The Leadership Vision Podcast

The Leadership Journey: Embrace Practice, Uniqueness, and Reinvention

• Nathan Freeburg • Season 8 • Episode 2

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In this episode, Nathan Freeburg is joined by Brian Schubring for a deep dive into Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life by Steve Martin. What started as a discussion about several books they’ve read quickly became a focused conversation about Steve Martin’s memoir. Nathan reflects on the leadership lessons he found in Martin's journey, discussing the practice of leadership, the importance of embracing your uniqueness, and knowing when it’s time to walk away and reinvent yourself. Brian will share his own book review next week, but in the meantime, this episode invites you to think about your own leadership lessons and the books that influence you.

Key Topics Discussed:

  1. Leadership Takes Practice
    • Nathan shares how leadership, like stand-up comedy, is a practice that requires hard work, failure, and growth over time. It’s not about perfection but the journey and the continual effort to improve.
  2. Embracing Your Uniqueness
    • Steve Martin’s story highlights the importance of being true to yourself. Nathan discusses how Martin found his own comedic style and emphasizes the leadership lesson of embracing what makes you unique rather than trying to emulate others.
  3. It’s Okay to Walk Away and Try Something New
    • One of the most striking lessons from Martin’s life is his decision to walk away from the success of his stand-up career to pursue other creative ventures. Nathan reflects on the importance of knowing when to leave behind something that’s no longer fulfilling to make room for something new.
  4. The Power of Books in Shaping Leadership
    • The episode also touches on how books serve as tools or guideposts in life, offering opportunities for growth, affirmation, and reflection. Nathan and Brian talk about the role that reading plays in their personal development and leadership journeys.

Takeaways:

  • Leadership requires constant practice and perseverance. Embrace the journey, not just the destination.
  • Know when to let go of something that no longer serves you to make room for new opportunities.
  • Embrace your uniqueness and lead authentically, just as Steve Martin did with his comedy.
  • Books can be a powerful tool for growth and reflection. Look beyond the surface and find the leadership lessons in the stories you read.

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The Leadership Vision Podcast is a weekly show sharing our expertise in discovering, practicing, and implementing a Strengths-based approach to people, teams, and culture. Contact us to talk to us about helping your team understand the power of Strengths.

Speaker 1:

You are listening to the Leadership Vision Podcast, our show helping you build positive team culture. Our consulting firm has been doing this work for the past 25 years so that leaders are mentally engaged and emotionally healthy. Visit us on the web at leadershipvisionconsultingcom to learn more about what we do. Hello everyone, my name is Nathan Friberg and in today's episode I am joined by Brian Shubring, and this podcast didn't quite go as we had planned.

Speaker 1:

We had originally set out to discuss a whole bunch of books that we've each read over the past year and how they've influenced our leadership journeys, but as we started diving into one book in particular, one of my books, I ended up taking up most of the time all the time talking about this one book, born Standing Up. I don't know if you've read it. It's a comic's life by Steve Martin. It's absolutely fascinating. It's a book that I read back in April that it's a memoir, I guess, and it explores Steve Martin's rise to fame as a comedian. There's really three lessons in particular. One it's the idea of practice, that you really have to put in some intentional practice to achieve whatever you want and appreciate the journey. Number two is that sometimes it's okay to shift gears and to try something different. And number three is the idea of just being uniquely you. So Brian and I really got into this discussion. It took up all of the time, and so we're saving Brian's book review or reviews for another time.

Speaker 1:

And I would really encourage you that, if you're not currently reading something, to find a good book to read and it doesn't even have to be about leadership specifically, or teamwork or communication or anything like that. I encourage you that, as you're listening to this episode today, just reflect on not only the leadership lessons in this book, but in whatever book you're reading, even if it's a novel, what sort of leadership lessons or parenting lessons or teamwork lessons or whatever it is, might be present. Look beyond the obvious and think about maybe some of those more subtle lessons that you might be learning along the way that could shape your life in different ways, shape your leadership, help you to become a more empathetic, compassionate person in general. And if you'd like some recommendations for books, you can reach out to me on social media, drop a line in the show notes or blog posts. You can also send an email to Nathan at leadershipvisionconsultingcom.

Speaker 1:

And I'd be really curious, since Steve Martin is a well-known celebrity, I'd be curious what after you listen to this. If you have any thoughts on kind of his life story, I guess so, and if you don't know anything about it, let's get into it. Well, brian, welcome to the 2025 Leadership Vision Podcast.

Speaker 2:

Thanks, nathan, I feel welcome to the 2025 Leadership Vision Podcast. Thanks, nathan, I feel welcome to the 2025 Leadership Vision Podcast. I'm more welcome on a podcast in a while.

Speaker 1:

Awesome. This is the first one that we're recording of this year and this will actually probably go out relatively soon from when we're recording this. And this came about because Brian and I were going to interview an author who had written this book that we both really liked. The author had to reschedule and we were like, well, what if we just did a little impromptu podcast about books that we've read in the last year, which ones had a big impact on us, which ones might be applicable to leadership and why I have? Maybe I'll share the link to my Goodreads account.

Speaker 1:

You can see all the varied and vast different types of books that I read, everything from Malcolm Gladwell to Adam Grant to. I read a book by Mark Morris about castles, their history and evolution in medieval Britain. I read Real castles, real castles. It's fascinating. We're not going to talk about that book today. There's a few books on here that I read to my children. When you track your books like this, it's fun to look back on these books and remember where you were in time and place when you read them. Remember what you're going through. I read probably a third of my books. I read actual physical books. Another third is on my Kindle. And then that last third is some combination of physical, kindle or audio books and I'm always highlighting well, not the library books or taking notes or doing something. Well, not the library books or taking notes or doing something. And of all these books I read, there's just even the novels, even just the fun kind of quote unquote books you'd find at an airport kiosk. There's just something that.

Speaker 1:

I get out of them and often I will tell Brian and Linda hey, I just read this book about castles and did you know? And this is really fun thing. And then I try to make an application to leadership or parenting or something that we're working on. Brian, what is your before we get into, like, the review? We've talked about this a lot. Whenever you go on vacation, you take a giant stack of books. What is your process of finding books, of curating books, of deciding? These are the five books I'm going to take with me? Are you someone that has like a running list of books? Do you use an app or something like Goodreads? How do you find the stuff to put into your mind and digest and sometimes read two, three, four times and like, actually you know, process and apply?

Speaker 2:

Interesting. So I tried to upload all my stuff into Goodreads over the holiday and it didn't get that far. It didn't work. I got started. This is not just an auto plug and play Okay Process. Nathan, you are correct, I am a reader. I've been a reader for a long time. I do also acknowledge that in high school, I think, I successfully read one book until the age of 18. So there's something about me being a reformed not reader to a reader. I do read significantly every day. Um, I don't necessarily plow through books throughout the year. When I go on vacation, it is true, I will bring a stack of books. I am a person that has been known to bring six to 10 books, figuring that I can read a book a day or in a day and a half. Wow, so I'll just like plan out.

Speaker 1:

It's easy to do and you don't have kids you're chasing around on vacation.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, because I am, you know, on the beach or whatever, and I'm in a chair and I'm reading. Yeah, that is the best way. So I don't have running list of books, which is weird because I know when I'll be out of town and when I'm going to be reading. So I will often do like my book shopping the two or three weeks up coming to the vacation. And there are two things that dictate what books I'm choosing. One is wherever neuroscience is at that time, I'm trying to find the most relevant neuroscience topics that I can, and I'll buy as many of those books as possible. So that may be a half a dozen of just neuroscience in particular, and I don't really care what the book is about. The second category that I will look for is I will look for one book that is my give me a break book, and that is-.

Speaker 1:

Come on, give me a break, are you kidding?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, exactly, and it could be about running or sport or something that you recommend. Like a lot of the books I bring on vacation as my break books are the ones that you think are life-changing. So there's that, and then I will also. That's true.

Speaker 1:

That sounds. There's another, and then there's a fourth book Right, and sometimes we just need to be reminded of things we already know. We don't have to have our minds blown every single time we have different expectations.

Speaker 2:

We do.

Speaker 1:

We do.

Speaker 2:

So neuroscience and psychology, a book that will give me a break in the middle of the whole thing, and then I will um reach for a some type of book on spirituality as the last book I read in the cycle. I look at that book as a sorbet, if you will, to cleanse my palate from all that I've read. I find that anchoring my process of how I read into something that's more transcendent, that's something that's more like, brings me, zooms me back out into larger meaning of things, is really helpful for how I process books.

Speaker 1:

Does that make sense? Interesting, it totally makes sense. I don't know if I should be offended by that, but I'm not, because I love all the books that I read. One thing I did a little bit differently this year is I gave myself permission to stop reading a book. Really, I'm like, oh yeah. If I'm like a third of the way through it usually it's about a third If I'm like this is the give me a break stuff, or like I just can't follow what this person is saying.

Speaker 1:

I'm like you know what. I'm not going to finish it. Life's too short. I listened to a bunch of podcasts, as you know, and often I'll, you know, hear an author and be like I would love to go deeper on this one. I have a couple other friends out here they're smarter than me that they're always recommending different books. And then I have a buddy in Minneapolis. He's always recommending books to me, and so I have a gosh. I don't even know how many on my books to read list I have, but I always got something. So what Brian and I want to do we're getting to the serious part of this is just kind of. I'm not going to go through all these books, but I think we each have a book or two that we want to briefly touch on. This is the book that, one of the many books that we enjoyed. Here's kind of why, here's how it applies to our life and, as I said earlier, I'm always looking for. How do I apply this book to me personally, to my parenting, and then to my leadership, leadership?

Speaker 1:

leadership vision leadership in the various committees and extracurricular things that I'm involved with. Like how is this going to impact my life in that way? And what was funny is that the book of the author that we were going to interview. I was like this is probably one of the best parenting books I've ever read. And you're like it's about neuroscience. What are you talking about? And then you're like, oh, I see, I've ever read. And you're like it's about neuroscience. What are you talking about? And then you're like, oh, I see. Um, so I'm drawing a lot of stuff from a lot of different sources. Well, brian, what?

Speaker 1:

if I go first and share doing this a little bit on the fly, and I think I probably thought through this slightly more than you have. Uh, cause this is my idea.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so you're ready for my book, the book I want to share. Give me the first one.

Speaker 1:

You're probably gonna have more than okay. So, uh, in april I read born standing up, a comic's life which is steve martin's, I guess, autobiography that came out in 2007, okay, and this was I don't remember. I think I had heard someone talking on a podcast, some comedians talking about how this is like an epic book that everybody needs to read, or at least every comedian.

Speaker 1:

I'm like, I'm not a comedian, but I grew up funny, I think I'm funny but I grew up listening to like steve martin's records my dad had them and then, of course, watching his movies in you know, the 90s. And then, uh, that new show that he's in Only Murders in the Building, and I was like Steve Martin, there's someone I haven't thought about for a long time. So I got his book and it was fascinating to me how much I didn't know about Steve Martin. So a couple of quick highlights about the book and then I'll I have like three points of what I took away from it. So Steve Martin got his start at Disneyland in like the little magic shop doing his thing, and then, uh, he essentially toiled for like 10 years and then I don't remember the exact dates, but in the seventies he was essentially I don't even know the comparison the Taylor Swift, the Kevin Hart, the Beyonce, the essentially the biggest performer in the world. That at that time, like, he was even bigger than the Beatles, bigger than the Beatles were in this.

Speaker 1:

In the sixties he was giant, he was selling out these huge arenas at a time when nobody was doing that and his style of comedy was just totally absurd, like today. It's like very calm, like essentially a lot of like SNL stuff, what became SNL. But at the time people are like what is he doing? It was positive, it was upbeat. All the comedy at that time was like very satirical, very like negative political stuff with Vietnam and Watergate and all that and he was kind of this breath of fresh air, giant, giant star.

Speaker 1:

And then in like 1980, he's like I'm not doing that anymore, I'm going to start making movies and his movie career is largely successful, but he had a bunch of kind of hits and misses, hits and misses largely successful, but he had a bunch of kind of hits and misses, hits and misses. And he also, I think, has a Grammy for banjo music. What Playing the banjo is like a big part of his act. I didn't know that and what's so side note is that I now see in my dad some of my dad's sense of humor is similar to Steve Martin's, in the same way that, like me and my friends have similar senses of humor to like I don't know, like Adam Sandler or some of the like comedians that that we were watching when we were kind of in those impressionable, impressionable years. So my three takeaways oh and, by the way, there's a great two part documentary on Steve Martin, on Apple uh, apple plus uh. Any questions on that before I move on to my three points?

Speaker 2:

No no, go ahead.

Speaker 1:

It was fascinating. So my three points are leadership takes practice and embrace the journey, not just the destination. That's one. I'll go back and elaborate on these. Number two is it's okay to walk away and try something new. And number three is embracing your uniqueness.

Speaker 1:

And I want to start with number three because one of the things I found so fascinating about Steve Martin and I think, a lot of artists or actors or people that are now successful sometimes it's hard to remember that they weren't always that way and he found a way to say this is who I am. This is what I think is funny. This is what I think is going to bring joy and beauty and brilliance, use some leadership, vision, language into the world. And I'm going to stick with this. He figured out, like, what his thing was and he went with it.

Speaker 1:

He didn't go and in the book it talks about early on, especially like he was on the Smother Brothers comedy hour and he was trying to play these other bits and be these other people and realize I just need to be me, I need to do my style and I think about myself in that way, trying to emulate other leaders, I see, or other parents, I see that it's just not going to work. Leaders, I see, or other parents I see that it's just not going to work, and so I think that's something that we talk about so often at Leadership Vision of, like, what is who are you? How do you embrace that and become more of who you are to then use that as a launchpad to whatever, whatever it is that you know you want to do? So there's only one, you, brian, so don't try to someone else. I don't know. Do you want to feed back any of this, or should I just go to the next one?

Speaker 2:

Well, when you told me that you're reading the book, instead of buying the book, I went to YouTube and watched a bunch of Steve Martin stuff, so I'm familiar with his story, because that's exactly what I was looking for was his story, the commitment to what he knew or the type of funny he wanted to be.

Speaker 2:

That's the part that resonated with me as well, Because, like you said, that is about the work that we're doing.

Speaker 2:

We're trying to encourage people to take the risk to go on the inward journey to discover who they actually are and to find the joy and satisfaction in that and then take the risk to express that.

Speaker 2:

I think the risk to express our identity is sometimes the most fearful part, more than the discovery of who we are. It's the expression and in a world where we find our personal meaning and self-acceptance rooted in what other people think about us, to find who we are and to express that, like what Steve Martin was doing, that's a huge risk. I think it has a huge payback, not necessarily monetarily, but in the joy and the satisfaction with what it is that we're doing. I think that's part of what we are inviting people to do and it's definitely a part of the journey that I'm on, even still to this point, is that full and authentic embracing of who we are. And I love stories like Steve Martin where you have a sense of not just a desire to connect with who the person is, but then to kind of cast that out into the future and follow that dream wherever that dream is going.

Speaker 1:

Yeah and that ties into my second point here about it's okay to walk away and try something new that he realized that the success and the fame of being the stand-up comedian that he was, it wasn't fulfilling him. He was like I think I've taken this as far as I can go, so he essentially walked away and he, you know, went into acting and writing and music, as I talked about. You know he found great success in that too. But that that jump into the unknown, I think, is something that you know. So many of us, even if we're in a bad situation, we're like well, I'd rather struggle with the thing that I know we're like well, I'd rather yourself, in the ways that I think people do Anything that resonate with you on that point. Oh yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2:

Focus on fulfillment, that's the phrase.

Speaker 2:

I think that another invitation for all of us is to pay attention to what is fulfilling us and pay attention to what's bringing us energy, and to pay attention to what's bringing us life, because the focus on fulfillment is actually a way that we can honor the very nature of how it is that we're wired and the very nature of who we are nature of how it is that we're wired, in the very nature of who we are.

Speaker 2:

Sometimes our indicators that we're kind of veering off path is when we're doing things that aren't fulfilling, when we're focusing on what is meaningless instead of meaningful and we don't pay attention to our own natural body, our psyche, our intuition reminding us hey, this is costing us a lot of energy, this is not that fulfilling. I'm not really that happy. Those are all indicators that are helping us understand if we're on the right path or not. So that's what I'm hearing is focus on fulfillment and pay attention to what the next steps are and not maybe the fulfillment that you're expecting a year from now. But what do we have today? What do we have in this moment? The fulfilling nature of what each day brings, I think, is inexhaustible. We just don't often explore that.

Speaker 1:

And the challenge, I think, is how do you find metrics or indicators? Cause it's easy, if you're making a lot of money at something, to be like, oh this is great, this is fulfilling, but you know, in his case it actually wasn't. So what like? What are the indicators? And that's, I think, what you know. People can only identify for themselves as like oh, this is bringing me fulfillment and joy, whatever.

Speaker 2:

That point you mentioned about indicators is also really important, because I think that some of the difficult work that individuals have that they could be doing is to ask themselves what are the indications that I am being fulfilled? What is bringing me joy and happiness? When have I rebounded from some type of struggle, a tragedy or challenge? Those are all indicators to what it is that we need to find fulfillment in our life, and sometimes people shy away from even the word need, because when we ask people, well, what do you need in this situation, that's us saying what are the indicators that are leading me towards living a more fulfilled life, whatever that looks like? Because if you think about it, nathan, the focusing on fulfillment, letting our indicators align and guide us, it's going to be our own unique pathway and guide us. It's going to be our own unique pathway and it's going to be very rare for us to find someone else in this world that's living a similar path or a similar life than us. Just like with this book, with Steve Martin being a trailblazer, we each are that in our own sense, completely.

Speaker 1:

Which kind of leads to the last point. Here is just this idea of anything worth achieving takes practice. It takes really embracing the struggle, the messy middle, the journey of the thing. As I said, he kind of got a start at Disneyland. Not kind of he did. He got a start at Disneyland, so it's not familiar.

Speaker 1:

His act is a combination of kind of these weird, terrible magic tricks music. If you've ever been to Disneyland it's I forget the name of the place, it's still there, but it's like a little magic shop where you can go in and you know he would have this whole bit with like doing balloon animals that were just, it was just so silly and didn't make any sense. He has this one bit that I showed to my son, who thinks it's hilarious. He's like now is the famous glove into dove trick, and so he takes a glove, is in his hand, he throws it up in the air and the glove and plummets, hits the ground, then just looks at the audience, says okay, and now for my next trick. It's like what that's so silly and goofy, but people loved it and so he toiled. I think it was like 10 years of just going to these little teeny, tiny comedy stores, comedy shops this is after the Disneyland experience and he was like in these small little like groups of, like actors and things, and he just kind of toiled and practiced and kept going and kept going.

Speaker 1:

But he the part that makes this, uh, I think, applicable to us is that he took notes. He took, he studied what he was doing. He went back and say, well, why didn't this trick work? Or what if I did it this way? Or what if I, you know, came in and said this instead, like he was actually kind of studying it.

Speaker 1:

And I think sometimes you know, you and I talk about running a lot it's one thing to go on a 10 mile tempo run and be like, well, that sucked and forget about it. It's another thing to say, well, why did that suck? Well, I didn't sleep, I didn't have much to eat, I didn't really care, like da, da, da, da, da. And so that's what he did. And I think, like you know, how can we learn from that? To say every moment is an opportunity to learn something. How was that interaction with your spouse this morning? How was that interaction with your colleague? Was that email sent in the way that I wanted it to be sent and just practice and practice and next time get a little bit better at sending that email. Next time, when you know your partner does something that you've asked them not to do a hundred times, maybe take a breath before responding. I'm sure you never experienced any of that, brian, or ever. Think about using little moments as an opportunity to practice getting better at whatever it is that you're doing right.

Speaker 2:

Practice that is a word that is in our vocabulary, here at Leadership Vision Tattooed on our forearms Practice, the intentional practice, the deliberate practice, purposeful practice, all kinds of practice. Practice in the playgrounds yeah, I cannot overemphasize how common this idea of practice comes up. I think most practice that we are participating in during life we are unaware of we're unaware of the practice that we're repeating over and over again.

Speaker 2:

We're sometimes unaware of where the practice takes place. We sometimes get frustrated when we practice things that it's not working right because the place is wrong, and then we're surprised in other situations when we are practicing something in the right situation and things just grow like crazy. I think practice is really, really important. I don't believe in repetition as the best product for practice. I believe that objective feedback is the best product for practice If you're trying to grow or trying to accomplish something.

Speaker 2:

I was reading something the other day and I can't remember exactly where it came from, but we've all heard the phrase practice makes perfect, and this author was saying practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent. And that practice makes permanent couldn't be more true, even when it comes to how the brain tends to shape and form and wire itself. It's like the neurons that fire together stay together, the neurons that work together. They are binding together, they're creating those pathways. Now, whether that practice is positive or not, that's up for discussion, but practice makes patterns permanent. Why that's important here is because I think in our story about Steve Martin is that there was the repetition of practice, there was the study of practice and he was getting feedback on his practice from audiences and other people that he was working with, and that feedback piece is the most important. Where is it that we're able to practice and get objective feedback on the performance that's happening in the practice and we're looking at our progress being measured in how we're growing and not how our practice is leading to perfection, which I think really messes up what our values are and what our expectations are Over and over again.

Speaker 2:

I believe it's important to get the practice in, to familiarize ourselves the way we think, the way we feel, with what our performance is actually looking like performance loosely but also to recognize that sometimes we need to unpractice certain ways that we do things so that we can learn new things.

Speaker 2:

Now that word unpractice came to me maybe a week ago, I think it came to me over holiday break. I was doing a meditation and the meditation teacher introduced this word of unpractice as a way to gently unfold some of the patterns that we put together in our lives that don't lead to fulfillment, and just the idea of unpractice to me as an athlete, really made sense, because sometimes the only ways that we can break some of our bad habits is through unpracticing the things that led us to the bad patterns. Does that make sense? Yeah, giving ourselves permission to unlearn is saying to someone you know what Not doing things the way that you normally do them might take some time. It may be uncomfortable in the moment, but it's important for us to recognize that the current patterning of our practice may lead to some outcomes that were not necessarily going to result in fulfillment.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and that's hard. And I'm curious if any of our listeners are like me in that they see a change they want to make in their life and so they start down this path, and then the practice isn't perfect, so they screw up and they're like throw up their hands, like, ah, this is terrible, I'm screwed, I can't do this, and they like lose hope or give up or think all is lost, and that's just part of it.

Speaker 1:

I mean, I wonder how many Steve Martins were out there who just gave up at any of the points where he could have and are now doing some other random job. Not that we should look up to him as a I don't know be like Steve Martin, but just that idea of what the lesson can we learn and how often do we forget that unlearning is part of the process.

Speaker 2:

Well, the lesson is universal. I think the lesson is pay attention to your practice and pay attention to the life that you're gaining or, in our conversation, the fulfillment that you're receiving from the process of practice. Number two don't be surprised when you get to an intersection and you have options. I believe that there are many intersections in life that would that we come to an intersection where opportunity, practice, fulfillment, frustration kind of come to a head and we're given the chance to try something new. That intersection may be an intersection that we create, maybe an intersection we didn't see coming and surprises us, but we're given a choice and recognize that we're there and some of the options are. We can continue to go forward with what we're doing, like in the case of Steve Martin and many of us who are listening to this podcast.

Speaker 2:

You'll recognize that there are many intersections at life.

Speaker 2:

At those intersections there are probably many people that were there, many voices, many influences that were begging us to go one direction or another. But that choice is fundamentally up to us. So what it means, I think, is for us to really lean into this idea that, whatever it is that we're doing, that it's an opportunity for us to grow. It's an opportunity for us to find more meaning and significance and belonging in our life and to also be willing to practice something new, even if that new practice is to unlearn something that actually got us there. Because we know consistency with whatever we're doing is where a lot of our greatest potential is going to be realized is through an availability to whatever the challenge is and to always be open to appropriate feedback, objective feedback, somebody watching from the outside who's making observations on how we're doing, the joy that's coming to our life or the repeated frustration. Just sometimes holding up a mirror to someone is all that's needed for them to realize yep, I'm not as fulfilled as I thought. I think a change is needed.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, for sure, brian. I wasn't planning on talking about my book for this long. We'll get into yours next week as we. I think we're going to do a two-parter here. Yeah, it's going to have to be.

Speaker 2:

Any final thoughts?

Speaker 2:

Brian, I think one of the takeaways from today's conversation is to really go back to the beginning, when Nathan and I talked about the role that books play in our life.

Speaker 2:

The role that books play in our life is they play the role of a tool or a guidepost, and sometimes the books that we read are tools that help open up new possibility and new potential to the way that we think or what we're practicing. Sometimes the books that we read serve as guideposts and an affirmation that we're in the right place, that we're doing the right things, and sometimes the books that we read cause us to press pause and to ask ourselves how am I living? Am I living in relationship the way that I want? And if I continue to live this way, what's going to happen to me and those I love? I know that throughout the year, nathan and I have several conversations about the books that we're reading, how it's impacting our lives and whatever reason that you read a book, or whatever it is that you use as a tool to help your growth. My invitation is that we lean into that tool, learn what the tool is there to teach us and leverage the opportunities that there are to grow.

Speaker 1:

Brian, that's great. I love that. Thank you for listening to my book review, but I affirmed through my YouTube video watching yes, you did.

Speaker 1:

I appreciate that. Well, brian, I'm excited to hear your book review next time Me too. All right, thanks, brian. I'm excited to hear your book review next time Me too. All right, thanks, brian. Wow, that was interesting. Thank you for listening to the Leadership Vision Podcast, our show helping you build positive team culture. If you found value from this podcast episode or any of our other material that was sent out in the past, we would love it if you could share it with someone that you think also might enjoy it. Please subscribe to the podcast, sign up for our free email newsletter, follow us on all the socials and, most importantly, perhaps, if you have questions about anything related to your leadership or you maybe just kind of feel stuck and want a sounding board, reach out to us, connect at leadership vision consultingcom. We love talking to people in our community. Just sometimes it just maybe an email or a different perspective can really help to kind of get things unstuck. I'm Nathan Freeberg and, on behalf of our entire team, thanks for listening.