Today on The Unique CPA, we have an incredible guest and a great friend, Dawn Brolin. Dawn is a powerhouse—and that’s not an understatement in this industry. She’s known as the Designated Motivator, and now, even going beyond that, she’s bringing us a book that challenges everything we think we know about leadership. Her latest book, The Elevation of Empathy: Leading for the W.I.N., explores how empathy is not just a soft skill but a game-changing force in leadership, culture, and even mental health. I’m sure we’ll talk about the book today. We’ll talk about tax season since we are recording on February 25th. We’ll talk about what’s happening at Powerful Accounting, and we’ll talk a little bit about how we met, I think, too. So before I go any further, Dawn, welcome back to The Unique CPA.

Well, I’m honored, Randy. You have such amazing guests that you bring on the podcast, so for you to ask me not just once, but twice, is extremely humbling.

Well, thank you. But it’s actually three times if we count the in-person podcast.

That was really super special. The in-person podcast was amazing. I believe Josh was on that podcast.

Yeah.

And that was very special.

Yep. So before we get into it today, I want to tell a little story, and you can jump in anytime you want. It’s just, I’m wearing a shirt today, the Intuit Tax Council. And I wore this specifically because I met Dawn Brolin—the infamous Dawn Brolin—close to three years ago now, in June of 2022 in Dallas, Texas, at an Intuit Tax Council meeting. We were—

Freshmen.

Yeah, we were freshmen on the tax council. I’m not sure if you’re staying on another year or not. I don’t know if you know that yet. It’s up in the air?

I don’t. I’ll probably get booted. I’m pretty sure I’m going to get booted, but I figured at the last council they were going to remove me before the meeting was even on. So I feel like I’ll probably be booted, but you know what, more to come, folks?

Yep, more Dawn Brolin, for sure. So at that first meeting, I think it was the very first night. End of the night, it might have even been the second night, you know, everybody was heading up to their rooms. Dawn, I, and a few other people ended up sitting at the bar, and like from that moment on, I just felt like Dawn has been my best friend for my life. It’s been amazing getting to know her, but it didn’t even take more than a second to get to know her because it just felt like a connection.

I was like, have I known Randy forever? Because I’m like, I feel like we’ve, like we were just talking that night, and I felt like we’d been to a million conferences together, that this was just another one of our get-togethers. And it was the weirdest thing, ’cause that doesn’t always happen. Like, you meet people and you’re like, “Hey, this is a great person,” and, “Oh hey, you know, we’ll see you in another year.” And it was like, from that moment on, it was like, wow, like this, I found my new best friend. Like I had to hang out with Randy anytime I could.

And that’s exactly how I felt. And the cool thing is, it’s not just, I mean, you became a great friend, but in that whole group, we’ve got a really good group of friends that we’ve built from that Intuit Tax Council. So if nothing else, and there’s plenty with Intuit with the Tax Council, it’s been a really fun ride. But I’ll be forever grateful for the group of friends that I made from that Tax Council.

Yes, a hundred percent. You know, the Intuit Tax Council’s been instrumental in me finding my tribe. And you know, I have a handful of tribes, you’ve got a handful of tribes, you know, all of us all having the same intentions of bettering ourselves but also bettering each other in whatever capacity that means and however we can. And people are just so willing to give and give and give. And Randy’s just a giver, that, you know, he should be Randy “Giver” Crabtree. So Randy “the Giver” Crabtree if it was going to be his wrestling name.

Well, I think you could have that exact same middle name. So I think we’re going to have to reach out to Intuit after this episode and say we need a sponsor ’cause we’ve mentioned your name a bunch already, so…

Yeah. You’re welcome!

Yes, exactly. I’m going to work on that. I’ll talk to marketing about a sponsored episode. Alright. 

So yeah, I don’t think I have any pull, so don’t ask for my help. I communicated, or whatever you call it.

I think you got lots of pull, but alright, let’s get into a few things, and we can go anywhere and we will go anywhere because this is the way it works with us. But you had your first book out, “The Designated Motivator,” which is an awesome book and done well. Then you did this, what, a second version? One that was general and then a second version for accountants. And now the new book, which I’m very honored to say, I wrote a foreword in this book. Hopefully, that didn’t get edited out, did it?

No, no, we did not cut that page out. We decided we’d keep it. No, you were, it was an easy pick for me to ask you because you have such a high priority in, you know, wellness and mental health. And the book really didn’t tell the full story of my experiences when it came to people in a leadership role. I didn’t get into too much detail because I don’t like to call people out. But I would say that you were an easy pick for that because mental health is so, so important. And we can, you know, I feel like the awareness is growing. I feel like we’re starting to really realize it. 

So the realization, I guess, that admitting you have a problem thing is always step one. But I’m just a person, my love language is acts of service. I’m not a words of affirmation person, though I would say I would prefer people not to say bad things to me or mean things. But no, words of affirmation. You don’t have to tell me like, “Oh, you’re the best ever,” or those, I don’t need to hear that. But what I don’t need to hear is garbage out of your mouth. That’s the one thing. But I realized that the elevation of empathy in the world we live in today is more important than ever. And it tied so deeply into mental health that I was like, Randy’s got to write this foreword because you get it, and you’re doing something about it.

Yeah. Well, thanks and it was an honor for me and I appreciate the book you put out there. Empathy is one of the things I always say is one of the key leadership skills: vulnerability, transparency, empathy, and intentionality are my top four. So empathy is right up there. So you know, we didn’t know where we were going to go for sure, but let’s talk about the book a little. I mean, sure, you didn’t want to call anybody out, obviously, but can you tell us a little bit of what really was the inspiration behind writing the book?

Yeah. I’ve been in many situations, whether it’s in a partnership scenario over the last, you know, 25 years of either being in a partnership with people and watching how they lead the organization, watching coaches lead teams—or I should say coaching teams. I shouldn’t say lead teams because not every coach is a leader, though they think they are because they’re the coach, but they’re not in some cases. So looking at people in the head of organizations, people who are, I would say, have the inherency of leadership because they’re put into a position. And so they think automatically, “Well, I’m the head coach. Oh, well, I’m the manager of this scenario, or I’m the president of this organization. I’m the CEO of this organization,” which to me does not tell you that you are a leader. You earn that. And I put in the book, nobody is born a leader. They’re just not born a leader. Nobody at five years old when they’re in, you know, kindergarten, what do you want to be when you grow up? And I’ve seen some of the funny TikToks where the kids have this, like, elementary school graduation, the kids going from kindergarten to first grade and they’re like, “You know, Harry wants to be a gas station attendant,” and like, those things are hilarious. Right? So I, just, those are some of my favorite videos to watching the kids like, “Yeah, man, I’m going to be a gas station attendant.” Which there’s nothing wrong with gas station attendants, New Jersey, you can’t even pump your own gas. So I get we need them. Right?

Well, that’s… My parents never would’ve met without my dad being a gas station attendant. 

And there it is.

Yep. My mom would drive up to see this cute guy at the gas station pump gas for her, and then next thing you know, they were married and I came around.

They were married! See! And there’s purposes for that. I was just mentioning that because it’s funny. It is crazy funny. And so, you know, thinking about when you’re five, you’re not like, I want to, when I grow up I want to be a leader. See? Because the leadership qualities are something you grow with. I say part of it you grow up with. You learn from your parents, you learn from your friends. You learn from people that you expose yourself to. I’ve always told my kids, you become the people you hang out with. Those are facts. You want to be successful? Hang around successful people because success breeds success, failure breeds failure. And I mean failure in not like striking out. I don’t mean it like that, like not, you know, missing a ball or those kinds of things. 

So I found that those in a position of leadership, the consequences of their lack of empathy are extremely significant. So when you are in a position of leadership, and you act without having any sense of empathy for those that are affected by the decisions you’re making, now we know that when you make decisions, some of them are hard. That’s part of what a leader has to do. Sometimes they have to go against the popular vote, right? Whatever the organization may believe to move this way. Sometimes the leader will choose a different path, and that’s tough, but that leader has to take into consideration, what are the consequences of for the folks that they’re leading, and you’ve got to have that sense of empathy and understanding that the consequences may be negative to that person, whatever the capacity is. But they’ve got to have the empathy area.

Because those who are in leadership roles who lack empathy can destroy—I don’t say they do, I say can—destroy those who are following them. And that is something that may not be an immediate consequence for that person. It may be something that’s reflective, meaning, you know, five years later, ten years later, they look back and they reflect upon the past, and it can negatively impact them in a way, in some cases it can be extremely severe. In some cases can be a great opportunity to learn about the type of person you don’t want to be. So now you need to educate yourself and learn about, what does empathy really mean, and you’ve got to start to embrace that. And so I’m very passionate about that because I’ve seen leaders destroy people.

Oh yeah. The whole time you were just talking there, I was thinking about—and I didn’t read a lot about it, but man, I saw a lot of blowback about it. There was a, I’ll just say a leader of a large financial institution recently—I don’t know if you saw this—that basically was in a private meeting that was recorded and that got out and he was trying to do a return to office type thing and pretty much was saying, “I don’t care what anybody else thinks.” I mean, he had no empathy for how his decisions could affect anybody else, and I’m really curious to see long-term if this does have a negative effect on what’s going on. Because the way he said things, and I can’t quote him word for word, and I’m not going to, and I’m not going to say who it was, but man, it, that to me was a complete lack of empathy. I don’t even know if you know what I’m talking about or not. If you heard the story.

I probably have a sense of what you’re talking about. That’s a great example because that is something that’s happening in many organizations across the country and maybe the world. I’m, you know, a little bubble in Connecticut, but possibly across the world. 

Right.

We are seeing that type of a decision being made, and because of those decisions that are being made—and if you think about those who have relocated—now I’ve had some pretty hardcore arguments with some local folks here, some friends of mine who about the return to work and those kinds of things where it’s like, you know, I kind of get it, but you’ve got to give these people some leeway. Some of them have relocated, some of them have signed contracts that should allow them to be remote, continue to be remote, and things like that. That’s a huge topic, and that is definitely, has a huge impact on the mental well-being of those folks who are now like, “Now I’ve got to uproot my family. I got to move back to that particular area. Now we got to move the kids,” if there are kids involved, that’s a whole nother ball game. So leaders that make those types of decisions where there’s not a lot of ability or flexibility to make that shift, like you can’t do a return to work and give them like a month or even six months, you know, they need a year to be able to, and decide whether they even want to. But you’re right, that’s a perfect example of a leader or a person who is put in a leadership position. That’s how I want to say it because it doesn’t mean they’re a leader. They make those decisions without empathy on the results and consequences of the people they’re making the decision for. I agree with that 100 percent.

So I’ve got a question for you. I was recently talking to a leadership coach and she was talking about empathy and other things, but she was almost analyzing me as we were talking, which was a positive thing because I said, “You know, I don’t think I’m a leader.” And then we kept talking. She goes, “Randy, every single thing you said in this whole conversation is what a leader should be.” And I’m like, “What?”

Yes!

And then, but then she said, “Well, why don’t you think you’re a leader?” And I thought about it and I’ve never thought about this before, and I said, “You know what? I think it’s the word. I mean, when you say leader, it’s like you’re up top and everybody’s following you and you’re in control. And I don’t want to be that. I want to be at the same level as everybody else, I want to be together.” And I think that’s part of empathy. I don’t want to be the one saying “Do this, do that,” and that’s what I feel the word leadership means. And that’s just probably a misinterpretation in my mind. But I don’t know if you had any, ever considered the word and the impact that word might have?

The word is intimidating. The word is 100 percent intimidating. What I will say is that, yes, I have those, I will call it imposter syndrome, inferiority, like I don’t believe I’m good enough, I don’t feel like I’m worthy enough and believe me, if you don’t think I think about that every five minutes, you don’t know me. I think that what comes from within you as a leader, whether you like it or not, is that’s what some people need. Now I look at you as a leader and I’m like, “I want to follow what Randy’s saying. I agree with him 100 percent. He’s leading me down a path of reassurance. He’s leading me down a path that what I’m talking about matters and what I believe matters.” That doesn’t mean I’m like, “Oh, I’m going to just follow Randy blindly and be a follower.” Leaders, people who are leading need leaders to lead them. It’s not this one person at the top, it’s a collective group of people who are trying to make positive influence on other people who either don’t see it yet, some people who will never see it—there are definitely folks out there that I know who just don’t get this concept, I think number one, it’s either not important to them or they are just satisfied with being who they are. I feel like we all need to always try to grow and get better. So you’re leading, Randy. That doesn’t mean you’re at the top. It means that you are having a positive impact. And that’s what real leaders do; they have a positive impact on the people around them because of the characteristics that they believe in, that they follow, that they profess, and that they act upon. But the word leadership and being a leader is super intimidating, and a big responsibility, and not anything you nor I take lightly. 

Yep. And believe me, I heard you say you question yourself and all that. Man, you are a leader. There’s no doubt about it. People follow you, people are inspired by you and motivated by you, which is really cool. Alright, so let’s go a step further in this leadership or this empathy as much as anything: You talked about how the lack of empathy or how the leaders that don’t have empathy can have a negative impact on mental health. So you want to talk about that connection?

Yeah, for sure. Let’s take tax for a great example. Let’s just take people who are involved in tax. I know for myself, when I first started to learn how to do taxes, now obviously I took classes and those don’t mean anything, you know, we’re all studying together and filling out the tax return together. You don’t really learn anything like that in school. Sorry if you’re big into education, it didn’t help me. Anyway, but once you get into the real world and you start to actually do tax returns, there is a level of leadership to lead people through the process of what tax prep really means. You need a mentor to teach you how to do taxes because it’s a different animal. Nobody knows the entire tax code. Not one person in the universe knows the entire thing. A lot of people know specialized areas, Tri-Merit, for example. I mean, specialty tax credits, there’s not a question in the world in anyone’s mind that Tri-Merit leads the pack when it comes to that. For somebody like me, I’m great at really, I would say, simple returns, and when I get into anything really difficult, I call on my tax partner. 

But when I first started to learn, so where does the lack of empathy… I recall when I first started learning how to do tax returns, I would prepare a tax return, leave it on one of my partner’s desks at the end of the day, and when I came back the next day, I would have it back on my desk and it would have an F on it. The F was like, “You suck,” basically. And it was like, figure it out on your own. Okay, it’s one way to teach. It’s a different way. You know, like you figure it out, you’re going to learn more by figuring it out. I respect that. But when it came to partner meetings and the conversations around, “You’re never going to be a CPA, you’re never going to be a tax preparer, you’re not smart enough, you’re not this, you’re not that,” now I looked at this particular partner as a leader. I thought she was the smartest person I knew. I thought she was somebody I wanted to be in business with, I think we could do great things together, she did different things than I did, but she could also teach me and I could teach her some things, and we could, like, this would be a great opportunity together. But instead of building up the people around you, and there are people out there, this is where the empathy comes in, some people find that if they just knock you down and just every day knock you down a little bit more, then they can continue to be the leader. She’ll be my servant of sorts. And they don’t really care how it makes you feel.

Yes.

So, you know, and I recall when I left, I’m like, “I will never treat—whether they’re partners or employees or colleagues or whatever—I will never treat them without having the empathy of understanding what I say to them is going to impact them on a personal level.” People will say to me, “Well, you’ve got to take the emotion out of business.” I get that. And there are areas we can control that, like pricing for example. We take the emotion right out of that. But when it comes to dealing with people, we have to have an elevated sense of that empathy to ensure that while we want to correct them, we want to correct them so they get better, not correct them to knock them down. And I think that’s a level of care and concern we all need to have when we are in fact helping people.

So I know for myself, with my team that I have currently—there are only two other people besides myself, thank god—I just, I want to have empathy for them in every interaction that I have. And I want to be like, “Okay, you know Nicole, let’s jump on a Zoom because we need to fix the way you’re doing this. Don’t worry about it. I didn’t know how to do it either before.” Whether I did or not is irrelevant. I didn’t want to make her feel inferior or uncomfortable in any way, shape, or form. Rather, I want to lead with, “Hey listen, I’ve screwed this up for so many years. Let me show you because I’ve been there and I get it.” That’s just putting other people before yourself and other people’s feelings. And the fact that, by the way, you don’t freaking know everything.

And another scenario, the worst time to correct people is when they’re under pressure. And I’m going to use softball for an example because it’s a great example and it’s true. Think about a freshman that comes in. Let’s say she’s up to bat for the first—whatever, it doesn’t even matter. She’s up to bat. She’s trying the best she can, she wants to stay a starter. So she’s up there and she swings the bat, swings the bat, swings the bat. Strikes out. The kids, first of all, after they’ve struck out, after you’ve made a mistake on a tax return, after you’ve screwed up a journal entry. Is that the best time for a leader to get in your face in whatever capacity, whether it’s in your face or to take the bat out of your hand and say, “This is why you’re not hitting the ball, because your head’s out.” In front of everybody that’s there? Is that a great way to teach someone?

I believe not.

I believe it’s not, because in that moment of a strikeout, in that moment of screwing something up on a tax return, which we all have done and we’ll continue to do as we are all human, is that the time or the moment to address it? And that’s where a person who’s in a leadership role—I don’t know if it makes that person feel better, maybe they truly believe that’s a productive opportunity, but it really isn’t in that capacity. So I’ve seen a lot of, and again, in various situations, various scenarios where I just cringe at the moment to be like, “Alright, they’re already at their lowest, why do I want to kick them even harder while they’re down?” And that’s where empathy comes in — you know what? Pick the kid up. Pick up the tax, “Hey, listen, you know what? We’ll get the next one. Don’t worry about it. Next tax return. I’m going to give you another partnership return. Let’s make sure we nail down those guaranteed payments and allocate them so one partner doesn’t get all the allocated share, right? Because it’s 100 percent allocated to them. Let’s work together on that,” right? Because that is something you and, and… Let me back up a sec, Randy. I know I’m, I’m taking over here for some reason.

Yep. You’re allowed to take over.

This is something I think one of the things that for me is a primary indicator of why we need to think about it, and there are memes all over the place, you see them on every social media platform. We see them again and again and we just go, “Oh yeah, I’ve seen that before.” Listen, at the end of the day, when you pick up a phone call, it’s another thing with clients as it relates to them as well. Let’s say you pick up the phone and it’s “that guy” again. You pick up the phone and be like, “Hey Randy, how are you today? How are you? How’s it going today?” Before you even get into anything else, “Hey, how are you doing today?” And actually listen—this gets crazy. We’re going to get crazy on this podcast. You ask them how they are, and you let them answer you.

Right!

We are so programmed to say, “Hey, how you doing?” And that’s it. That’s where you’re like, “I don’t really care how you’re doing. I’m just asking it because that’s polite. And my parents always told me to do that.” But really the empathetic part of asking someone how they are is an indication, an example of empathy. Then listen to what they have to say. Because they may be calling you about an issue around taxes or their books or financial planning or whatever they may be doing, when in fact, moments before that, their cat died.

Yeah.

We misinterpret a lot of emotion because we don’t allow ourselves to get a little bit vested in other people, and when we don’t do that, we can appear to be unempathetic. Maybe we’re not, but we’ve got to practice that. That’s the key. We’ve got to practice those types of things. Simple.

I agree. You just, in that last five minutes, I just realized, and I knew this before anyways, why we’re such great friends: Because you talked about empathy, you talked about vulnerability, saying when you went to somebody, it’s like, “Hey, I’ve messed this up before, I make these mistakes. Here’s what I’ve learned from it.” And you showed vulnerability. Passion obviously came through. That’s a big topic for me when you were talking there. People first—that, I talk about all the time. Oh, and transparency even came in there as well. So you hit all my key things. So I guess it’s a no-brainer that first day you and I connected so well because we look at the world, I think, very similarly. 

That whole conversation is great. One of the things we didn’t touch on is that in the book you talk about betrayal in leadership and how that affects things. So why don’t you give us an example of what you mean, or how betrayal comes into play with empathy or the theme of what we’re discussing here today?

Yeah. From a leadership perspective, for those who are looking to you, you’re somebody like Randy we talked about, we want to be out there helping people improve their lives. Whether it’s through improving their practice so they can make more money so they can spend more time with their family, or whatever the case may be. Whatever you’re doing to help other people get through their lives and their scenarios, and they look up to you. They look to you to be a leader. What I believe can happen for those people who are in a leadership position that are not practicing empathy, and they’re not practicing transparency, they’re not practicing the things that we’ve talked about, those people who are looking to you for that will at some point—this will happen—at some point, they will feel betrayed. What you’re saying and what you’re doing and the way you behave and the way you act, a lot of them are buying all in. They’re buying in, they’re in, they want to follow, they want to be a part of, they want to please you, they want to impress you, they want to have a pat on the back—they want those things. That’s a natural human nature. I mean, I never wanted my mom to be like, “You’re a piece of crap.” That would suck to have a mom like that, right?

Yes.

A mom is a leader, and let’s just say moms are in a leadership role just like dads. So thinking about that, when you buy all in and you think you’re following the person that you believed you should be following, and that you were, this person really is portraying the things I think they’re supposed to be, then what ends up happening is there’s some kind of an action, there’s some kind of a moment or a series of moments where they have shown what I would call true colors. Because people can act—you can act like you have empathy, you can act like you actually care about people, you can act like that, but that can’t last forever. There are true moments that may happen in which you’ll say, “Wait a minute, that’s the opposite of what I thought you were doing, and now I’m seeing something totally different.” That betrayal can, first, ruin whatever that relationship was, whether it was an employee-employer, coach-player, coach-coach, it could be CEO-VP, it could be manager and the people that work underneath the manager. That is where it can negatively affect somebody as a person. 

Because listen, if I’m working for somebody and I got a manager and they’ve shown their true colors, and now I can’t respect them, I can’t believe in anything that they’re professing, I can go get another job. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have some baggage from that prior manager. Now that negatively affects that person, this person that’s affected in a way that now they’re going to have a really tough time trusting the next one. Now, let’s say you get, you know, two strikes. Now you’ve got this manager, now you’ve got another manager. Now you go to the third one. Now you’re really damaged. Now I’m like, “0-for-2, is it me?” 

Now you’re questioning yourself, and there’s so many things that come from that, Randy, that we’ve now had people in leadership positions who have ruined the opportunity—well, I say that very softly and loosely. Everyone gets to decide how it affects them, right? So you either can—now I’m a psycho. I will power through things. I will run through walls. I am just that kind of person. But not everybody has that. Not everybody was either born or brought up that way. I don’t know if I was born that way, but I’m just, I’m a fighter. No one is going to ruin the opportunity for me because that’s just, but there are some people who just don’t have that strength within them, and those are the people I want to fire up. I want to pump those people up. I want to help them believe in themselves. I want to help them understand whoever that person was is not everybody. That’s one of the things that bring it back to the beginning where you find that tribe of people—thank you Intuit Tax Council, that’s an extra thousand dollars. So thinking about that, again, like I told my family, and I think I said this in the beginning, and if I didn’t, I’m saying it again, either I did or I didn’t: You become the people you’re surrounded with. Understanding that there are situations where you may have a manager or a supervisor or something that you can’t make the change on that, but you can make a change in your attitude or just get the heck out. Because nobody deserves mental abuse in any capacity, especially from someone who is appointed and put into the position of a leader, and then they don’t act upon those characteristics. And I hope those people who have the authority to put people in leadership positions, take this conversation seriously and understand that who you’re hiring and who you’re appointing, understand who those people are before you put them there, because we can’t have these people ruining lives any longer.

That was awesome. It was an awesome place to, I think, probably wrap it up, but there’s a couple of things you said that I have to point out. One is you talk about how you will run through walls. I’ve seen you run through Christmas trees. You want to explain what I’m talking about there?

Yeah, so the family used to all go and get Christmas trees together and then one daughter left, so that didn’t work, and then Kevin started working on Saturdays, so he couldn’t go, and then he just didn’t want to anymore and whatever. And Emily and I said, we’re not going to get rid of this and we’re going to continue to have fun. And so she and I would go, we started this, I think it was actually 2021 was the first year, Just her and I. And we went to the Christmas tree farm, same one we go to every year. We don’t even care if they have a Charlie Brown tree. We’re never leaving that farm. We went there and you know, when you got to cut down a Christmas tree, you’re not, you know, you got to use one of those hacksaws, you got to lay on the ground and you really need some core strength to saw entirely through that tree in order to get it down.

And so it was just Emily and I, and I’m not in the best shape I was in before. Emily’s in great shape, but still, it’s just awkward to do that. We would get like a quarter of the way through the tree just about halfway, and we’re like, we’re not asking for help. We don’t ask for help. We’re Brolins, we don’t do that. I said, “Emily, you know what? Move over.” And I ran and I was not really in the right gear for it, but I ran and I just tackled the tree. Actually, the first couple attempts I bounced off of it. And then by the third attempt I took the tree down and now it’s a tradition and now we’ve added on four of her friends now come, everyone, videotapes and it’s a big thing. So we now take down our own Christmas tree. 

So I love that story. So it is proof that you are crazy and you’ll run through walls or Christmas trees. 

Yes, I will. 

What you were saying about leaders, just a few things when you were talking about coaches. I’ve seen the coaches that are just. Doing what you said not to do. Someone makes a mistake, and that’s the time where they yank them out and they sit on the sideline and they yell at them. I’ve coached with people like that and people that I really do like, but I don’t like them in that situation, and so yeah. That I think is, at least I’ve seen a lot more positive impact by leading with empathy than I have with leading with fear. And that’s what I think that is right there is leading with fear. So completely agree with that. 

And then the other thing is, I just have to mention this, when you talked about, you know, parents and being, you know, what you learned from them is, I’m actually writing a new keynote presentation right now, and it appears that the start of it is going to be one of my dad’s sayings, which when we were kids, he would say, he would always say, you can do anything you put your mind to, you can be anything you want to be. And it’s like, that is just positive reinforcement rather than the negative, and that I always look back to and I think that’s been a major impact in my life, just hearing that as a kid. 

Yep. Absolutely. And you know, he is so spot on and I, and I tell people every time I’m talking to people about, you know, what do you want to do with your firm? The biggest struggle for people is they want to grow their firm is fear. That’s number one. And the only place that that resides, there’s only one place that resides, and it’s inside your head. And if you can minimize that voice of fear, you can do anything you want to do. And that sad thing is, oh, that’s it? 

That is it. Now, honestly, with me, I think it’s maybe I’ve gone too far at times because I don’t have that fear and  I don’t see the risk all the time. But that goes back to my parents, you know, you could do anything you put your mind to. And that’s it. Your mind is in charge. So, and then one final thing is, obviously this was great information. We talked about the book. If people want to find the book, see the book, read the book, get the book, find out more about what you’re doing, where’s best places for them to look?

I’m kind of in a lot of places. LinkedIn is usually probably the easiest and the best to, you know, send a message or whatever. The book would be, I believe it’s almost released on, we’re having some issues with Amazon, with the whole logging in the thing, but anyway, it will be on Amazon if it’s not already. If you want a copy, DM me or send me a message in LinkedIn with your name and address, I’ll mail you a signed copy. It’s really not about selling books, it’s about getting the word out and helping people really embrace what the message of empathy really needs to be. So I’m happy to send any copies out to anybody. 

I want my signed copy. 

I got you buddy. 

Thank you. Alright, well Dawn, anything you want to, you did a great wrap up there earlier. Anything else you want to add before we finish up today? 

I could do go on for forever, but I think the biggest message is folks, I know you see it on memes, I know you see it on social media, you may think it’s cliché, you may think like, Oh, I’ve heard this a million times.” Then if you’ve heard it a million times and you’re not practicing empathy and you’re not really actually caring about other people, try today, start today. It is a behavior. It’s something that you can learn. It’s something that you can change. And I also wanted to thank you, Randy, for allowing me to come on, but also for writing the foreword. There’s nobody better out there really righting the ship, just like getting the ship where it needs to go. When it comes to mental health and some of the consequences of lack of empathy does result in some pretty terrible things that can happen to people. I think we all know what I’m talking about. I’ve experienced it numerous times, unfortunately, between friends and family, and we need to stop that. And a lot of what we can do is just start to be kinder to other people, have empathy, you never know who’s sitting on the top of a bridge right now, ready to go. And there are many examples of a simple conversation with somebody where they will stop. And I have a friend of mine, this happened to, last year, and she sat at a bar and was sitting next to someone, and she was nice to the guy, and they had a conversation and he said to her, I want you to know that I planned on killing myself tonight.

Oh man.

But because of this conversation, I realize how important my life is and that I need to do something different. If that’s not impactful about having the way you treat other people, then there’s nothing else that can change your mind about how we need to behave. 

Amen. Well said Dawn. Well, Dawn, this is going to be a great episode. I can’t wait for it to be released. I really appreciate, well, a couple things, your friendship and being on the show, so thanks for being here. 

Love you, buddy.