Shep Hyken | Chief Amazement Officer | Midlife Fulfilled Podcast
162

Ep 162 Embracing an Attitude of Gratitude to Achieve Fulfillment in Midlife

Shep Hyken has always been a positive person. He attributes his attitude of gratitude to his happiness and fulfillment.

Meet Shep Hyken. Shep has always been a positive person. He attributes his attitude of gratitude to his happiness and fulfillment.

Professionally, Shep is a well-known author, speaker, and customer service expert. He is known for his inspiring speeches on being amazing to attract and retain customers. His amazement approach to life has had many benefits professionally and personally.

Three key discussion points from this episode:

1️⃣ Attitude of Gratitude: Shep’s practice of writing down something positive from both his professional and personal life every day has had a profound impact on his outlook. Even on the darkest days, he has been able to focus on the positive, making him more appreciative and resilient.

2️⃣ Pursuing Amazement: Shep’s definition of greatness is being just a little better than average consistently and predictably. By striving to exceed expectations in small ways every day, he maintains a level of excellence in both his personal and professional endeavors.

3️⃣ Embracing Retirement: Shep’s perspective on retirement is doing what you love. It’s about continuing to engage in activities and pursuits that bring joy and satisfaction, whether it’s professional work, hobbies like playing hockey and music or simply spending time with family.

When you listen to this episode you will be inspired to be even more amazing than you already are!

🔥 My affiliate link to Castmagic, which I used to help produce these show notes. 🔥

Connect with Shep Hyken:
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Shep Hyen’s Website

Watch this episode on YouTube

Click or tap here to download the 5-Step Career Reboot Checklist.

Episode Transcript

Bernie Borges [00:00:00]:
Shep Eiken, welcome to the Midlife Fulfill podcast. It’s great

Shep Hyken [00:00:04]:
to have you. Honored that I’m here. Thanks for having me.

Bernie Borges [00:00:07]:
Fantastic. Well, Shep, before we begin, why don’t you share with us, which decade are you in?

Shep Hyken [00:00:15]:
So, yeah, that’s a great question. I’m gonna tell you the truth in a moment. But when people say, how old are you? I say, I am going to be 84 years old in 20 years.

Bernie Borges [00:00:26]:
I was gonna say, yeah. You just gonna say when. Right?

Shep Hyken [00:00:29]:
I like to pause, and then they go, wow. This guy looks really good. So I’m in my 6th decade, and, bald guys stay looking pretty young until one day, it’s like, what happened to this guy? So I’ve looked the same way for about the last 20 years.

Bernie Borges [00:00:44]:
Well, we haven’t known each other exactly 20 years. I think we’ve known each other about 10 if I’m not mistaken.

Shep Hyken [00:00:49]:
Yeah. 9 years. Well, this year will be 10 years because I think about 2014, you and I met. Yeah. Maybe 15.

Bernie Borges [00:00:56]:
Yeah. Yeah. We we were doing some work if you will, if you wanna call it work for a a large brand where we we were reminiscing a little bit before we started recording about that. But, so a couple of things I’ve learned about you, Shep, along the way in those 9, let’s call it 10 years. You are the ultimate professional in what you do. You are an award winning keynote speaker. You are renowned, a renowned expert in customer service, customer experience. You’ve worked with some of the biggest brands around the world, and you’ve been inducted into the hall of fame at the National Speakers Association, which is no small feat.

Bernie Borges [00:01:37]:
So, clearly, professionally, you are very accomplished, but I’ve also observed, Shep, just how you conduct yourself, how you build relationships that are truly, truly authentic. And I just started to kinda connect the dots, Shep, on your approach to life. And so I invited you on the podcast, and when we were preparing for this, you said, you know, I I wanna talk about gratitude, goals, and greatness. So I’m gonna turn over to you. Where would you like to begin the conversation on that topic?

Shep Hyken [00:02:11]:
Well, I mean, let’s start. I mean, the attitude of gratitude is really important to me. We could start there. I I think maybe goals are also important, to look at. Greatness, I think, just comes as a result of the, sometimes it’s what you strive for. And I think greatness is in anything you do. I don’t wanna be seen as well, mediocre is is not a word I love. I think it sounds kinda ugly too, mediocre.

Shep Hyken [00:02:39]:
You know? Mhmm. But I don’t wanna be seen as anybody that does, less than great work and, just an attitude that I have. So you tell me, what what intrigues you the most? Wait a minute. You’re supposed to be asking me questions.

Bernie Borges [00:02:53]:
Yeah. Well, okay. So that’s okay. You’re a podcaster too. I didn’t mention that, And you’ve been podcasting a long time. You’ve you have you have a digital TV show. I mean, you know, you you’ve really got it going professionally. But again, what really attracted me to you for this conversation is just how well rounded you are.

Bernie Borges [00:03:09]:
I’m using air quotes around that because you’ve you’ve done great in business. You’re still doing great in business, but you’re also this friendly, authentic person who builds relationships, and you’re helpful to others. And because the Midlife of Health podcast is really about seeking and finding fulfillment across the 5 pillars, right, Health, fitness, greater relationships, and legacy. So how how have you been able to do both so well? Kill it, crush it in business, but also just great at relationship building and and just being a great human being and, like, fulfillment. Like, where is fulfillment for you in in all that whole context?

Shep Hyken [00:03:50]:
Yep. Well, let’s talk about the attitude to gratitude thing. I think that’s a place to start with. It’s also a strong way to come back and end it to remind everybody why this is important. I’m a very lucky guy. Don’t know how it happened. I’m very optimistic about life. I’ve been that way since I was very young, and and I’m not saying I had a great life.

Shep Hyken [00:04:11]:
I had a I had a very, very good life with great opportunity that I took advantage of. Little bit of tough home Midlife. You know, parents were divorced at a young age, which kinda freaked me out. And, but it all worked out. The, the whole thing is, I guess, there’s a word that I like to use, it’s fulfillment. And I’m resilient to negative things that happen to me and that I always try to find the positive way out. And, by the way, don’t know how that happened. Nobody taught it to me.

Shep Hyken [00:04:36]:
But I look at the crap that was thrown at me at a young age. I look at the things that bothered or scared me at a young age and how I overcame them. And I’ll get to the attitude of gratitude in a minute, but let me give you an example. And you might like this. We could riff on this for a little bit. 12 years old well, actually, 10 years old, I started doing magic tricks. 12 years old, I did my first birthday party magic show. I was paid to do this, and I was nervous in front of a bunch of little screaming kids.

Shep Hyken [00:05:01]:
I mean, they were 6 years old. I was 12, so it wasn’t like I had to entertain these kids. But, I eventually joined the magic organizations, the International Brotherhood of Magicians and the Society of American Magicians, and they had local chapter meetings. And I remember getting up to perform every single meeting, and I was scared. I was shaking. My legs would shake, but I would perform a new card trick that I learned in the last month. And I just think that I put myself out there and pushed myself in ways that broke my comfort zone but weren’t gonna kill me at the same time?

Bernie Borges [00:05:36]:
Right.

Shep Hyken [00:05:36]:
You know? What’s the worst that could have happened? I did a bungee jump a a couple 3 years ago. Maybe it’s longer than that. But I bungee jump, that probably coulda killed me if things went wrong. Yeah. Yeah. You know? And I do some other things that people might consider a little dangerous. I did do a skydiving thing with, which that’s a whole another story. I did it with my 69 year old mother who since passed away, not because of skydiving, and my 18 year old son at the time.

Shep Hyken [00:06:02]:
Wow. And, it was like 3 generations jumping out of a perfectly good plane. But, I just like to have fun in life. And, great compliment. Years ago, I’m a member of an organization called EO, the Entrepreneurs Organization. Used to be young entrepreneurs, part of, an extension, if you will, not really affiliated, but they’re real close cousins of YPO, Young Presidents’ Organization. And one of the members gave me an incredible compliment when we were in a group together, and they said, you have, like, childlike enthusiasms enthusiasm for some of the most important things in business. And I’m thinking, wow.

Shep Hyken [00:06:38]:
I think that’s a compliment. So resilience, excitement, to learn and and work and do things, and that leads us maybe to the attitude of gratitude. Okay. So you’re nodding your head like you want me to go further.

Bernie Borges [00:06:53]:
Yeah. Yeah. No. If you say it leads you to gratitude, I wanna hear about it because I know, my next question after that. So go ahead.

Shep Hyken [00:07:00]:
Yeah. So the whole idea behind the gratitude thing is I didn’t realize just how important it was to having a true positive outlook on life. And I can’t remember how many years ago this was, probably more than 10 or 12 years ago. I was going to Orlando on a regular basis to do my keynote speeches, and I found a great driver, a cab driver, who I would then call, and he would pick me up. And, eventually, he got a regular, like, a sedan, so it was more of a service than a taxicab. And he would pick me up every time I went to Orlando and take me back to the airport. And one time, it was in December, and he goes, by the way, I’m giving away pocket calendars to my best clients. You know, these little calendars that had you open them up and you got the whole week, 7 days in little blocks.

Shep Hyken [00:07:44]:
You you know what I’m talking about. Yes. Mhmm. Great. He said, would you like one of these? And I said, I I don’t think I have any use for this. I mean, I use my phone and I use my calendar. Why would I use this? And I gave it back to him. And right as I was leaving, I said, you know what? I’d like that back, and I’ll tell you why.

Shep Hyken [00:08:01]:
I would like to write down every day something good that happened to me. I’m gonna see if I can do this. It’s like a challenge starting on January 1st. Now part of this thinking comes from going to something called the strategic coach, Dan Sullivan’s program that I had, I went through it for 20 years. I love the program. And one of the things we always learn is that entrepreneurs, successful business people, we all have this great attitude, and we’re thankful for things that fall in our lap, thankful for the people around us that do great things. But this attitude of gratitude came. I had written a book or was in the process of writing a book, called Be Amazing or Go Home, and I had 7 habits.

Shep Hyken [00:08:39]:
And and having this attitude of gratitude after the book came out, I added a supplement called the 8th habit, which is this attitude. And this is what I did. For a solid year, every day, I would write down something good that happened in business and something that happened personally. On the weekends, it was just personal. But 5 days a week, it was business and personal.

Bernie Borges [00:09:01]:
So it is 7 days a week?

Shep Hyken [00:09:03]:
7 days a week. At the end of the day, or before I went to bed, probably took me well, at the beginning, it took me a little longer, but probably took me 2 minutes to do. Why did it take me longer? Because I’d have to think about what happened to me good on a bad day or a tough business day.

Bernie Borges [00:09:18]:
Mhmm.

Shep Hyken [00:09:18]:
And then I realized, you know what? I had a good client call. I talked to Bernie today. You know? Something good that happened while I was at the office. And then the, a positive thing that could happen personally, it’s like, you know, I I I talked to my daughter, today. I haven’t talked to her in 2 weeks. My wife and I went to dinner, you know, and we had a great conversation. It could be anything. It didn’t have to be big or monumental.

Shep Hyken [00:09:41]:
Well, here’s what I noticed. As positive of a person as I have always been, within 2 or 3 weeks, this habit made me more positive than you could imagine. And it became really easy to spot good things even in the darkest days. You know, my mom passed away a few years ago, and I remember that day like it was yesterday. I was in her apartment. My brother and his wife my wife and I were around her. My sister was on the cell phone on the Zoom call, and she passed away right in front of us. And that could have been one of the deepest, darkest days of my life, but my brother and I had conversations.

Shep Hyken [00:10:18]:
And I look back, and you’re gonna think that’s funny in a morbid kind of a way. But I found humor in that day, or not humor so much as positivity. My brother and I, he said, she’s not gonna die today. I said, yes. She will. How do you know? I said, the dog’s telling me. What do you mean the dog’s telling you? The dog told me she was gonna die. How did the dog tell me? Because the dog would not sit next to her for the prior 3 months, but that day wouldn’t it was clinging to her, and I knew the dog knew something was gonna happen.

Shep Hyken [00:10:46]:
So when I tell people that story, they’re it’s sad but happy at the same time. It’s like, my mom loved dogs. This is the most important thing to her other than us kids, I would think. Maybe not. But here’s the point of that attitude of gratitude exercise. Within a few weeks, I found it was so easy to find something positive, even on the darkest days. And I just started to find I was more appreciative of everything. I was nicer at times to people when it was a tough day as opposed to withdrawing.

Shep Hyken [00:11:15]:
And that’s that’s what that habit turned into.

Bernie Borges [00:11:18]:
Okay. Okay. Yeah. So it sounds like that’s been life changing for you. But, actually, I wanna come back to something a little earlier in our conversation. You you said earlier that you don’t like the word mediocre. You wanna be great at everything. I wanna unpack that, Shep.

Bernie Borges [00:11:32]:
What what what does greatness mean to you? Because is it not relative what may be a great performance or great anything to you might not be the same as me and, you know, the the the next person. Right?

Shep Hyken [00:11:46]:
So great question. I’ll define it in the terms of amazement rather than greatness because my word is I wanna be amazing. K? You could call it I wanna be great. You I wanna be exceptional. I wanna be outstanding. However you wanna do it. I wanna be successful. Well, amazement to me, or greatness, your word, is simply being better than mediocre consistently and predictably.

Shep Hyken [00:12:08]:
Because if I I teach this in business. This is what the best businesses do. You know, I had a chance to talk and get to know Horace Schultz over a period of years, the 1st president and cofounder of the Ritz Carlton Hotel chain. And I said, how do you build an iconic, known for the most incredible guest service, customer service experience, you know, in a brand. And he goes, it’s not what you think it is. It’s not like going over the top all the time. You have opportunities to do that when they when those opportunities fall in your lap. But if day in and day out, you’re trying to figure out, how can I just be a little better than average or mediocre consistently and predictably? And he said, give me an example of that.

Shep Hyken [00:12:46]:
He said, as soon as you get out of the car, one of our door doorman, door staff, door women, whatever you wanna call us today, goes over and says, welcome to the Ritz. They look at my luggage tag, and they go, are you mister Haikin? Yes. I am. Well, welcome. Come on in. And we walked to the front desk, and mister Huyken’s here to check-in. And as I come back 2 hours later, that same person that welcomed me at the door said, hey, mister Huyken. How’s everything going with your stay so far? Using your name as an example of just being a little better than average.

Shep Hyken [00:13:17]:
That’s not over the top. Right. But when you start stringing a bunch of these little above average experiences together, it appears to be like they’re over the top, and the reality is they’re not. And oftentimes in business, if you just meet expectations consistently and don’t ever let anybody down, well, they’re gonna think you’re over the top as well. They’re gonna think you’re amazing. They’re gonna think you’re great. So my attitude about amazement and being great is simply doing the things that people expect consistently and predictably are being just a little bit better as often as I can. And once in a while, some opportunity is gonna fall in my lap where I can just take that to a whole another level.

Shep Hyken [00:13:52]:
But I’m not looking for those rainy days to happen to, you know, save for a rainy day. No. I’m just consistently and predictably doing it right as we’re

Bernie Borges [00:14:00]:
doing it. It’s standard operating procedure for you, Ship. So okay. So, you know, in the introduction, I I made reference to just all of your well, not all of them. Many of your accomplishments. You know, you’ve written multiple books. You’ve just done a lot that you’ve been very successful in your career. And it sounds like you have this this attitude of gratitude and this attitude of being amazing all the time in fitness.

Bernie Borges [00:14:28]:
But career, and this is what I observed about you as a human being, is that it’s not just in business for you. It’s just how you it’s your your mode of operandi. Right? It’s just how you roll in life. So how does that roll over into your personal life, your family life, your friends? Sure. You know? And was that a conscious decision, or is it just something that’s just now in your DNA?

Shep Hyken [00:14:51]:
Well, I think I’ve always been a positive person, as I mentioned earlier, enthusiastic about things, have a joy for learning and trying new things, all things legal, of course. And, here’s here’s, I think, what happened is one day I realized that’s how I’m wired. I did one of these Myers Briggs type assessments, and I’ve done predictive index and disk and all of these. I’ve realized this is how I’m wired, so how can I take advantage of this both personally and professionally? And, personally, if you look at and every year and I’m and I’m in the process I can even show this to you sitting here somewhere on my desk. I won’t need to show it to you. I have a a a planner, and I have my 10 most important goals for my year. And every year, number 1 is health. Number 2 is, my I I call it, you know, my balance in life.

Shep Hyken [00:15:44]:
Number 3 is family oriented. And by the way, they’re in no particular order other than I just one day when I was running out. And family means in in my life today, it means I wanna take a certain number of vacations, which ties in the work Midlife balance. I wanna always appreciate my wife. I want to make sure I have at least 5 opportunities to be with my kids throughout the year because they don’t live here in Saint Louis where I live. And so if you look at those three goals, that comes before business. And by the way, if you’re younger in life and, which most people, as you have shared with me, are in their forties or older. But if you’re in your twenties thirties and you start to figure out it’s important to focus on family at the same time you’re focusing on your career and figure out a way to balance that, oh my gosh.

Shep Hyken [00:16:29]:
You are in such better shape. Yeah. And it’s never too late to find the balance. But that’s that’s the first three goals that are of my ten for the year. I also have what I refer to as lifetime aspirations. And health is always the number one thing because my family means the world to me, but if I can’t drink the soup or eat the soup at the dinner table with them because my health has failed me Right. It doesn’t matter, does it?

Bernie Borges [00:16:56]:
Right. That’s why I list health as the first pillar of the 5 pillars. Right? Health followed by fitness, which are very closely tied to each other, but I Yeah.

Shep Hyken [00:17:04]:
You still break health the 7 pillars. Workout goals. Yes.

Bernie Borges [00:17:07]:
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So talk to me about your perspective on retirement.

Shep Hyken [00:17:14]:
So I’m gonna go back to the Dan Sullivan coaching because he taught me the best definition of retirement, and that is simply doing what you love. That’s what retirement should be. If you are, like, I’m and, you know, I mean, I can’t imagine stopping doing what I do. I mean, maybe doing a little differently, maybe doing it quite not not quite as much, but this is what I love to do. Why would I stop getting up in front of an audience that they’re still willing to hire me? You know, I mentioned the magic shows when I was a kid. I still practice magic. Really? I’m not gonna stop. And by the way, if I decide to switch my performances from on stage keynote speaking for business, I’ve often thought, wouldn’t it be cool if I just came up with a place that would hire me to do magic? Not not like walk around card tricks at a table, but a good magic show.

Shep Hyken [00:18:03]:
I also play guitar. You can see the guitars in my background. Yep. And and at home, I have 18 guitars. My wife says, why so many? They all sound different. Prove it. And I did. So anyway, wouldn’t it be cool if maybe I put together, you know, a little band? I mean, I played in bands throughout the years, but wouldn’t it be cool if I put together my band? And so I have lots of opportunities and things that I can do.

Shep Hyken [00:18:27]:
I know I’m getting away from the original question, which at this point, I’ve actually forgotten what it was. Well, I’m sorry. Nothing to do with

Bernie Borges [00:18:35]:
my age.

Shep Hyken [00:18:36]:
You’re you’re you’re rabbit hole.

Bernie Borges [00:18:37]:
The answer to my question about retirement is just do retirement do.

Shep Hyken [00:18:42]:
Right? Yeah. And that’s what it is. I love to play golf. And by the way, if definition of retirement for somebody is I have been working hard all my life, hopefully enjoyed the work, but I realize I would enjoy fishing or playing golf or doing something else more, Retire from that. And when it’s when it’s the appropriate time financially, age wise, whatever, move into doing what you love. And, I I know there’s an old quote that’s like, if you do what you love and love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life. And I would say because of that, I’ve probably been retired since I was about 22, 23 years old. I will admit there’s about 15 to 20% of what I do on a regular basis that I don’t enjoy, and that’s the paperwork.

Shep Hyken [00:19:25]:
I do get help doing that, but there’s still certain things that I have to do and have to look at and have to consider. But if I could get rid of that, then, gosh, how much fun would that be?

Bernie Borges [00:19:35]:
Yeah. Yeah. I also know that one of your hobbies is hockey. Yes. And so, are you still playing?

Shep Hyken [00:19:43]:
Up until, yes. The an the short answer is yes. And here’s a great optimistic story for you. Back in around October, my back started to hurt. And, we’re recording this in, in Midlife of January, so I don’t know when we’re gonna air this episode. But, so I figured it’s just in the last few months. And it hurt worse and worse and worse. And finally, in December, I went and saw a surgeon, a doctor, because the MRI showed I had a problem in my back.

Shep Hyken [00:20:13]:
And I he told me the operation I would need, and I thought that was good news because I have friends that have had the same operation that are still playing ice hockey. And he told me, you will never play hockey again. There’s a pretty good chance you won’t do some other things that you’ve been enjoying as well. I thought, oh my gosh. And my wife was with me when we went to the doctor’s appointment, and she saw me go into this very deep depressive state. It lasted about an hour and a half, maybe a little bit longer, but no more than 2 hours. And I came back. I said, I get it.

Shep Hyken [00:20:46]:
And if I can’t play hockey, that’s fine. And she goes, what’s made you change your attitude? I said, he didn’t tell me I was gonna die of cancer. So I found there’s my positive outlook in life. Yeah. So the the as of so just, I am one month ago, I had my back surgery, and I am back to work. I have my, speech 1st speech next week on stage. I’ll be just fine. Still can’t pick up anything more than £5 or so or bend over and touch my toes for at least another, probably 2 months.

Shep Hyken [00:21:20]:
But, hey, I’m back. And in about, 5 months from now, I should be back on the ice.

Bernie Borges [00:21:27]:
Wow. 5 months. That that is fantastic. Well Yep. I didn’t know that you had that that procedure, so glad you’re on the other side of it. And it just you know, you said it earlier. Health is is so important, And and there are things we can’t control. You know, that that’s an example.

Bernie Borges [00:21:43]:
Right? There are things that are beyond our control when it comes to our health. Now, in other cases, there are things that we can influence, but there’s things that we can’t control. And to your point, you’re giving a perspective. It wasn’t a death sentence. It was, I’ll call it I don’t know if I can call it an inconvenience, maybe a big inconvenience. Right? And, by

Shep Hyken [00:22:07]:
the way, I went to a second surgeon for two reasons. One, I didn’t like the fact that he told me I would never play hockey when I have friends that have had similar surgeries that do. But he told me I couldn’t get in for 7 weeks to, get the surgery done, and I was in such pain. You on a scale of 1 to 10, on some days, it was an 11. And, so I went and saw another surgeon. There’s a whole another story about that. But within 10 days, I was in the OR, and pain is at this point, I’m gonna say 80% gone. And it’s like the stock market.

Shep Hyken [00:22:39]:
It may go up 15% this year, but it’s gonna do this all the way up. High days and low days, but I’m gonna get to that perfect spot. So that’s why, I my death sentence of hockey became better when the head surgeon for the St. Louis Blues Hockey Organization, my second surgeon I went to said, we will operate on you, and you will play hockey. And it’s your choice. By the way, don’t get into a game where you’re gonna get bounced around and checked into the boards. Play with a bunch of old guys who slow it down a little bit. You’ll be playing hockey again.

Shep Hyken [00:23:10]:
I go, score. Great. That’s great.

Bernie Borges [00:23:13]:
I I used to play softball in a men’s league, and I played up until around 50, 52. I stopped playing because it was an open, the age range was anything over 18. So So we were playing against teams with 25 year old studs Yeah. Who were hitting cannonballs, and I said, no. This is too dangerous for me in my 50th time. You know?

Shep Hyken [00:23:35]:
So There’s over 50 leagues, and I play in a league a couple days. So 2 of my games, all the guys were born well, one of them’s official 1966 or earlier, and the others are guys that are just pretty much our age, and we just have have band together. But then I also play with 20 something year olds. But here’s the thing. In softball, I think there are more injuries in softball than there are in hockey. More like ACLs and

Bernie Borges [00:24:03]:
Yeah.

Shep Hyken [00:24:04]:
And, you know, Achilles tendon and knee issues. In hockey, we gotta get worried about getting hit with a hockey puck.

Bernie Borges [00:24:10]:
Right.

Shep Hyken [00:24:11]:
I wear a full cage, so, hopefully, I’m not gonna get hit. But most of the guys that, you know, have scars, they’re they’re not their helmet doesn’t have a cage. What are they thinking? Right. You know, we’re all going to work. We’re not playing this game professionally.

Bernie Borges [00:24:23]:
Exactly. Exactly. So I wanna begin to wrap here, Shep. And the the my biggest takeaway so far in our conversation is your attitude of gratitude. And I wanna ask you, if you would, to maybe speak to the listener who’s saying, I would love to have an attitude of gratitude. I’m not there. How do I get there? How do I adopt an attitude of gratitude?

Shep Hyken [00:24:47]:
Well, buy a calendar, pocket calendar or regular calendar, and just start writing down one thing each day. If you’re working, write down something at work, and then write down something that happens to you personally every day, and and recognize there’s some good that will happen to you during that day. Even forget about the fun story I told about the dog. But that day, my brother and I were like this. And, I mean, we’re very close, but, I mean, maybe we were more like this than than this. You know? And our people are listening. My fingers are crossed versus side by side next to each other. You know? My wife, she was amazing, throughout that time.

Shep Hyken [00:25:25]:
And I think about that, I go, how lucky am I to have those relationships? And maybe that, experience with my mom brought us closer together or just brought us at that moment so close together. My son came in the week before, and, this I love this story. It almost makes me cry. We went to go visit Grandy. That’s what he called her. And he’s a musician, and so we decided we’ll bring our guitars, and we’ll practice, and we’ll sit there for we always hang out and jam together. Let’s jam at Grandy’s in her room. Now she lays there.

Shep Hyken [00:25:58]:
She doesn’t talk. She doesn’t open her eyes. She doesn’t acknowledge that we’re there. We know she’s living because occasionally she stirs. And we and, Grandy, Brian’s here, and she opened her eyes for a moment and then closed them, and that was it. And then we started to play, and I looked at my mom, and her hand was going back and forth to the rhythm of our song. She heard everything. Mhmm.

Shep Hyken [00:26:18]:
That’s a cool moment. That is a an incredibly positive moment that happened, in a very dark time of my life, which is losing my mom.

Bernie Borges [00:26:29]:
Yeah. That’s a great story. Thank you for sharing that. So, Shep, I I I love the balance that you bring to every relationship, whether it’s a business relationship or not. You just bring this total balance of let’s get done with whatever it is that we’re here to discuss to get done, and and, you know, how can I serve you? And you do it with a smile and an attitude of gratitude, and and I love that about you. If someone listening to this wants to connect with you, what’s the best way for someone to connect with you?

Shep Hyken [00:26:59]:
Hiking.com is my website or, you know, LinkedIn, just Shep Hyken. There’s not a lot of Shep Hyken out there.

Bernie Borges [00:27:06]:
There’s a lot of

Shep Hyken [00:27:07]:
a lot of Boerne orchids out there. Yeah. There’s

Bernie Borges [00:27:09]:
only one Shep Hyken. That I know for

Shep Hyken [00:27:12]:
sure. Yeah. It’s not like Bob Jones.

Bernie Borges [00:27:15]:
Yeah. Nothing wrong with Bob Jones, but but

Shep Hyken [00:27:18]:
No. Nothing wrong at all. But But

Bernie Borges [00:27:19]:
I know there’s only one Shep hiking. That’s for sure. Well, Shep, I just wanna thank you so much for joining me on this episode of the Midlife Fulfill podcast. You’ve got a great story. The best thing about it is that it’s ongoing. And thank you for sharing it with me and my listeners of the podcast.

Shep Hyken [00:27:37]:
Well, thank you for having me. My pleasure, and, let’s stay amazing.

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