July 28, 2025 • 22 mins
Do you suffer from vertigo? Gerald J. Leonard suffers from vertigo. Through neuroscience, music and holistic approach he 'rewired' his brain. Plus, one sure way to reach your goals.
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Gerald J. Leonard (00:00):
Six weeks before that TEDx I had a major bout with vertigo.
Oh.
I was rushed to the hospital.
, I was in the hospitalfor a day and a half.
(00:29):
. Catherine: hello there.
I'm Catherine, your host ofthis variety show podcast.
Your positive imprint istransforming how we live today
for a more sustainable tomorrowthrough education and information.
Your own positive actions inspire change.
Follow me on Facebook andInstagram, your positive imprint.
(00:49):
Connect with me on LinkedIn.
Visit my website, your positiveimprint.com and learn more about the
podcast and sign up for email updates.
Music by the legendary and talented ChrisNole check him out, ChrisNole.com c H R I
S N O L E. Thank you again for listeningand for your support of this podcast.
(01:13):
Your positive imprint.
What's your PI
well, hello listeners.
My guest today grew up during thechallenging era of the 1960s in America.
He has authored several books andcleverly has incorporated music
terminology and scenarios, whichfor me, absolutely brilliant.
(01:37):
I particularly enjoyed his work.
In his book, culture is the Base SevenSteps to Creating High Performance Teams.
One of his quotes really stands out to me.
"Vision drives and develops values".
He is a professional bass player and anaccomplished expert in project management.
(02:00):
He serves today as the CEO of TurnberryPremier, and is the founder of the Leonard
Productivity Intelligence Institute.
His expertise has been featured on NPRbut I especially loved , his Tedx Talk.
Loved it.
Gerald, you are truly remarkable,and I'm thrilled to have you as a
(02:22):
guest today on your positive imprint.
Welcome to the show, Gerald J. Leonard.
Well, Catherine, thank you so much for having me.
I'm really happy to be here.
Catherine (02:31):
You are listening to part two with Gerald J. Leonard.
Gerald J. Leonard (02:35):
A big part of this whole culture and and values piece is
also around the stories that you tell.
Which is vision, values,buy-in and in stories.
Catherine (02:46):
And having those high performance teams, so you mentioned
your seven, so not in this order,vision, values, buy-in, best
practices, stories and environment.
And the stories,
.So stories touch me and you use the scenario of the conductor.
And the job of the conductor is notjust, of course working with the
(03:10):
musicians, but it's making sure thatthat emotion felt by the audience.
And I want to go to one of yourstories as a child regarding Wendell,
your brother, because this, okay,this is a great little story.
And you talked about what your daddid and, and the construction and
(03:30):
so on, but he was a hard worker,but he was also a problem solver.
And it was, Wendell wasthere looking at the sand.
Gerald J. Leonard (03:44):
Yeah, you remind me of the story.
You have a lot of different stories.
So in that situation, um, you know, it wasa typical day at work for dad and because,
, what dad did was it was very hard work.
, and, and he was really good at it.
And so one day, , the trucks thatwould bring the sand, 'cause whenever
you're pouring the foundationof a home, , it, you set up the
(04:04):
brick structure around it, right.
Of how the, what the home is gonnalook like and where the pipes are
and all that stuff gets laid first.
And then in Florida, , at leastin central Florida, they would put
sand on the, on the floor foundationand they would pack it, right?
Well, they had a couple of dump trucksthat came in and they had the cement
(04:24):
truck coming, let's say around 11 o'clock.
And it was probably aroundeight o'clock in the morning.
And the.
Gentleman who brought the sand, just puta couple of dump truck loads of sand in
a pile in the middle of the, the bricks.
And so it really wassupposed to be spread out.
(04:45):
And then they would use a trial of thistool that would go around and on top
of it and the machine would, pressthe sand and compact the sand down.
But that hadn't happened.
And usually that has to happen by,let's say, , you're gonna start pouring
it at, at 11, that's probably shouldhappen around two, two hours beforehand.
So my dad's there and itwas just him and my brother.
(05:06):
And my brother looks there.
It's like, where's the help coming from?
Because, , we got these twobig piles of sand and, he
just couldn't see it happening.
He couldn't see any way around it.
My dad was like, okay,you're gonna grab a shovel.
I'm gonna grab one and we'regoing to straighten this out
and , we're not gonna talk.
We're just gonna do it.
At first he was overwhelmed, but ashe just started doing it and started
(05:30):
spreading things out and gettingthe, the foundation ready for, for it
to be poured with the concrete, he wasamazed that they were within an hour
had moved those two mounds of sand ordirt and had com compacted it so that
by the time the trucks came, they wereprepared and ready for it to happen.
(05:51):
And it was a lesson that he never forgot.
My oldest brother never forgot, andthat I learned about through them.
And that was no matter how bigthe challenge is, you can't
just look at it and complain.
You just gotta get started.
my dad had a saying is justkeep saying good morning.
And that the idea there was no matterwhat's going on in your life and
(06:12):
especially for now where we are in, this, this place , in the world where
there's a lot going on, and there'sa lot going on politically, socially,
just in all different kinds of ways.
, and taking my dad's advice, it'sjust keep saying good morning
and doing the right thing.
Listen to your positive music,listen to positive books, listen
to positive affirmations, andjust keep doing the right thing.
(06:35):
As it says, this too shall pass.
That's another majorlesson in life, right?
Life comes at you fast.
It's kinda like the insurance commercial.
Uh, and, and things happen.
Um.
And you have to takeit one step at a time.
And I'll share this quick storybecause, you know, you mentioned
it, um, that you watch my TEDx.
Catherine (06:55):
Yes.
Gerald J. Leonard (06:55):
Six weeks before that TEDx I had a major bout with vertigo.
Oh.
I was rushed to the hospital.
, I was in the hospitalfor a day and a half.
, I had to show that I could use awalker to move up and down the hallway
because I had lost the ability to walk.
And this happened six weeksbefore that TEDx talk.
(07:18):
Oh my.
And I'm an independent consultant andthe sole bread winner of the family.
I'm taken home.
I can't look at my laptop,I can't look at television.
I'm sitting there, I'm laying inbed thinking, is this my life?
And I'm kind of rehearsing the,the TEDx talk in my head 'cause
I've been practicing it for months.
It's about what if practice is theperformance, the neuroscience of music.
(07:41):
And so that really drove me thatI made a decision that once I got
back up and once I could get up onmy feet or at least just, you know,
hold onto the walker and make it tomy my room, I would go and practice
because the idea that music when you'repracticing, it activates the brain so
much based on the neuroscientists, thatif there's any damage into your neural
(08:05):
network, the music and the activityof the music would start rewiring
the brain, reconfiguring the brain.
And so I just, you know, I justkind of took the books and my
presentation for, its at its word andsaid, okay, I gotta practice this.
I have no other choice.
And within three weeks I walkedinto my doctor's office unassisted.
(08:25):
I was very gated.
You could tell I had been reallyimpacted by what had happened to me.
And afterwards he said, you know,uh, we're gonna try to get you
back to close to where you were,but we're probably never gonna
get you back a hundred percent.
Uh, in fact, You have a disability.
And in my mind, I translated that,that, okay, I'm not disabled.
I have a constraint.
I have something that's limitingme, but it doesn't mean that
(08:47):
I'm broken or that I can't do.
And so I rephrased it inmy mind as a constraint.
And so I kept practicing, kept walking,kept doing the things I needed to
do, and three weeks later I droveup to Delaware and I delivered that
TEDx talk, , with my constraint.
And so if you go back and watch that talk,you'll realize that I am very deliberate
(09:09):
in how I turn because I couldn't move.
I couldn't make these movementsbecause I would fall over.
Catherine (09:16):
Oh my gosh.
Gerald J. Leonard (09:17):
But I felt like if this is the last thing that I do
in my life, then I am going to givemy whole heart to it with whatever.
And then there was a lot of youngpeople from high schools that were there
and it made me think about my kids.
And I thought, well, what if this isthe last thing I get to say to my kids?
What would I wanna say to them?
So when you listen to that talk, it's mekind of sharing at that point, what would
(09:39):
I say to my children about this topic
if it was the last thing I had to say tothem, and thank God it wasn't the last
thing I had to say to them, but becauseI had the constraint I had to continually
use those principles throughout.
And that's why, you know, Iended up creating a podcast
called Productivity Smarts.
And, and a lot of different thingshappened that my company got invested in.
(10:00):
And, you know, I wrote two other books anda bunch of other stuff started happening.
But it all came from just keep saying,good morning, one shovel at a time.
No matter what's going on or what'shappening, just keep moving forward.
Just keep moving forward and by keepingyour mind focused on what's possible
(10:21):
and not what's not possible, butwhat's possible and that we can do it.
And then going back to the foundationof the gift that I was given as a, as
a musician and, and the fact that notonly did it direct my life and give me
all these different foundational thingsin my life, it actually rebuilt my life.
It saved my life, you know, this gift andallowed me to re rebuild, , something that
(10:43):
was really, , had been really damaged.
Catherine (10:45):
Wow.
Wow.
Thank you so much, Gerald, forsharing that story because that
truly is inspirational and moving.
And again, a story, let's, let'sshare the stories, which is what I do.
I bring the stories to the listenersand try to bring positivity and
, getting people active so peoplecan now become more active if they
(11:09):
have a business, if they have afamily, if they're a school teacher.
Building high performanceteams with your seven steps.
And then you've got your four values,which you've already talked about.
And again, one of my favoritesis enshrining those values into
practice, the leader says, make surethe vision is hanging up in your
(11:29):
office or your classroom or whatever.
Well then what?
What do you do then?
Right?
You have to continue to do somethingotherwise you're not putting those
values and that vision to practice,and I like your dad's quote, looking
at the sand is not going to move it.
And so looking at that piece of paper,of the vision and the values is not
(11:56):
going to put them into practice.
Gerald J. Leonard (11:58):
One of the, the biggest things that, that after the
vertigo situation and as I kind of gotback on my feet I remember spending
some time with a good buddy of mine,Mike Ray, Bernie's a guitarist as well.
And, , he does TEDx and he is donespeaking all over the world as
a musician, , and playing music.
And one of the things he shared withme where he had been mentored by
(12:20):
Brian Tracy, was that Brian encouragedhim to write out his goals by hand.
I. Kinetically every day, right?
And I took it a little bit furtherand said, I'm gonna turn my goals
into affirmations and then writethem out on a piece of paper.
I would, date it andthen write out my goals.
And it's transformed.
I now do it digitally, but I stilldo it kinetically with a digital
(12:43):
pen and digital paper, if you will.
And I tell you, when I started doingthat, after a week or two, some
of these goals started happeningor someone would recommend a book,
and it's the exact book I needed
to learn something.
I kept focused these are my goals.
And what it does, it, it reprogramswhat's called the reticular
(13:05):
activating system in our brains.
And it's a filtering system that we havein our brains that filters in what we
want, and filters out what we don't want.
And it's the whole reason why if yougo buy a red car, a certain type, and
you drive off the parking lot, youstart seeing that red car everywhere
is because now it's in your life.
Well, if you do that with yourgoals, you, you'll literally
(13:26):
start seeing everything that, thatyou need pertaining to that goal
around you.
And you may have been blind to itbefore, but now you see it, you also
become the magnet for all the resourcesthat you need to achieve that goal.
And I, I do it to this daywith all of my major goals.
I sit down and I write out mygoals before my day starts.
(13:51):
And it keeps me focused onwhere I'm going and what I want.
That's a good takeaway.
Write out your goals.
Catherine (13:57):
That's a great takeaway.
I'm going to do that actually myself.
You were talking about neuroscienceso, , Mack Bailey, right.
Who's been on my podcast a couple times.
He's a musician like yourself.
He's guitar.
Okay.
He does retreats with people with PTSDand music Rewires the Brain, and he
(14:24):
does these retreats where they writeexactly what you are saying, Gerald,
he does these retreats where the veteranswrite songs based on their thoughts, their
feelings, their PTSD, . And putting itinto song and, and playing the instrument
does something to rewire the brain.
(14:46):
Yeah.
Gerald J. Leonard (14:47):
Yes, when you experience trauma or you
experienced anything like that.
Y it goes into the body, right?
It goes into the body and itneeds to be processed out.
And it's not just , okay, I'm justgonna sit down and talk about it and,
uh, it's, I'm gonna be all better.
No, it, it literally gets embeddedin our DNA, it gets rewired in us.
(15:09):
And so you have to then use the samekind of mechanisms to wire it out or
to reframe it or to restructure it.
And understanding that, , we as humanbeings are so complicated and so complex
you can't duplicate our brains withcomputers because they're so complex.
, our bodies every organ is so complex,that's why you have specialists in each
(15:33):
area because it's so many moving parts.
And so when we go through a trauma, it'susually emotions, it's usually energy.
And so you have to take a holisticapproach to address it and get it out.
And I know as I went through thattrauma of the vertigo, and what
actually came out of that was theycould never tell me what the cause was.
(15:57):
But one of the things that, that Idid discover over time was, , when
you're under stress, and I was ina, you know, the, the stress of just
different things that were going onin my life at the time had allowed me
to get to that place where my bodywas outta balance and overwhelmed.
So what, what was the trigger?
The vertigo.
(16:18):
And what I found in, in researchwas that one out of five people
in the United States suffer withsome form of vestibular or vertigo.
Why?
Because we're outtabalance, we're overwhelmed.
And so I learned to begin todo yoga to de-stress my body,
and then I learned to meditate.
I learned to do the affirmations,to place myself in a place where
(16:41):
I'm removing a lot of stress.
I'm staying in , a positive,peaceful state of mind.
I'm, using talk therapy or I'm usingwriting therapy and playing music to
allow sound to vibrate throughout mybody to help me move to another state.
All of those things are really criticalfor people to be able to process through.
(17:02):
Right.
And many times it's not just whensomething like that happens, you can
have a conversation or go to a therapist.
Those things are great, butsometimes it takes more than that.
And I think that's why the programthat your friend, this gentleman has
works is because he's using music, he'susing the kinetics of writing and the
mindfulness of writing to get them toreflect and bring up and face those
(17:26):
issues so that they can then let it go.
And then once they do that, the body'slike, okay, now I can let this go
because you've actually addressed it andyou're beginning to understand why and
we're not going back down that pathway.
The Leonard ProductivityIntelligence Institute.
I created it is because of what Iwent through with Vertigo I had
(17:46):
actually created it before the Vertigothing happened because I had started
studying a lot about neurosciencekinesiology, and then when this happened.
It really took off as far as mewriting about the importance of
understanding the neuroscience.
And I actually then met throughsome coaching programs, a
(18:07):
lady named Judith Glazer.
And, and sad to say in 2019, I believeshe passed away from cancer, but she
wrote a book called ConversationalIntelligence and she coined
the phrase, our words create ourworlds, our words create our worlds.
So in other words, the words youuse is how you see the world, right?
(18:28):
And that's why we go to school, weget educated and our world changes
because the words we use changedthe way we see the world changes.
And so the way we experience the worldchanges, and it's through education
and it's through how we're created.
You know, our DNA is nothing but a book.
Instructions for how our, how each,, protein and, and how the body works.
(18:50):
And that's why words impact us somuch because we're, we're, we're
like little books that once we hearcertain words, they get rearranged
or we turn on or we turn off genes.
And so the idea behind the LeonardProductivity Intelligence Institute
is, Hey, we can learn to be highlyproductive without getting overwhelmed
(19:11):
or putting ourselves into a place wherewe get burned out or our bodies have to
give us a vestibular imbalance to say,wait a minute, you're out of balance.
Wait a minute, there's something going on.
And, , disease is basically aplace of being in dis-ease, right?
And so if we're constantly in dis-ease,we then come down with a disease,
(19:34):
whether it's Crohn's or whetherit's this, or whether it's that.
It's basically our body saying.
You're not in alignment.
You're not going down the right road.
You're, you're doingthings that are hurting me.
And so the body responds and lets us know.
And so the idea behind the LeonardProductivity Intelligence Institute
was to write articles through thepodcast, through books, through music,
(19:57):
to teach these principles of howto get an alignment with ourselves
spiritually, emotionally, and mentallyand physically in a way that we can be
just as productive and get those greatthings done and make a difference.
But at the same time, we're not burningourselves out and putting ourselves
in a place where eventually our bodiesbegin to break down because of that.
Catherine (20:22):
I really appreciate the work that you have done
for the global community
I wanna thank your sister for havingthat red guitar and I, I really do
love the books that you're writingand cleverly , using music terminology
and music scenarios . So Gerald J.Leonard, your last inspiring words.
Gerald J. Leonard (20:45):
Yeah, I would say, no matter how old you are,
no matter where you are in life,uh, just keep saying good morning
and just keep, uh, a positive note.
, my wife asked me all the time, whyare you always wearing your headphones?
Because I listen to a lot of positivebooks, or I listen to a lot of things and,
, when, when life gets crazy, you know,we control what we put into our head.
(21:06):
We really can.
And, and so, , when, when things arecrazy, , turn off the television, put a
positive book on, listen to some positivemusic, go for a walk and, and just keep
yourself grounded and just follow theseprinciples that we talked about today.
Like my dad would say, just keepsaying good morning and, and whatever
challenges are going on, they willgo away if you stay in the positive.
Catherine (21:30):
I thank you so much for being here.
Thank you.
Gerald J. Leonard.
Gerald J. Leonard (21:34):
I appreciate it.
Thank you for having me.
Catherine (21:36):
to learn more about Gerald, go to Geraldjleonard.com.
which is G-E-R-A-L-D-J-L-E-O-N-A-R d.com.
Your Positive Imprint.
It is a free podcast.
If you'd like to buy me a coffeeto help fund the production
(21:56):
of this podcast, here's how.
Go to buymeacoffe.com/yourpositiveimprintAnd any support you offer
will be greatly valued.
Thank you so much for your support andfor listening to Your Positive Imprint.
Your Positive Imprint, what's your P. I.
Six weeks before that TEDx I had a major bout with vertigo.
Oh.
I was rushed to the hospital.
, I was in the hospitalfor a day and a half.
(00:29):
. Catherine: hello there.
I'm Catherine, your host ofthis variety show podcast.
Your positive imprint istransforming how we live today
for a more sustainable tomorrowthrough education and information.
Your own positive actions inspire change.
Follow me on Facebook andInstagram, your positive imprint.
(00:49):
Connect with me on LinkedIn.
Visit my website, your positiveimprint.com and learn more about the
podcast and sign up for email updates.
Music by the legendary and talented ChrisNole check him out, ChrisNole.com c H R I
S N O L E. Thank you again for listeningand for your support of this podcast.
(01:13):
Your positive imprint.
What's your PI
well, hello listeners.
My guest today grew up during thechallenging era of the 1960s in America.
He has authored several books andcleverly has incorporated music
terminology and scenarios, whichfor me, absolutely brilliant.
(01:37):
I particularly enjoyed his work.
In his book, culture is the Base SevenSteps to Creating High Performance Teams.
One of his quotes really stands out to me.
"Vision drives and develops values".
He is a professional bass player and anaccomplished expert in project management.
(02:00):
He serves today as the CEO of TurnberryPremier, and is the founder of the Leonard
Productivity Intelligence Institute.
His expertise has been featured on NPRbut I especially loved , his Tedx Talk.
Loved it.
Gerald, you are truly remarkable,and I'm thrilled to have you as a
(02:22):
guest today on your positive imprint.
Welcome to the show, Gerald J. Leonard.
Well, Catherine, thank you so much for having me.
I'm really happy to be here.
Catherine (02:31):
You are listening to part two with Gerald J. Leonard.
Gerald J. Leonard (02:35):
A big part of this whole culture and and values piece is
also around the stories that you tell.
Which is vision, values,buy-in and in stories.
Catherine (02:46):
And having those high performance teams, so you mentioned
your seven, so not in this order,vision, values, buy-in, best
practices, stories and environment.
And the stories,
.So stories touch me and you use the scenario of the conductor.
And the job of the conductor is notjust, of course working with the
(03:10):
musicians, but it's making sure thatthat emotion felt by the audience.
And I want to go to one of yourstories as a child regarding Wendell,
your brother, because this, okay,this is a great little story.
And you talked about what your daddid and, and the construction and
(03:30):
so on, but he was a hard worker,but he was also a problem solver.
And it was, Wendell wasthere looking at the sand.
Gerald J. Leonard (03:44):
Yeah, you remind me of the story.
You have a lot of different stories.
So in that situation, um, you know, it wasa typical day at work for dad and because,
, what dad did was it was very hard work.
, and, and he was really good at it.
And so one day, , the trucks thatwould bring the sand, 'cause whenever
you're pouring the foundationof a home, , it, you set up the
(04:04):
brick structure around it, right.
Of how the, what the home is gonnalook like and where the pipes are
and all that stuff gets laid first.
And then in Florida, , at leastin central Florida, they would put
sand on the, on the floor foundationand they would pack it, right?
Well, they had a couple of dump trucksthat came in and they had the cement
(04:24):
truck coming, let's say around 11 o'clock.
And it was probably aroundeight o'clock in the morning.
And the.
Gentleman who brought the sand, just puta couple of dump truck loads of sand in
a pile in the middle of the, the bricks.
And so it really wassupposed to be spread out.
(04:45):
And then they would use a trial of thistool that would go around and on top
of it and the machine would, pressthe sand and compact the sand down.
But that hadn't happened.
And usually that has to happen by,let's say, , you're gonna start pouring
it at, at 11, that's probably shouldhappen around two, two hours beforehand.
So my dad's there and itwas just him and my brother.
(05:06):
And my brother looks there.
It's like, where's the help coming from?
Because, , we got these twobig piles of sand and, he
just couldn't see it happening.
He couldn't see any way around it.
My dad was like, okay,you're gonna grab a shovel.
I'm gonna grab one and we'regoing to straighten this out
and , we're not gonna talk.
We're just gonna do it.
At first he was overwhelmed, but ashe just started doing it and started
(05:30):
spreading things out and gettingthe, the foundation ready for, for it
to be poured with the concrete, he wasamazed that they were within an hour
had moved those two mounds of sand ordirt and had com compacted it so that
by the time the trucks came, they wereprepared and ready for it to happen.
(05:51):
And it was a lesson that he never forgot.
My oldest brother never forgot, andthat I learned about through them.
And that was no matter how bigthe challenge is, you can't
just look at it and complain.
You just gotta get started.
my dad had a saying is justkeep saying good morning.
And that the idea there was no matterwhat's going on in your life and
(06:12):
especially for now where we are in, this, this place , in the world where
there's a lot going on, and there'sa lot going on politically, socially,
just in all different kinds of ways.
, and taking my dad's advice, it'sjust keep saying good morning
and doing the right thing.
Listen to your positive music,listen to positive books, listen
to positive affirmations, andjust keep doing the right thing.
(06:35):
As it says, this too shall pass.
That's another majorlesson in life, right?
Life comes at you fast.
It's kinda like the insurance commercial.
Uh, and, and things happen.
Um.
And you have to takeit one step at a time.
And I'll share this quick storybecause, you know, you mentioned
it, um, that you watch my TEDx.
Catherine (06:55):
Yes.
Gerald J. Leonard (06:55):
Six weeks before that TEDx I had a major bout with vertigo.
Oh.
I was rushed to the hospital.
, I was in the hospitalfor a day and a half.
, I had to show that I could use awalker to move up and down the hallway
because I had lost the ability to walk.
And this happened six weeksbefore that TEDx talk.
(07:18):
Oh my.
And I'm an independent consultant andthe sole bread winner of the family.
I'm taken home.
I can't look at my laptop,I can't look at television.
I'm sitting there, I'm laying inbed thinking, is this my life?
And I'm kind of rehearsing the,the TEDx talk in my head 'cause
I've been practicing it for months.
It's about what if practice is theperformance, the neuroscience of music.
(07:41):
And so that really drove me thatI made a decision that once I got
back up and once I could get up onmy feet or at least just, you know,
hold onto the walker and make it tomy my room, I would go and practice
because the idea that music when you'repracticing, it activates the brain so
much based on the neuroscientists, thatif there's any damage into your neural
(08:05):
network, the music and the activityof the music would start rewiring
the brain, reconfiguring the brain.
And so I just, you know, I justkind of took the books and my
presentation for, its at its word andsaid, okay, I gotta practice this.
I have no other choice.
And within three weeks I walkedinto my doctor's office unassisted.
(08:25):
I was very gated.
You could tell I had been reallyimpacted by what had happened to me.
And afterwards he said, you know,uh, we're gonna try to get you
back to close to where you were,but we're probably never gonna
get you back a hundred percent.
Uh, in fact, You have a disability.
And in my mind, I translated that,that, okay, I'm not disabled.
I have a constraint.
I have something that's limitingme, but it doesn't mean that
(08:47):
I'm broken or that I can't do.
And so I rephrased it inmy mind as a constraint.
And so I kept practicing, kept walking,kept doing the things I needed to
do, and three weeks later I droveup to Delaware and I delivered that
TEDx talk, , with my constraint.
And so if you go back and watch that talk,you'll realize that I am very deliberate
(09:09):
in how I turn because I couldn't move.
I couldn't make these movementsbecause I would fall over.
Catherine (09:16):
Oh my gosh.
Gerald J. Leonard (09:17):
But I felt like if this is the last thing that I do
in my life, then I am going to givemy whole heart to it with whatever.
And then there was a lot of youngpeople from high schools that were there
and it made me think about my kids.
And I thought, well, what if this isthe last thing I get to say to my kids?
What would I wanna say to them?
So when you listen to that talk, it's mekind of sharing at that point, what would
(09:39):
I say to my children about this topic
if it was the last thing I had to say tothem, and thank God it wasn't the last
thing I had to say to them, but becauseI had the constraint I had to continually
use those principles throughout.
And that's why, you know, Iended up creating a podcast
called Productivity Smarts.
And, and a lot of different thingshappened that my company got invested in.
(10:00):
And, you know, I wrote two other books anda bunch of other stuff started happening.
But it all came from just keep saying,good morning, one shovel at a time.
No matter what's going on or what'shappening, just keep moving forward.
Just keep moving forward and by keepingyour mind focused on what's possible
(10:21):
and not what's not possible, butwhat's possible and that we can do it.
And then going back to the foundationof the gift that I was given as a, as
a musician and, and the fact that notonly did it direct my life and give me
all these different foundational thingsin my life, it actually rebuilt my life.
It saved my life, you know, this gift andallowed me to re rebuild, , something that
(10:43):
was really, , had been really damaged.
Catherine (10:45):
Wow.
Wow.
Thank you so much, Gerald, forsharing that story because that
truly is inspirational and moving.
And again, a story, let's, let'sshare the stories, which is what I do.
I bring the stories to the listenersand try to bring positivity and
, getting people active so peoplecan now become more active if they
(11:09):
have a business, if they have afamily, if they're a school teacher.
Building high performanceteams with your seven steps.
And then you've got your four values,which you've already talked about.
And again, one of my favoritesis enshrining those values into
practice, the leader says, make surethe vision is hanging up in your
(11:29):
office or your classroom or whatever.
Well then what?
What do you do then?
Right?
You have to continue to do somethingotherwise you're not putting those
values and that vision to practice,and I like your dad's quote, looking
at the sand is not going to move it.
And so looking at that piece of paper,of the vision and the values is not
(11:56):
going to put them into practice.
Gerald J. Leonard (11:58):
One of the, the biggest things that, that after the
vertigo situation and as I kind of gotback on my feet I remember spending
some time with a good buddy of mine,Mike Ray, Bernie's a guitarist as well.
And, , he does TEDx and he is donespeaking all over the world as
a musician, , and playing music.
And one of the things he shared withme where he had been mentored by
(12:20):
Brian Tracy, was that Brian encouragedhim to write out his goals by hand.
I. Kinetically every day, right?
And I took it a little bit furtherand said, I'm gonna turn my goals
into affirmations and then writethem out on a piece of paper.
I would, date it andthen write out my goals.
And it's transformed.
I now do it digitally, but I stilldo it kinetically with a digital
(12:43):
pen and digital paper, if you will.
And I tell you, when I started doingthat, after a week or two, some
of these goals started happeningor someone would recommend a book,
and it's the exact book I needed
to learn something.
I kept focused these are my goals.
And what it does, it, it reprogramswhat's called the reticular
(13:05):
activating system in our brains.
And it's a filtering system that we havein our brains that filters in what we
want, and filters out what we don't want.
And it's the whole reason why if yougo buy a red car, a certain type, and
you drive off the parking lot, youstart seeing that red car everywhere
is because now it's in your life.
Well, if you do that with yourgoals, you, you'll literally
(13:26):
start seeing everything that, thatyou need pertaining to that goal
around you.
And you may have been blind to itbefore, but now you see it, you also
become the magnet for all the resourcesthat you need to achieve that goal.
And I, I do it to this daywith all of my major goals.
I sit down and I write out mygoals before my day starts.
(13:51):
And it keeps me focused onwhere I'm going and what I want.
That's a good takeaway.
Write out your goals.
Catherine (13:57):
That's a great takeaway.
I'm going to do that actually myself.
You were talking about neuroscienceso, , Mack Bailey, right.
Who's been on my podcast a couple times.
He's a musician like yourself.
He's guitar.
Okay.
He does retreats with people with PTSDand music Rewires the Brain, and he
(14:24):
does these retreats where they writeexactly what you are saying, Gerald,
he does these retreats where the veteranswrite songs based on their thoughts, their
feelings, their PTSD, . And putting itinto song and, and playing the instrument
does something to rewire the brain.
(14:46):
Yeah.
Gerald J. Leonard (14:47):
Yes, when you experience trauma or you
experienced anything like that.
Y it goes into the body, right?
It goes into the body and itneeds to be processed out.
And it's not just , okay, I'm justgonna sit down and talk about it and,
uh, it's, I'm gonna be all better.
No, it, it literally gets embeddedin our DNA, it gets rewired in us.
(15:09):
And so you have to then use the samekind of mechanisms to wire it out or
to reframe it or to restructure it.
And understanding that, , we as humanbeings are so complicated and so complex
you can't duplicate our brains withcomputers because they're so complex.
, our bodies every organ is so complex,that's why you have specialists in each
(15:33):
area because it's so many moving parts.
And so when we go through a trauma, it'susually emotions, it's usually energy.
And so you have to take a holisticapproach to address it and get it out.
And I know as I went through thattrauma of the vertigo, and what
actually came out of that was theycould never tell me what the cause was.
(15:57):
But one of the things that, that Idid discover over time was, , when
you're under stress, and I was ina, you know, the, the stress of just
different things that were going onin my life at the time had allowed me
to get to that place where my bodywas outta balance and overwhelmed.
So what, what was the trigger?
The vertigo.
(16:18):
And what I found in, in researchwas that one out of five people
in the United States suffer withsome form of vestibular or vertigo.
Why?
Because we're outtabalance, we're overwhelmed.
And so I learned to begin todo yoga to de-stress my body,
and then I learned to meditate.
I learned to do the affirmations,to place myself in a place where
(16:41):
I'm removing a lot of stress.
I'm staying in , a positive,peaceful state of mind.
I'm, using talk therapy or I'm usingwriting therapy and playing music to
allow sound to vibrate throughout mybody to help me move to another state.
All of those things are really criticalfor people to be able to process through.
(17:02):
Right.
And many times it's not just whensomething like that happens, you can
have a conversation or go to a therapist.
Those things are great, butsometimes it takes more than that.
And I think that's why the programthat your friend, this gentleman has
works is because he's using music, he'susing the kinetics of writing and the
mindfulness of writing to get them toreflect and bring up and face those
(17:26):
issues so that they can then let it go.
And then once they do that, the body'slike, okay, now I can let this go
because you've actually addressed it andyou're beginning to understand why and
we're not going back down that pathway.
The Leonard ProductivityIntelligence Institute.
I created it is because of what Iwent through with Vertigo I had
(17:46):
actually created it before the Vertigothing happened because I had started
studying a lot about neurosciencekinesiology, and then when this happened.
It really took off as far as mewriting about the importance of
understanding the neuroscience.
And I actually then met throughsome coaching programs, a
(18:07):
lady named Judith Glazer.
And, and sad to say in 2019, I believeshe passed away from cancer, but she
wrote a book called ConversationalIntelligence and she coined
the phrase, our words create ourworlds, our words create our worlds.
So in other words, the words youuse is how you see the world, right?
(18:28):
And that's why we go to school, weget educated and our world changes
because the words we use changedthe way we see the world changes.
And so the way we experience the worldchanges, and it's through education
and it's through how we're created.
You know, our DNA is nothing but a book.
Instructions for how our, how each,, protein and, and how the body works.
(18:50):
And that's why words impact us somuch because we're, we're, we're
like little books that once we hearcertain words, they get rearranged
or we turn on or we turn off genes.
And so the idea behind the LeonardProductivity Intelligence Institute
is, Hey, we can learn to be highlyproductive without getting overwhelmed
(19:11):
or putting ourselves into a place wherewe get burned out or our bodies have to
give us a vestibular imbalance to say,wait a minute, you're out of balance.
Wait a minute, there's something going on.
And, , disease is basically aplace of being in dis-ease, right?
And so if we're constantly in dis-ease,we then come down with a disease,
(19:34):
whether it's Crohn's or whetherit's this, or whether it's that.
It's basically our body saying.
You're not in alignment.
You're not going down the right road.
You're, you're doingthings that are hurting me.
And so the body responds and lets us know.
And so the idea behind the LeonardProductivity Intelligence Institute
was to write articles through thepodcast, through books, through music,
(19:57):
to teach these principles of howto get an alignment with ourselves
spiritually, emotionally, and mentallyand physically in a way that we can be
just as productive and get those greatthings done and make a difference.
But at the same time, we're not burningourselves out and putting ourselves
in a place where eventually our bodiesbegin to break down because of that.
Catherine (20:22):
I really appreciate the work that you have done
for the global community
I wanna thank your sister for havingthat red guitar and I, I really do
love the books that you're writingand cleverly , using music terminology
and music scenarios . So Gerald J.Leonard, your last inspiring words.
Gerald J. Leonard (20:45):
Yeah, I would say, no matter how old you are,
no matter where you are in life,uh, just keep saying good morning
and just keep, uh, a positive note.
, my wife asked me all the time, whyare you always wearing your headphones?
Because I listen to a lot of positivebooks, or I listen to a lot of things and,
, when, when life gets crazy, you know,we control what we put into our head.
(21:06):
We really can.
And, and so, , when, when things arecrazy, , turn off the television, put a
positive book on, listen to some positivemusic, go for a walk and, and just keep
yourself grounded and just follow theseprinciples that we talked about today.
Like my dad would say, just keepsaying good morning and, and whatever
challenges are going on, they willgo away if you stay in the positive.
Catherine (21:30):
I thank you so much for being here.
Thank you.
Gerald J. Leonard.
Gerald J. Leonard (21:34):
I appreciate it.
Thank you for having me.
Catherine (21:36):
to learn more about Gerald, go to Geraldjleonard.com.
which is G-E-R-A-L-D-J-L-E-O-N-A-R d.com.
Your Positive Imprint.
It is a free podcast.
If you'd like to buy me a coffeeto help fund the production
(21:56):
of this podcast, here's how.
Go to buymeacoffe.com/yourpositiveimprintAnd any support you offer
will be greatly valued.
Thank you so much for your support andfor listening to Your Positive Imprint.
Your Positive Imprint, what's your P. I.
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