You know,
put yourself obviously in the other person's situation and
try to understand it,
and just go with a positive attitude.
And if you don't know something, ask questions.
There's many times in Taiwan,
(06:03):
specifically where I will just smile and point to things
because I don't know what I'm eating.
And you know what,
people are generally very helpful and very kind.
I have not run into anyone who is rude in any of the
countries.
And yes, that includes France.
The French were, you know, I know that stereotype,
(06:25):
but I've never encountered anyone who was who was rude.
And if you just kind of go with a positive attitude,
and people in other countries appreciate when they have
tourists,
and they appreciate that we're coming there to learn from
them.
And I think that's part of it is just understanding that we
(06:46):
don't live in our little microcosm here that obviously the
world is huge.
And I think it's important for everyone to basically
travel,
just to learn about other customs and cultures. And again,
we have empathy.
So you touched on a couple of things and let's go back to
(07:09):
empathy for a minute.
So for you,
what does empathy look like in your day-to-day life and as
a leader and teacher of others?
Uh, I think, I think as a society because of social media,
um, we tend to judge quickly.
And, um, we listen for little sound bites.
(07:29):
I even tell my students sometimes we're just,
we're a Twitter or X speed, whatever that may be,
whatever you want to call it society where we know a little
bit about a lot.
But again,
even when I asked my students to go a little deeper,
I said, we know this part, but now what do we know here,
here, and here?
So I always ask those why or so what, you know, so can you,
(07:51):
can you dig a little deeper with that?
So in that you are using critical thinking skills.
And I think that's so important now is, um, again,
just to understand people and, um, you know, where...
we all have backgrounds, you know,
baggage and try to understand where other people are coming
(08:11):
from.
I just talked about that in my class today about judging
students.
And I said, I was a new teacher this semester,
and students are judging me as soon as I walk in the door,
whether they think I'm going to give them a lot of work or
not.
And then I tell them, and then that goes hand in hand.
You know, I'm looking at certain students, too.
And I've had this situation several times in my years of
(08:32):
teaching where I'm looking at some kids thinking, oh boy.
And it turns out I was telling the story today where this
one student of mine was actually, he didn't look the part,
but he was actually the smartest student in my class.
And by looking,
we were talking about direct and indirect characterization.
And he, and he came to my class kind of, you know,
the baggy black shirt, the baggy, saggy black pants.
(08:56):
And, uh, and I was, you know,
I judged him and I was telling my students today that he,
he was the smartest one in the class in terms of discussing
novels and just the critical thinking that he had,
that he contributed to the conversation.
So, so that's what I mean by that.
(09:19):
Yeah,
so this is beautiful because there's two things there that
I want to go a little deeper on.
The first one is judgment,
and then the second will be the critical thinking.
So it's fascinating to me, at one time in meditation,
the wisdom came to me that when we judge,
we eliminate the ability to love unconditionally.
(09:39):
And we all do it, right?
We've been raised that way.
We look at people, we judge them, and then bam.
And sometimes it blows up the relationship before we can
ever develop it.
So somebody that's in that kind of environment where
there's that many people that you, you know,
(10:00):
right off the bat,
you have to make some sort of assessment and then work with
them over the next semester or year.
What have you done to kind of help you take the edge off of
that judgment to give everybody a fair shake in the
classroom?
I always start with humor, and as I'm laughing now,
(10:21):
I just let them know that I'm here to help them.
You know, so when they complain about,
I'm kind of setting them up.
First of all, I'd love to give them food, you know,
but I'd pay them off.
And then it's basically letting them know that I'm here to
help them.
And if they don't understand something,
to be totally open about it.
(10:42):
And I guess that can apply to life,
that if you show you're open and willing to understand and
learn from people, because I tell my students,
we tend to listen to respond.
We don't listen to understand.
So sometimes when we're talking and someone says something,
and I can be kind of snarky too, you know,
(11:04):
we're already ready for that comeback,
and we're not listening to everything else you're saying,
because I've already got my mind, ooh,
that's a good zinger.
I'm going to...
I'm going to sing that person back with this.
And then you're,
you're not listening to anything else they say.
And so I try to tell my students, basically,
in our society, let's listen more instead of just respond.
(11:27):
Yeah, I would agree.
And I think that's very powerful for,
for leaders of any organization, right?
Whether you're in a family,
whether you're a teacher in a classroom,
whether you're in a company, I don't,
I would completely agree with you.
We don't listen and it's becoming a lost art, right?
It takes,
it takes practice to be a very good listener to listen long
(11:47):
enough.
One of the things I like to share with people,
I learned this, I forget where now,
but let somebody finish talking.
And then when they're done talking, take a breath,
because they're probably not done talking.
They're just causing to take a breath.
If you take a breath,
it's going to let them go on instead of you talking over
them.
One of the things I think that you're touching on just
(12:09):
such, such wisdom.
One of the things I like to go back to, well,
I think that this is what,
what's so fascinating for me about doing this podcast is
that as I talk to people everybody has wisdom in some way,
shape or form about something.
And so if you ask the right questions,
you said something very powerful earlier about,
(12:30):
and this is, again,
I'd like leaders to take this away for something they can
implement immediately,
whatever your challenges in your family,
in your organization, or whatever you may be,
if you ask everybody in the organization for help or a
solution,
you'll be amazed at who's going to have a wisdom that you
don't have.
And I've had in my, one of my own companies,
(12:51):
we had a problem in production with a body shop.
We had a problem with the guys in the back had a challenge
with production.
I got the entire company together.
And oddly enough, um,
one of the females that worked in the office never fixed a
car.
She had the solution,
but had we not been everybody in the room and asked the
question, we'd have never got her wisdom.
So what you said was very powerful about, you know,
(13:13):
asking people and understanding that you need to listen,
because they have wisdom and experience you don't have.
It's why I love doing this podcast,
because I get to talk to people like you, Danette,
who we've known each other for a long time.
But again,
these conversations bring out things that I don't know
about you.
And yet you might not even thought about.
(13:34):
So I'd like to go back to the other point that you touched
on (13:36):
critical thinking.
What do you do?
And I think this is on the verge of the listening too,
as well.
It's,
it's starting to be a lost art to be able to critically
think, right?
People just get information from these sound bites.
Like you were talking about in social media and other
places.
And then they, they just go with that being the gospel.
That's the truth.
(13:57):
That's the only option.
And I saw it on TV, so it must be true.
So what's one of the things that you teach people,
students specifically on how to critical think.
Okay, well,
it starts even with putting together a paragraph.
I start, you know, this is very simplistic,
but the PEE method, what's your point,
(14:18):
what's your evidence and what's your explanation?
Excuse me.
So, you know, if they make something,
I want them in the back of their mind,
I'm sitting here on their shoulder saying, so what?
So keep going.
Okay, so and, you know, and keep going like that.
So kind of, you know, that old, you know,
(14:38):
peeling away the onion layers, well,
that's what I want them to do.
Because just today,
I was talking about how a memory when I was in college,
I was in an art history class.
And we had to analyze.
And we had to go to an art exhibit and analyze a painting.
I wrote four pages on this one painting.
(15:00):
And it's basically, again,
staring at something and just looking at every little
nuance of it.
And then just, again, thinking, what is the...
what is the painter really trying to express here?
You know, what's his theme?
What's his tone?
All that.
And so that's what I try to instill in my in my students.
I said, for example, when we're reading poetry,
there's some poetry by the British Lit authors that I have
(15:23):
no idea what they're talking about.
So again, I have to research them.
But I always say, read the author, you know,
kind of do some background information and understand where
the author is coming from.
Because sometimes, you know,
if he's writing something about kind of negative about
women, like, oh, that guy just went through a divorce or,
you know,
just just something like that or mental health struggles.
(15:45):
So I always try to find out a little bit of background,
if possible.
But again, going back to your subject, your topic.
Again, just why why does the person look this way?
You know, why is what triggered the person to act this way?
And just and prove it in that, you know,
in that dialogue that you've read.
(16:07):
you
Right.
And I think,
I think that's a very good point because I think that that
kind of analysis and critical thinking can make it a whole
lot easier.
One, to be empathetic, which is what you've talked about.
And the other thing is,
is to try to get to the resolution or solution because to
your point,
you've got somebody kind of looking at the world through
(16:29):
your glasses, if you will.
Mm hmm.
Yeah, so it's kind of giving them a different perspective.
And I'll tell students if they have to write, for example,
a persuasive essay,
and it'll be on a piece that we've talked about.
And they always say, well, how many pages?
And I said, well, and I usually say enough to sell me.
(16:51):
So if you can pick a particular theme or topic,
this pertains to society,
if you can sell me on your belief, and then cite evidence,
you know, real evidence, you know,
like we always talk about your sources,
check your reliable sources.
And if you can sell me on it,
(17:11):
because sometimes it's a perspective that I never thought
of.
And that is in life as well.
It's not just reading a novel,
because I could walk away with my background,
something totally different than what a 16 or 17 year 18
year old student is going to walk away with, or any of us,
because we're all placing our perspectives into something
from our previous experiences.
(17:33):
So I say, Okay, be empathetic toward that.
And, you know, learn from each other.
Yeah,
I think that's fascinating because one of the things you
just touched on is check your sources.
One of the things that's become very evident to me in the
last, I don't know,
year or two specifically is gossip and how destructive that
(17:54):
is and how, you know,
as a leader somebody's going to tell you something and it's
just gossip, right?
They don't have, to your point,
they don't have any hard evidence, they have no proof,
it's just their idea of something or their point of view or
them just creating hate and discontent because they want to
(18:15):
create hate and discontent and often,
and I know I've been guilty of this in the past,
is that somebody will tell me something and then I'll run
with it, right?
And then, yeah, we're human.
Well, right,
and then I'll go say or do something that I regret later
because the information I got wasn't accurate.
So one of the things I like to ask is why, right?
(18:40):
It's what I learned in the Toyota way.
I don't know if you're familiar with lean manufacturing but
they teach the five whys.
If you ask why five times,
it doesn't always take five but usually you're going to get
to the root of the problem or what's going on. But at that
point, we're dealing with real evidence, not hearsay,
gossip, or whatever that may be.
(19:01):
What's one of the things that you've done because,
as I said at the top of the episode, it was amazing to me.
It was amazing to me how much the kids remembered you,
how highly they thought of you,
and how deeply you impacted them because I wasn't
(19:23):
exaggerating for years after you were gone.
Everybody's still talking about Miss Hughes.
So I'd like to share with our listeners as the leader in
front of that classroom,
there's no doubt you were leading with love because they
wouldn't be talking about the way that they wouldn't be
speaking of you the way they were had you not touched their
hearts.
(19:43):
So what do you do on a regular basis because it's clear
that and you may not even be aware of all of it at this
point right?
It's just become who you are in front of a classroom but
what are you aware of and the things that you do when
you're leading that classroom that touches their hearts?
Well,
I've had a couple of students tell me I treated them with
(20:05):
respect, and I treated them like adults.
That's number one.
And it's funny you mention that because I just had a couple
of students come into my class after school today,
and I've only been at my new school for about three weeks.
And the kids come in, and they say, oh, we always stop in.
And so I'm like, oh, hi.
And they told me, yeah, we missed the previous teacher.
(20:27):
And they, well,
what they'll say is they'll say some of the students said
they missed the previous teacher,
and they said they liked him because he gave lots of
packets.
Okay, and I said, okay.
And then two of the students said to me, they said,
but we like you because you make us think.
(20:48):
And so I thought, wow, and these are freshmen.
Wow.
And so, yeah, yeah, these are freshmen saying this.
So because they're always like, oh,
is she going to be hard?
She going to be easy.
But I already am questioning them, you know,
why did you write this down?
Or there was one assignment they did,
and it wasn't very good.
So I said, okay.
(21:09):
And I went to the board, you know, modeled it and said,
this is exactly what I want.
Ensure logical flow, but prove your point.
And I'm always quoted by my students,
I want to meet with that answer.
You know, give me like this much of a response.
So when I ask you about it,
you can cite evidence per that story or novel or whatever
that may be news piece that you can cite your evidence and
(21:33):
be able to explain why that proves your point.
And so how do you put love in that?
Because that's the process, and you said respect,
but what are you doing so that they know you care?
Because it's very evident that you do.
I bring in food.
(21:56):
I seriously have.
There was one situation where a student didn't do well.
He never did well on vocabulary quizzes.
I would give the vocabulary words on Monday,
and every Friday we'd have a vocab quiz.
That was my standard every week.
You know,
so some of the kids always knew Monday vocab words, Friday,
you know, the quiz.
So this one student in particular didn't ever do well.
(22:19):
So I told the class, I said on Monday, okay,
I'm going to give these words out.
I said, and if so and so gets a 100, Friday, pizza party.
They're like, what?
I said, yeah, no pizza party, pizza party for the class.
And there's about 25 kids in the class.
So I said pizza party.
So what was really interesting,
there was a couple of things that happened.
The kids would come into class and every day they would
(22:42):
quiz this particular student on some of the vocab words.
You know, that's really nice.
And it kind of built that family because that's another
thing that's really important to me.
I said, no one's better than anybody else ever anywhere.
You know,
I don't care how much money you have or what you look like
or anything like that.
We're all equal.
Okay.
(23:02):
And so they would quiz him on it.
And Friday, the test comes.
So everybody takes their test, they bring it up.
I grade his first (23:10):
100.
So I announced to the class, kids, so and so got 100.
And they're like, yeah, yeah,
slapping them on the back and everything.
And they're like pizza.
I'm like, yep, you're right pizza.
But the best part of that was not only did the student look
(23:30):
like a hero for the class, because thank you,
we have pizza now.
But he came up to me and after class and said that was the
first 100 he's ever received.
Oh my gosh, so for our listeners.
So I love the stories that come out of these episodes and
(23:50):
that,
that one brings tears to my eyes because she seriously,
Danette touched on a couple of really powerful things,
right?
She, she knew the team, it wasn't money.
She knew that pizza would make their hearts go pitter
patter.
And then she got the, she got the whole team,
the classroom involved.
I want you to think about how you can do this.
(24:11):
And here's, here's the beauty of how these things work.
So I'm going to tell you a story, Danette.
Uh, let me look at it.
So literally two hours ago, two hours ago at,
at one of my businesses, the body shop,
I bought everybody in the team ice cream.
And you'd have thought I'd given them gold.
You'd have thought I'd.
It's the little things, you know,
(24:32):
the spontaneous little things.
What?
And it's and it's to your point,
it's knowing them well enough to know that pizza party is
going to be a big deal.
I want to share with you and I want this to lead into
something else.
I read a book by Phil Jackson, The 11 Rings.
I don't know if you've read it,
but he had 11 championships and six of those were with the
(24:52):
Chicago Bulls.
And in part of that book,
he said when he was with the Chicago Bulls,
every year he would buy everybody on the team a book.
And but he wouldn't buy the same book.
He knew each player well enough to buy them a book for
their specific interests.
Wow.
Right.
Right.
Well,
(25:13):
I think that's like when I've gone into companies and corporations,
I've asked the leaders, managers, CEOs.
Could you buy your team a book?
Not the same book for everybody,
but a book for each of them.
Right.
Personal.
Right.
That would be something that's their their interest.
So let's talk about reading for a little bit.
(25:33):
I was...
There my favorite!
One of mine, too.
And so I'd like you to share with our listeners, w
hy is it important to read? When we talk about personal
development, I think...
I think it's at the top of my list,
but I'd like to know why you think it's so important to
read for personal development?
(25:54):
Oh, again, well, obviously, number one is become educated.
I like to read a lot of nonfiction, too.
I mean, in front of me, I have so many books,
Extreme Ownership, Dare to Lead, 48 Laws of Power,
Leaders Eat Last, all kinds of, you know, think again,
Atomic Habits.
I have all these self-help books, if you will,
(26:14):
that have been really instrumental in helping me kind of
figure out what I want to do with my life.
Because I think Life of Chapters, you know, yeah, you just,
you, it lets you think about other opportunities.
Also, again, when you read something, why, you know, again,
(26:35):
the critical thinking, you know, why,
what do you like about it?
What are the main ideas?
What are you extracting from that that you can apply to
your personal life?
So, obviously, reading, and it's fun.
There's so many cool things that you can learn.
Just, if you read, you know, just what, you know,
about other countries, I mean, it makes me want to go.
(26:56):
Being a better person, you know, I read, I'm reading,
I have read the book Flow, it's about happiness.
I mean, you know,
it just gives you a different frame of mind where you're
not walking around kind of all, you know, doom or,
you know, just in a bad situation.
It makes you think of the positive aspects of life.
(27:17):
Well, I would agree with you.
And I think that if you touched on something that's very
powerful there, and I like to share with our listeners,
one of the things that there are no magic books,
they're just the magic things you do...
that you do by taking action from something that you
learned in the book.
So thank you for pointing that out.
And you also pointed something else out that I'd like our
(27:37):
listeners to understand.
When I read a book,
I read it like I'm having a conversation with the author.
Do I agree with them?
Do I, do I not agree with them?
Do I have a question about something?
Do I believe that to be accurate?
Is that something I need to go,
like to your point earlier with empathy,
do I need to go investigate?
Is that really something that,
that is something that's the truth that I can,
(27:58):
I can hang my hat on and then also I'm not afraid to use a
book, like a learning tool, right?
I highlight stuff.
I dog, I dog-ear the pages and I'm also right.
I get a thumbs up for those of you that are listening,
they can't see.
Did that give me a big thumbs up?
And, but I, and so I think it's, you know, inner,
(28:21):
I'm literally interacting with the author, I'm, I'm having,
I'm engaged with what they're saying and what's going on in
that.
What are the things that you do when you,
when you read a book?
Oh, gosh.
Well, as a teacher, I mean,
I'm hardcore have to have my book,
have my highlighters out I write little notes on the side.
(28:42):
Again,
if I'm responsible for teaching these students something I
have to know more than they do.
And so my students are pretty smart.
So I always look for little fun facts I'm constantly
continually, even over all the years of teaching,
looking for new information to apply to, you know,
certain parts of the book.
(29:03):
OK, stop.
I want you to interrupt for just a second.
Yeah, yeah, sure.
So she just dropped more than a golden nugget.
I want you to understand that we're talking to a first
class teacher who is taught around the world.
And the reason why I know she's a first class teacher is
because she gets the same results wherever country she goes
to to teach.
But she just said something that I think everybody needs to
(29:25):
understand.
Even though she's a world class teacher,
she's consistently, consistently learning new things.
And I think a lot of people start to get stagnant because
they think they've gotten to some plateau,
and they don't need to learn anymore.
As a leader,
it's your responsibility to continue to learn and continue
to add value to those around you.
So I'm sorry to interrupt, but go on, please.
(29:47):
No, no, because I was going to say situations change.
People change.
So you continuously, I totally believe in that.
You have to be a lifelong learner.
I think it keeps you informed.
I think it keeps you engaged.
Do I want parallel structure here?
I think I have to think of another one, another verb.
(30:09):
You know what?
It keeps you exciting because people want to talk to you
because you're interesting.
And I think reading gives that to you.
Reading, traveling,
just talking to people makes you interesting.
And that's why, as I get older,
I still want to be interesting.
(30:31):
People want to hang out with me.
Preach it, sister, preach it.
I can tell you, well, because it's the truth, right?
I'm long over the boring conversations about the weather or
about what the Chicago Bears did or with your sports team
in your area, right?
I wanna talk about things that engage and stimulate my
mind.
And I love to have conversations with people that have a
(30:53):
different point of view because it opens my brain to a
whole different possibility,
but reading stimulates these powerful conversations with
people and that's when you learn, you know,
and I'd like you to talk about this for a little bit
because I've learned mentoring the high school kids with F
uture Business Leaders of America, FBLA.
(31:13):
I have gained so much wisdom from the students, right?
I am always a student myself.
Can you talk about that,
how you're constantly learning from people that some people
would, when we talked about kind of going full circle,
some people would judge somebody as young and say,
and they don't have wisdom,
they don't have anything I can learn from them.
Can you talk about that for a little bit, please?
(31:34):
Yeah,
because they definitely know more than myself in terms of
technology and social media.
And they can...
they can teach me about what it's like for them growing up
in this age, because I was saying, you know,
back in my day, you know, we didn't even have computers.
Right.
I remember when I was in college,
I had my Smith Corona electric typewriter,
(31:56):
and going to the computer lab at two or three in the
morning running, it was a PL one, or Fortran, you know,
and having the stacks of papers that you had to put into
the computer.
You know, and now they have, geez,
they have literally the world at their fingertips.
And it's it's interesting to me because you just said
(32:16):
something very powerful again And you just keep dropping
these golden nuggets that are big.
And one of them is is that we really truly live in an age
where you can...you can learn anything by going to the
computer Yeah, anything there's I have a friend of mine, s
he's in kentucky,
and she's actually building a little house and this is a
(32:39):
um,
a woman who's an event planner and she went on Youtube and
watch seven or eight nine videos and she's building walls.
Oh, my gosh.
Well, that's what I mean.
I mean, you you can it doesn't matter how old you are.
I mean, I don't judge people by their age.
Because you can learn from anybody.
(32:59):
I mean,
it's a simple matter of asking somebody for directions
somewhere, you know, in another country.
I mean,
I'm not gonna act like I know where where I'm going.
And oh, you're too young to know this information.
I think you have to go with that.
And the people now, nowadays, you know,
they do have different ideas.
And what's to say minds better than theirs or theirs is
(33:19):
better than mine.
But if we can kind of mesh them together, you know,
that's what makes it work.
You have to be open minded.
Right,
I think that that's very critical and very important,
especially in today's age, right?
We've gotten to a point where nobody's open to the
conversation.
You either completely agree with me or you're an idiot,
(33:40):
we're not gonna have a conversation.
And it's gotten us to where we are in the world today.
One of the things I'd like to share a quick story is I saw
Will Smith on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
And this is long before he slapped the crap out of Chris
Rock.
And talk about going from hero to zero to flash.
(34:01):
But he was promoting the movie Independence Day.
Yeah, love that movie
Yeah.
And Jay Leno asked him a question and said, Hey, you know,
what's your secret to success because he'd been a rap star
and then he'd been a sitcom TV star.
And at this point now he's a big movie star.
(34:21):
And Chris said, I'm sorry,
Will Smith said reading and running.
And so these are guys are naturally two comedians.
But Jay Leno doesn't get funny.
Jay Leno asks Will Smith to explain.
And Will Smith said running because he said when I had to
get in shape for this movie,
I realized my body could run further than my brain thought.
(34:45):
And he said reading because he said,
I don't care who you are or what your problem is.
Somebody's already had the same problem,
figured it out and wrote the answer down in a book.
And one of the things I share with people is an app out
there called Hoopla.
If you have a library card,
you can download audio books for free.
(35:07):
So if you're too darn lazy to actually read.
Now, I don't know about you,
but I love the feel of a book in my hands.
Me, too. Yeah.
Yeah, I you know, I listen to some books,
but I really still like to read what's up.
Is there anything else that you'd like to share with our
listeners on on how to develop personal development around
learning?
(35:28):
I mean,
I would just be kind of reiterating what I've mentioned
already is just be open-minded.
Be willing to learn.
And also understand.
Oh, and also, if you don't know vocabulary words,
look them up.
Because we tend to, I get lazy, too.
(35:49):
And I'm like, Oh, what's this word?
Because and the only reason I do is because I think a
student may ask me about it.
But it's so important,
because I don't think we're expanding our vocabulary
either.
So if there are some great imagery,
and they're using these awesome words,
I want to know exactly what they're saying.
And I'll ask the students,
why did they pick that particular word, or passage?
(36:10):
How profound is that?
Or an example of illusion, you know,
reference to the history, Bible, literature, any science,
anything like that?
I said, Well,
why would the author specifically pick that example versus
a different example?
And this is again, into that critical thinking, well,
maybe he or she really want to expand on the fact,
you know, whatever that may be.
(36:30):
So again, any little nugget in there,
I can analyze the heck out of, like I said,
I wrote a four page paper on one painting.
And then and then in high school,
my research paper was 40 pages long.
And I dressed as Gandalf to present because I had to talk
about the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings,
my dad brought in dry ice.
It was pretty cool.
(36:53):
But again,
reading and and I was telling my students this today,
as a matter of fact, I said all this, all the kids,
I was a senior, all the kids had one book to read.
And my teacher said,
you're going to read The Hobbit and the Trilogy.
And of course, me being a typical teenager said, well,
that's not fair.
Why do I have to read four books?
And all he said was, I know you can do it.
Oh, no, ifs, ands, or buts.
(37:15):
And you know what, he was right.
I had my little back then, you know, my,
my stack of note cards and, you know,
all rubber band together and I had my typewriter here.
And it kept me organized.
And I went to the library, as you mentioned, did, you know,
check out all the books and just did a bunch of research
(37:37):
that way.
Yeah,
so that just dropped a couple other things very powerful.
One of them is the ability to push yourself past what you
think you can do, right?
And as leaders,
we often have to put that into other people and let them
know that they can do that.
I read something that's very fascinating,
(37:58):
and I want you to, as our listeners,
to take this away with you.
She said, on my phone,
I have the every day I read something.
And I choose that specifically, right?
Something that I'm interested in.
And I'm like you, Danette,
I'm interested in darn near everything, right?
(38:19):
I'm curious about everything.
But my point to this is to what Danette said,
I learned that if you come to a word and you're learning
something or reading something and you don't know the
definition of that word,
your brain will not remember anything after that.
Right.
And so what I do now when I'm reading, I'll go to my phone,
(38:40):
I'll go to my Webster's dictionary app,
I look up that word, and then I go back.
And to your point, Danette,
I go back to the beginning of the sentence and start again.
And then I say the definition in my head when I get to that
word, and that whole sentence changes.
It completely morphs into something much richer and deeper
(39:01):
than it was initially.
And I'm always glad that I took the time to look up that
word, because it is people use those words,
not necessarily to impress you,
but to spin or to paint a picture that's going to be much
more precise to what they had in their mind.
(39:24):
Yeah, plus it always expands.
It's just good to expand your vocabulary.
I mean, it's always cool.
I love the word exacerbate and it was funny.
I had a friend of mine when I worked at Apple and, uh,
her dad told her,
she told me that her dad gave her a word of the week
forever, like she was little.
(39:44):
And I thought that's pretty cool.
She had a vocabulary.
Her dad gave her a vocabulary where one vocabulary word a
week for what?
Like 15 years, 10 years, you know, I'm spacing it out, but,
but I thought that was, wow, that's pretty fascinating.
And her dad was very high up in an organization, very,
(40:05):
very smart guy.
But I thought that was,
and I thought that was so cool that he did that.
Yeah.
And again,
another great story that's going to teach our listeners a
couple of things, right?
One, the power of little things done consistently,
one word, right?
Just one word a week, one word a week.
And this is what I like to share with people.
If you read one book a month, which is very doable,
(40:28):
you read one book a month, at the end of the year,
you've read 12 books, you realize how the average person,
the average American reads less than a book in their
lifetime. In their lifetime!
Sixth grade reading level, did I read somewhere?
I'll check my sources, because my daughter taught me that.
She's a journalist.
But when I heard that the average reading level of an
(40:53):
American is about definitely not higher than eighth grade,
I'm like, oh my gosh.
So that needs to change, because reading is just fun,
and educational, and just all that.
And I think it actually becomes a little addicting because
you for me I just I love that like I said I love the
(41:16):
conversation with these people that have life experiences
that I don't know or I haven't experienced.
So whether you want to you know, learn a new book...
I'm sorry learn a new word every week or read a book a
month and think about the span of a lifetime, right?
This is how I learned from Darren Hardy that you know,
these little incremental steps is how you change the game.
(41:38):
But it's little steps over a stretch of time, you know,
you've been a runner, you travel,
you do all these things...one of the things just a brief
comment about learning, s
o I've watched the net literally travel around the world
and she told me that she can pack and now this is a woman, f
or you the listeners this is a woman who can pack in a
(41:59):
backpack, right?
You can pack a backpack and you're gone for weeks
Oh weeks four months.
Well, there you go.
I was just I was just in Europe for four months,
and I had my osprey osprey 55L backpack,
and I'm really good.
and that was it really good
have packing yeah that was it. Yeah two pairs of shoes for
(42:21):
a woman what
What?
But that's the power of learning and that life experience,
right?
Of you did it, you tried it,
you revamped the process and you, yep,
and adapt to what you needed and what becomes,
what's really critically important and what's a bunch of
ways that people just drag around.
(42:44):
And that's what makes a good leader, be adaptable, too.
Right.
Without a doubt, you've got, as a leader,
you've got to be adaptable and flexible because nothing,
this is one of the things I've come to understand.
Nothing stays the same.
No, and how boring that would be.
Right, right.
(43:05):
And so in that moment of constant change,
you just have to be kind of calm and patient and kind of
like watching a show and be curious of what's going on in
front of you, but not react and blow up and you know,
be the crazy person,
because nobody likes that person as a leader.
Well,
and and I can relate to that just by traveling to all these
other countries and the transportation, you know,
(43:29):
looking for the trains and figuring out which way.
Oh, okay, looks like I'm going the wrong way.
So I have to look and, you know, in Chinese, okay,
I think I better get off here and take the other one go on
the other side.
And, and even when I was in Japan, you know,
they're very particular with how you go up and down the
stairs, you have to be on the opposite or the escalator.
And I think the stairs,
you have to go on and then the opposite side that we're
(43:51):
used to.
So you have to become accustomed to that.
I told the story today again about culture, you know, In
Japan, I'm at a ramen restaurant.
And all these all these guys are sitting next to me,
and they're all have their bowl of ramen,
they're go slurping really loud.
And I said, Oh, it is true.
You know, the louder you slurp,
(44:12):
the more that you enjoy the food.
And I'm like, wow, so what you read comes to fruition, too.
So that's another thing, you know,
especially reading about the other cultures, you're like,
Oh, that does happen.
Okay, all right.
But it was still interesting to, to hear that.
Yeah.
(44:32):
Well,
and I think that one of the things I've really gained from
traveling around the world is that at the end of the day,
the majority of us are living with just an extreme amount
of luxury, right?
We take running water, a roof over our head, food,
warm water, clean water.
We take it for granted.
And there's and you've been there too.
(44:52):
There's places in the world they don't have clean water or
they lay down at night.
They're under the stars.
Yes, that's absolutely true.
So it makes me appreciate what you have.
But I also found that we're really, we're all the same,
because people will ask me,
what are the kids like in this country?
(45:14):
Or this, you know, here, I said, kids are kids.
And you know what, as human beings, we all have the same,
for the most part, we have the same values,
we all care about family, we we're respectful.
We like to be with other people, we're social beings.
So that's what you find.
(45:34):
We're really, we're all the same.
Yeah, with a there's a great song by Styx.
I think it's off the ground.
Yeah, yeah.
But there's a there's a line in the song.
And that's exactly what it says.
Deep inside, we're all the same,
because we all want we all want to be respected.
We all want to be heard.
(45:54):
We all want to be loved.
We all want to be appreciated.
It's the same.
And we all and we all have the the natural desire to be
part of a community.
I think that's why leadership is.
Yeah, leadership is so important because, you know,
there were in our in our history,
there was a time when if you were banned from the group,
you would die.
Right?
(46:15):
Back in the day, you know,
when we were being chased by saber tooth tigers.
So we still have this.
You have to be faster.
That's right.
Faster than the other person.
Yeah, yeah,
you don't want to be the slowest one in the crowd.
But we have this innate desire to be part of a community.
And that's because it's it's it's passed down from
thousands of years because there was safety in that
(46:38):
community.
And there was there was longevity, right?
Because you could teach and I could go build a house and
somebody else could plant the food and that kind of stuff.
So and I think that's when we talk about leadership,
I think that's the importance.
And you said this earlier about your students.
And I'd like to share it with everybody.
(46:58):
In an organization,
there's really nobody any more important than anybody else.
Because it's like the line the line of dominoes, right?
You take one domino out, the thing stops.
Mm hmm.
Well,
and then and then I think we tend to forget how did these
people get to the top?
All the people underneath built that up to the top.
(47:19):
So everybody is part of that critical mass that made that
company or whatever that may be that organization
successful.
It's not just one person,
maybe one person has a great idea,
but you can have great ideas.
But if you don't know how to act upon them,
it doesn't matter.
No, it doesn't.
And one of the things I've come to understand is anybody
that we've ever known throughout history that's done
(47:40):
anything great on a big scale,
they've never done it by themselves.
Of course not.
Yeah, yeah.
Again,
I love that you were open to being interviewed and that we
didn't have any format because I love doing it that way
because your stories came out in all this great wisdom.
And really,
this is another one of those episodes where people should
(48:02):
listen to it a couple of times because you drop so many
golden nuggets about empathy and looking up vocabulary
words,
leading from the front with love and the importance of
reading, how to be courageous, those kinds of things.
I will share this one last thing with you.
When we talk about vocabulary words,
I would ask our leaders that are listening to challenge,
(48:26):
I challenge you to pick a word.
So for example, my word for this year is courage.
I'm stepping out of my comfort zone.
I never thought in a million years I'd be doing a podcast.
And as it's gonna launch,
we're recording this before it actually launches.
And so I have the fear of, well, people make fun of me,
(48:47):
am I good enough to do it and all those kinds of things.
And that's why my word for this year is courage.
And then all year long, I keep that word in my brain.
And I think, okay,
what can I do this week to step out of my comfort zone and
use courage to try something new?
And I think you model that better than anybody I've known
in my life in that.
And I spent time in the Marines for you to step out of your
(49:11):
comfort zone and be courageous enough to travel halfway
around the world all by yourself and then start teaching
and traveling the world is one of the most courageous
things I've ever watched anybody do.
Uh, thank you.
I just really enjoy it.
You made me think of a book.
I love the book called The Alchemist and I even have, uh,
you can't see it,
but I have a tattoo on my wrist and it's a picture of a man
(49:34):
and he's following like these rays of sunlight.
And then you have the sun over here and it kind of reminds
me to stay on my path.
You know, I have my goal, like you have your goals.
I think it's great that you're,
you're doing the podcast and the leadership, everything.
I'm like, that's fantastic.
My goal I think is now I've decided I probably am going to,
(49:55):
uh, be interested in tutoring, you know,
starting like a tutoring business,
because I would love what you're doing.
I think it's awesome what you're doing.
Um, but I think I'm going to, I'm going to do what I know,
and I tutored ACT for a long time.
I've been a teacher, and I've been to other countries and,
and I know there is a need for English,
(50:15):
so I'm probably going to pursue that route along with my,
my books that I'm writing right now, depending on my mood,
but I've got,
I've got several different novel book ideas and, um,
simultaneously working on those as well.
So, so yeah,
you're giving me the courage to just stay on my path
(50:37):
because it doesn't end no matter how old you are.
I don't, I don't buy into that.
Oh, you're a certain age.
You should be, why are you still working?
You know, you should be enjoying your leisure.
Well, what am I going to do when I'm not doing something?
Right.
I said you have to continuously learn.
It's so important and then find purpose.
(50:59):
I agree.
I couldn't agree with you more.
I think for me, people, people tell me all the time, Louie,
you don't act your age.
You don't look your age.
It's because I'm engaged in life.
I'm having fun, right?
My work is fun to me.
It's not work.
It's fun.
And I think there's, yeah.
And I think that's the power of being a, we can, we can,
you and I could go on for days at this point,
(51:20):
because if we let into purpose, because, and again,
when you're doing things that move your heart and you
touch,
and this is one of the reasons why I tell you all the time,
I love you because you touch people's hearts, right?
Seriously, you touch people's hearts and they don't,
they don't forget that.
And if you just did that to one person,
your whole life would be worthwhile,
(51:41):
but you do it to thought you've done it to thousands of
people.
You're going to do it to thousands of people more before
you take your last breath.
And that, my friend, is a beautiful thing.
Oh, well, thank you.
You're quite welcome and thanks again for taking the time i
really appreciate it and uh for all our listeners out there
uh you can track down Danette she's out there on the
(52:01):
internet she's on Facebook. I highly recommend you reach
out and watch and watch her on Facebook because she posts
some of the most beautiful pictures literally from around
the world. I've told her many times she's got a great eye
for color and a great eye for the angles of things and so
check her out on Facebook if you want to learn more about
her. And, again Danette,
thank you very much for being here,
(52:22):
and I love you and enjoy the rest of your evening.
Thank you, Louie
Thanks again for joining us and listening to this episode
of leadership and love. I would like to challenge you to
ask yourself what's one thing that you heard today that you
can implement immediately to improve your leadership and
accelerate your growth? If you've gotten value out of this
(52:44):
episode or learned something that you can implement today,
we'd ask that you please share it with those that you care
about. Our goal is to create more leaders who are leading
with love.
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