A woman worked in the same auto repair shop for 25 years and nobody in her store knew it was her anniversary.
My guest is Brian Schroller, a leadership coach and former fixed income portfolio manager who works with leaders on the idea that personal wholeness and professional success are not separate projects.
Brian heard about that anniversary while getting a car battery changed. So he cut short breakfast with his kids, bought cupcakes and flowers, and went back to celebrate a stranger. He says it was one of the best days he'd had in a long time. That story stayed with me, because it cost him almost nothing. Some time. A few pounds. The willingness to notice.
We spend a lot of this conversation on redemption. Brian talks about Viktor Frankl working with people carrying unimaginable loss, and the idea that the thing that broke you becomes the thing that qualifies you. I recognised that in my own story. When I thought I had it all figured out, I had nothing useful to offer anyone. It was the failure that gave me something real to hand over.
Then there's the reservoir. Brian quotes Bernard of Clairvaux, who said the wise man is a reservoir, not a canal. A canal pours out everything it takes in, straight through, nothing kept. A reservoir fills first, then gives from the overflow, and loses nothing of itself. Most of us are running as canals. Information in, information out, nothing held, nothing digested. Wondering why we're empty.
The business bit surprised me. Brian teaches the craftsmen in his construction companies how to run a business, financials and all, on the assumption that almost none of them will leave. A client pays for three quarters of their staff to attend a retreat that sometimes convinces people to go and do something else entirely. They send them anyway. Seeing people is not soft. It's the most commercially sensible thing in the room.
Brian says being seen and heard is so close to being loved that the difference is almost imperceptible. That's the whole thing, really. Not a strategy. Not a scaling problem. Just the willingness to look up from your own needs long enough to notice the person in front of you.
No AI in this one, by the way. We got most of the way through before either of us noticed, and honestly, that felt right. Because the tools only matter if the people do.
Go and find out whose anniversary you've missed.
Connect with Brian Schroller:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-schroller-66863022/
Website: https://www.summittrekcoaching.com/
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This was made with humans.
Your host - Shaun Phillips
Editor: Glen Boswell
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Original music composed and produced by Brokli - https://youtube.com/@iambrokli
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