TRP 199: People-Based Business Philosophy with Hugh Hornsby

[00:00:01] You're listening to The Rainmaking Podcast hosted by high stakes headhunter, author and

[00:00:19] professional speaker, Scott Love.

[00:00:24] You're listening to The Rainmaking Podcast and my name is Scott Love.

[00:00:27] Thank you for joining me on the show.

[00:00:29] We've got a special guest today.

[00:00:31] This is someone who's a close friend of mine.

[00:00:33] He's been in the sales industry for years.

[00:00:36] He's built successful teams.

[00:00:38] He's taken teams from 60 million to 120 million because of his leadership.

[00:00:43] And he's going to talk about what it really takes to succeed, which is understanding people.

[00:00:47] I think that in this show, his philosophy of people-based businesses and what he can

[00:00:53] teach you, you'll see a surprising journey as we go through this podcast.

[00:00:58] And I want you to be ready for change.

[00:01:01] I think that in business, we'd like to think that we're cold blooded calculating

[00:01:05] business people.

[00:01:07] But in business, it goes deeper than that, doesn't it?

[00:01:10] It's all about who you are, the challenges that you need to overcome and how you can

[00:01:14] achieve and thrive and help others to do that.

[00:01:17] And you're going to hear some deep insights today from my friend Hugh, where he takes

[00:01:21] you on that journey and shows you specifically how you can grow.

[00:01:26] And it might be in a way that will surprise you.

[00:01:29] So I want to thank you for listening to this show.

[00:01:32] This is a top 2% podcast because of you.

[00:01:36] So I want to thank you for listening to this.

[00:01:38] And our guest, Hugh Hornsby, will put all of his contact information and how you can

[00:01:44] reach him on the show notes.

[00:01:45] So no matter where you get this podcast, go to the show notes section and you'll

[00:01:49] be able to connect with Hugh.

[00:01:51] I know that after hearing him today, you will get ready for an exciting adventure

[00:01:56] of personal growth.

[00:01:58] Hearing my friend Hugh share his story.

[00:02:00] As always, this podcast is sponsored by Leopard Solutions Legal Intelligence Suite

[00:02:05] of Products, FirmScape and Leopard BI.

[00:02:08] Push ahead of the pack with the power of Leopard.

[00:02:10] And now here's my conversation with my close friend Hugh Hornsby.

[00:02:14] Thanks for listening.

[00:02:16] Hey, this is Scott Love with the Rain Making Podcast.

[00:02:19] Our special guest today is a very close friend of mine, Hugh Hornsby.

[00:02:24] And he is a professional in the sales industry.

[00:02:27] And we are talking about people-based business philosophies with Hugh Hornsby.

[00:02:31] Hugh, thank you for joining me on the show today.

[00:02:34] Well, thanks for having me, Scott.

[00:02:36] I'm thrilled to be here.

[00:02:37] Respect you so much and everything that you've done.

[00:02:40] And I thank you for giving me an opportunity to talk a little bit about what we

[00:02:44] have accomplished.

[00:02:46] I've turned around or built up over 10 companies.

[00:02:49] I say that I've built up and turned.

[00:02:52] I have built up, turned around 10 companies.

[00:02:54] And when it really comes down to it, as we all know, that one person does not

[00:02:59] do it. And it's really based on the people that you bring into

[00:03:04] the organization to start to believe in themselves.

[00:03:07] Absolutely right. And so if there was one common theme that you've seen

[00:03:12] in those organizations that you have turned around, that you have really built.

[00:03:15] And by the way, you've got some impressive numbers under your belt

[00:03:19] in terms of what you've done.

[00:03:21] But if there is one common theme, what would that theme be?

[00:03:25] I'd say the common theme is this.

[00:03:28] And it took me a long time to learn this.

[00:03:29] And in the business world, there's a lot of people they're going to kind of

[00:03:32] take a step back and really ask themselves

[00:03:37] whether what I'm saying, if they believe it or not,

[00:03:39] because 80 to 90 percent of the business world,

[00:03:42] 80 to 90 to even almost 100 percent

[00:03:46] of our educational world is based on numbers.

[00:03:52] And it is a report card when we come through school

[00:03:57] it's a report card when we go through college.

[00:04:00] And it's a report card a lot of times when we go through business.

[00:04:04] And when I say report card, I mean the numbers and the numbers are really important.

[00:04:08] I get it. But when it really comes down to it,

[00:04:11] if you're going to turn and change a culture around, it's about the people.

[00:04:15] Yeah. And that one person, whoever it is that you're working with,

[00:04:19] no matter whether it's your, you know, an attorney firm

[00:04:22] or whether you're in business or whether you're just a friend

[00:04:25] to the person next door, it's got to be all about them.

[00:04:29] Now, when it comes to business, what I find is that a lot of times

[00:04:33] we're hiring people on report cards, we're hiring people on resumes.

[00:04:38] What I've been able to do is that I really look for people that have

[00:04:43] they're either stuck or have some type of drive

[00:04:46] that they feel like just has held them back.

[00:04:49] And I start to have a different conversation with them

[00:04:53] to figure out where it is that they want to go.

[00:04:55] So I'm a big thinking, grow rich person.

[00:04:57] And I read that book on a regular basis.

[00:05:00] But the bottom line is it's about one and it's about what people want.

[00:05:05] And I think other people live their lives a lot of times

[00:05:08] based on what everybody tells them, what they can and can't do.

[00:05:11] So I try to find those people that maybe were a little bit stuck.

[00:05:15] And and then the way that I've built these businesses,

[00:05:19] I started out that, first of all, you've got to have a burning desire.

[00:05:24] You've got to get away for something or be running towards something.

[00:05:28] Second, you have to make a decision that you

[00:05:32] have to want to invest in yourself.

[00:05:35] Right. If you do that and what I mean, invest in yourself,

[00:05:39] it's just not reading a book on a Saturday.

[00:05:42] I'm talking about maybe going out and investing,

[00:05:44] finding coaching or whatever it may be mentors to help you through that.

[00:05:49] And then if you do that, I'll pour into you.

[00:05:53] Right. Right.

[00:05:54] And then what we've been able to do is that

[00:05:57] you've got to be a part of something bigger than yourself.

[00:06:01] And then where I find a lot of times people fail

[00:06:03] is that they make it all about themselves when they start

[00:06:05] making it about other people, the people that they're in front of,

[00:06:09] the client, the company that really changes things around.

[00:06:12] And then you've got to be a part of a team.

[00:06:15] So what way that I've done it a lot of times is I've brought these people in

[00:06:19] and we do meetings five days a week when we can.

[00:06:23] But we're investing in each other.

[00:06:25] But they're investing.

[00:06:26] What I love it is they start to invest in each other as well.

[00:06:30] Oh, wow. That's like critical mass. Right.

[00:06:32] Now you get a team where there's this symbiotic relationship within your team.

[00:06:36] Yeah, because there's so many people that I hire that come from

[00:06:40] so many different backgrounds that are somewhat smarter than I am

[00:06:43] in so many different areas.

[00:06:45] If if I just get out of the way sometimes

[00:06:48] and then just facilitate the traffic, I don't know if that makes sense

[00:06:51] to you or not, Scott. Yeah, right.

[00:06:53] That's good. That's leverage. Right.

[00:06:55] Yeah, it's leverage.

[00:06:57] And and always say that my job is to work myself out of a job

[00:07:00] and move on to the next thing.

[00:07:02] But the other thing that I've always done with people

[00:07:06] and it's very different is that I put them in a position

[00:07:10] where I do not have them sign nine competes.

[00:07:13] Now, every markets and every company is different.

[00:07:17] But my feeling that is if we're investing in them

[00:07:20] in the way that we should, they shouldn't have to want to go somewhere.

[00:07:24] Or if they do go someplace,

[00:07:27] they're going for something that's much bigger than what we have available.

[00:07:30] But there's another part to it, Scott, that a lot of people don't know

[00:07:34] is that a lot of the businesses I've turned around

[00:07:37] are small or medium sized businesses.

[00:07:39] When I say small, 20 million, 12 million, 24, whatever.

[00:07:43] The last one was 65 million.

[00:07:46] We took him to 150.

[00:07:48] The bottom line is, is that how do you tie

[00:07:51] this culture, the culture that that you're developing with each person

[00:07:56] into the company?

[00:07:57] And so the challenge many times is the CEO.

[00:08:00] So if you have a CEO that has come through the world

[00:08:04] and he started in my case, you know, delivering on a truck somewhere

[00:08:08] and he's built this business to a certain level and it's

[00:08:11] it's at a level that's probably bigger than he's ever had.

[00:08:14] Getting him to not try to do it all is one of the biggest challenges that we have.

[00:08:19] Yeah, that's interesting.

[00:08:21] So I have to try to, you know, I have to work with them

[00:08:24] as well to kind of get them to start changing their mindset.

[00:08:28] So let me let me summarize things.

[00:08:30] This is pretty much a formula that you've given us.

[00:08:33] Let me kind of go over these.

[00:08:34] And there's probably about seven points that you made.

[00:08:36] Number one, you're finding people that have an issue

[00:08:41] that they can't resolve in their current situation.

[00:08:43] They're either running away from something or running towards something.

[00:08:46] There's an intrinsic motivation where you can harness that

[00:08:50] and give them an opportunity where they can reach that goal

[00:08:52] within your organization, right? Right.

[00:08:55] And then secondly, you're looking for people

[00:08:58] that are investing in themselves.

[00:09:00] Third, you want them to be a part of something bigger themselves.

[00:09:04] Or you're coaching them.

[00:09:06] Don't make it about you. Make it about other people.

[00:09:09] And then five.

[00:09:11] Now they're part of a team and six.

[00:09:12] Now that team is starting to invest in each other.

[00:09:15] I don't know what number on then.

[00:09:17] Then you're gaining leverage as an executive by hiring talented people,

[00:09:21] people that might even be more talented than you.

[00:09:24] And then finally, you don't clench them with the closed fist.

[00:09:29] You hold them in the palm of your hand with fingers open.

[00:09:32] They can leave any time they want.

[00:09:33] They're free to go.

[00:09:34] But some of them, you know, some of them don't make it.

[00:09:37] It's the hardest thing that I do.

[00:09:38] I had to learn early on that you can't fix everybody.

[00:09:42] Yeah. One of the things I figured out, Scott, is that we're all stuck.

[00:09:46] You know, what do you mean by that?

[00:09:47] You what does that mean?

[00:09:48] Well, I think if you take a look at people,

[00:09:51] they're people that have had more success, you know, successes than others.

[00:09:55] But, you know, I'm a firm believer in how we get up in the morning.

[00:09:59] You know, I do affirmations, gratitude, by the way.

[00:10:03] You know, I really teach my team to start doing

[00:10:06] the gratitude affirmations at night and in the morning, because,

[00:10:10] you know, when we go to bed at night, what we think about

[00:10:13] a lot of times is all the bad stuff that happened behind us.

[00:10:17] But if they can go to bed with gratitude and say, boy,

[00:10:20] you know, this was a great day and I'm appreciative for such and such

[00:10:23] and appreciative for my family.

[00:10:26] And it's like a 10 minute gratitude.

[00:10:27] And if you do that, when you get up in the morning,

[00:10:30] it changes the attitude of the way they look at life.

[00:10:34] But what I meant by that is that I think we're all a little bit stuck.

[00:10:39] You know, some of us are a lot more stuck than others.

[00:10:42] And a lot of that comes from, you know,

[00:10:45] I'm a big conscious mind and unconscious mind.

[00:10:48] We pick up along the way

[00:10:51] things that people tell us what we can do and what we can't do.

[00:10:54] And we store that in that in what we call the unconscious mind.

[00:10:58] And then we hide that.

[00:11:00] And it comes out at times, a lot of times when we don't want it to.

[00:11:05] But I'm a firm believer.

[00:11:06] And I think one of the things that I've been able to do here

[00:11:09] with these people is, you know, with with my teammates

[00:11:13] is get them to reprogram the way that they think.

[00:11:16] And that's the biggest thing that I feel like.

[00:11:20] And when I did this, they used to call me an unconscious competent.

[00:11:23] Now I'm a conscious competent. It's really scary.

[00:11:25] But now I really know what I'm doing.

[00:11:27] And that's what I'm really trying to do with people

[00:11:31] is to help them reprogram what's in that unconscious mind

[00:11:35] that they picked up along the way and in turn

[00:11:39] those negatives that they have into positives.

[00:11:42] And tell me, how do you do that exactly, Hugh?

[00:11:44] Well, there's only two ways.

[00:11:46] Good friend of mine, Dave Sanderson.

[00:11:47] And we talk about this all the time.

[00:11:49] He's a mindset coach.

[00:11:50] And he came through Tony Robbins group at one time.

[00:11:54] But he went down in the Hudson.

[00:11:57] He was on the plane that went down in the Hudson.

[00:11:59] Yeah, wow. And so something came up in his mind at the time

[00:12:04] where he decided instead of trying to get out of the plane,

[00:12:09] he went to the back and got everybody else off.

[00:12:12] And it's changed his life because he's done that.

[00:12:15] He goes around and he talks about that.

[00:12:16] But we call it a 9-11 moment.

[00:12:19] You know, if if you have something, a major tragedy

[00:12:22] and a tragedy to you doesn't have to be going down in a plane.

[00:12:25] It can be of some illness or whatever it may be.

[00:12:27] You you start to look at things differently.

[00:12:30] So, boom, you could change it like that.

[00:12:32] But that's not the way you want to do it.

[00:12:34] What you want to do it is with joy.

[00:12:36] And the other way to do it is through repetition.

[00:12:38] And it's what you're feeding your mind on a regular basis.

[00:12:42] And we know that if you do things over a period of time

[00:12:47] and you do the affirmations on a regular basis,

[00:12:49] you start to think differently

[00:12:52] than if you just leave it open to the way it used to be.

[00:12:55] So at the age of 35, we really most people say,

[00:12:58] hey, you're pretty much conditioned.

[00:13:00] Well, that's not the case.

[00:13:02] It's really not.

[00:13:03] It's conditioned because you've let whatever conditions that you went in

[00:13:07] kind of feed.

[00:13:08] But the bottom line is you can recondition your mind at the age of 66.

[00:13:12] It doesn't matter.

[00:13:13] It's a matter of what you're feeding in there.

[00:13:15] And it's a matter of what you start to believe.

[00:13:17] And if you do that over a period of time,

[00:13:20] you can totally change the way that you think

[00:13:22] in the way that you believe.

[00:13:24] Let me ask you this.

[00:13:26] Do you think that there are some people that you've coached,

[00:13:28] people you've let's say out of 100 people,

[00:13:31] what percentage of them just don't make it?

[00:13:33] They don't get past that point of being stuck.

[00:13:36] What do you think? What's your experience?

[00:13:38] Well, I'm pretty good at doing a pretty good job of vetting them.

[00:13:41] And I don't know.

[00:13:42] Maybe it's a fifth sense or something.

[00:13:44] But in my case, it's usually about 20 percent.

[00:13:48] There's a 20 percent that can't get beyond

[00:13:51] getting past themselves.

[00:13:52] I see. And then a lot of times.

[00:13:54] But then there's another percent.

[00:13:56] And sometimes you look at somebody say,

[00:13:57] I just don't know if he's going to make him give him a shot.

[00:14:00] And they they start to really start to change.

[00:14:03] The ones that don't make it are the ones that don't do exactly

[00:14:06] what I just told you about is making a intentional

[00:14:11] being intentional to put things in your mind.

[00:14:14] And the other part of that is just not about what you put in your mind.

[00:14:17] It's about the people that you associate with.

[00:14:20] So if you're on the top of the rank, we are the average

[00:14:23] of the five people we associate with in the bottom line.

[00:14:26] If you're on the top of that five, you're in the wrong place.

[00:14:29] Right. You know, you're in the wrong place.

[00:14:31] And that's one of the reasons that I always

[00:14:35] have in conversations with people that that are just

[00:14:39] they kind of get this.

[00:14:40] And what really happens is once you start to do that,

[00:14:44] you know, rising tide lifts all boats.

[00:14:45] But the people that make a decision not to do it,

[00:14:48] they're the ones that really don't have the desire to change

[00:14:51] or they're in such a terrible fit that they can't

[00:14:54] they can't get out of their own way. Right.

[00:14:56] So let me ask you this question.

[00:14:58] Let's say there's an executive out there that has a team,

[00:15:01] whether it's a small team or a big team,

[00:15:02] whether they're professional service providers or salespeople or whatever it is.

[00:15:07] What do you think the big impediments are that they need to watch out for

[00:15:11] as they hire, grow, build their team in terms of

[00:15:15] taking their team to a whole new level?

[00:15:18] What do you think those pitfalls are?

[00:15:19] It's a great question.

[00:15:21] The pitfall is usually as people are being put into those upper positions

[00:15:25] without, number one, having any training to get there.

[00:15:28] Maybe they were a high performer at the level that they were before.

[00:15:32] And now they're supposed to become a leader instead of a leader.

[00:15:35] They're trying to manage in the person

[00:15:37] they're trying to manage the most is themselves.

[00:15:40] And so I think a lot of times people are put into positions,

[00:15:43] including me, at one point, where I was moved from sales and management

[00:15:47] and was way over my head.

[00:15:49] And I had to fail in that job to kind of figure out what I needed to do next.

[00:15:53] But usually it's because we're over our heads.

[00:15:55] Yeah. The other part is it's because we don't say this enough.

[00:16:00] But do you care for your people and do you love your people?

[00:16:04] Yeah. That's something that we don't talk about nearly enough,

[00:16:08] because if somebody doesn't think you care for them,

[00:16:11] if somebody doesn't think you love them and somebody thinks

[00:16:15] if somebody just thinks they're a transaction, that's what you're going to get.

[00:16:18] You're going to get a transaction.

[00:16:20] But you care and love for them.

[00:16:21] And by the way, sometimes caring and loving is realizing

[00:16:24] that that person's problem might not be in the right position

[00:16:27] and having a conversation with them and saying,

[00:16:29] what can I do to either move you, you know, move you through this

[00:16:33] or move you find another place in another world that you can be happy?

[00:16:38] Because at the end of the day, if people are not happy in doing

[00:16:41] what they're doing, then they are a transaction.

[00:16:44] Yeah. Wow. That's very deep.

[00:16:46] You know, that really is.

[00:16:48] So tell me a story of I'd say your proudest turnaround situation

[00:16:53] when you took it over, what was the team like?

[00:16:56] What was a key inflection point where things really started taking off?

[00:17:00] And what was the end result?

[00:17:02] Well, every one of them I'm proud of.

[00:17:04] But the proudest one out was of is when I was diagnosed as an epileptic

[00:17:09] and hit my head at the age of 10. Oh, wow.

[00:17:13] And so they didn't know much about epilepsy back then.

[00:17:16] My mother, you know, leaving the hospital said, Hugh,

[00:17:19] she had tears in her eyes and I looked at her and said, Mom,

[00:17:21] it's going to be OK.

[00:17:22] She said, no, no, you don't understand.

[00:17:24] People don't understand this disorder.

[00:17:26] But I just want you to know something.

[00:17:29] I said, well, that's mom.

[00:17:30] She said, never let anybody hold you back, especially yourself.

[00:17:35] And so that was a I didn't know that was happening at the time.

[00:17:38] And but what she also taught me was that there were people out there

[00:17:42] that had been labeled that I really started mentoring and helping back then.

[00:17:48] But one of the biggest things I did is I went through.

[00:17:50] So in the ninth grade, they tried to put me in the special needs.

[00:17:53] Of course, I wouldn't have anything of that.

[00:17:56] And I remember that teacher like it was yesterday.

[00:17:59] But then when I went to college, I transferred in from another college

[00:18:02] and I opened it.

[00:18:03] I wanted to become president of attorney,

[00:18:06] and nobody would let me because I wasn't going to be there long enough.

[00:18:08] So I started my own.

[00:18:10] And so I figured, you know, president or one,

[00:18:13] you know, but I could at least do this thing.

[00:18:16] And I started going door to door and we started recruiting people.

[00:18:20] But I recruited people that that were just, you know, a lot of times

[00:18:23] very different.

[00:18:24] And the other attorneys, you know, they were all labeled,

[00:18:27] weren't, you know, jock, whatever it was.

[00:18:30] Well, mine was not that way.

[00:18:32] So we put this thing together.

[00:18:34] By the end of that year, we were the largest fraternity on campus.

[00:18:39] And so my model at that time was I'm only going to be here two years.

[00:18:43] So, you know, come on in and you tell me what is that you want

[00:18:48] out of this fraternity and what role that you want to play,

[00:18:50] and I'll help you do that.

[00:18:52] And so then I started to realize that it wasn't really about me.

[00:18:57] It was about them.

[00:18:58] And then by the end of that year, we were the largest fraternity on campus.

[00:19:01] By the second year, we were almost twice the size of any other fraternity on campus.

[00:19:06] All kinds of different people.

[00:19:07] I'm going to tell you, there were some there were some really different people

[00:19:10] on there. And but the bottom line is what I tried to teach them at the time

[00:19:14] is that it's not about you guys, it's about where you want to go

[00:19:18] and who you want to be and who you want to be around.

[00:19:20] That year, I also created the Greek Games over at Bradford University,

[00:19:25] where I brought the it was amazing.

[00:19:28] And if you go on my LinkedIn, you can see my little goofy post on me on a tricycle.

[00:19:33] We put all these games together, but the whole idea was not about the Greeks.

[00:19:36] It was about bringing the university together.

[00:19:40] And so I learned when I walked off that campus,

[00:19:44] it was like that was pretty amazing.

[00:19:46] But it was something that was taught to me by my mother

[00:19:50] and my father that we can be whatever it is that we want to be.

[00:19:55] Never let anybody hold you back.

[00:19:57] And I tell you what, Scott, I don't tell this story often,

[00:19:59] but I'm going to tell it this time.

[00:20:01] My mother was an amazing person.

[00:20:03] And so the whole mindset piece that we talk about here was this.

[00:20:08] You know, it took me to the age of 60 to realize what she was doing.

[00:20:12] But she she would you know, I love sports.

[00:20:16] One time I was going to be a sports writer, I thought.

[00:20:19] But I love the underdog books.

[00:20:21] And she would take these little kids books underdog books

[00:20:25] and she would just leave them on my bed.

[00:20:27] And I'd read those things.

[00:20:29] And it was all about the person that was had disability or whatever and overcame.

[00:20:34] And so she did that time and time again.

[00:20:36] I read each one of those and it just became a part of me.

[00:20:40] I didn't realize what she was doing at that time

[00:20:42] was that mindset piece that we were talking about, that unconditional mind.

[00:20:46] She was putting that in me in a way that I carry it today.

[00:20:50] It's the way I build these businesses.

[00:20:53] I don't build businesses. I build people.

[00:20:54] You don't build culture.

[00:20:56] Culture is nothing but a group of people.

[00:20:58] And if you can turn, if you can take people to work together

[00:21:02] and you can take a CEO or CEO and you start connecting the dots,

[00:21:07] that's when you go from 65 million to 150 million

[00:21:11] in three and a half years, which we did in this last company.

[00:21:14] But the whole thing is we didn't only create the numbers,

[00:21:19] we created a brand because it was a company that was out of New Jersey,

[00:21:23] New York that had never been outside.

[00:21:25] And we took those things across the United States

[00:21:29] and it just became a part of each one of us.

[00:21:32] But they became a part of me.

[00:21:33] And but it wasn't about the numbers as much as it was watching those people grow.

[00:21:38] You that's such a great story.

[00:21:40] I mean, there's probably seven things we could talk about from that.

[00:21:44] Let me ask you this one question.

[00:21:45] You mentioned this before, and I really appreciate what you shared,

[00:21:48] especially about your mom, what she told you.

[00:21:50] Don't let anybody get in your way, even yourself.

[00:21:53] What do you think for those people out there where they are in their own way?

[00:21:57] Why do you think that is and what can they do to overcome that?

[00:22:02] I'm going to answer that question, but maybe with a question, Scott,

[00:22:05] how many people do we know that say, you know,

[00:22:07] I just have a hard time getting up in the morning.

[00:22:10] Yeah. You know, I'm having a hard time getting out of bed.

[00:22:13] You know, I hear it. I hear that time and time again.

[00:22:16] Well, if you want to get out a bit in the morning,

[00:22:19] start changing the way you think when you go to bed.

[00:22:22] It's a proven fact that you can't be depressed if you show gratitude.

[00:22:28] Wow. If we start showing gratitude

[00:22:31] and you start showing gratitude, you know, in the evenings

[00:22:35] and you start showing gratitude in the mornings,

[00:22:39] I can't wait to get up out of bed.

[00:22:40] I can't wait to do my gratitude check

[00:22:43] and I can't wait to go and do my walk

[00:22:46] where I put my earbuds and all those people are, you know,

[00:22:50] sharing things with me that are bigger than myself.

[00:22:52] But if somebody's stuck, now listen, I understand there's depression.

[00:22:56] There's a lot of things that go on.

[00:22:58] There's mental illness and everything else.

[00:22:59] But really more than the majority of the people are stuck

[00:23:04] because they can't get out of their own way.

[00:23:06] Yeah. You know, my mentor told me this.

[00:23:09] It really hit me because we all have stuff that we carry along with us

[00:23:12] and we hide it. And you know, you what he says is what gets impressed,

[00:23:16] gets expressed.

[00:23:17] So whatever you're hiding is going to be expressed at some point.

[00:23:21] But what he told me is that whatever you're doing here,

[00:23:24] make sure you don't take it to your grave.

[00:23:27] And I think people need to ask themselves,

[00:23:29] whatever it is that's holding me back, whatever it is,

[00:23:33] you know, let's not let it take you to the grave.

[00:23:35] And what it really takes, Scott, is to really do a dig,

[00:23:39] you know, digging deep within yourself,

[00:23:41] which is one of the hardest things that you can do

[00:23:44] and finding those things that really hurt.

[00:23:47] And then he also said, forgive that person.

[00:23:51] And then you got to forgive yourself.

[00:23:53] Now, that's a lot easier said than done,

[00:23:55] because I had some issues that happened to me at a younger age

[00:23:58] that I rarely talk about.

[00:23:59] I was I was abused by a teenage kid

[00:24:02] at the age of eight that I carried to the age of 60.

[00:24:06] And I remember talking to my mom when she was in hospice

[00:24:12] and she was an amazing person.

[00:24:14] And she was abandoned at the age of three

[00:24:18] by her mother on the side of a road.

[00:24:21] And I said, you know, Mom, we never really had that story.

[00:24:24] Can you talk about that?

[00:24:25] And she said, yeah, I will talk about it with you, Hugh.

[00:24:28] And she started to tell me that story, and she would tell it.

[00:24:31] It was so hard on her.

[00:24:33] She said, I just can't tell it anymore.

[00:24:35] Well, she ended up telling me that story.

[00:24:38] And. I get, you know, fast forward.

[00:24:43] She's in hospice, get a call from the nurse and she has passed away.

[00:24:48] And so I go to the facility and the nurse says, can you know,

[00:24:54] as we're walking down the hall and I got a few tears in my eyes,

[00:24:57] she pulls me aside, she said, Hugh, can I share something with you?

[00:25:01] I said, yeah, sure, absolutely.

[00:25:03] She said, well, your mother could not get out of bed.

[00:25:05] I said, I know that.

[00:25:07] And so, well, last night she did.

[00:25:08] Last night, she got out of bed and I saw her at the end of the bed.

[00:25:12] And I walked in, I said, Mary Ellen, who are you talking to?

[00:25:15] And she said, my mother or mother.

[00:25:19] And she said, oh, really?

[00:25:21] She said, yes, I just forgave her. Wow.

[00:25:25] Scott, she got into bed, closed her eyes and went to heaven.

[00:25:32] When I heard that story, I said, what is it

[00:25:35] that's down deep in me that I haven't shared with other people?

[00:25:39] And it was it was when I had been abused at the age of eight

[00:25:44] by a teenage kid, I was so shamed by that.

[00:25:48] I was so shamed by that that I didn't want to tell anybody and I didn't.

[00:25:51] I carried it for 60 years.

[00:25:54] That was my mother

[00:25:56] delivering a message to me, don't carry it till you die.

[00:26:01] They answer the other part of the question is that shame

[00:26:04] is one of the biggest things that we run into

[00:26:09] that stop us from being the person that we want to be.

[00:26:13] And so I had to get through that shame and I went back that night

[00:26:16] and I told my wife about it and she looked at me

[00:26:19] and like she didn't believe me because I tell her everything.

[00:26:21] I said, no, honey, I haven't told you this because I haven't told anybody.

[00:26:26] And then I did exactly what my mentor said.

[00:26:28] I went back and I forgave him.

[00:26:31] Yeah, yeah, it didn't.

[00:26:33] It went easy.

[00:26:33] I kept forgiving him, but then I had to forgive myself.

[00:26:37] And then the next part of that story is that

[00:26:41] I moved over here to to the eastern part of Virginia,

[00:26:45] which is close to where I where I grew up.

[00:26:48] And I jumped in the truck one day and I went to that one spot

[00:26:51] that I'd never been back to and I forgave him and I forgave myself.

[00:26:57] So this is not about me.

[00:26:59] It's about everybody's got that something that's in there.

[00:27:02] Yeah. But forgiveness is the biggest tool that you can go.

[00:27:07] If you're if you have something that you're ashamed of,

[00:27:10] we'll forgive whoever that person is.

[00:27:13] Forgive yourself and then use it as a tool to try to help other people.

[00:27:20] Wow.

[00:27:21] Hugh, I think it's interesting how people think, oh, it's all business,

[00:27:24] but it's really not as personal in our own growth and development.

[00:27:29] What you shared, and it's almost like the arc.

[00:27:32] The things that happened, how you went through it and how you resolved it.

[00:27:37] That's the blessing in life right there.

[00:27:38] And the fact that you're telling other people there about that.

[00:27:41] I know that there are people listening to this show right now

[00:27:43] that are like, wow, I really need to work on that.

[00:27:46] Everybody has something.

[00:27:47] And isn't it interesting that we're we're

[00:27:51] cold blooded, calculating business people know

[00:27:54] we're human beings flawed that have been wounded.

[00:27:57] And I want to thank you for being here and sharing a solution

[00:28:02] and possibly even a resolution that people can take and grow and thrive from.

[00:28:09] If you feel ashamed, just realize it.

[00:28:12] Yeah.

[00:28:13] And it's time that person that you can have a conversation with

[00:28:16] and that person really needs to be you.

[00:28:19] But doing that gratitude in the morning and the evening,

[00:28:23] it really helps me figure out me.

[00:28:26] But at the end of the day, we got to do a deep dive.

[00:28:28] And you know what?

[00:28:30] We are so fortunate to be a part of the most incredible

[00:28:34] opportunity and country.

[00:28:36] And it's awesome.

[00:28:38] And I'm telling you that if we're feeling bad about something,

[00:28:43] we can start feeling better about it.

[00:28:46] But remember this, if you're feeling gratitude,

[00:28:50] you're not going to go through depression.

[00:28:52] You're not going to go through that other side

[00:28:54] because it's impossible to feel both.

[00:28:56] So keep working on that.

[00:28:58] And you can do it for the companies and you can tie the company's goals

[00:29:01] in with the people, and then you can take a step back and just watch it go.

[00:29:05] And then, you know what's the hardest thing is, Scott?

[00:29:07] You got to keep up in your own game, you know, which to me,

[00:29:10] I think that's that's a pretty neat journey to be on.

[00:29:13] Well, Hugh, I appreciate you being on the show.

[00:29:15] We're going to end this show a little bit differently.

[00:29:17] We're just going to end it right here with me expressing gratitude for you,

[00:29:21] for you being bold enough to help people with their issues,

[00:29:26] because I think that really is that's the secret of success right there.

[00:29:29] And it spins out in other directions.

[00:29:32] So for everybody listening, we're going to put Hughes

[00:29:34] contact information on the show notes.

[00:29:37] And Hugh, is there anything that you'd like for people to know about you,

[00:29:40] about services that you offer, things that you can offer them

[00:29:43] for them to stay connected with you to get to know you better?

[00:29:47] Look me up on LinkedIn.

[00:29:48] Yeah, I'm excited to announce that in four weeks

[00:29:51] I am launching a new business and it's going to be very much based on,

[00:29:57] you know, having a six month type program that you can go through

[00:30:01] to understand exactly some of the things that I've been talking about.

[00:30:04] I'm passionate about helping other people and getting other people

[00:30:08] to help themselves.

[00:30:09] So I've got a coaching and consulting business.

[00:30:12] You know, Hugh dot H at Everflow supplies

[00:30:16] dot com is the best way to get to me now in another month.

[00:30:20] I'll get this information to my new website, and then I'll also

[00:30:24] get you the some of the information we have.

[00:30:28] I'm telling you that

[00:30:30] it don't wait till the age of 60 to do some of the stuff that I've done.

[00:30:34] You don't have to.

[00:30:35] But even if you're 70, it doesn't matter what age you are.

[00:30:39] You know, let's have a conversation and then we can tell if

[00:30:42] my program works for you, fine.

[00:30:43] If not, just love, you know, love to have conversations with people

[00:30:47] because at the end of the day, you know, we're we're all about trying to

[00:30:51] to make this world just a little bit place.

[00:30:54] Well, thank you for being here, Hugh.

[00:30:55] And for everybody listening, we're going to put all that information

[00:30:58] on the show notes.

[00:30:58] So wherever you're listening to the podcast, go there

[00:31:00] and you'll be able to connect with Hugh directly.

[00:31:03] Thank you, Hugh, for being on my show.

[00:31:04] And I know we're going to have you back on in the future.

[00:31:07] And Scott Love, I just want to say how much I appreciate you.

[00:31:12] You're a real gift to this world.

[00:31:14] And thank you for having me on.

[00:31:17] Thank you, Hugh.

[00:31:18] All right. Thank you, Scott.

[00:31:23] Thank you for listening to the Rain Making Podcast.

[00:31:27] For more information about our recruiting services for international law firms,

[00:31:31] visit our website at attorney search group dot com

[00:31:36] to inquire about having Scott speak at your next convention,

[00:31:39] conference, sales meeting or executive retreat.

[00:31:42] Visit the Rain Making Podcast dot com.