Chasing Truth: From Runaway Teen to Frontline Documentarian

Speaker A 00:05 Welcome to a thoughtful discussion of important ideas among people who are committed to succeeding in life. This is a gathering of leaders from a variety of industries, and our role here is to help you reach the top 1% of your field of choice. I'm Jim Cathcart, so come with me and let's discover how much more successful you could be. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Professional Experts Podcast. I'm sitting here laughing with my good friend and colleague Nikki McQuistion. This podcast is about professional expertise and how you can take what you're really good at and build a whole career around it if you want to. And what is it that professional experts do that's different from people who are not a particular expert? Or at least they're not highlighting their expertise as the thing that they're paid to do. Instead, they're selling a product or doing some service in a different way. Here's what makes us unique. We are we the listeners and producers of this program, typically authors, speakers, consultants, coaches, advisors, podcasters, people who are specialists in a particular craft, and that's what they're offering to the world. In other words, they, to a large extent, are the product of their company. So my guest today is, as you heard us laughing, Nikki McQuistion. Now, Nikki McQuistion, certified speaking professional. Certified professional expert from Cathcart Institute, number 29. The most recent as of this date. By the way, Nikki McQuistion has kind of a. You know, like on a general. You've got all these ribbons and awards and. And badges. Medals. That's the word I was looking for. Well, that's. That's the way you describe Nikki. So she is a television producer of a PBS television show that's been on the air 35 years. Wow. She is a professional speaker and a certified professional speaker. In fact, she interviews other professional speakers to teach professional speakers about anyone professional speaking. She's a world traveler. And I mean world traveler. We'll get into that. She's an investigative journalist. She is a deep thinker, one of the deepest thinkers I know, and a dear friend. So with that introduction, I would like you to meet my friend and colleague, Nikki McQuistion. Jim Cathcart 02:56 What a pleasure being here with you, Jim. You and I go back at least 35 years. Speaker A 03:02 Oh, at least, yeah. Maybe 36. Jim Cathcart 03:07 I first met you at the first NSA. I don't remember if it was the workshop or the annual convention. The national was in New Orleans. Speaker A 03:17 Ah, 1980. Jim Cathcart 03:19 Is that what it was? Speaker A 03:20 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 03:22 Bill Wexler, Tony Alessandra. Speaker A 03:24 I was part of the team. Jim Cathcart 03:26 Okay. Speaker A 03:27 I got elected to the board of directors. Jim Cathcart 03:29 They were on stage, and you were sitting in the hallway looking very pensive. And my not knowing that you don't talk to strangers, because I always do. I introduced myself. I don't wait, yeah, what do you do, etc. Etc. And we've become fast friends since it Speaker A 03:49 turned out we both lived in San Diego at the time. Jim Cathcart 03:51 Right. Because I was on the board of the chapter. You were as well. And I think I've been to quite a few programs of yours when you were doing assessments and leadership. And now the 29th certified professional expert. Speaker A 04:09 Absolutely. Jim Cathcart 04:09 It is a pleasure. Speaker A 04:11 Thank you. Well, you've upgraded the list, that's for sure. What I want to do is kind of explore your unique example. A day or year or decade in the life of a professional expert. The people who are viewing this program and listening to it on the. On the podcast, a lot of them are considering becoming a professional expert. Some of them already are. Some of them are widely published and well known. So we've got the entire spectrum as our audience today. But I want them to see yet another example of what is a professional expert, and what are all the variables, the moving parts in this field that you and I share. So when. When you started out in your young adulthood, or even in your youth, what did you aspire to? What did you think you were going to do when you grew up? And how did. How did things evolve over time? Jim Cathcart 05:10 Good. Good question. I'd like to go back quite a ways. Ever since I was a little girl, we would visit Grandma. Now, my family is from Spain and Portugal and Puerto Rico. Mm. So had relatives just scattered all over the place. But my. My favorite vacation was going to visit grandma and all the uncles and aunties that lived in this big kind of colonial house with a balcony and rocking chairs in Puerto Rico. And I spent a year at school there, my eighth grade. And possibly the biggest influence in my life was my Uncle Jerry. Jerry was a journalist. He was the editor of the local newspaper. And the town of Ponce is a fairly large town with quite a few colleges. It was, at that time, a good sports team. And I would come home from school, backtrack, because I spent the winter of my second grade there, the winter of my fourth grade there, and my eighth grade there. Speaker A 06:25 Now, where were you living when it was not Puerto Rico? Jim Cathcart 06:29 New York City. Speaker A 06:30 Yeah. Which is a real good explanation for why you spent the winter there. Jim Cathcart 06:37 Well, nothing to do with me. That's what Mama wanted. You know, we lived right near Central Park, 57th and 2nd. And so my favorite thing to do from the time I think I was four or five was walk through the park to get to the Museum of Natural History. But fast forward, because I'd come home from school and I was special. All of the cousins and aunties and uncles ate in the kitchen. Your main meal was at noon. I ate in the kitchen, but I sat in the dining room. Speaker A 07:15 Jerry la dee da. Jim Cathcart 07:17 Because I was visiting, right? Speaker A 07:19 Yep. Jim Cathcart 07:20 And he'd ask me, and I still think that way. He'd ask me, what did you learn today? Pause. And I explained. He said, and how are you going to use that? Speaker A 07:38 There's a question most people never get asked. Jim Cathcart 07:41 I learned from him. Maybe I innately have it, but it built in me a sense of curiosity. And as you know, I ask all kinds of impertinent questions. So fast forward, keep going. Because I knew skill you have. I knew that I was going to grow up to be a journalist. Now we're going way back in time. The Daily News had a cartoon. It was a wonderful magazine almost, but it was cartoons. And I'd run down and I'd get the Sunday paper first while everyone was still a bed. And I take out the comics and I read the comics. The one I liked, about the only one I really looked at, well, two of them. Dick Tracy and Brenda Starr. Speaker A 08:33 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 08:34 Gal reporter. I was hooked. I knew that I was going to be Brenda Starr. Never mind that she was six feet tall with red hair. And I'll buy four. Don't qualify at all. But that kind of built in me, the curiosity to find out how people tick, what makes them work, what is their vision, their mission, what makes them unique. Because people are fascinating. Speaker A 09:05 Indeed. Jim Cathcart 09:07 At age 16, I ran away from home. You probably don't know that many people don't ran away from home. And I had my own passport. I had some money back then, you didn't need a credit card. Speaker A 09:26 Oh, that's right. You had a passport because of Puerto Rico, right? Jim Cathcart 09:29 Well, no, Puerto Rico doesn't need a passport, but other places do because it's a. It's a commonwealth. Speaker A 09:35 But it. But it is definitely rare for a young person to have a passport, right? Yeah. Jim Cathcart 09:40 And I took myself down to the airport. Over to the airport, on the subway, Necros tent, packed one little bag, left a note from my parents and said, don't worry about me, I'm going to France. Because that's where my boyfriend was. My high school sweetheart joined the military. And I thought, oh, I really miss him. What an adventure. So I landed in France thinking, as your parents might. Speaker A 10:16 I can imagine the panic at home. What? Jim Cathcart 10:19 No, I left them a note. Speaker A 10:21 I left them a note. Jim Cathcart 10:22 And that opened up another whole world. It was Verdun, France, which is the Maginot line. You know, the Germans and the French always at war there, et cetera. That opened up another opportunity to really learn and explore. Mm. And I think those were the bases that formed who I am of, you know, writing and speaking and producing TV shows and asking impertinent questions. Speaker A 10:54 How long were you in France? Jim Cathcart 10:56 Three years. And by the way, for reasons of legality, because I was underage. He was not. Speaker A 11:08 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 11:09 Six months in or so we got all of the papers and a very nice, kindly priest married us. And eventually I had my first daughter there. Speaker A 11:20 Remarkable. Jim Cathcart 11:21 Oh, my first child. Speaker A 11:23 What a story. I mean, think of the typical person in the United States. They don't travel far. They certainly don't go to another country as far away as France. The vast majority of our citizens stay in the domestic U. S. And for them, a vacation. Like when I was growing up, a vacation would be a driving vacation. And at age 10, we had the grand adventure of my entire youth. We drove Route 66 from Arkansas, where we lived, to California and back. And that was big time. But I wasn't driving and I wasn't underage. And gee whiffs, I mean that. I admire you for doing that. But, gee, that is such a bold move on your part. Jim Cathcart 12:18 I didn't have a sense of being afraid. What was there to be afraid of? France is one of the most civilized countries in the world, and that's kind of governed me. Winston Churchill, never, ever give up. Speaker A 12:38 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 12:39 And I think if we're looking at expertise defined by me, it's never giving up. If you have a vision and a mission. And I wrote my first vision statement at age 10. Remember the mission that I shared. Speaker A 12:57 You are a hybrid. Jim Cathcart 12:58 I guarantee the mission that I shared. And you went, oh, my gosh, that's so close to mine. Speaker A 13:06 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 13:06 Well, I started writing stuff like that at age 10 and kept a journal. Speaker A 13:14 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 13:15 So I always knew I wanted to do something with this because the power of the word is more powerful than the sword. That's not my quote, and I think I kind of not used it accurately, that's for sure. So that's always governed me. We started the program, the TV program, which has been, as you said, on PBS for 35 years in North Texas, and it's been on other channels as well, Started the program in 1990 with the vision that television has the power to change people's lives. If you're telling the story in a way that everyone can relate to it, regardless of politics, intelligence, degrees, whatever. And what happened is we formed a non profit. Well, I was used to volunteering, but we formed a non profit. We made me the executive director. What the hey does that mean? Well, St. Mary's had a degree in non profit leadership and governance. So I took myself to Winona, Minnesota and got a degree remarkable, you know, a master's degree in that so that I could learn it. And then went back to school because that wasn't enough. That was a soft side. And got an MBA in leadership and governance. Speaker A 14:48 Excellent. Jim Cathcart 14:49 But why? So I would be able to fulfill the mission appropriately. And it's been wonderful. Speaker A 14:59 Put back somewhat your path, you know, with, with your uncle. I can see why you wanted the credentials because you weren't just interested in and fascinated by and desirous of a career in journalism. You wanted to be the real deal. And that's. That kind of integrity is the thing that makes a big difference in one's life and career. Your integrity caused you to, to take the time, do the work, pay the price, do the homework that it was, that was not only helpful, even though it wasn't required. You set your standards higher than the world had set them for you. And because of that you exceeded the expectations that all the others around you had. And that impresses the socks off of me. Jim Cathcart 15:51 So thank you. Because you do the same wisdom. I follow the stoics, the philosophers and their guidance. And wisdom is one of the things that they say is really important. That means lifelong learning. And if you're going to be an expert in something, you never stop learning. I mean, I'm back in school right now, a Harvard program, because I consult nonprofits and strategic planning. And right now the nonprofit world is topsy turvy. And when I went, I know enough about it, I've written about it, but let's see what's new in terms of facilitation. So that lifelong learning that you follow and you teach so well I think is really important if one's going to be a certified professional expert or anything in the field. Professional speaking. Speaker A 16:53 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 16:54 Best know what you're talking about. If you talk about leadership, who have you led? Speaker A 17:02 Right. Jim Cathcart 17:02 What teams, what departments did you manage? Speaker A 17:06 Yeah. Who have you read and who have you led? Jim Cathcart 17:09 Who have you read is very, very important. But who have you led? Because there are too many people who title themselves as expert and they haven't led or done it. Speaker A 17:24 They're more of a book than a leader. Jim Cathcart 17:28 Well, that's not a bad thing. You and I both read like crazy. Speaker A 17:32 If you're a data expert, you contain the information, then you're a useful resource. But if you want to make a difference out there, you're going to have to put legs on that expertise and do so. And that's the thing, you know, when someone's giving me success advice or business advice, whatever, I go back to the biblical passage, by their fruits, you shall know them. And I say, okay, how did the people they're leading turn out? Like, when I'm talking with people about parenting, I say, by the way, write down what I'm saying, but then check me out, See how my son turned out. See how his kids were taught and how they turned out. Do your homework. And then any. Anyone else you want to learn from, do the homework because they might be very knowledgeable and very smart, but not necessarily wise. Nor have the complete integrity. I don't mean the honesty integrity, but the system integrity. To practice what they preach, to live their message. Jim Cathcart 18:37 Beautifully said. And you know, in the summit that you had. What was that two months ago? Speaker A 18:43 Well, almost. Yeah. Jim Cathcart 18:45 One of the things that you said, I wrote it down. I need glasses for this. One of the things that you said is, there is no problem you can't solve in 30 minutes of silence. Now, most of us meditate or take some time in the morning to journal or read something inspiring or whatever it might be, but I'd never heard it put in words like that because I'm always thinking, well, now wait a minute. If I want to solve a problem, just don't think. That's hard to do. That's hard to do. Yeah, Just kind of sit silently and meditate on it. And it is amazing how often a solution will pop up. Speaker A 19:43 Well, also in that silence, you have no restrictions. So it may be that you can solve the problem intellectually or whatever, but not necessarily in the practical application. So it may be that your solution costs too much, takes too long, requires too many distant resources, etc. But the problem can be solved. You know, like, how do I cure cancer? Well, you could spend a half hour reflecting on that and thinking about various approaches. It may become clear to you that there is a solution. Now you got to figure out how to implement that solution. And they've been doing that for ages now, and they keep getting closer to it and solving parts of the problem. But, yeah, so that I don't want people to Take that too literally. You know, there's no problem you can solve without. Years ago, Spencer Johnson, who wrote Humu. Jim Cathcart 20:43 Yes. Speaker A 20:45 He called me. He said, I want to collaborate with you on a book that I'm writing on decision making. Yes or no. The Guide to Better Decisions. He gave me the rough draft of that book, and I've read it and found it fascinating. Spencer Johnson, for those that don't know that name, also co authored the One Minute Manager with Ken Blanchard and many other books. But he's best known for telling parables. And this one's about going mountain hiking and solving problems along the way. So it's that kind of a metaphor. But problem solving does have a pretty simple formula. It's answering yes or no to a whole series of little questions that ultimately gets you to the better solution. Jim Cathcart 21:38 Well, that's one book I do not have. So Amazon, here I come. You know, an expert and. I don't know, I've done so many things, writing books, the television program, the speaking and consulting coaching. I went coach University, so I'm a certified professional coach. Speaker A 22:00 Was that Thomas Leonard? Jim Cathcart 22:02 Yes. Speaker A 22:03 Yeah. He's the one that started the whole movement. Jim Cathcart 22:06 You got it. We did a television program with him. Speaker A 22:08 I'll be doing. Jim Cathcart 22:09 And I got hooked. So I went through Coach University and corporate Coach University because, you know, once you get started. Let's keep going. You said something a little earlier. It's not about the credential. Speaker A 22:26 Right. Jim Cathcart 22:27 It is about the exploration so that you're comfortable. It's about transparency and integrity. For me. Speaker A 22:37 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 22:38 If I'm going to teach you, I need to know a little bit more. Speaker A 22:42 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 22:42 That you. Speaker A 22:44 The transparency is. Is openness and honesty, as I see it. And the integrity is that everything fits together and makes this. It says the same thing. Kind of like in a speech, if you tell five different stories, they should all teach the same point for that speech. Makes them differently for a different speech, but for that speech, one point in message integrity for a person. If I'm going to be speaking, consulting, training, writing, consult, coaching people, everything I do needs to have the same underlying concepts that make it what it is. That makes things unique. Kind of like my acorn principle. You know, when I talk about acorn, the reason I do that is because that comes from nature, and everybody understands that you cannot get anything from an acorn except an oak. Jim Cathcart 23:47 But we try. Speaker A 23:48 Yep. But a good oak or a bad oak, that depends on how well you use the acorn. Jim Cathcart 23:53 Right. We try. We may think, okay, so we're an acorn. Speaker A 23:59 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 24:00 But internally, I think we all have done this. If not, please put me on the right path. But that means I may be an acorn, but I want to be a sycamore tree. Speaker A 24:11 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 24:12 And I spend half my life trying to be a sycamore tree or an oak or a maple. I never get there. I can't. That's not the way I'm internally wired. Speaker A 24:26 Not your nature. Yeah. Jim Cathcart 24:29 And I think somehow what you have done and what your experts have done, I can't speak for all of them, is maybe from the very beginning, they wanted to be an oak tree, maple tree. Well, an acorn would be an oak, a maple tree, or sycamore. And they did the things that one would do to be that. But somewhere along the line, they went, I'm not being true to myself. Yeah, this is what I can be. So why not be the very best of what I can be instead of something that doesn't fit? We all do that, Jim. We all do that. Speaker A 25:15 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 25:16 We're trying to be something we're not. Speaker A 25:20 With media, you know, the way we're bombarded with And. And even before the media, we know today the stories that were passed along, people say, I want to be like that. I want to be like, you know, and like my childhood hero. Number one hero was Roy Rogers, the cowboy on tv. Oh, man, I wanted to be him. I ultimately met him one day after I was an adult, and I went to his museum in Victorville, California, and had, like, 15 seconds. But it was thrilling to me that there was my hero. Well, I wasn't designed to be good at what he was good at, but when I finally discovered what I was good at, my career took off like a rocket. Mm. I had four, zero, 40 different jobs, if you count everything I ever did for pay, like mowing lawns and selling Girl Scout cookies. Equivalents door to door, you know, those kind of things. Jim Cathcart 26:18 As a youth, you couldn't keep a job. Speaker A 26:20 Nope. As a matter of fact, I built that into an introduction one time for a speech. I wrote it out for the introducer. He said, our speaker today has been a banker, an insurance agent, a. You know, he's unloaded trucks and boxcars. He'd been a nightclub singer. He may not be able to hold a job, but I understand he can hold an audience. That's the way I put a twist on it, but. Jim Cathcart 26:45 Oh, that was great. Speaker A 26:46 I was almost. I was, like, 26 years old before I discovered what I wanted to do with my life. And it was through the example of Earl Nightingale. On radio, I said, I want to do what that guy does. But I didn't know it. That didn't know what it meant. And so that was my turning point. What about for you? When did it get clear to you and the first part of your journey that really took off and became sort of mainstream for you? Jim Cathcart 27:16 Somehow I knew that I wanted to be the kind of person who would help people learn their path, take a path, be good at that path. You can call it helping people. I don't. It's about opening something in their mind so they move forward somehow. Speaker A 27:43 See, that's the part that I identify with. That sounds like my mission statement. Jim Cathcart 27:47 And so every Helping people grow and one step more. I believe that we're here to somehow make a difference and make this world a better place, regardless of what we do. Speaker A 28:05 Right. Jim Cathcart 28:05 And so what happened with me, I had no intentions of being a professional speaker. I had never really heard of it. And I moved to San Diego, but before that I lived in Atlanta and I met a gentleman who happened to be one of the original founders of the National Speakers Association. Tom Norman. Speaker A 28:28 Yep. Jim Cathcart 28:30 Lived in Scottsdale, Arizona, turquoise jewelry and all. And then what I was doing was selling commercial real estate, of all things. He said, you know, you do something very well. That many women now, by the way, men spoke differently back then. Speaker A 28:55 Oh, I know. Jim Cathcart 28:56 Let's take that into consideration. You do something very, very differently. You do it very successfully that a lot of our more successful women brokers don't do. What's that? You ask a lot of questions to get to know people, and that determines how you're going to solve the problem, Whatever. So what I'd like you to do is write a program. What do you mean, write a program? Write a program. What does that mean? We're going to call it the assertive selling approach. For women, assertiveness was big. Speaker A 29:41 Yeah. Assertiveness was the word of the day because it was not aggressive. It was assertive. Jim Cathcart 29:48 Right. And they said, yeah, you're not aggressive. You're fierce, but you're not aggressive. Speaker A 29:56 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 29:57 And so they locked me in their conference room in Atlanta. The airport was right across the street. It was a two block airport back then, Hapeville, Georgia, where the airport was right across the street. And any book I wanted on assertiveness they bought for me. Lunch under the door. And I sat in that conference room for a week. They paid me, Jim, a hundred dollars a day, which is a lot of money. Speaker A 30:28 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 30:29 This is what, 1980s? The beginning of 1980, maybe 79. Speaker A 30:35 Yeah. And I wrote wage was probably 250 an hour. Jim Cathcart 30:39 Who knows? Yeah, I wrote it was a loose sleeve that thick. A three day program. So he said, and now you're going to take it on the road. What does that mean? Well, for $500 a day, you're going to take this on the road. Tom, I've never spoken in front of a group of people. So I joined Toastmaster. Speaker A 31:12 Good choice. Jim Cathcart 31:14 And I took the Dale Carnegie course. Remember, I always overkill. Speaker A 31:19 And both of those are excellent experience. Jim Cathcart 31:21 Excellent. And so the first program, Women Brokers. Some of the women in that room were making a lot more money than I was. And here I am, three day training program with another trainer named Mitzi Bryant, who was also very successful. Tom Norman came, the only man in the room. And he sat at the back of the room auditing it to see, is this going to be a success or not? Do we add it to our curriculum? Is this woman any good or not? Because he put himself on the line for me. Yeah, well, the end of that day now, by the way, I have something. If I write it, it's memorized. So I didn't really need to look at the notes. But that means that I also ignored things like coffee break, etc. And he would lift his cigarette in the back because those were the days to kind of guide me and say, break, break. Okay. At the end of the day, I learned something else that an expert needs to take to mind. He said, may I give you critique? Let's go to the bar. Well, that I knew how to do. And so the three of us went down to the bar and he gave me critique on what I had done well, he'd asked permission. I respected him, what I had done well. He said, you know, this frontwards and backwards, what I didn't do so well. That was the first real critique I'd ever gotten because so much critique is criticism. Yeah, it doesn't help you grow. But he was helping me grow. Speaker A 33:23 I don't feel bad about. Jim Cathcart 33:26 He was helping me grow. And the wine didn't hurt. I mean, we were having a good time. He said, what happened to the Nicky I know? What do you mean? Tom, you came across like a professor teaching statistics. Not that kind of exuberance that you exhibit when you're really talking to people and you're really into it. There was no sense of fun. You knew the material. But what happened to the real Nikki? Tomorrow when you come down, I want to see the real Nikki. Speaker A 34:15 How did you process that? Jim Cathcart 34:18 Went to my room and really thought about what I had done and realized, wait a minute, I know the program. I was coming across as if it had been memorized because it had been, because I wrote it. Speaker A 34:34 You were trying to get an A in data delivery. Jim Cathcart 34:37 There you go. And that's not the way I really Speaker A 34:42 do things, nor the way they learn, Jim Cathcart 34:45 nor the way they learn. And somehow or other I was able to make that switch and go, you know, I was trying to be perfect. Forget that people are imperfect. So tomorrow, what the hell, I'm going to be as imperfect as possible. And went down. And that second day, at the end of the day, he stood up and applauded and so did everyone else. And then we went down to the bar for another session of critique and I got an A. Love it. Speaker A 35:25 Love it. Jim Cathcart 35:26 Got an A. Speaker A 35:27 That's grand. Jim Cathcart 35:28 So that's what introduced me to the National Speakers Association. And because I didn't consider that professional speaking, I was giving a class, something I knew very well. And that's when I joined 1980, you said, and went to my first conference. So fell in love with it. Speaker A 35:52 Now you had a, you had a successful run doing that. What was the next turning point for you? Jim Cathcart 35:59 From Atlanta, I moved to California. That's where we got to know each other better. Speaker A 36:04 Right. Jim Cathcart 36:05 And I started meeting people like Ken Blanchard, Dennis Waitley. Speaker A 36:10 Yep. Jim Cathcart 36:12 Listening, really going to their, their programs and listening to what they had to say and the way they said it. Speaker A 36:22 By the way, for our listeners, this time frame that we're talking about in retrospect, has been called the human potential movement. And from the late 60s through the early 80s at the latest, there was an enormous societal shift away from education. As data digestion, ingest the information and. And regurgitated upon testing. Education shifted from that to making people actually better at what they're pursuing and being way more humane and genuine, just with simple things like the concept of assertiveness versus aggressiveness is an adversarial approach. Assertive is simply an outspoken approach and much more respectful of other people. So that's where Nikki's opportunity unfolded was under the general umbrella of assertiveness training, which was a big deal at the time. So that era unfolded and you're going to all these other programs with people that you and I know that others may have heard of. And Zig Ziglar was a new kid on the block back then. Now he's considered one of the, one of the founding father types. But Dennis Whiteley and Tom Norman and Ken Blanchard, the one minute manager, people like that we all were learning from them. What, what change did it create in Nikki? What was next for you? Jim Cathcart 37:59 Even more fearlessness. For instance, the television program was doing well. So we started in 1990. It was about 2004. One of the funders for the program called me up and I was on vacation somewhere. Where was it? It was in Mexico, Cozumel. And I answered my phone. Why would one do that? Walking on the beach. But I did. And he said, we'd like you to do a documentary. On what? On how we got to 9 11. What does terrorism mean? Where is it prevalent and why? Speaker A 38:49 That's some serious stuff. Jim Cathcart 38:51 That's some serious stuff. Now I had not done a documentary before. I produced the program. Dennis McGuishan at the time was the host. I went, well, his name, Hugh Agan. I said, hugh, I would be absolutely delighted. He said, good, write me up a proposal. We'll give you the money and off you go. And I imagine your first stop is going to be Saudi Arabia because that's where they supposedly came from. The people who blew up the had no idea what I was doing. Well, if that's the case, you know what I have to do. Okay, I joined the Dallas producers. These are the people who do that. And I learned enough to be dangerous, hired my very favorite camera person who had a military background and I knew would protect me and Dennis McQuistion who then was my former husband. So the three of us went off to Saudi Arabia. What an adventure. Speaker A 40:09 I can imagine. Jim Cathcart 40:10 From Saudi we went to Iraq. Now this was like what, a year or two after everything of mass destruction and all that stuff. Went to Lebanon, went to Syria, went to Israel, went to Palestine, went to Jordan. Speaker A 40:30 That's pretty much it. Jim Cathcart 40:32 The whole list came back with hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and. And you know what that means to take all of that and distill it down into a two hour documentary you spend your life editing. Sure, no problem. I loved it. I had no idea what I was doing. But between Phil Smith, my camera person and I, we'd spend hours editing away to make sense. Dennis, the narrator, people, I mean experts in their country, military people, generals on it was great. The debut was at. It wasn't on pbs. It was going on PBS in two weeks. So we aired it first to a big audience of people we'd invited at a local theater, an upscale theater where people, you know, we had drinks and food and everybody came and we were very nervous and I was a nervous wreck. And this two hour documentary on the big, the Movie screen. And I'm just like a little stiff marionette afterwards. Backtrack a little. In that documentary, we listed terrorist groups that were identified by the CIA and FBI and scroll them on the credits. One group happened to be in the audience. Whoa. They did not like what we said. Speaker A 42:23 No, I wouldn't think so. Jim Cathcart 42:25 Gosh. But they were on the list. Terrorist watch group. And so they protested, they picketed. Kera. I got several threats. Dennis didn't, but I did. And the station said, ooh, let's go back to this documentary. Speaker A 42:50 No. Jim Cathcart 42:52 And see if there's anything. I said, no, absolutely not. I vetted that documentary. You have the list of the people who vetted it. They were professors and experts from all over the world, including that part of the country. So I had like 30 people who had vetted it. Speaker A 43:14 Plus the people protesting were proving your point through their behavior. Jim Cathcart 43:21 Absolutely. They said, yes. But so what occurred there is, you know, we'd spent the money for the documentary we'd edited into the two hour thing, and I went, okay, group, I'm going to listen to you. And I went back to Syria, Lebanon, Jordan. Speaker A 43:42 Physically went back. Jim Cathcart 43:43 Physically hired camera people there who were with the TV station. It was just me and interviewed lots other people. And we. We cut the documentary to an hour and a half and it was even stronger. Speaker A 44:05 I can imagine. Jim Cathcart 44:05 And we kept them on the list of terrorist groups. Speaker A 44:11 In your face. Jim Cathcart 44:12 Yeah. I got a post office box so no one would know where I lived. Speaker A 44:16 I don't blame you. Jim Cathcart 44:17 But it eventually aired on pbs. Speaker A 44:21 That had to be very satisfying. Jim Cathcart 44:23 Very, very satisfying. And what I realized is the pursuit of excellence means if you want to be an expert, you have to be somewhat fearless. Speaker A 44:37 Mm. Jim Cathcart 44:37 And you have to go for the truth. And that was the truth as I saw it. So I continue causing mischief. Speaker A 44:45 Yeah. Good for you. We need to come in for a landing real soon. So let me. Although I'd like to make this a three hour documentary, when I look at the show McQuistion, which is now called Perspectives Matter, and it's been on the air on PBS mostly through K E R A in Dallas for 35 plus years, that's been a show that's been discussion based and it's been talking about things that matter among people who care. That's your tagline, and I love that. So as I say, what I'm talking Jim Cathcart 45:23 about, given to us, by the way, by Jim Rohn. Speaker A 45:26 Ah, very good. Jim Cathcart 45:28 With a slight correction. Talking about things that matter with people who care. You've been on our program Several times and have helped host it. Speaker A 45:39 Thank you for mentioning that. And it's an honor to do so. Genuinely. When I'm doing parlor discussions with clients or with people in my area, I tell them it's interesting. Interested people talking about interesting ideas. So it's a similar focus now that's given you a platform, a base from which you could do anything you wanted to do. If you could go out in the world simply as the producer of Perspectives Matter and give speeches on the insights that you've gained, you know, you could be a political commentator and say, here's what the middle looks like between you and you. You could. You could leverage that in so many different ways. What, in reflecting back over your career, you did that, and you're also. You're doing that, and also you're doing coaching, you're doing consulting, you're sitting on advisory boards. You're playing so many different roles. You're still an author, you're still a producer of learning programs. Let's give some tips to the people who are in the early stages of their own expert career and they just want to get more speeches or they just want to write their next book or they want to be featured on the big platform in their particular field. What are some tips, some points of advice you could. You could give them to guide their own path? Jim Cathcart 47:11 Focus. What is it you want to speak about so much that you literally eat, sleep, breathe it, and can spend a weekend talking with no one, but learning more about that particular topic, become an expert in that particular topic, whatever it might be. Speaker A 47:39 That's beautiful that Napoleon Hill called it a burning desire. Tom Peters said, be a monomaniac about one subject with a mission. Ah, yeah. Jim Cathcart 47:52 I feel a passion for nonprofits, so most of my learning and speaking is in that arena. But for years, the last 20 years, it was banking very opposite to one another. One comes from the head, one more from the heart. But for a new speaker, it's about the heart first, your heart. What is it that really drives you that you could do 24, 7 and focus on that and then learn everything you can about that particular topic? And by the way, treat yourself well. In this business, we do so much, we have such crazy hours. We're all over the map. We're traveling. Treat yourself well, take the time, and you do that so well. You're running and everything you do. What are the exercises, mental and physical, that you're going to do that will keep you healthy and fit? I think that's absolutely important because this business can be brutal. Yeah, Especially with travel nowadays. And I think another is it's a very lonely business, and we need a core group of people we have around us, wherever they might be in the world, a core group of people who we trust implicitly that we can pick up the phone or a zoom call or face to face, whatever it might be. We can talk to you. Speaker A 49:42 That's beautiful. That. Thank you for saying both of those. Treat yourself well. On one of my early trips out of state, which was a whole new thing to me at the time, I was forced into a bad situation, had to figure out how to cope with it. But I was in Colorado for the first time ever in a rail car, and I had a few hours, and I thought, well, I've never seen the Rocky Mountains, and there they are way off in the distance over there. I'm going. And so I spent hours driving to the Rocky Mountains, went up into the mountains, came back down, went to the airport and came home. But I made time for that little loop on the adventure, you know, to treat myself well for just a few minutes and to record some messages to my wife on a cassette player at the time to help her share in the joy of seeing the Rocky Mountains. But those kind of things have made such a difference. And then the other thing is, if you're going to be in a business that is basically you, you need people that get you. You need colleagues like Nikki and I who understand each other's inner struggles or whatever. And you can talk without editing yourself. I got a call one night in the middle of the night from Sheila Murray Bethel. Remember Sheila? Jim Cathcart 51:09 Sure. Speaker A 51:10 She's just a dear colleague, and she was somewhere like Egypt, and she was scheduled to give a big conference, a big presentation in just a couple hours. And she was terrified. For some reason, she just got the jitters. And she said, jim, I know I woke you up. I'm sorry for that. Just get to the point. She said, okay, talk me off the ledge. She said, I am terrified. And so I talked with her for, I don't know, 10 minutes and reassured her, reminded her of all the things she had going for. And she said, okay, that did it. Thanks. And we never talked about that again. But that kind of moment is pure gold to someone like you or me, because we all have them. Not being alone in that moment matters. Jim Cathcart 52:07 And I forgot one thing. Service. Give back. Speaker A 52:14 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 52:15 I serve on several boards and advisory boards. Give back. It can be money, it could be time. It can be your expertise, what you get back in return. It could be volunteering at NSA or with your chapter, whatever it might be that giving you do, there's quite a return on investment on not only nurtures Speaker A 52:40 your soul, but it also gives you a greater sense of worth, self worth. You know, I matter in the world a little bit more because I'm doing some good. I had a psychiatrist tell me once, he said, jim, you said, you've got a friend who's considering suicide. Get him to do anything. I said, what do you mean, anything? He said, anything, literally. Because doing something gives a sense of meaning. And the more meaningful whatever it is he's doing, the less he will be focused on whatever scares him to death. Jim Cathcart 53:14 Yes. Speaker A 53:14 Yeah. So this is beautiful, Nikki. I've got to wrap it up so our listeners can say they've been a pleasure listen. That finished listening the same day they started. But I just absolutely adored this discussion and look forward eagerly to our next connection and that probably in the next several days. How do people reach you and what would they. What. What's the thing you do most for the world outside of your television production and such that people might reach out to you? And how do they. How do they reach you? Jim Cathcart 53:52 If. Speaker A 53:52 If. Jim Cathcart 53:52 So, Nicky McQuistion.com is the website. Speaker A 53:56 That's easy. Mc C u I s t I o n me question. Jim Cathcart 54:03 Yes. Speaker A 54:04 Any n I k I. Jim Cathcart 54:06 Right. Speaker A 54:07 Yep. Jim Cathcart 54:07 Perspectives matter dot com. Speaker A 54:10 Okay. Jim Cathcart 54:11 And the easiest email, I mean I have several, is nikkimaquistianmail.com Excellent. Any questions anyone has, I'm happy to answer if I can. Speaker A 54:25 I love it. Well, I can guarantee you you'll be glad you know her, because I certainly am. Jim Cathcart 54:32 Thank you. Speaker A 54:32 Thank you so much for being a guest today. Jim Cathcart 54:35 Thank you very much. Speaker A 54:36 Thank you. And I treasure our friendship. God bless you. Jim Cathcart 54:39 You take care. Goodbye. Speaker A 54:44 Thank you for joining us today. If you are committed to making more success happen in your own life, go right now to my website, free.cathcart.com and download my free ebook and then watch the video. If you decide that you'd like my assistance in helping grow your success, then come with me and let's discover how much more successful you can be.