Enterprise.ing Rewind: John O’Leary on Celebrating ‘Ordinary Heroes'

Alana Muller:
Welcome to Enterprise.ing, a podcast from Enterprise Bank & Trust that's empowering business leaders, one conversation at a time. We'll hear from different business leaders about how they've found success in cultivating their professional networks and keeping them healthy and strong. I'm your host, Alana Muller, an entrepreneurial executive leader whose primary focus is to connect, inspire, and empower community. We at Enterprise Bank & Trust thank you for tuning in to another episode.

Hello listeners. Welcome back to Enterprise.ing podcast. This week we're going back to the Enterprise.ing archives and re-airing episode number 36, “John O'Leary on Celebrating ‘Ordinary Heroes’”. John's incredible story is being made into a movie and in anticipation of its release this fall, we wanted to share this special live episode again, enjoy.

I have to tell you, I am truly in awe of today's guest. In 1987, John O'Leary was a curious nine-year-old boy. Playing with fire and gasoline, John created a massive explosion in his home and was burned on 100% of his body. He was given less than a 1% chance to live.

Now, almost four decades later, John has inspired millions of people by helping them to avoid burnout while transforming their lives. He's the bestselling author of two books, the first, On Fire: the 7 Choices to Ignite a Radically Inspired Life, and In Awe: Rediscover Your Childlike Wonder to Unleash Inspiration. John, welcome to Enterprise.ing Podcast.

John O'Leary:
Alana, what a joy to be with you, live.

Alana Muller:
Well, I was privileged enough to hear you speak recently and I feel so lucky to have the chance to sit down with you one-on-one. Thank you for joining our community today. So great to have you. I also want to mention to our listeners that we are trying something new for the very first time today on Enterprise.ing Podcast. We're recording today's conversation in front of a live studio audience, so we will be sure to get our audience members in on the discussion too. So listeners, don't be surprised if you hear a few new voices on today's episode. John, if you would take our listeners through a brief tour of your background and how you were able to literally face the ultimate challenge and fight your way back to health, to life, and to truly live an inspired life.

John O'Leary:
Well, we have 30 minutes. We'll require all of it for these answers, so get comfortable, listeners at home and leaders in the room. I'll be brief though. At age nine, like you mentioned, I was burned on my entire body. I spent five and a half months in burn care and out of all the stories that I could share around how ultimately not only to survive that time in hospital but to thrive afterwards, maybe it goes to my mom. And although our studio audience heard some of her leadership today, what they did not hear was a story even before that one. I came home on a late May afternoon to a huge party and it was awesome. But eventually all the family and friends and community members left the house. They left us in a rebuilt home with a golden retriever on one side, five siblings, me and my parents.

The problem was that night, I could not eat. So what your listeners don't know, but your live studio audience does, is I've lost my fingers. I can't hold anything with my hands. So my mom makes this feast, I can't eat it. And as I'm waiting for help, my sister, Amy, who will definitely be listening to this, grabs a fork, scoops up some potatoes, brings the potatoes, toward my mouth, and right as they're about to enter in, my mother says to Amy, "Amy, drop the fork. If your brother is hungry tonight, he will feed himself." And I remember after surviving five and a half months in hospital and dozens of surgeries and months of extraordinary pain, shocked that she would not just feed me that night. And I looked at my mom and I'm like, "Mama, I can't." And she said to me, "John, if you're hungry, please feed yourself. You can do this."

And the long story made very short on how a boy not only survived the fire at first, but ultimately survived and thrived in life is, two and a half hours into that night, Alana, I had flipped the plate two different times. The dog was well-fed, I was not. But by the end of that night, this little boy who was hollowed out after a difficult experience, had figured out a way to wedge between his hands, this one little fork, scoop those potatoes toward his mouth and begin eating. And it was a lesson that reminded me as a young boy, not only how to eat dinner at night, but that these excuses you previously made for yourself can be overcome, that you can do things that you previously thought were impossible. And so the best part of my story to summarize all of this, is not what John did. It's what others taught him is possible and what it means for us.

Alana Muller:
I just love that. Well, and I also know that those were not just potatoes, they were your favorite meal. Au gratin, if I'm not mistaken.

John O'Leary:
Cheesy goodness, man.

Alana Muller:
Cheesy goodness.

John O'Leary:
We are not into diets at the O'Leary house.

Alana Muller:
So first of all, I love that story. I knew that story before and honestly when I heard it, I cried and I was so inspired by your mom. I mean, I'm going to become a mess just even talking about it. But when I think about the pain that you were going through, it's unfathomable what your pain was and even more so what her pain was. So as a mother myself, I know when my little Ian, my 19-year-old, little much taller than me, much-bigger-than-me little boy, whenever he feels a pain, whether it's a scrape on his finger or some much deeper challenge, I know that the pain that I feel is so much more intense. So to think about what she was going through, and you do talk about that.

John O'Leary:
Not enough.

Alana Muller:
You realized.

John O'Leary:
That was the turning point really in my life. My dad got Parkinson's disease, he lost his job and they reflected on their life and they wrote a little book called Overwhelming Odds. And they printed a hundred copies essentially for their neighborhood, and just to say, "Thank you. Thank you for supporting, thank you for believing, thank you for praying." Then a couple hundred copies were printed, and then 500 and then a thousand. And it's this unauthorized biography of John O'Leary's life that I had no desire to see out there in the world at the time. But eventually I bought a copy, which, you should hear that clearly, my parents made me buy a copy of my own book. So they're shrewd enterprising leaders themselves. So for $12 I got to read about how I got burned as a kid. But that's when my life changed though because I'd always thought as a young person and as an adolescent, your boy's 19, and as a young 20-something, that I was the one who got burned and I'm the one that has scars.

And then I read their book and I saw the pain of a father. I'd never even once considered it. And I read about what it was like to sign the papers. Yeah, you may amputate my son's fingers to keep him alive, what that decision was like as a couple, can't imagine. What it was like for my siblings to see me on fire and to come to the rescue and to make a difference. What it was like for them to live without their house for four months, to live without their parents for five and a half. And so one of the turning points in my life and here at Enterprise, we really are other oriented, but I wasn't. And it wasn't until I read their book that I realized the fire affected them far more than me. And when that happens, it allows you to embrace the scars and try to make a difference with them.

Alana Muller:
So using that as kind of the launch point, one of the things that I've heard you talk about and that I want to touch on is what does it mean to you to live radically inspired.

John O'Leary:
Grateful for the day. It means looking back on the past, recognizing that very little of it was maybe ideal, but it's led us perfectly to where we are today, to recognize the grandeur and the miracle in this moment. I think too often we cheapen our life. The fact that you're in this room or listening, it's shocking. The odds of you being born one study, 4.6 trillion to one, just biologically of you being in the room, mom and dad bringing you into this existence. And the math gets more and more out of scale as you go to their parents, and their parents, and their parents, and the fact that life is here at all in the first place. So when I look at life today, I recognize the grandeur of it, which means whether it's snowing outside or their struggles inside, that in spite of those, I recognize today's a gift and we can strive to make tomorrow even better.

Alana Muller:
That's awesome. I know that you have engaged with people all over the world and you share your message of transformation. And one of the things that I've been curious about is what common themes do you hear, right? Because we're just not so very different as we move across the world. So especially in light of the global pandemic, what common themes do you hear? And as you take your message around, how do people receive it?

John O'Leary:
Well, why don't we, instead of talking about the pandemic or traveling, talk about this room today. We have 280 friends gathered with us, enterprising leaders who are striving to make their life and their business matter. I spoke a little bit ago to your team and was overwhelmed by the reception, but more so by the one-to-one interaction afterwards. And person after person came up and they began this sentence with these words, "John, thank you." And then they said, "My story's not like yours, but..." And then I heard about a 19-year-old, and then I heard about a young man who recently lost his mom and another young man who recently lost his dad. And so one of the things that I think pulls all of us together is the fact that we have these struggles always in front of us. And as we look back on our life somehow overwhelmingly so, we overcome. And very rarely do we do it all by ourselves, but every one of us in this room and every one of us listening to my voice today has this remarkable story that too often we cheapen.

And then you hear someone else who says, "I'm going to share with you my story. I'm going to go into the corners, but I'm going to celebrate the light." And that's what finally frees them to come up, wait in line and say, "Dude, it's not like your story, but..." So I hope what you're listeners are receiving now and maybe your friends and the audience are receiving now is don't hide from your story. One of my favorite authors is a guy named Henri Nouwen. He's a Jesuit Priest and he's no longer with us. But he wrote, what is most personal and sacred, so that thing that only you are dealing with, what is the most personal and sacred is also what is most universal. So the thing we think is only us, you recognize and share it boldly that it's universal. So I just recognize the universal truth that we struggle and that good, that love, that grace, that faith overcomes.

Alana Muller:
One of the defining characteristics of my life, which I'm sure everybody can relate to is, I was a math major. Any other math majors in the room? I see-

John O'Leary:
One.

Alana Muller:
I see, yeah, I see one. But that's okay. There's a mathematical expression that you use a lot. And so it immediately caught my attention and I want to ask you about it. And so you talk a lot about the impact of what you call inflection points. And so immediately I see a mathematical graph. You saw something different. I want to ask you about that. So what do inflection points represent for you and how do we recognize inflection points in our own lives?

John O'Leary:
So you can imagine we are interviewed occasionally on podcasts, and I've never once been asked any of these questions leading up to this, but never ever been asked by anyone around that. And it's a great question because it's not about math. Inflection points are the moment in time that everything afterwards is different. And that could be a divorce, it could be a bankruptcy, it could be a diagnosis, it could be an explosion in your garage at age nine, explosions. But what we have come to recognize in our own lives, is it's not just the big moments, it's the little ones that seem randomly insignificant. So if you're carefully looking back on your own life, you recognize it wasn't just the divorce or the diagnosis or the accident or the explosion that changed your life. It's a series of seemingly insignificant events that take place afterwards and leading up to it.

And so in talking about the power of inflection points, I try to remind our readers and our audiences of not cheapening any moment as they journey through their life. Because I mean, there's a lot of brain study on this, but if you wonder why does time go faster as we age? Have you ever wondered that? Why is it going, "Oh man, in my thirties, it went slow. In my twenties, it went slower, when I was a kid, a summertime was forever." Remember that? When summer was 19 months long? What changed? Now a year goes by in two months. What changed?

Well, what they're finding is the more you do something, the more it goes into almost like auto repeat and you just ignore it all. So you ignore the drive to work and you ignore the family dinner, and you ignore the nightly rituals that you're part of. And if you ignore what you're doing, you also won't remember it afterwards. And man, your life is sacred, 280 friends and millions listening in, your life is sacred. And part of the realization of inflection point is don't just look backward at the big ones. Look presently at the one in front of you because this is the next in inflection point. Don't cheapen that. Alana Muller: It reminds me, I remember when my husband Mark and I were getting married and somebody said to me before the wedding, they said, "The night is going to go by in a flash." And they said, "Be as present as possible, not just there, but present. And take a moment from time to time and look up and look around the room and literally look in the eyes of the people who are there so that you remember those moments." And I did that. And so I remember my wedding and the amazing party and I just feel so grateful that somebody reminded me of that. So thank you for your answer. I love that. I love that.

John O'Leary:
It's good advice on a wedding night, but also the day after. And the day after.

Alana Muller:
And the day after that, and the day after that. So one of the... I call it the standard questions that I usually ask guests who are kind enough to visit me on Enterprise.ing podcasts is, I want to know how they actively manage their network and who inspires them. And so you ask a question, and in fact you give people an assignment on the spot. You say, think about somebody in your life who's inspired you to be the best version of yourself. So I want to turn the question around who inspires you, John, to be the best version of yourself?

John O'Leary:
So last night was my wife's birthday and her name is Elizabeth Grace. One of the comments that went across her social feed came from a gentleman who apparently follows John O'Leary, and I don't know him all that well, but this gentleman follows us. And he said on her post, "I want to thank the woman who is behind the guy that I follow and that I love." And then he went on and on and on from there talking about the reason why he's able, John is able, to do what he does is because of you. Because when he's on the road, you're with the kids. Because when he's got a shirt that's relatively pressed, you were part of that process. And all of that is true. My wife is stunningly beautiful, but I'm not talking about her body. She is, she's pretty, but her heart for others, her humility.

Years ago I gave Beth... I gave her 40 love letters on her 40th birthday and I wrote one of them, but I invited 39 others to join. The theme that I heard in almost every letter, your humility, your humility. And so I'm not super impressed by folks who love to stand on a podcast and talk about how great their business is or their life is or all this other stuff, this bragging that we do on social media so often. My wife isn't on social media. She is there to serve, she's there to love, she's there to support. In doing so, she changes lives. And I just thought it was so cool last night that someone who is all over social media wanted to say, "Beth, we see you." So one of the first individuals I would recognize is my wife. I would quickly go on to my kids, I’ve got four.

They're amazing. They're a handful. They know a lot more than their dad. Just ask them about every topic in life now. But they're awesome. My father, who can no longer speak to me, teaches me a lot through his silence. My mom, who is his caregiver and his partner and my guardian. You, your podcast, the way you raise a 19-year-old. So I try to look for inspiration less from the silver screen and the big ones on social media and more in the ordinary heroes in life. I found a lot more inspiration today before we went live watching a couple of our employees down here bringing coffee back and forth. Without them, everybody in this room is asleep. And I think too often we take for granted ordinary leadership in front of us. And I try not to.

Alana Muller:
I agree with that. And I love how you talk about your wife, your parents, your children. I think that if we all look back and we're really honest with ourselves, we can identify those moments, those inflection points where we find our heroes. And you talk a lot, especially in your book On Fire, you talk a lot about heroes, everyday heroes. People that are not necessarily wearing the firefighter gear, right? They're not wearing some kind of standard uniform. So it's just everyday people, people like you and me who are heroes. How do you identify a hero?

John O'Leary:
None of this is scripted. So here we go, we're going to make up with this answer as we move forward. Here it is though, by looking for people who strive for something bigger than themselves, which is what we see when we go to a movie and we watch a guy in tights battle the villain. But that's part of the reason why I don't need to go see a guy in a movie battling the villain. I see them in the way people clean floors well. That there was a parking agent outside today shoveling. It's snowing, it's miserable, it's cruddy outside. No one wants to be outside. And this guy, probably overlooked and probably underpaid, is risking life and limb to make the rest of us safe. That's a hero. Jack Buck, we could spend the remaining time we have talking about what he did and what leadership and the heroism of all that.

But how did he hear about it? So Jack Buck heard about a guy named John O'Leary because my next door neighbor, she was a widow, her name was Carol, a hero, heard the explosion, made a phone call and said, "We got to pray for this family." And then that phone call led to another phone call. So now we're three deep, this is how relationships are built. This is how networks, Enterprise.ing friends are built, three deep. Then four. The final woman on that train was a lady named Colleen. Colleen called her dad. I don't even know his real first name. He went by the nickname Red. And for the St. Louis folks, you may know the last name, Schoendienst. Red Schoendienst gets a call on January 17th, the day that John O'Leary burned, from his daughter.

And she says, "Daddy, a little boy was burned. Keep him in your thoughts and prayers." Not even knowing my name or where I'm being cared for. Red goes that night to a charity auction downtown about two miles from where we are. That night while sipping beer and talking about the prospects of spring, he has an encounter with a guy named Jack Buck. And he says to him, "Jack, keep this little boy in your thoughts and prayers. It's not looking good." And the following day after asking the question, what's the question class? What more can I do?

Alana Muller:
What more can I do?

John O'Leary:
It's not just poetry that you uses as a keynote. This is stuff he operationalized, what more can I do as a career leader, as an Enterprise.ing guide, but as a servant. What more can I do to make the world better through my life each day? Jack, asked the question the night I was burned, and the following day we get snow. None of us in St. Louis travel in snow, but Jack Buck came to a hospital to visit a stranger on January 18th, and it's this beautiful love story that only takes place because an ordinary hero without a cape on, my next door neighbor Carol, called a friend, called a woman named Colleen, called a dad who's retired, called a man who's still engaged, but never too busy to serve.

Alana Muller:
And for our listeners who may not be either baseball aficionados or from St. Louis, tell us how as a little boy would you have known who Jack Buck was.

John O'Leary:
Because anyone with a heartbeat in St. Louis would know the name Jack Buck. And anyone who heard the World Series called in '85, in '86, in '87, or listen to pro football in the seventies or eighties... He's in seven Hall of Fames. So this was a big name announcer here in St. Louis, but he was legendary around the country. And I grew up listening to his voice in the summertime primarily. He even called wrestling for a while. So for the wrestling fans on the podcast, you would've heard his voice way back in the late seventies. Jack was my hero and I'd never met him.

But you don't need to meet your heroes to be moved by them. And our whole work today, if I can try to condense it, is not so much to say, "Hey, people rise, come on, rise people." It's really to say, "Rise in order to elevate others." So yeah, I want you to climb. I want you to succeed and ring the bell and get great things in order that your life may be an example, that you can impact someone else, that you can give generously, that you can pull someone else along for the ride, that you can be like Jack Buck and show up on a Sunday morning to visit a kid.

Alana Muller:
I want to get our audience in on this conversation. So I'm going to look to the audience. Does anybody have a question? If you do, would you raise your hand and maybe stand up and somebody will bring a microphone to you? We're doing that good of a job, you have no questions? I see one right in the middle. Stand up please. And if you would start by telling me your name and your market.

Ryan McBeth:
Ryan McBeth, Atlanta, Georgia. The question I have for you is so many people... Everything I heard you talk about is you becoming emotionally vulnerable. And so many of us, I think in the room and in life, struggle with that. What allows you and your family to give out to others and give more by sharing a message of being emotionally vulnerable? Like how do you suggest others can do that?

Alana Muller:
Fabulous, emotional vulnerability? How would you answer that?

John O'Leary:
Awkwardly.

Alana Muller:
It's an easy one, right?

John O'Leary:
I'll answer this awkwardly like I've answered the previous 11 questions, authentically as well. I've been most moved in my life by people who did not have all the answers or all the right words. And I think the problem with social media and the problem with politicians and the problem with their newscasters and the problems in corporate America usually is that in 144 characters or less, I can make myself seem very polished. Very polished and very well put together. And the people who have most profoundly impacted my life weren't. They were broken and they were damaged and they had scars and they were never too polished to share them, sometimes physically, but far more continuously just through openness of dialogue. As I was led forward and as my family was led forward by others, what we found is those who impacted our lives most directly were the ones who rolled up their sleeves and said, "Here's some scars too and we can do this together."

So as we learn from those who've come alongside of us, what we probably all agree is they were the ones who were so confident in their own brokenness and their own ability to influence others that they realized within us the ability that we also possess. The scars shouldn't be hidden, they should be embraced. That the things we think are the differentiator negatively are actually the things, like you taught me a moment ago when you all came up. Different relationships, some of us in relationships, some of us different skin tone, some of us different religions, some of us from parts of the country that do not include Missouri. And yet then you would share your story of struggle. And so it's ultimately authentically embracing that and not trying to be anything you're not, that you can change the life of the one in front of you, sometimes the reflection in the mirror.

Alana Muller:
Beautiful. So we have another audience question again. If you would, start by sharing your name and your market.

Kamil Wozowicz:
Kamil Wozowicz. I'm in Southern California. I was just wondering how your accident affected the way you decided to raise your kids and how do you protect them?

John O'Leary:
So unfortunately for my wife and my kids, very little. Because let me answer this way. When they rebuilt the house and I was able to visit in early May because mom and dad knew I was coming home shortly, the first place they took me was through the front hall where I'd been burning. And then they took me back into the kitchen where I'd run. And then they took me into the garage, and they took me right back to the inflection point where this thing began. And what that taught me is if you can face your fears, you can also face your life ahead. And so I was a boy scout after getting burnt. I love to barbecue, I love campfires. I'm not afraid of fire. I'm respectful, but I'm not afraid of it. I love cooking. So you need sometimes to use a little bit of fire to get the grits hot enough on the stove. So my mom and dad taught me to face its square up.

So what I've done for my kids is to try to give them that same ability, to face their fears unapologetically. But more than what I've taught them... Well two other things. One is when they get burned, I will be there with them unconditionally. I will love you as you are no matter what you do. I want them to choose well, but I know the human condition and I know my kids well enough to realize they will choose poorly often. And when they do, I am there to kick them in the bottom and to love them forward, always. So that's important, but more than what I've taught them, it's what they've taught me. And I'd like to quickly share two stories please.

One is, I have this habit of shaving in the morning right up here, and I usually shave with my boxers and pants on, shirt off like this. And when they were little, my kids used to fake shave next to me. So with the little covers on, they would shave. And one time Jack, who is my oldest son, was three or four at the time, and he's shaving his face as I shave mine. And then he puts the razor down, he starts tracking with his index finger, one of my scars, I got plenty. But one of my scars starts right up here below the trach and goes past the belly button.

So he slowly tracks the scar. Never done this before. So I'm getting ready to have the conversation with him on, "It's okay, your daddy's enough. We'll get through this together." And all this stuff. And before I'm ready to explain it away, he says to me, "Dad, your tummy is red. It is bumpy, and it is ridgy." And then he adds, "And dad, I love it. I love your red, bumpy, ridgy tummy." So often the thing we worry about from a client or a child or the Republicans or the Democrats or the people in the middle or our neighbors or people we don't know on the airplane or whatever is how they will judge us, which keeps us from authentically loving them. So here we go, don't talk politics. I don't really care how you vote, but I care deeply how you judge the other people. I care deeply about that one.

So I'm trying to attract everybody back into the conversation and say, "Let's do this together." That doesn't mean you can't have your opinions, but not at the expense of throwing stones across. So that's one thing Jack has taught me. And another thing he taught me took place about six months later, I'm eating in the kitchen... Because leaders, people are looking up to you. I'm eating in the kitchen. I'm on a conference call. I'm trying to multitask. I don't do one thing well, I don't do a lot of things collectively well. So I'm taking notes. I'm with the client and I'm eating a sandwich. Don't tell Lally it was probably him, but I'm eating the sandwich and I'm eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich at home like this. So for our listeners, I have it balanced on my knuckles.

My fingers have been amputated. So I'm balancing this, taking notes, and on a conference call. And I look down and there's a three-year-old boy at one of those little white wooden tables that you probably have for your grandbabies or children or neighbor's kids. And little Jack is eating his peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Guess how he's holding his sandwich? Looking up, we become like the examples we're given. And what I will tell you from a quick glance at social, most of them are cruddy. Most of them will take your life either in the short term or promise you in the long term. Give others an example of what life looks like when it's lived fully. That's what my kids have taught me.

Alana Muller:
One fun question that I ask every guest who comes on Enterprise.ing is I want to know if you could have coffee... The name of my company is Coffee Lunch Coffee. My little secret is I don't drink coffee. That's okay. If you could have coffee with anybody, living, not living, fictional, non-fictional, I don't care who, who would it be and why?

John O'Leary:
So I would need a boardroom. So I'll have to come out to Enterprise and borrow the boardroom for a moment because it's hard to pick one. I am a Christian believer. I would certainly want Jesus in my room with me. Right next to him, I'd love St. Paul. I think we'd cheapen our lives and our experiences and this one guy through his life, whether you're Christian or not, or agnostic or atheistic, undoubtedly this guy changed the world. Maybe for the worst, one person changed the world. So I'd want him in the room. I'd want someone, he would be combative in the room. St. Peter, who also changed the world, an ordinary fisherman. I'd want Martin Luther King in the room. I have pictures of people in my own office. So I like coffee and I like podcasts and I have my own and I have pictures of the guests that I've interviewed.

So on one wall, are my guests. On another wall is my family. And on this wall are the people I look up to historically. They're people like Lincoln and a guy named Óscar Romero and a lady named Mother Theresa, and all these incredible leaders, ordinary though. And then right in the middle is Martin Luther King Jr. This southern, relatively small scale baptist minister, who when a woman refused to give up her seat says that it's not going to work anymore. Not going to work anymore. Not here, not here. Knowing that the cost would ultimately mean his life, he stepped forward. And then that battle continues. And I get emotional because it does continue and things have progressed, but the battle continues. And so for him, I would like to ask him, "Why'd you do it?" Yeah. What about after they fire bombed your house the first time, after they took the first shot, after in the New York bookstore she attacked you with a knife, a sneeze away from dying.

One of the great letters he received after he was almost killed in New York from a little white girl up in Boston is, "Mr. King. I read that if you had sneezed, you would've died." And then she ended the letter by saying, "I'm glad you did not sneeze." So from ordinary folks, because all of those people on my wall at one point were extremely ordinary. Just ask them. But that's also true for each of us. So that's who I want at this Coffee Lunch Coffee. It's a packed room. Alana Muller: Love that. I have to tell you, you're the first guest who has broken the rule. I asked for one name, you gave me an entire room. I love it. We're here to party. We're here to party. This is no intimate Coffee Lunch Coffee. I love it.

John O'Leary:
Wine is being served next.

Alana Muller:
Fabulous. I'm in. Count me. I'd like to be there too. If a listener, after hearing your story today, were to come to you and ask the question, "What more can I do?" What would you say to them?

John O'Leary:
Start at home. We so often look outward, and there's a lot to be done and a lot to be argued for looking externally. But I think that great journey outward begins with the internal reflection of looking in the mirror, asking yourself, "Why am I here? What's the goal of my life? How could it influence others?" And then you'll have all these big answers, but then it comes down to the simple question. These people know it. I hope your listeners do as well. What more can I do? And so what more can I do ultimately begins with us taking back the power of our life, to influence positive change around us at home, emotionally within wellness, within our spiritual journey, within our personal finances. And as we do that enough, we begin to recognize we are called now to do more for others. So I would beg your listeners, implore them to ask the question, "What more can I do?" And to recognize you can change the world of your life, but that starts one life at a time.

Alana Muller:
That's amazing. John, I have to tell you, one of the great privileges of my life has been talking with you. So I want to say thank you.

John O'Leary:
I hope it gets bigger and better from this moment going forward.

Alana Muller:
I want to know from you, what can our listeners do to learn more about and to connect with you and to learn more about Live Inspired?

John O'Leary:
Oh man. I mean, we have social media up there. I send out the messages, but I don't read the comments below. I don't want to play in that game. I just want to love and serve and to animate. One of the best ways that we can remain in touch beyond today is for folks to go on our website. It's called johnolearyinspires.com. And while there, they can learn about our podcast and our social media. Most excitingly I think, is they can learn about our community that our friends in this room have been invited into today live, where one to one, we're going to change the world.

I told them today, "Text me, let's start doing live. Let's join into this free community." I'm not trying to monetize this. Let's just animate. And if you ask yourself, "In order to do what, it's this." When you see a need, to tell me about it. And then my commitment back is I will be there, but not by myself. Do your part. I'll be there with you. We'll show up, but we're going to change the world together. And so I would encourage folks to learn more about all that at johnolearyinspires.com.

Alana Muller:
John O'Leary, thank you for being part of the Enterprise.ing podcast community.

John O'Leary:
Awesome. Thank you, Alana.

Alana Muller:
Thanks for joining us this week on Enterprise.ing. Be sure to visit our website, enterprisebank.com/podcast. Just subscribe so you'll never miss an episode. If you found value in today's program, please consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or telling a friend about us. Enterprise.ing, powering business leaders one conversation at a time.

The views expressed by Enterprise.ing presenters or guests are those of the presenter or guests, and not necessarily of Enterprise Bank and Trust or its affiliates. All content of this podcast and any related materials are for informational purposes only. Enterprise Bank and Trust does not make any warranty, express or implied, including warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose, and specifically disclaims any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information presented. Enterprise Bank and Trust is not under any obligation to update or correct any information provided in this podcast. All statements and opinions are subject to change without notice.