The Intricacies of Wisdom and Honor

Speaker A 00:05 Welcome to the Wisdom Parlor, 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. Hi, I'm Jim Cathcart. So come with me and let's discover how much more successful you could be. Welcome to the Wisdom Parlor, 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. Jim Cathcart 01:16 Well, well, well. Speaker C 01:17 Good afternoon. Welcome once again to the Wisdom Parlor. My name is Rich Bontrager, better known as the Trigger. I will be co hosting with the all our rock star of the show, Jim Cathcart. But just a little bit about this, we get going today, we will be talking about wisdom, honor. So as we get rolling here, think about the thoughts of wisdom and honor. What do they mean to you? What does wisdom and honor look like? Can you feel it? Jim Cathcart 01:39 Can you know it? Speaker C 01:40 We'll get deeper into all that. As a reminder, we want to start with reminding you about. The Wisdom Parlor is a forum to discuss important ideas. It's not here to debate. We are a. We're not going to talk about politics or religion. It's a place where wisdom will emerge among people who are committed to making the world a better place. Please, no self promotion, no campaigning for any company or issues. Just a really thoughtful discussion. And we want to let you know the show's sponsor is the Cathcart Institute Experts Academy, a 12 month mentorship that results in people receiving. Jim Cathcart 02:12 Easy for you. Speaker C 02:14 It's very easy for me to say the cpe, which is a certified professional expert designation, and to book a call with Jim Cathcart and determine if it's a good fit for you to join this exclusive program. Simply call and we will put the link into the chat for everyone that book onto his calendar. Meet with Jim101, have a great conversation about that. Also, if you want a free copy of Jim's book what to do when you are the speaker, we will drop that in the chat as well to free Cathcart.com again to get that free book. It's free Cathcart.com and we are about ready to get rolling here today. Jim, great to have you back. Jim Cathcart, welcome to Center Stage thank you. Jim Cathcart 02:58 I appreciate that. Did you see Dennis holding up the book? Love that. That book's done very well. Boy, it's gotten some great response. And as you know from watching this show before, it's got a whole lineup of big name speakers that have endorsed it. Speaker C 03:14 And so he's got his own cue card. He had his own teleprompter. See how cool that was? Jim Cathcart 03:18 Yeah. We'll do a SL crawl. There we go. Les Brown, Brian Tracy, M. Michael Reagan. Thank you. Jim Cathcart, my cue card holder. Speaker C 03:34 So, Jim, before we get into our topic of the day, well, let's, we're going to spend a few minutes kind of setting the table. But you did want to re highlight a little bit about the Academy, a Jim Cathcart 03:42 little bit for everyone listening. Well, the purpose of Cathcart Institute has been redefined and been targeted more tightly in recent years. I, you know, it used to be helping people grow. And that was generally the theme from the 1970s forward. And then when I got clear in about 2010 on what my passion and purpose statement was, it boils down to the, the biblical quote, John 10:10. I've come that they would have life and have it more abundantly. So I, I've adopted my personal role and mission in life to help people live more abundantly and to also do that in my own life as an example of practicing what I preach. Well, what I did when Covid occurred was I got more and more focused on being a mentor to experts and entrepreneurs. Just last night here in Austin, I was at an Entrepreneurs United, that's the name of the group gathering of 50 people who were business owners and top level executives. And they were getting together for a kind of a mastermind retreat. And I was one of the featured presenters. And the whole point of my being there was to help them get more clear on exactly what they're working on or ought to be working on and more clear on why that matters to them and why it matters to the people they're doing it for. So when I created the Going Pro Experts Academy, I created it just last year as a year long mentorship. Now, big difference between a mentorship and a coaching ship. A coaching relationship is about giving you assignments and supervising those assignments and making sure you got them done and having you do your drills and, you know, all the things that coaches do. Well, there's a little bit of that involved in my mentorship, but my role is different. A mentor is a person that's there as your advisor, as the expert on tap, as your strategic partner. As the person who's kind of at your elbow whenever they're needed and something comes up and you, you got a hassle you're dealing with and you need another mind looking at it. And it needs to be a mind from somebody that cares about you and your welfare. So that's the role that I've, I've put myself into. And we're holding a retreat, a two and a half day retreat here in Austin on October 22, 23, 24. Arrive on Sunday evening and it begins adjourn on Tuesday afternoon. And in that time, focus on the thing that's most pressing or most appealing in your life right now. What is your biggest priority? What do you need to achieve a breakthrough or make some advancement on. And we all work together to help you get there. So if you've got any interest in that, by all means, sign up or just call me, you know, the link bit ly, bitly bit ly. Call Cathcart, takes you right to my scheduling calendar. Or send me an email jim cathcart.com and I'll be happy to tell you the details about that. And if you decide after you come to the retreat, hey, I like this. I want to extend into the Going Pro Experts Academy, then you can apply what you paid for that toward the academy. So hope, hope it's a fit for you. Now, enough of the commercial. Let's go back to today's theme. Rich? Speaker C 07:30 Yeah. Wisdom and honor. And again, when you told me what the topic was, I think there's a lot of ways you could go with that. And the first thing that popped in my mind first of all was biblical wisdom, Solomon type wisdom, you know, ancient wisdom, high level. And then when it goes to honor, it really goes to the military angle of the men and women that serve. And those are two of the quickest pictures that popped into my head. But then we want to bring this down to real life and real people. So I'm curious where your mind is at as we first start here today. Jim Cathcart 08:01 Well, let me tell you what happened yesterday when I was over at the University of Texas, the Entrepreneurs United took an excursion, a field trip to the University of Texas. And our friend John Mitchell is a professor there and he's also very involved with coaching, doing mindset coaching for the 18 coaches of the University of Texas and for the 800 athletes. So he got us kind of the key to the kingdom and we all gathered in the hall of Fame and there was a Super Bowl, a two time super bowl winner, Dan Neal, who was with the Broncos during John Elway's time. And he had been a graduate and all star of the University of Texas. So he told us about the hall of Fame and then he took us out on the field and I got a chance to run the length of the football field, which was great fun. Speaker C 08:58 Do we have video of that, by the way? Jim Cathcart 09:00 Yeah, not the actual running, but I am going to share my screen and show you something. This is me in the hall of Fame there. Can you see that photo? Yeah. Yeah. All right. And then this is part of the hall of Fame. Look at all those trophies. They just go endlessly, year after year after year. The trophies won by all the different teams at the University of Texas. And this is Dan Neal, and he's standing in front of Bevo. Bevo is the name of the Big Longhorn mascot for the University of Texas. Now, it's interesting. This is directly relevant to our topic today. Dan was standing there talking about the hall of Fame and he was telling about these wonderful things that the Texas teams, all of them, the golf team, the volleyball team, the baseball team, the football team, etc, have done. He said, you need to understand there's a very key distinction between this room we're in at the hall of Fame and the room right behind us that we'll be going through in a minute. That one's called the hall of Honor. Now, the hall of Fame, you qualify for the hall of Fame through your performance in your sport. In other words, in your job, you know, whatever. Take it. Make it relevant to us today, not just to athletes. The hall of Fame is what you get into for high quality performance on the job. Right. The hall of Honor is for bringing honor and respect to the University through your behavior. So one of those is for your performance. The other one is for your character, wisdom and honor. Also performance, achievement and honor. In the National Speakers association, they give the the cpae, which is Council of Peers Award for Excellence, and it's also called the speaker hall of Fame. I had the honor of being inducted into that in 1985 in Washington, D.C. along with Jim Rohn and Tony Alessandra and a couple of other people. That was a great honor, but that was for my performance, my achievement in the field of being a professional speaker. Years later, I was effectively inducted into the nsa, National Speakers Association's equivalent of the hall of Honor. I'll show you what I'm talking about. A hundred thousand people capacity. Speaker C 11:49 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 11:51 Unbelievable. Just an amazing, amazing place. So this is the Cabot Award, the statue of Cavett Robert, the founder of The National Speakers Association. And it's given to the person each year who in their career has been most like Cabot himself. Cabot was a man of enormous generosity and was a great encourager and supporter. Just the kind of guy that he could believe in. Anybody, man. I mean, he'd find something about you to admire no matter how bad your performance had been lately. And so he's an amazing guy. But if. If a person receives the Cabot Award, that's effectively for their character as a person and them bringing honor and dignity to the profession of speaking. Speaker C 12:48 So let me ask you, Jim, which comes first, chicken or the egg? Do you think wisdom comes before the honor? Or do you receive the wisdom as you grow in that honor and that status of reputation whenever wisdom, to make that easier. Jim Cathcart 13:04 I like this definition. Wisdom is reading the mind of God, boy, then that's about as lofty as you can get. But wisdom goes beyond intelligence. Intelligence is, you know, being smart about something. Wisdom has to do with a much deeper understanding and a much higher purpose in. In your thinking. It's like when I was in Peter Drucker's audience one time, many, many years ago in Chicago, big audience, and someone asked a question of him, and he said, that's not the question you should be asking. And I thought, wow, you can do that. You can tell a person that that's not the question. What a cool idea. And what Drucker was saying is, you know, that that's a smart question. It may be helpful to know that, but it's not going to do you much good to get that answer. You need to helicopter up to 30,000ft and look at what's really going on here and think more broadly and deeply about this. Because when you're seeking wisdom, wisdom applies to everything. Intelligence may apply to just one or two categories or situations, but wisdom transcends category. Speaker C 14:22 So how do we break that down before we open up everyone else, start asking questions, sharing their thoughts? How do we break it down to everyday normal life or to our leadership life? Speaker D 14:33 Which. Speaker C 14:34 How do we break this down and make them understand or maybe dig deeper into what wisdom is of them? What is honor to them? How do we display it? How do we demonstrate it? Jim Cathcart 14:42 Well, honor, you had asked, does wisdom or honor come first? Speaker C 14:46 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 14:47 And what comes first is, I think, the intent to be a good person. Speaker C 14:55 So to be honorable? Jim Cathcart 14:56 Yeah, to be honorable. Because if you don't choose to live an honorable life, then it's going to be unlikely that you're going to seek wisdom. You're gonna you're gonna do what works instead of what matters, what makes a difference. You're gonna do what will get you the quick result, not what will necessarily last and set an example for others. So I believe honor comes from the honor and dignity kind of hand in hand. It comes from choosing to be a good person. Now, why would one do that? Because you believe that your life matters. If you don't believe your life matters, everything else is just committee work. Speaker C 15:45 Well, and. And I've got a thought before we open up for everybody here. But to be a person of honor gives you the opportunity to impart wisdom, the honor of you. Otherwise, if you don't have the honor, no one's going to want to listen to you and take your wisdom because the honor sets the baseline. Are you trustworthy? Are you a good mentor? Are you a good leader? The honor opens up the. The ability to impart wisdom and help others. Jim Cathcart 16:09 Yeah. I don't think I've ever gone to a book written by a criminal or, you know, some kind of evil person and sought life lessons. Speaker C 16:20 I'll steal better 101. Jim Cathcart 16:22 No. So, yeah. Speaker C 16:23 All right, we're going to open this up to everybody. And again, Jim will MC moderate, and we'll help call you out and bring you on. But as you've heard us talk a little bit about this, what the. What do you think? Honor, wisdom, how's it fit into where you're at and what's going on? Jim Cathcart 16:37 Yeah, you don't even need to answer our question. Just take the concept that we're talking about and share your thoughts on it. One time, it was in St. Paul, Minnesota, and I was speaking to a group, and I posed a question, and nobody responded. They just sat there, you know, like they were watching television. And I. I grabbed a chair and turned it around. I sat down, put my hands on the back of the chair, and I said, you know, I'm getting paid to do this. And they. Yeah, I said, so doesn't really matter to me whether you respond to this question or not, but I think it would be an interesting discussion. So over to you. And I just stared at them, and they started laughing, and then they started applauding, and they said, okay, I've got. I got a resp. You know, and it kind of opened it up. So, Dennis, what thoughts, ideas? Speaker E 17:31 I. I don't know if the two are connected necessarily. I suppose they can, but begs the question, can you have honor but not wisdom? And I. I think you can. You know, honor is based on character, as you pointed out. To me, wisdom, at least from. From my experience, comes from making a bunch of mistakes and having firsthand experience. On. Jim Cathcart 17:56 Hold on. Speaker E 17:57 That's not how that works. You know, I. I made a career in. In my industry for the first 10 years doing pretty darn well because of the habits that I had and, and the approach that I took and. And things worked, and. And I had no concept of how badly someone could mess things up. And so when I was faced with a problem, I had no idea, you know, and I'm not being specific intentionally. Jim Cathcart 18:29 Yeah. Speaker E 18:29 But I had no idea of. Of how to resolve it, because I'd never heard of these problems. And so I lacked the wisdom to be able to help people because things that they were suffering from, I don't know, I've never heard of that. So at least for me, wisdom is. Man, you've made a lot of mistakes and you've learned from it. Jim Cathcart 18:53 Yeah, I think that's a good perspective, because in order to discover wisdom on any subject, you got to go deeper. You. You've got to say, okay, why did that happen? Not what happened, but why did it happen? Okay, why did that happen? Until you get no more new answers, you know, because you can trace the why to the why, to the why to the Y, and. And when there's no new answer, you probably found it. And Spencer Johnson, who wrote who Moved My Cheese and a bunch of other books, he was a friend of mine. He passed away a few years ago, but I was with him one time in Hawaii, where he lived for a while. And when I got off the plane, he looked down and he patted me on the tummy because I put on a few pounds. And he said, what's that about? Now? He didn't say, I noticed you've gained weight. He said, what's that about? In other words, what's behind this? Why are you no longer as trim as you used to be? And I thought about it for the first time, and I said, and this is interesting to me, just in reflection, I said, lack of closure. He said, what? I said, I've got a whole bunch of major projects going on, and I don't have closure on many of them. And it's showing up in my physical health. He said, okay. And just. We went on our way and didn't talk about that anymore. But, you know, you look at it like Donnie catch a Mezzi. One time when I was at his transmission shop, Dennis, he was talking about cars, and he mentioned that an automobile has seven systems in it. You know, you got the fuel System. You've got all the various systems. Well, I don't know whether that's an accurate number or whatever, and maybe I'm getting seven wrong. But when you understand that the drivetrain is part of one system and the fuel delivery is part of another system and the electricity that comes from the battery and goes to the spark plugs and everything else is part of another system, you can see the nature of whatever your problem is and think, okay, that's one of these kind of problems, and you start tracing it back to more than likely finding the root cause. Speaker C 21:17 Lisa Marie's got a question, so. Lisa Marie, welcome. Come on in. Well, thank you. Speaker F 21:23 It's not a question, it's a comment because. No, no, no problem. My comment is I have never heard anyone describe wisdom as reading the mind of God because I'm not sure anybody can read the mind of God. But in my thought process, he wrote a book. Jim Cathcart 21:45 Excuse me, God wrote a book. Speaker F 21:49 And that's what I'm going to make reference to. My, my, I don't know, observation definition of wisdom might be something along the lines of listening to and understanding the knowledge of the word, which is the book. Because in the book it says if you don't have wisdom, to ask, and I'm not quoting it exactly, but to ask God for wisdom and he will give it to you. So, you know, I, I don't. I don't know. I think listening, trying to understand the knowledge of the word. Jim Cathcart 22:25 Well, I can elaborate on that. Speaker F 22:27 Okay, please do. Jim Cathcart 22:29 There's a book written many years ago, 1911, by Wallace Wattles. What an unfortunate last name. And Wallace Waddles. Waddles being the part under a turkey's chin. Wrote a book called the Science of Getting Rich, and it became famous. And, you know, in recent years, Rhonda Byrne did the movie the Secret and, you know, repopularized the whole thing. And it's all about that concept. Well, this book is a second book. He wrote how to Be a Genius. And in this book, he calls the subtitle of the book the Science of Being Great. How do you achieve greatness? And he says, man is a thinking substance, a portion of the cosmic consciousness, but man is limited, whereas cosmic intelligence is endless. And he said, so wisdom is reading the greater mind. You know, the, the reading the mind of God was the way he. He positioned that. And I don't want us to go focus specifically on Christianity or, or Judaism or any other particular approach to that. I want to look at the philosophical concept of what is wisdom and where Is it acquired? And. And I think that the beginning of wisdom, which almost gets me into a bunch of quotes, the beginning of it for us is to always ask, what's that based on? Where'd that come from? Why? What's the source behind this? Speaker C 24:11 So. And again, I want everyone else to chime in, but, Dennis, I think you made something that's very interesting about. We learn by the bumps and the bruises of life, kind of. That's often where wisdom comes from. Part of, I think, wisdom. Then if you continue with the bumps and keep going the same cycle, or do you get out of that cycle and get greater wisdom by learning how to. Not to do it? So to me, that's part of the wisdom. Yeah, yeah, we learned by the bumps and bruises, but I think the wisdom is imparted from. That's not the way to do it. Folks, let me help you figure out how you can avoid the pitfalls of life. So I'm curious with anyone else's thoughts, where does this wisdom come from? Speaker G 24:50 Yeah, because you can. Jim Cathcart 24:52 Sorry, go ahead, Janelle. Speaker G 24:54 So, yeah, because you can age. Wisdom and age don't always arrive together. Sometimes age just arrives alone. Jim Cathcart 25:03 Well said. Speaker G 25:05 And I think there's. I feel there's levels of wisdom. There's levels and stages of wisdom because you have divine source of wisdom that sees between the seen and the unseen. And if you follow stories of Solomon and he could see through, or the story you shared, Jim, where you could see through the question and go beyond it, that's that tapping into and finding that wisdom that's higher than ours. And I feel that it's through intent. I feel that that level of wisdom is set through intent and openness to receive it. Are you open or do you feel you're stuck in your human. And I have to be right or I have to do this through my pure grunt force. And I know as we're talking about putting our feet on the ground, getting our feet in the dirt of our business building, that there's a lot of grunt force to. To moving that dial for us. But I think there's a wiser way to operate. I think wisdom is in through it is through experience. I think that's the level of it. It's through curiosity. It's through being open enough to say, hey, Dennis, how did you get through that? Or if you don't know, who do you know that does know? That can really help me network you. Because now it's about wisdom as a community source of wisdom. It's not reliant on what my brain synopsis can process and how fast they can process. It's how well can I network and tap into the community of wisdom. So I feel that there's levels of wisdom. Jim Cathcart 26:44 Yeah. And there's another factor. And I'll, after Fred's comment, I'll elaborate on this. But the other factor is reflection. My friend, a philosopher named Kevin Buck, he says without reflection, there's no learning. So in other words, information comes in, but it doesn't get into the hard drive without reflection to tell it where to go. Fred, comment. And good to see you again. Speaker C 27:15 Hello. Speaker D 27:15 Thank you. Thank you. Great to be here. My thoughts on, on wisdom. It's, it's really largely based on, on the experiences that, that we have or the experiences of someone else. Maybe it's a mentor or someone we learn from, that we're able to skip past making mistakes because they made them already and now we can jump ahead faster. But that's wisdom. It's, it's, and it's the experiences we, we acquire through life. Think about this. Consider this a newborn baby, right. What are they like? They're full of curiosity, they're full of joy. But I would say not so much wisdom, at least not at that, not at that stage. It takes, takes them as they grow and, and become adults, then. Yeah, absolutely. And so it's, it's a learning process to develop that. The wisdom as we grow and evolve as, as people. But we can also, as I said, benefit from the wisdom of others that have come before us. Jim, I love that you brought up the example of Wallace, Wallace Wattles. There's someone that you read his, his books. There's so much wisdom there. It's like you got to read the books many, many times and every time you pick up something different from it. But that's a great example of learning from the wisdom of others that came before us. Jim Cathcart 28:59 Yeah. Good. Well said for. Thank you. Yeah. So many things, you know, how do you become good at decision making? Bad decisions. Make a lot of bad decisions, reflect on it and learn the lesson from it. Well, that's, that's one way to do it. And Cat Robert, in the early NSA meetings I used to go to, he had one speech that he always did this little piece in. He said, I want to sell you on ope. He said, OPE stands for other people's experience. The most expensive way in the world to learn is through your own experience. You know, you put your hand on the stove and you burn your hand. It's going to hurt for a long Time. And if you don't learn the lesson from it, you're going to burn your hand again and again. But what most people do is they burn their hand. They just get out of the business of being around stoves, he said, but the wisdom is to know how to deal with a stove, then you can still use it and not burn your hand. So learn from other people's experience. And as we read, Charlie Tremendous Jones was another mentor and friend of mine. He said, you are the same person you'll be five years from now, except for two things, the people you meet and the books you read. I think that's pretty doggone good. I would even go a step further, say, the people you read and the books you read, you know, because it. It's helpful to really, really study those people, not just be with them, but. Tremendous Jones had three homes in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, on a farm. And all three of his. No, two of the homes were completely filled, floor to ceiling with books. And he was a voracious reader of books. And he formed a company called Executive Books and became a publisher and a distributor. And I was at his home a couple of times. He had one room that was only books about Abraham Lincoln, the entire room, and he had read them all. And, man, I mean, you wanted some wisdom. You just throw an idea out to Charlie and he would, here's what that's really about. See, that's the point. Here's what that's really about. So as we notice more, which is one of my mantras, what we need to be noticing is two things. The patterns, like, oh, this happens almost every time this way, and the principles that drive the patterns. So it may be a universal principle. You know, it could be physics or something like that. You know, you say, oh, one is one of these things always fall when I let go of them. Gravity. You mean anything I let go of is going to fall? Yeah. Wow, that's cool. Where's gravity come from? You know? Well, you know, and you get bigger and bigger and bigger answering those questions. Then you got more things you know, how to understand when a child like Fred was talking about is an infant. They're just trying to experience anything and. And noticing how to move their own limbs, even. But as they discover patterns, they start repeating those patterns, and then they start relying on those patterns. Same thing's true with people. We start finding a person we can trust. We trust them a little bit more, and we find that we can trust them a lot. Wow. Then a real bond develops between us. So there's A lot to this. Not just a simple concept of wow, that's wise. Right? Go ahead, trigger. Speaker C 32:57 Yeah. Again, keep going with wisdom. I've got more stuff I want to help turn the corner through honor. Because there's. There's an old thing. Growing up, at least my family, I heard time and time again, and we probably all did someplace. Honor your father and mother. Jim Cathcart 33:10 Yeah. Speaker C 33:11 Honor your elder. Jim Cathcart 33:12 That's the Ten Commandments. Yeah. Speaker C 33:14 And, you know, well, simply being a Boy Scout, being a boy Scout, we were told the honor and we espoused Jim Cathcart 33:19 that, so is to do my duty to God in my country to obey the Scout law. Right. Yeah. Speaker C 33:26 And so. So that. That was all wrapped into all that. Now we live in a world where part of my question here is, how do you get honor? Is it bestowed on you? Do you earn honor? Do you automatically step in it and you are honored? Because right now we live in a world where we read the headlines. I don't think we were seeing a lot of honor. We're not seeing a lot of respect. So what does honor look like? And how do you get bestowed with that honor? Because we were told, again, just automatically, you're given honor. Your mom and, you know, that's not happening today. So how do we achieve honor? Jim Cathcart 34:02 Let me throw out a quick comment and then I'll open it up to the rest of you. I believe that the desire to be honorable and honor doesn't occur. Honored. Honor. Something you. You practice intentionally, you know, oh, hey, that was honorable. It was, you know. No, you know, when you're doing something honorable. Right. So honor is intentional. Okay. Why would one care? Because they think their life matters. If you don't think your life matters, then the chances are good you don't believe that there's a loving creative source that caused you to exist. And if you don't believe that there's a loving creative source, a source of life that wants life to advance, that caused you to exist, then what does your life matter? Get what you can, while you can, and. And take what somebody else has because who cares, right? No honor among thieves. Why thieves don't care? They're all me centered. Right. So that's my thought, folks. Speaker G 35:15 Yeah. I feel like it stemmed from the belief that there is. You value. You value yourself. You value. There's true value in who I am, and there's true value in you and who you are and what you put the energy that you put out into whatever, whether you're a mother, father. Why do we honor or be called to be honoring our Parents, because of what they have put into us, what they're putting. It's like valuing the. What they've given us. And. And it's like honor your country. Why? Because of what it gives you. It's seeing the value in what's being given to you. It's seeing the value of what I'm bringing to the table that's honoring that. And if you value it, you sure as heck don't go and break it. Jim Cathcart 36:08 That's right. When I was in China, I've told some of you this before. I would have people come up to me, really, really motivated, eager to learn more about how to live a meaningful and satisfying life. Well, I had to be careful how I delivered that, because their country, unlike ours, the government owns everything. There is a government, and you are permitted to exist, period. Whereas in the United States, you exist and you've allowed the government to develop. Right? So way different where the power comes from in those two cultures. And so I would. I had a message I wanted to deliver, and I knew it was valuable, but I also knew that I was swimming upstream against some scary forces. You know, you could. You can disappear over there forever. So I said to them, you need to understand where I'm coming from in my messages, because if you like what I have to say, you need to ask, so, what does he believe? Why? Where? What's his own inner structure? I said, I was raised in America, so, you know, I have that mindset, and I was raised in a Christian home, and so I believe in God. I said, I'm not here to sell you on America or on God. I'm just here to share ideas with you that will work for you. And if you understand where I'm coming from, you can put that in context. If not, it might not work for you because you're not considering the source, the nature of the source. So, number one, in order to practice these principles, you must honor your government. Because this country, the government, is huge and powerful. You must honor your government. Number two, you must honor your legacy, your family, the ancestors, and all the things that. That they passed along to you, your predecessors. The third thing you must honor is your employer, because over there, that matters a lot. You know, you really sort of pledged to your employer, although not formally so it's attitudinally so. And I. And then I'd get to my final point, which was my main point, and that was this. You must also honor your gift, because you are capable of making the world better in many ways. Not always, but many and if you don't use your gift, you deny all of the rest of us the benefits you could have provided. So honor your government, honor your family, honor your employer, and honor yourself. Speaker C 39:09 Who's got thoughts? Who's got thoughts on that? Or just your own thoughts? Are you're going through the honor. What are the things. Brad, did you have something. I thought I saw your wheels going. That's why. Don't be bashful here. Jim Cathcart 39:24 Go ahead, Dennis. Yeah. Speaker E 39:26 Yeah. I'm curious if trying to attain a sense of honor through the eyes of others is. Is a worthwhile venture. And what I mean by that is if you. I go back to Covey's circle of concern, you know, I have to dig that out of, you know, having gone through that many, many years ago. Look, I do not like high praise. I get embarrassed when someone compliments me, and so I just don't seek it, you know. But that doesn't mean that you can't do the actions that would achieve it. So rather than focusing on people honoring you, I think it comes by doing those things. And you may not even know what it is that they honor being a better you. Jim Cathcart 40:18 That's. Speaker E 40:18 You know, sometimes when someone will comment on an action, something that I've done, and it wasn't my intent per se to bring accolades to myself, and. And that's where I get embarrassed sometimes. Jim Cathcart 40:33 Yeah. Speaker E 40:33 But I. I think that's kind of how that works. Jim Cathcart 40:36 I like that. Don't try to get it. Speaker E 40:37 It will come with your caring for others and that sort of thing. Jim Cathcart 40:44 And when you drill down on that. And that's, again, my. The whole thing here is what's under that? What's under that? What's under that? What's under that? The person who is seeking honors, plural, to be honored by others is not a person who's seeking to be honorable. They're seeking to get other people to make them feel okay. And so it's. I'll be better when I get that award. I'll be better when I finally have my initials after my name, showing that I got my degree or my doctorate or my whatever. Right. I'll be better when I'll be. It's what Dennis Waitley calls living on someday aisle. And I think that's a pretty clever personification of it or characterization of it. A person who has honor has honor by choice. They choose to be an honorable person. Why? Because they believe that caring matters. Why would caring matter? Because when they were growing up, they were shown care by other people, and they realized how special and unique that was. And when it was missing, they saw how awful it was, and so they were seeking that. You know, so you can see people who grew up in horrible circumstances, came from complete abandonment by society, and yet chose to become an honorable person and built a life to admire. And you can see people from the same circumstances that became scum of the earth, and, you know, the rest of society couldn't wait to lock them in a cell somewhere. So it's. It always comes back to that individual making the choice. And I think once we realize and. And this is where you see that religious conversions have such a huge impact on people. Once we realize we matter, everything else, the rest of the game changes. We want to seek wisdom. We want to live an honorable life. And you can. You can discover wisdom as a pragmatic thing, or you can discover wisdom as an a form of life advancement, becoming a better person by understanding greater truths and putting them to practice in your own life. Go ahead, Trigger. Speaker C 43:24 Yeah, so I'm listening. So, Janelle, I'm going to kind of paraphrase, but from what I got from you is almost like you earn that honor. Jim Cathcart 43:32 You. Speaker C 43:32 You earn it by behavior, conduct, relationship, whatever. You kind of earn the trust. And you. You earn the honor. Dennis, you're kind of more coming from the mindset which I also grew up with. You automatically honor people regardless. You give them the honor automatically. So it seems to be two different camps. Jim Cathcart 43:48 Honors, not honor and respect aren't the same. Speaker C 43:51 Right, right. So that's where I was going to go. So can we really honor people just blindly, or is it. We can respect them, but honor is a different thing, which may go to more of that. You build the trust, you earn that a little bit. That's exactly I was going to go. Is there a middle step here like Janelle was talking about? And is that respect part of that middle journey? Speaker G 44:16 Well, I was meaning that a position holds its honor because it provides whether. Because there's all. There's parents that have totally. I worked in Russia and we built shelters for street kiddos there. And these are kiddos that are coming from oh, my goodness stuff. Right. And are they to honor the parents? Yeah, but there's a different. There's different ways to honor, isn't there? I don't have to necessarily accept that is okay. But I can honor it because it's a position that they have in my life. So that automatically brings a respect, and so it's bringing a wisdom to find that slice. They brought me to this planet. Now the rest of this is crazy cray cray like times 10. But this slice, I can honor that. So see? Yeah, yeah. Jim Cathcart 45:14 Because if they don't behave honorably, clearly they haven't earned that kind of respect. But you can respect and, and honor the contribution that they did make or the position that they hold and show respect for that. And honor. And respect. Honor. I think honor comes from the spirit, from the soul, from the heart, and respect comes from the mind and the. And the body. Speaker C 45:39 So let me challenge that. My dad was a judge and you're a judge. Jim Cathcart 45:43 It's yours. Yes, your honor. Speaker C 45:45 And it's automatically now you're, you're. You're a criminal. You've done some pretty bad deeds. The first thing out of your mouth is your honor is that mind, is that heart or is you gotta do it, dude. Jim Cathcart 45:58 I think it's compliance. Speaker C 46:03 What are the thoughts everybody on the wisdom or the honor? Speaker G 46:06 And I think it's wisdom that allows us to grow. Because in the beginning we're talking wisdom is the stair steps to growth, to true growth and expansion of who we are. It's wisdom. And so at those moments we get to choose individually if I honor the value of me and who I bring to the table. And Jim said I have, we all have a gift or sets of gifts. And if I'm going to honor that, then I'm going to take a look at this and look at these principles. What are the principles within these books that I'm reading within these scenarios we're discussing? And in truth, to me, to honor me, how do I act in wisdom, which is honoring to me. Jim Cathcart 46:50 Y. Speaker G 46:51 So everybody's going to have, you know that judge, I honor you just because you told me to or. But it's our personal right, our personal journey and our. And our truth. Jim Cathcart 47:03 Yeah, it's like when you get into basic training in the army or the marines or whatever that you are required to behave with respect toward anybody who's got rank that's higher than yours. It's. It's a requirement and you don't necessarily feel it. And some of them are not worthy of it. I can tell from personal experience. But you honor the position because you're required to, not because you want to. When you look at wisdom, it. There's a continuum from ignorance to wisdom. And here's the continuum. The way I've seen it and the way I express it in some of my training, what exists before you observe it is just raw data. So think of a whole bunch of facts each on the little post it note and they're all laying on top of a desk. That's just raw data. Doesn't mean anything to anybody. It may be useful to know sometimes, but just looking at it, all you've got is data. Okay? Data is kind of useless until it's applied. All right? So the lowest level of wisdom would be just oblivious, ignorant, didn't even realize it was there. Didn't mean anything to me. What's the next level? Organize it. Oh, well, this is about how to do things, and this is about what, what we're going to be, where we're going to be going next. And this is about how our company operates, and this is about finances, and this is about relationship. Ah. All of a sudden, organized raw data becomes information, meaning it can inform you. So you go from ignorance to information or being informed by organizing the data, noticing more and organizing it. All right? Information evolves to the next level through the application of it. So when you study the information and start to apply reveals knowledge. Not only do you see the information, you know what it's telling you generally. Okay, so knowledge is through the study and application of the now newly organized material. The next level above knowledge is understanding. I can know a lot of things, but not get it. Like when the guy was interviewing me for Harley Davidson, he said, you know, I want to, want to come here. You speak. I said, no, you want to know if I get it, who Harley Davidson is. He said, well, that's a good point. How do I determine that? And I said, put a motorcycle under me. And so we rode the Rocky Mountains for three days. And he said, okay, you got the job. But he I got the job not because I could ride a motorcycle, because I understood the difference between a Suzuki, a Kawasaki, a Honda, a Harley Davidson, a Triumph and a Ducati. Right? So it was the understanding. I had lots of knowledge about motorcycles. I was reading five motorcycles a month for almost 10 years. And so I, I really was knowledgeable about the industry. But because I was also a motorcyclist, an enthusiast who was out riding all the time, 150,000 miles total over that time. I understood it had meaning to me. And so when it takes on meaning, then you start investing more of yourself into it. Now we've gone from raw data to information, information to knowledge. Knowledge to understanding. Okay, understanding. The next level above understanding is expertise, where your understanding is so good that you see the patterns and the principles that drive the patterns, and you can intervene or take action in a way that produces a high quality result pretty consistently. Maybe not all the Time, but most of the time, so that expertise allows you to be or produce excellence. The next level above that is wisdom. And wisdom transcends all of it. Because wisdom is seeing the patterns and understanding the meaning in such a way that you could take it out of that context and say, the same thing applies to farming. The same thing applies to growing a brand new basketball team. The same thing applies to parenting. You see what I mean? Wisdom transcends category. Knowledge is category specific. Almost always. Speaker C 51:50 So, so, so, so the little time left here, there was something early in my brain that I put back on the holder for wisdom. But someone made the comment about, we seek others out for wisdom. We're looking for wisdom from other experts and people in our lives. What about the wisdom as you're seeking those people? What about the wisdom of being silent when you ask for the wisdom? Does anyone struggle with the wisdom of silence? Jim Cathcart 52:21 Yes, I do. Totally guilty. Yes, we go seeking wisdom. Speaker C 52:28 If we want to glean from those gurus, isn't the wisest thing we could do is to sit and listen and absorb. Jim Cathcart 52:36 Yeah, and reflect? Because it's not just the absorption, but it's the. See, what happens is, is you've got a filing system back here of everything, you know, new and old. It's, there's the files, those are all the big drawers with the little folders and everything. Right up here is the desktop. And that's what you, you're conscious of right this moment and you can use spontaneously. Right. So if you don't review your notes on a presentation just before giving the presentation, it may be perfectly filed, but it's not on the desktop. And someone poses a question, you go, just a second, I was, there was something else I was going to cover. And you're looking for your notes now that you should have reviewed a few moments ago to give you that freedom. But that's the beauty of it. Reflection takes it from here back into the file so you understand it deeply, it has meaning and value to you, and you know where to put it because you know what it relates to. And then bringing it out of the file and reviewing it allows you to be as sharp as possible in the moment. But that reflection process, just without sitting and thinking and, and having no, no agenda, just looking at whatever it is you're considering, you're pondering, just let it kind of happen to you and see if you can notice more about it. And that's where wisdom is discovered, I think. Speaker C 54:16 What about the rest? Final comments, Questions. The add in from the gallery today, Jim Cathcart 54:22 Dennis Here, I'll change what I was Speaker E 54:25 going to say just minorly. There's a book called the Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. Holy. Jim Cathcart 54:33 Yep. Speaker E 54:34 And is it totally Toll? Yeah. What's that? Jim Cathcart 54:38 It's still totally, but I think he calls it toll. Yeah. Speaker E 54:42 And he talks about exactly that. Jim. To turn off that voice that controls us all day long. And it's hard to do but I've, I've managed to do it. And everything around you, including the bugs that are crawling on the ground, become vivid and right there, I mean you notice everything. And it's astounding how much you miss because you're, you know, you're listening to yourself all day long and, and you, you just miss stuff. But to go back to the question that Trigger had asked. I love sharing stories, I really do. And sometimes my wife has to tell me to stop because I'll just take over the room. But at the same time I can go an entire weekend without talking to anyone. I'm not sure why that's so different but I have spent an entire weekend when the house is empty and, and not felt like I was shortchanged because there wasn't someone to chat with. I don't know why that is so that's really not anything of value to share but just it is just an observation. Jim Cathcart 55:54 I think that's excellent. I like it. I'm certainly a spontaneous, no more than that, an impulse compulsive storyteller. I could tell stories all day long non stop as Lisa and Rich know. And so I have to restrain myself from time to time. Speaker C 56:18 Final comments. Speaker G 56:20 Yeah, and a benefit, a benefit of sitting and listening and you're, you're observing, you're listening to everybody's wisdom. But I feel there's wisdom in sitting with yourself. So those idle times with yourself and we can gather lots of wisdom or insight knowledge from others. But it's that honoring who I am and the wisdom that has been planted from our source, the creation that's us and sitting with that and being open to hear that, that guidance as well. Jim Cathcart 56:50 Yeah, that's it. The way you start your day matters. John Mitchell was speaking the other day at this entrepreneurs event. He said, he said how many of you experience negative selft talk occasionally and hands went up all over. He said, you know, life's hard enough without us piling on too. And I thought what a good observation that is. Yeah. But there is a tendency to negative self talk in all of us and that's something we can learn to manage or diminish that and should. Because the noise keeps us from noticing, like Dennis was saying, you know, noticing even the little things. Well, if you get up in the morning and the first thing you do is turn on the radio or the tv, you say, well, I just do it. You know, just feel like there's company, like I'm not alone. Okay, but you're also occupying a good portion of your consciousness that could be focused on something more productive. For me, the first thing in the morning, I'm okay with that later in the morning, but not first thing. First thing, I want to be the guy who's deciding how my day is going to begin to unfold. So the first thing I want to do is just be open to whatever thoughts or awareness might be there for me. So I want quiet time in the bre in the morning. And I tend to go to breakfast alone or have it alone here at home if I can and use that time without external messaging coming in. Now, if it's just a musical tune in the background, fine. But if it's a song, I'm gonna sing along. I'm sorry, but you know it. I'm. Speaker C 58:37 I'm guilty. Jim Cathcart 58:38 Yeah, I cannot. My staff used to hate that in La Jolla. When I had a full time staff for so many years in San Diego. I told them, folks, when I'm in the office, no radio, well, it's just, you know, you know, it's like music. It's bad, it diminishes my ability. And I'm here to achieve. And so I'm sorry, but not permitted while I'm here. When I leave, turn on the radio and enjoy. Get your work done, but enjoy your music if you want, but not while I'm here. Old fuddy duddy. No, I was managing my mind. And I think we all should. And that might be, I think, better with music. No, you don't. You think about music better with music. Speaker C 59:30 That might be another great topic for another great Wisdom Parlor, managing your mind. Because today, honor wisdom, great conversation, great insights. Thank you everybody for being here today and being a part of this. And of course, we will be back once again with the Wisdom Parlor because it's sponsored by the Cathcart Institute of the Cathcart Institute Experts Academy. A 12 month mentorship that results in the people receiving the CPE, the Certified Professional Expert designation and the book of Call and talk with Jim to determine if that's a good fit for you. Once again, go to that bitly backslash Cathcart and learn more and book a call with Jim. Jim, final thoughts as we wind down today. And again, everyone, don't forget, we will be back next month once again, Wednesday, November 1st, for another wisdom Parlor. Jim Cathcart 60:16 But Jim and it's going to be a remote broadcast. I'm coming remote broadcast coming from High Point University in North Carolina. Well be with Nito Kubain and John Mitchell and and our wives, all three of our wives. That's going to be an exciting and amazing experience coming from there. October 22, 23, 24. That's Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Austin, Texas, the Going Pro Mastermind retreat. It's going to be a small group, maybe 10 of us, and we're going to be focus on focusing on whatever your main priority is and so bring something that you want to get real advancement on and spend that time with us. If you're already in the Going Pro program, then your costs are covered. If you want to come to that program, it's just 2500 and that covers the entire experience, although your lodging and travel is on you, But I'll cover all the meals and the meeting expenses and such. And it's going to be an adventure as well as a fascinating and valuable discussion. And if you're interested in that, Jim, @cathcart.com that's my email, jimcart.com so just drop me an email or book. You know, book a call through that little link that that trigger was talking about. And if you don't have your copy yet of the what to do when you're the speaker, go to free Cathcart.com and and download a copy and I'll see everyone next month. Speaker C 61:55 See you next month, November 1st. Jim Cathcart 61:57 Once again, appreciate you being here. I really do. Good to see you all. Speaker A 62:03 Thank you for joining us today in the Wisdom Parlor, a thoughtful discussion of important ideas among people who are committed to succeeding in life. If you are committed to making more success happen in your own life, go right now to my website, free.cathcart.com and down 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. Thank you for joining us today in the Wisdom Parlor, a thoughtful discussion of important ideas among people who are committed to succeeding in life. 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 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.