BEN CHU: Hey, guys.
Welcome to today's session of Google Author Talks.
My name is Ben Chu.
I'm here to introduce a dear friend of mine, whom I've know
for the last 15 years.
It's been really wonderful seeing his life's journey
unfold over the last decade.
He'll be talking about something that's pretty close
and dear to my heart, as a guy with a kid, another kid on the
way, and my wife, and--
just balancing the demands of family versus my spiritual
passions and hobbies, and work of course, has
always been a struggle.
And I feel like that's fairly common here at Google.
So Gary's actually given this talk to many
large companies before.
He has a lot of experience doing it.
So I'm really excited here it for the first time.
I'm sure it will be very practical--
lot of good wisdom here.
So let's everyone give him a warm Google welcome.
Gary Kunath.
[APPLAUSE]
GARY KUNATH: Thank you.
It's really my pleasure to be here.
It's my first time on the Google campus.
So--
this is really quite a treat to see everybody playing
volleyball.
And when I started at AT&T, you didn't play volleyball at
AT&T. You just came to work.
And that was it-- boom, done.
The reason I'm here-- and listen, I'm not a
psychiatrist.
And I'm not a psychologist.
I'm not going to talk about rainbows,
unicorns, and lollipops.
What I am is a business guy.
And I started from the ground up.
And I was hungry.
I thought net worth was the secret to life worth.
And I worked really hard for it.
But I made some very critical mistakes along the way.
And those mistakes cost me in my personal life.
And the reason I'm here, it's my passion now, to share that
story with others.
Because my goal's to have everybody have the greatest
life they can have.
I want to maximize joy and contentment
in everybody's life.
And I want to share with you how I figured it out.
I was just so thankful I figured out
before it was too late.
Because some people don't.
So last month, I was riding a plane from Montreal.
And I happened to sit near this guy.
And I don't--
I never really talk to people.
Not that I'm unsociable, I just--
I like to read.
But the guy started to talk to me.
And he went, what you do?
What do you do?
That kind of stuff.
That's probably why don't talk to people.
Because it's boring.
But so we finally got to the point where I said, well,
where are you headed?
And he goes, oh man.
He goes, I'm going to China.
Three weeks, man.
I'm going to China.
He goes, it's awesome over there.
He goes, and from there, I'm just going to scoot over to
Singapore for another three weeks.
He goes, this job--
I've seen the world.
It's the best job ever.
He goes, I'm going to come over for maybe about a week,
maybe three days.
I haven't decided yet.
And then I'm going to go to South America for a month.
Now it was funny.
Because as I'm listening to this guy--
if I was in my early 20s, I know exactly what I would have
been thinking.
I would have said, Oh, I want to be you.
You are so cool!
You're going to everywhere.
It's what I dreamed of.
I want that job.
But I'm not my 20s.
And I knew better.
And I knew that what he was giving me was what I would
call psychological camouflage for what was really going on
in his life, which is not an uncommon thing, by the way.
And I asked him one question.
I just looked at him.
And I said, so tell me, with all this travel, how was that
affected your relationship at home with your
wife and your kids?
And it was dead silence.
I'm not kidding you.
The color drained out of this guy's face.
He just went, whew.
He goes, I come home--
decisions are made in the house, I have no say.
He goes, I go to discipline the kids, they look at me like
I'm a stranger.
But what was amazing to me is as I saw the pain on this
guy's face-- and here he is trying to camouflage this, as
though he's got this great life.
But when he comes home, there's nothing going on.
And I felt bad for the guy.
And I also understood the guy.
Because for short period in my life, that was me.
And I knew what that was like.
I know how that feels.
And sometimes you convince yourself you're doing this for
the good of your family.
You're sacrificing so your kids and your
family don't have to.
You're sacrificing so they can have a better life.
And in part, that's true.
But the reality this, they just want you.
So I want to talk about not so much about making a living.
I've done the corporate thing.
I did the entrepreneurial thing.
I made my bones.
I'm fine.
But I'm going to talk about making a life.
It doesn't take that much effort to make a living.
People do it all over the world.
But making a life is not that easy.
And that's what I want to spend some time to
talk with you about.
It used to be that people thought, including myself,
that professional well being drives personal well being.
And I believed this too.
I attended a retirement party of a CEO of
a Fortune 100 company.
You would know it.
I won't mention it.
And I listened to the CEO's retirement speech.
And I will never forget it.
He got up there.
And it was a room full of maybe 300-400 people.
And he sat there, and he goes, I know many of you in this
room want to know what it takes to do my job.
He goes, and I'm going to tell you right now what it takes to
have my job.
And it was funny because I watched the crowd.
You could see the young stallions going, all right
baby, here we go.
Launch pad to the top.
So they're just waiting for this.
And he goes, four weeks ago, I walked my oldest daughter down
the aisle to give her hand in marriage.
He said, and as I was walking her down the aisle, I realized
I couldn't tell you what her favorite color is.
He goes, I realized I couldn't tell you her favorite book
that you ever read or any book that she ever read.
I couldn't tell you the last name of her best friend.
He goes, that's what it takes to do my job.
And if you want it, you could have it.
And what struck me about that was this--
here's a guy who was, no question, was
a captain of industry.
No question.
And yet he wasn't even a deckhand in his own life.
And he was-- it was a combination of frustration and
anger, but mostly at himself.
Because he let it get away from him.
He knew there were memories that he was never ever going
to get to make.
There was events in his life that he was not there for.
And you can't get them back.
Yeah, he's got cash.
He's got big, big houses, nice cars, private schools.
But he's got nothing.
And I've always believed--
to me, it didn't make sense to have to love either your work
life or love your home life.
I wanted to love my whole life.
So I figured out for me what the top ways are to drive
happiness and to be happy.
Because I believe that it's this equation is really the
other way around.
I believe it's personal well being the drives professional
well being.
I live that myself.
When I started to focus, when I was focusing on the
professional well begin, yeah, I was kicking it.
I was-- pisch!
Money was coming in.
Everything you would ever want, I had.
The problem was when I got home, what you want there, I
didn't have.
It cost me.
So I said, I got to fix this.
So I focused on personal well being.
And what I learned was this--
the happier you are in your life, the better you are in
every other aspect of your life.
And that includes work.
I was a smarter entrepreneur.
I worked better.
I was happier.
I had more fun.
I was more successful--
all that stuff because I focused on
personal well being.
I put that first.
So let's talk more about that.
You're very lucky to be here at Google.
You are.
Because Google, I can see just by the short time I've been on
the campus, values its people.
Now, let's be honest--
they get their pound of flesh too.
OK?
It's not a secret why they want you to stay 12 hours a
day and have dinner and everything else.
Because you go and bang out some more work.
I get it.
But it's all right.
It's OK.
That's fine.
I'm all for that.
As long as you're happy, right?
But, to me, it's what happens when you leave here.
Now you look at this.
I'll walk through this with you.
But this is the landscape outside of Google.
"Some companies believe we can ignore the deep realities of
human existence.
We can pretend that emotions are not
part of our work lives.
We can pretend we don't have families or health crisis or
deep worries.
In essence, companies want to take the complexity of human
life and organize it away.
It's not part of the story we want to believe.
People can be viewed as machines and controlled to
perform with the same efficiency and predictability.
And in our machine organizations, we try to
extinguish individuality in order to
reach our goal of certainty.
We trade uniqueness for control and barter our
humanness for petty performance measures."
It's interesting.
You look at some of these experiential companies that
rely on the customer experience,
for instance, airlines.
What was it?
Marriott?
No.
Ritz Carlton.
Singapore Airlines.
And there's another chain that wanted--
they invested $6 million to teach people how to be
themselves.
You wonder where did the wheels come
off the cart there?
At what point did they say, no, don't be you because
nobody likes you.
So be something else.
Where did they gum up the gears?
It's because some of these companies try to do force fit
these people into these molds.
They want-- but they hire these wonderfully gifted and
talented people.
And then they force them into this mold-- say, listen, when
a customer says this, you say that.
When they say this, you say this.
You say that.
And that's how it goes.
And you get rid of this individual freedom that makes
people great.
So bringing humanity back to the business is a huge issue
for many companies out there.
Now you look at the landscape of the people.
Interesting enough, American Psychology Association-- "48%
of employees say their employers don't value good
work life balance." Some, I know, don't.
I've been there.
I've seen it.
Some pretend.
They put nice posters in a lunchroom.
And it looks good for the profit sharing plan and the
annual report.
You have to get in underneath the sea what's
really going on.
But this is a really huge issue.
So here's what people are valuing--
well being of their families, and
themselves, outside of work.
And yet many of them don't believe the
companies feel the same.
The Aspen Institute--
61% of the people surveyed there said they're not living
the American dream.
75% think it's broken.
70% of the people, and this is out of the Families and Work
Life Institute said they would trade promotions and pay
increases for family well being.
Over 70% of Americans over the age of 30
get no regular exercise.
And only 14% take vacations of two weeks or longer.
Now you think, oh, that's crazy.
No, it isn't crazy.
That's what's going on.
I find people put more time into the planning their
vacation than they do planning their life.
It boggles my mind.
Why is that?
In Europe, you would never see a 14 day vacation.
If you said 14 days, you would have a revolution.
OK?
So here are what I see as some tremendous life limiters.
These are things that bring us back and bring us down.
Regret over the past--
worrying about what happened that you can't change anymore.
Regret over the past-- oh, should of done this.
Should have done-- oh, if I'd only done that.
You've got that go.
Resentment and envy in the present--
resentment and envy are the two emotions that it's been
medically proven will literally dissolve or
eradicate your immune system.
They are physically unhealthy emotions for you.
And fear the future--
fear of the future is a big one.
It's why we don't do things.
It's why we don't roll the dice.
It's why we don't take chances.
It's interesting.
As we've evolved over the last one and a half million years
our brains have developed a capacity to simulate outcomes.
We can simulate outcomes.
Our ancestors could not simulate outcomes.
They would have to look at a fire go, yeah,
that's pretty hot.
My foot's burning.
We can go, yeah, no.
It makes sense.
We'd better stay away from that.
We can simulate.
But the problem is, even though that's a beautiful gift
to have, the problem is when we simulate outcomes in our
mind, we usually make them more negative than they are.
So we don't do things.
We think they're going to be worse than they really are.
I don't know you've ever done things, and you said, well, I
never thought I could run a 5K.
And then you do.
And you go, whoa, can't believe I did that.
So that's just one of the things that we do.
So fear of the future is a huge, huge issue.
And it is a major life limiter.
Now, the science of happiness--
Let me talk about this.
Because when I used to think about-- well, because I used
to do talks--
and business talks, value creation.
One of the businesses I owned was sales training, high-end
sales training company.
We used to do all the sales training for the top companies
all over the world.
And I used to think about, OK, well how did I not focus on
life worth?
How did I turn this corner?
And people would ask me that.
And I would tell them, this is what I've experienced.
And this is what I know the leads to a great life.
But then they'd say, well, what's the science behind it?
And it really stumped me.
So I went and I did some research on the
science behind it.
And here's what I know about happiness--
we have the capability.
The other thing that our minds have evolved into is allowing
us to have the capability to synthesize
happiness in our minds.
And this comes out of Harvard University.
There's two forms of happiness.
There's natural happiness.
You're happy when you get what you want.
OK?
Fair statement.
But then there's synthetic or synthesized happiness, where
you're happy when you don't get what you want.
That's a big deal.
It gives us the ability-- and I'll show you.
It allows us-- this one thing allows us the ability to take
situations that aren't very pleasant or are negative and
turn them, in our minds, into a situation that are OK.
I'll give an example.
Another study, I think was out of Villanova, where they
looked at an individual who won a $200 million lottery and
individual became a paraplegic.
And they said, which do you think had the happier outcome?
Well, it's pretty obvious.
You might say, well, of course, the lottery winner.
But the truth be told, at the end of 12 months, they went
and measured the happiness of each one.
There was absolutely no statistical difference in the
happiness between the paraplegic
of the lottery winner.
None.
Because that's the skill we have.
It's almost like a psychological immune system we
have in our head, where we can take situations, and we could
make the best of them regardless.
I was at the X-Games for the paraplegics.
This guy was doing the downhill slalom.
And I asked him.
I was fascinated.
This guy was unbelievable.
And he was going downhill in the giant slalom skiing.
I got to talk him.
And he turned to me, and he said, my life is better than
your best vacation.
And you know what?
And he meant it.
And you could look at this guy and say, how could that be?
But in his mind, there was not even a question.
And I said, well, well why can't
everybody feel like that.
And the answer is, we can.
We all have this capability in our head.
The key is some activate it better than others.
So I'm activate a better than others.
Sometimes it takes a significant emotional event in
our life to really ground us and say, what
am I thinking about?
I'm worrying about all these things.
And these things aren't important at all.
So when you look at the science of happiness, you look
at it like this.
50% of your happiness is a set point.
It's like when you're born.
You have green eyes.
You have brown eyes.
You have blue eyes.
Done.
I mean that's it.
Boom.
10% percent of your happiness is circumstantial.
But 40% of your happiness is derived
from intentional activity.
In other words, there are literally things you can do to
be happier.
And why you wouldn't want to be happier is beyond me.
But there are things you can do.
People want to be happier.
But sometimes they don't know how.
So here is what I know to be true.
These are my 10 points of life.
These are the things I know and research supports will
absolutely maximize joy and contentment in your life.
Now I'm going to go into the ones that are highlighted in
red more deeply.
But I'll cover them.
And I'll just touch on these for time issues.
But money doesn't make you rich.
Expressing gratitude matters.
Good goes around.
Practicing the art of savoring.
The power of perspective.
That literally saved my life.
I have to tell you.
The belief in something bigger than you.
Life is fun.
And fun is good.
Relationship refinement, thinning the herd.
We'll talk about that.
And being your authentic self.
And then, preparing a last lecture for your family.
Now let me just touch on the ones that aren't highlighted.
Gratitude matters.
Gratitude is one of the single most important things that
contribute to one's happiness--
going and being grateful for what you have.
I don't know this, but sometimes we can take for
granted things that we have that we should
never take for granted.
But because we have them, we just overlook them because
they're part of our lives.
I always.
I'm a big believer in thank-you notes, a huge
believer in thank-you notes.
And I mean handwritten, not the electronic ones.
I know that's a--
to me, that's like a drive-through
window kind of thing.
I like the handwritten written notes I make a point the write
handwritten notes thanking people for just doing
something that mattered to me.
And you know what?
It takes me five minutes or less and the cost of a stamp.
And they keep it forever.
I literally have boxes of thank you
cards that I've received.
And I look at them when I feel crappy.
I read them.
It's such a little thing to do.
But it's such a huge thing do.
And I make that a point.
All my kids have thank you cards.
Everybody has thank you cards.
That's what we do.
Now, believing in something bigger than you--
I'm not try to make a spiritual comment here.
But people want to be part of something bigger than
themselves.
My suspicion is that's probably a big part of why
people join Google.
You're part of something bigger than you, something
that really is changing things.
That's a big thing.
But on the other hand, on the life side, I hate to say this,
but bad things happen to good people.
Adversity plays no favorites.
And adversity finds us all.
You will not miss it.
It will come to you, if it has not already.
And these things can be big--
death, loss of a loved one, financial ruin, addictions,
victim of a crime, disabling accident.
These things are huge.
And I believe they're so much bigger than us.
So it's important for me, I think, to believe in something
bigger than you.
Because these things will crush you if you
try to stand alone.
And the truth be told, we need and adversity in our lives.
We need it.
Because it's the only way you could find out
who you really are.
Look, anyone can be a rock star when life is perfect.
But when life isn't so perfect, then the
real you shows up.
That's how you find out who you are.
You can either be a camper, a climber, or quitter when it
comes with adversity, if you were to use a mountain
climbing analogy.
Some people just quit in the face of adversity.
Some people camp, hole up, cover themselves up, hoping
everything blows away.
And some people climb.
But we need adversity in our lives.
I can tell you.
When my father passed away- and my father
and I were very close.
And he had brain cancer.
And I was in the hospital room with him, and--
I was CEO of my own company.
I graduated from the best business schools.
I had lectured at the best business schools.
I had money.
I had contacts I had juice.
But let me tell you something.
I was so far out of my league on this one.
I can't even describe the feeling of complete and abject
helplessness fine had watching my father die.
And I could do nothing about it.
Nothing.
And if I didn't believe that there was some, something
bigger at play in that room, I don't know how I would have
gotten through that.
It still is a tough thing.
But I'm a big believer that believing in something bigger
than you will put you in a position to come out OK on
life's adversities that you will get handed.
Being your authentic self--
when I first left--
I left AT&T. And I started my own business.
It's pretty scary, right?
I was a single income.
I had a wife.
And I three small kids.
If I failed, we didn't eat.
Fear is a great motivator.
If I failed, we didn't have a house to live in.
Failure was not an option for me.
So when I went into this consulting business--
I don't know what I was thinking.
Maybe I was stupid.
I don't know.
Actually, my first desk was my six-year-old son's Play-Doh
Playskool desk in my basement.
And I had the little laptop on it.
I look like Schroeder from Peanuts.
And when customers would call me, I didn't want them to
think I'm working under basement on a Play-Doh desk.
Who wants to put their sales strategy in the hands of a guy
that's got his desk near the canned pickles
, down in the basement.
So I remember, I would answer the phone.
And I'm thinking, I don't know, consultants they have
high office buildings with ceiling to floor windows.
And they're over the park.
So I've got to act that way.
So when someone would call, and I would pick up the phone,
and my dog would bark.
And would go nuts.
I'd go, ah!
And they'd go, was that a dog?
And of course, I'm thinking.
Well, I won't tell them I have a dog.
Consultants don't have dogs.
They don't like mammals.
They're not human.
So I go, oh yeah, it's a dog.
I'm at the animal research center at Pfizer.
I made stuff up just because I didn't want them to think I'm
in my basement.
And what was interesting to me was after my business became
really successful, I decided to just be me.
As frightening as that is, I decided to just be me.
Because I didn't care.
I didn't need business.
I was good.
So when they would call, and the dog would bark, they'd go,
hey, is that a dog?
I'd go, yeah, it's a dog.
I have two.
They're miniature long-haired dachshunds.
They're idiots.
They'd go, oh, I have a dachshund, too, and
that dog's an idiot.
So what I found was being myself--
not only did it eliminate the stress of wearing someone
else's face--
it was so liberating for me.
And in life, it's all about how you show up anyway.
So that was a lesson that I had learned.
People like authenticity.
People like that.
Customers like it.
Everybody likes authentic.
And then last thing is preparing a last lecture for
your family.
This comes from a concept called ethical wills and was
around a long time before Dr. Randy Pausch of Carnegie
Mellon made it popular.
You may have seen that video.
And he called it a last lecture.
I had--
I think it's a good thing to do.
I did that for my son when he graduated from college.
I wrote--
because people--
you have wills to divide up your stuff.
But as a parent, I don't want my kids guessing who I really
was, what I believed, what I valued, what mattered to me,
what I think is important in life.
Because you can't always flip the cards on the table.
You got to show-- you got to be a dad sometimes.
So I wrote an ethical will about what I valued.
And I give them that as a graduation gift.
And actually, believe it or not, it's printed as I gave it
to him in the book, and he still has it to this day.
These are some of the 10 points of life
I believe are important.
But now I'll go into the ones that are more highlighted.
Money doesn't make you rich.
Life worth versus net worth.
Here's what I would tell you about that.
And let me be clear about what I'm not saying.
What I'm not saying is, don't work hard.
Not saying that.
I worked hard.
And I still work hard when I want to work.
But what I'm saying is, don't focus on net worth at the
expense of life worth.
And many people do that.
Many people do that.
I know people with tremendously high net worths
that I would consider miserable
failures as human beings.
And yet I know people that barely make ends meet, are
barely paying their bills, and they're some of the most happy
and successful people I know.
What I found when I lectured to talked a lot of executives
is net worth can be a very intoxicating spin cycle,
especially when you start seeing in the
money roll, the bonuses.
Ah, maybe I'll stay one more year.
Maybe I'll do it.
And it can get you.
Now if you're in the early phases of your career.
And you're just starting out.
And you got enough money to make to get things, then, yes,
of course you focus on that.
But there will be a time in your life when you will have
to choose which governs which.
And I'm telling you the only reason you care about net
worth that all is to underwrite life worth.
But sometimes we forget.
I had a friend of mine who was talking to
this other guy who--
he was a millionaire.
And he was chirping a little bit.
He was going, yeah, I have this.
I have that.
I have this.
And my friend, who wasn't a millionaire,
was a regular guy.
He goes, yeah, let me tell something.
I have something you'll never have.
He goes, what's that?
He goes, I have enough.
And the guy just stopped in his tracks.
And you know what?
It was a perfect answer.
But that's that hardest thing for people to figure out.
When do you know you've had enough.
See when I learned what really mattered in life
and focused on that.
And that happiness helped me even more, professionally.
It was when I had nothing.
I had nothing when I started out.
Then I had something.
That I lost my family because I was a workaholic, unlike now
where I'm a workafrolic.
OK?
And then I had nothing again.
But that was the most important lesson I learned.
And you're going to hear many CEOs come in and tell you they
lost their families.
They got divorced.
They're not going to tell you this.
They're going to tell you everything's great.
But everything isn't great.
I've seen them.
I learned the most important thing.
And that was, when I had nothing, I learned how to be
happy without anything.
And that was the most important.
I learned what I did not need to be happy.
I was perfectly happy that I didn't have a cool car.
I could get around.
But that forced me to
understand what really mattered.
Life worth versus net worth.
Very, very important piece.
And when you come to terms with what matters most to you,
and put the priority right spot, it's a big thing.
Now this is the only trick I know.
I'm a old guy.
This is the only trick I know, so bear with me.
No, you don't have vertigo.
It is just my technological savvy shining through.
But here's what I want to tell you.
This is true.
People start to live the most after they have faced death.
And I want play for you a short video so you can--
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
[APPLAUSE]
-Imagine a big explosion as you climb through 3,000 feet.
Imagine a plane full of smoke.
Imagine an engine going clack, clack, clack, clack, clack,
clack, clack.
Sounds scary.
Well I had a unique seat that day.
I was sitting in 1D.
I was the only one who could talk to the flight attendants.
So I looked at them right away.
And they said, no problem.
We probably hit some birds.
The pilot had already turned the plane around.
And we weren't that far.
You could see Manhattan.
Two minutes later, three things
happened at the same time.
The pilot lines up the plane with the Hudson River.
It's usually not the route.
[LAUGHTER]
-He turns off the engines.
Now imagine being on the plane with no sound.
And then he says three words, unemotional three words that I
have ever heard.
He says, brace for impact.
I didn't have to talk to the flight attendant anymore.
[LAUGHTER]
-I could see it in her eyes.
It was terror.
Life was over.
I want to share with you three things I learned
about myself that day.
I learned that it all changes in an instant.
We have this bucket list.
We have these things we want to do in life.
I thought about all the people wanted to
reach out that I didn't.
All the fences I wanted to mend.
All the experiences I wanted to had, and I never did.
As I thought about that, later on, I came up with a saying,
which is, I collect bad wines.
Because if the wine is ready and the person there, I'm
opening it.
I no longer want to postpone anything in life.
And that urgency, that purpose, has
really changed my life.
The second thing I learned that day--
and this as we clear the George Washington Bridge,
which was by not a lot--
I thought about, wow, I really feel one real regret.
I've lived a good life.
In my own humanity and mistakes, I've tried to get
better at everything I try.
But in my humanity, I also allow my ego to get in.
And I regretted the time I wasted in things that did not
matter with people that matter.
I thought about my relationship with my wife,
with my friends, with people.
And after, as I reflected on that, I decided to eliminate
negative energy from my life.
It's not perfect.
It's a lot better.
I've not had a fight with my wife in two years.
It feels great.
I no longer trying to be right.
I choose to be happy.
The third thing I learned, and this is as your mental clock
starts going 15, 14, 13.
You could see the water coming.
I'm saying, please blow up.
I don't want this thing to break in 20 pieces like you've
seen in those documentaries.
And as we're coming down.
I had a sense of, wow, dying is not scary.
It's almost like we've been preparing for
it our whole lives.
But it was very sad.
I didn't want to go.
I love my life.
And that sadness really framed in one thought, which is, I
only wish for one thing--
I only wish I could see my kids grow up.
About a month later I was in the performance by my
daughter, first grader, not much artistic talent--
yet.
And I'm bawling.
I'm crying.
like a little kid.
And it made all the sense in the world to me.
I realize, at that point, by connecting those two dots,
that the only thing that matters in my life is
being a great dad.
Above all.
Above all, the only goal I have in life is
to be a good dad.
I was given the gift of a miracle of not dying that day.
I was given another gift, which was to be able to see
into the future and come back and live differently.
I challenge you guys that are flying today, imagine the same
thing happens on your plane.
And please don't.
But imagine.
And how would you change?
What would you get done that you're waiting to get done
because you think you'll be here forever?
How would you change your relationships and the negative
energy in them?
And more than anything, are you being the
best parent you can?
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[END VIDEO PLAYBACK]
GARY KUNATH: Puts things in perspective.
In fact, it was interesting.
Steve Jobs said remembering that you will eventually die
is the most important tool you'll ever have to make those
big decisions in life.
All fear of failure, pride, and enormity of risk, fall
away in the face of death.
The things I used to think were such big deals, they
weren't big deals.
When I walk through a children's cancer ward, I'm
ashamed of what I thought was a big deal or
what bothered me.
My son, who's your age, works in the medical field.
He's in surgeries.
He had--
he was in a surgery.
And it was a simple bowel re-section.
I don't know how they are but--
and earlier in the week, he had called me in sales.
He goes, Dad, I'm really trying to figure out how to
make my sales quota, how to make my sales numbers.
I used to run a sales training company.
So that was an obvious area that I knew about, which I
also though was funny.
Because when we lived at home, he wasn't worried about making
anything, including his bed.
So I thought this was really a very unique
conversation for him.
Now he's worried about making something.
And he was really upset by it.
And [INAUDIBLE]
hindsight.
I'm not saying it was unimportant.
But don't lose sleep over it.
It's not that important.
Of course, I can't tell him.
Some things you just have to experience before you get it.
I can tell you, but it won't register until you live it.
And so we talked about that.
We agreed we talk at the end of the week.
And the end of the week came.
And I sensed there was a difference in his voice.
And I said, what's--
tell me about what happened today?
What was your day like?
He said we came out of surgery today, Dad.
He goes, there was a guy in there.
He's 32 years old.
He was in for a simple operation, should have a been
boom, in and out.
They opened him up.
He was covered with cancer.
He said, Dad, his wife is in the waiting room.
She had two little kids.
She doesn't know that her husband has a
month, maybe less.
And he doesn't know either.
And he goes, Dad, I have two little kids.
That guy's my age.
And I said, well, what you learn from that?
He goes maybe my sales objectives
aren't that big a deal.
And again, I'm not saying work is unimportant.
But I'm saying the power of perspective will save you.
It saved me.
The things I thought had to be done.
They didn't have to be done.
They could have waited a day.
I didn't have to miss a birthday
party to do those things.
Are you kidding me?
Never again.
Just to give you some perspective, this is an
interesting calculation.
Because I know you're young, think you're bullet proof,
think you're going to live forever.
Think you got an inordinate amount of Saturdays left.
Check this out.
Multiply your age by 365, subtract that from 27,375,
which is on average the days in a lifespan of 75 years.
And what you get is the number of days you have
left to wake up.
Now, since I'm older then you--
see here's how you know--
here's how I knew I was getting older--
when I went into a music store and everything I like is $1.
[LAUGHTER]
GARY KUNATH: And I also know I'm getting older, when I call
it a music store.
That's another way I know I'm getting older.
But--
50 years old.
Here's the math.
I've broke it down.
That's 1,300 Saturdays.
When you think about it like that, you don't
want to blow a Saturday.
And let me tell you something.
That's if you make 75.
You may not.
One of the businesses that I'm in is I own professional
baseball teams.
I don't know if you saw that in the bio, but I do.
We had opening day at one of my teams in Brockton,
Massachusetts, the Brockton Rocks.
And in the office, at the end of the game, our mascot--
We had a kangaroo for a mascot.
Don 't ask me why.
Maybe we got a cheap deal on a kangaroo outfit.
I'm not sure why we have a kangaroo and what that has to
do with rocks.
But anyway--
So he comes out.
And he's got a Syracuse University t-shirt on.
And I hadn't met him yet.
And so I go, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Get over here.
I said, what's the deal the Syracuse?
He goes, well, I went to Syracuse.
I go, I went to Syracuse.
He goes, well, I was the mascot at Syracuse.
He goes, I was the orange.
He goes I was Otto the Orange.
I go, I love Otto the Orange.
So we had a great, great time.
This kid was 26 years old.
And we had the best time.
What a delightful guy.
We had a wild time.
And we took a picture.
I was so enamored with this guy, we took a picture of he
and I in the front office.
Seven months later, he died of leukemia--
26 years old.
He didn't know we had it.
I didn't know he had it.
His parents didn't know he had it.
Gone.
26 years old.
I keep . that picture in my home for two reasons.
One, I never want to forget this kid.
Because he was such a vibrant life force.
And two, I never want to forget that can
go away like this.
It could be all gone in a day.
You're life can change in a second.
And I don't want miss one second of life.
Top five regrets of the dying.
This was compiled by 2000 hospice nurses.
Here's what the dying said.
I wished I had courage to live a life true to myself, not the
life expected of me.
I wished I hadn't worked so hard.
I wished I had the courage to express my true feelings.
I wished I had stayed in touch with my friends.
And this last one kills me, I wished I
let myself be happier.
Top five of people dying.
They can't have I do over.
Why?
Why must it be then when this comes to your mind?
That's what made me on a mission to say, don't let that
happen to you.
Good goes around--
another point of life.
I'm a big believer.
Being a better giver makes you better getter, as long as you
don't give to get.
I believe that with all my heart.
I've experienced that.
One of my businesses now is highly philanthropic, where
every 10 years our goal is to give a billion dollars to
cause related charities.
Being a better giver makes you a better getter, as long as
you don't give to get.
Here's how I know that to be true.
When I was first starting my first business, The Summit
Group, which was the sales training.
And I was looking for that big hat.
In my neighborhood, I would run to blow off the steam.
And I would pass this woman.
And we'd just say, hi.
Hi.
And go about our business.
And then one day, I got knock on my door.
And I opened the door.
And it was her.
And she was just as surprised to see that I lived there as I
was to see that she's knocking on my door.
And I go, what's up?
She goes, well, I'm collecting for my
neighbor, whose son has--
he's eight years old.
He has leukemia.
And they're taking him for treatment at Boston.
And they don't have enough money for them to stay with
their son during this treatment period.
So I'm running to raise money in donations.
And I'm telling you.
I don't know what made me do this.
To this day, I don't know what made me do this.
I just looked at her, and I said, well,
how much do you need?
And she told me.
And I said, wait here.
And I went in and I came back with a check for the entire
amount, handed it to her.
And I got a call from the kid's parents that night.
It was a call I'll never forget-- crying.
They couldn't believe a stranger had
done this for them.
It was a call I'll never forget.
But the real part of the story that is amazing to me is, as
I'm trying to build this business, I need this one big
hit to get going.
About 30 maybe 45 days later, I get a call.
It's from the director of training at Southern
California Edison.
And she's talking about sales training.
So we had a conversation for 45 minutes on sales training.
At the end of the conversation, she goes so this
is the ABC Company, right?
And I go, no, this is the Summit Group.
So goes, I was calling ABC Company.
I go, well--
So now I'm thinking, ugh.
She goes, I must have dialed the wrong number.
She goes, but it doesn't matter.
Because, you know what?
What you talked about, I really liked.
That turned into a seven figure contract for me.
That launched my business at Summit Group.
You can't tell me those things aren't related.
What are the odds of that?
What are the odds of her not even saying, is this the
Summit Group up front in our conversation?
Because if she had said, that would have said--
or is this ABC company, I'd have said, no.
That'd have been it.
She'd have hung up and redialed.
Where are the odds of that?
Good does go around.
In fact, I'd don't know if you saw this.
This was just recent, where a woman was shopping and had a
bumper sticker saluting her husband, who was over in
Afghanistan serving.
She came back to her car.
This a note was taped to her windshield
along with 40 dollars.
And it said, I noticed the sticker on the
back of your car.
Take your hero out to dinner when he comes home.
Thank you both for serving, him deployed and you for
waiting, United States veteran, God bless.
That had like two million hits in about six hours.
That's how good goes around.
I'm a big believer in that.
Practicing the art of savoring--
one of the things that I do every day is I
take time to read.
I'll look at the stars.
I'll just sit and look at the stars.
I'll watch the birds.
My father used to do that.
I'd go, oh man.
Now I'm my father, right?
Now I'm watching birds.
But I just do it.
Because it's easy.
And I take pleasure in the senses.
I stop and smell fresh cut grass.
I smell a flower on the way.
I don't let a second go by.
There was a guy in the Booneville Hotel, up in
Bonneville, New York.
I have a place not far from there.
And he used to come in every night.
And every night, he would order bourbon.
And he was a great guy.
His wife who this guy loved passionately had passed away
several years back.
And he never really got over it.
They used to go out dancing all the time.
He would love to dance.
And I would talk to this guy.
He was a delightful guy.
But then they would come a point in the evening were he
would turn and go to the jukebox.
And that was my cue to give him a space.
He would play one song, L7.
And it was "Harvest Moon" by Neil Young.
And he would go back, and he'd sit in his chair.
And his eyes would close.
And his head would do this.
And he physically was there but wasn't there.
He was mentally transported.
And he was dancing with his wife, I am sure.
And he was zoned out.
And it was such an unbelievably beautiful thing
to see, to watch him do that, and to see every single note
of that song.
He soaked it in, like it was gold.
And he did that every night.
And it's interesting.
Poor guy passed away this year.
And I actually, evenings at my lake house,
I'll play Neil Young.
And I'll do one of these.
Because I know he's the dancing.
So that's what I do.
But time flies very fast.
I remember exactly being your age, exactly.
And it blows by like you wouldn't believe.
And the older you get, the faster it goes.
I know maybe your parents say that.
I look at you--
on average, most of you are much younger than me.
The three greatest gifts you can give your family.
And they're free.
They're budget friendly.
Whether Google gives you a 10% bonus or not, you could still
afford these--
time, memories, and tradition.
The three greatest gifts.
Give your family your time.
Time to know you.
Time to enjoy you.
As I said earlier, I thought, oh, I'd better get them brand
name sneakers and all that.
No, no, no--
they want you.
They want you.
Memories--
memories, to me, are the most powerful life force we have
available to us.
When you think about it, memories have kept prisoners
of war alive.
Memories have brought families together when
they were miles apart.
They've helped heal the sick.
They've sped up recovery times.
Memories are a powerful tool.
And frankly, in the end, members are
all you'll ever have.
It's not your money.
It's not your big houses, not your nice, designer clothes.
Because when you die, everything goes back in the
box, including you.
So memories--
please make, please make memories a top priority.
If you have great memories, you will always have a place
to go when times are tough.
And the last is tradition.
Give your family something that lives on long after you.
Maybe, your parents have done that for you.
That's three greatest gifts you can give to
your family, I believe.
Now life is fun, and fun is good.
I can tell you right now.
I don't do anything anymore that's not fun.
I just won't do it.
And if I can make it fun, I don't do it.
If this not fun, or I can't make it fun, I'm out.
Focker out.
OK.
So we run our baseball teams.
This is our--
we just have been approached by a reality show on how we
run our business-- like we need another one of those.
A reality show, the want to do a reality show on how we run
our baseball teams.
Because we're very famous for how we run our baseball teams.
We're very successful.
Our baseball team's in the top 10 best service companies in
North America.
We've sold every ticket to every game for the
last 12 to 13 years.
Most of people who started with us are still there.
And believe me, we don't give them Google salaries.
And when they came in and said, well, how you it?
How do you do this?
They said, let's see your strategy.
Where's you're 10 year strategy?
I go, strategy?
We hand them a piece of paper that says--
They go, how do you do--
We hand them a piece of paper that says, fun is good.
The go, that's it?
Yeah, if it was any more than that.
It wouldn't be fun I'm not going to write more than that.
So we're famous for our promotions.
Here are some of the ones we have done.
Some of them need explanation, I'll grant you that.
Nobody night.
Charleston, South Carolina.
We went for the lowest attendance in the history
professional sports--
not something most professional organizations
shoot for but one of our folks said, hey, why don't we go for
the lowest attendance in history of
professional sports.
We looked at up in Guinness Book of World Records.
The current record was four.
Must have been the old Atlanta Hawks.
I'm not sure.
But--
so we decided to pick a game.
And we didn't tell the fans.
They just showed up.
And we locked all the stadium doors.
They couldn't get in.
But outside we had bands and carnival-like atmosphere.
And we had the Cooperstown Baseball
Hall of Fame was there.
ESPN was there.
It was all over the wire.
And at the end of the fifth inning, we let them in.
And now we have the lowest attendance in the history of
professional sports.
We have zero and we're quite proud of that.
Vasectomy, not on Father's Day, Night--
We weren't really going to do that.
It was just a joke.
But unfortunately it got carried by the UPI.
And people started--
I mean it really got some legs.
And just, phew.
Everybody was--
every major news network was on it.
So we're going, do I think we should get a
urologist at the game?
You know some nut's going to have a bag of nachos and
probably a bratwurst and say, I had big beer, and I'll have
a vasectomy while I'm here.
So we actually pulled that.
Mime Night, we did.
We did that in Brockton because the umpires decided
that we could no longer so controversial plays on the big
scoreboard.
So people liked controversial plays.
So we said, well, how are we going to do it?
So we decided to hire mimes to reenact plays
on the dug-out roof.
Because nobody likes mimes.
And there's plenty of them.
So we got mimes.
And it was so funny.
Because this is Brockton.
Brockton's a tough town, the home of Marvelous Marvin
Haggler, the home of Rocky Marciano.
It's a tough town.
So this play goes on, and these mimes
start to reenact it.
They're going--
like this.
And you could see audience going, what?
And then finally, one guy stands up and flings a hot dog
and hits the mime right in the head.
And it was like a zillion light bulbs went on.
And they go, well, must be why they're there.
They're targets.
Within a second, 50,000 hot dogs started
flying out the stands.
We sold out of every hot dog in 20 minutes.
I'm not kidding you.
And after getting pelted for about five minutes, the mimes
were gestures to the audience that weren't very
mime-like, I might add.
Arthur Anderson Night--
When Arthur Anderson was having math
problems with the IRS--
they were under investigation for tax fraud.
We did a tribute Arthur Anderson that night.
For every ticket you bought for $8, we give you a receipt
for $30 for tax purposes, as a tribute to Arthur Andersen.
At every one of our stadiums we have a hot tub.
You can have a hot tub party, watch the ball game.
We have in St. Paul--
St. Paul Saints-- we have a 90 year old
nun that gives massages.
I know that sounds so wrong when I say that.
But it really does.
I get shivers.
But she's a licensed masseuse.
People love her.
We have a pig that delivers baseballs.
When the umpire needs a baseball, the pig comes out
center field with two saddle bags full of baseballs.
And he trots from center field all the to home plate.
And they give him a sugar treat, takes
the baseballs out.
And he trots all the way back.
But people go crazy.
They love it.
And then we just did Inflatable Bat Night,
sponsored by Viagra.
That seemed to go very, very well.
People enjoyed that.
But it's fun.
And that's why we do it.
Relationship Refinement--
couple last things here.
What I found to be very helpful in my life, especially
as I get older, I don't have time for people who waste my
time, people who suck the life force out of me.
There are energy gainers.
There are energy drainers, takers, and 1%ers.
Takers, unfortunately, there's a lot of.
1%ers are people care as much if not more about you as they
do themselves.
Energy gainers, I like hanging around.
They make me feel better about myself.
Energy drainers are people that just suck the life force
out of you.
You feel worse when they've been around you.
And I try to identify frenemies early.
I try to figure out who--
I don't want to waste my time.
So there's four things I look at when I decide who I'm going
to hang around, to try to read the tea leaves.
I look at four things.
One, I try to observe how people spend their money.
It tells me something about them.
People vote with their money.
Do they buy things or experiences?
Are they impulsive or thoughtful?
Are they buying in abundance or scarcity kind of mentality?
Then I look at their friends--
there's an old Sicilian saying, show me who you hang
around and I will show you who you are.
That tells me what kind of friendships they have--
transactional or unconditional, short
term or long term.
Then I look at how they speak of themselves.
That tells me at ton.
What's their operating model?
Are they humble?
Or are they boastful?
Do hold a grudge?
Or are they forgiving?
Do they give credit or take credit?
What's the balance of listening versus talking?
We used to have a neighbor.
My father never liked her.
He goes, she has two gears, talking and waiting to talk.
And so I says, that's a pretty good one, dad.
Anyway.
And then the last thing I look at is I observe how do they
treat people and things they don't need.
How do they treat kids, senior citizens,
relatives, service people?
How do they do that?
I was over at one acquaintance's house, and
their 12-year-old was acting up, was so rude at the table.
I couldn't believe it.
And the mother thought she needed to address it.
She goes, oh--
he even swore at table.
She goes, oh, that's our little Timmy.
He's very opinionated.
I go, little Timmy's is going to jail.
[LAUGHTER]
GARY KUNATH: You better fix him before he
robs me in 10 years.
So all I have to say is this--
you get what you accept in life.
And to me, happiness is the ultimate currency.
Those who wish to sing always find a song.
The two most important days in your life are the day you are
born and the day you discover why.
And life is like riding a 10-speed bike, most of us have
gears we've never used.
And the this next one came directly from Willie Nelson.
He told me this.
Doesn't matter how heavy something is, what matters is
how long you have to hold.
It I don't know what he meant.
It may have been a doobie.
I'm not sure what he was thinking about there.
Things that surprise me most about people.
We get bored with childhood.
We rush to grow up.
And then we long to become children again.
We lose our health to try to make money.
And then we lose our money to try to get back our health.
We live as it will never die.
And we die as though we've never lived.
And we don't understand that a rich person is not the one who
makes the most, but it's the one who needs the least.
The best things in life are not things.
And what I really want you to understand is, don't ever
forget why it is you do what you do.
I know you work hard.
You do.
I know.
But don't forget why you work hard.
The best definition, to me, success is applause at home.
And I'll end with this--
the eulogy.
I saw a man who stood to speak at the funeral of a friend.
He referred to the dates on the tombstone from the
beginning to the end.
He noted the first date was her birth.
And the second was when she passed.
He said, we never truly know just how
long lives might last.
Then he paused a bit, trying to fight back his tears.
And then he said, what truly matters, though, is the dash
between those years.
For that dash represents all the time we
spent alive on earth.
And only those who've loved you can know what that little
line is worth.
Then he said, it matters not how much we own, the cars, the
house, the cash.
What matters most is how we live and how we love and how
we spend that dash.
So think about this long and hard, are the things you'd
like to change.
For you never know how much time is left that can still be
rearranged.
So when your eulogy is read.
And your life's actions to rehash, would you be proud of
the things they say about how you spend your dash.
Thank you very much.
Let me turn it over to Ben.
You guys have been great to hang with me.
I know you guys-- you're running and
gunning all the time.
But thank you.
[APPLAUSE]