Steve Pemberton: One Book Away From Being a Lighthouse for Others

 

Steve Pemberton is the Chief Human Experience Officer at Workhuman, the world’s fastest-growing integrated Social Recognition® and continuous performance management platform. Steve works with HR leaders and senior management executives worldwide to help build workplaces where every employee feels recognized, respected, and appreciated for who they are and what they do.  Before joining Workhuman, Steve served in senior HR executive roles for Walgreens Boots Alliance and Monster.com. Steve holds multiple degrees from Boston College and serves on several nonprofit boards, including UCAN (Chicago), Academy for Urban School Leadership and Loyola Academy.

A passionate human rights champion, Steve has made equality, access, and opportunity the foundation of his personal and professional life. A frequent presenter on Capitol Hill, in 2015, he was appointed by U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez to serve on the Advisory Committee for the Competitive Integrated Employment of People with Disabilities. He is the author of two critically-acclaimed books, “The Lighthouse Effect”, which highlights the goodness of humanity and empowers readers to be a lighthouse to others, and the USA Today best-selling memoir and subject of the film, “A Chance in the World,” in which Steve chronicled the extraordinary journey of his search for family. His tireless advocacy for the disenfranchised has also earned him multiple honorary doctorates and the prestigious Horizon Award presented by Congress, given to private sector individuals who have expanded opportunities for all Americans through their own personal contributions.

 

Transcript

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[Music]
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welcome to the one away show presented by bw missions i am brian wish and i am
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your host and thanks so much for being here on this show i sit down with compelling entrepreneurs authors and rising leaders
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to talk through their most transformative relationships experiences and epiphanies
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curated with entrepreneurial leaders in mind we’ll dig into these finite moments in people’s lives and understand how
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they helped set their path forward steve pemberton is chief human
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experience officer at work human the world’s fastest growing integrated social recognition and continuous
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performance management platform steve works with hr leaders and senior management executives worldwide to help
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build workplaces where every employee feels recognized respected and appreciated for who they are and what
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they do before joining work humans steve served in senior hr executive roles for
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walgreens boots alliance and monster.com steve holds multiple degrees from boston
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college and serves on several non-profit boards including ucan chicago academy for urban school leadership in loyola
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academy a passionate human rights champion steve has made equality access and opportunity
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the foundation of his personal and professional life a frequent presenter on capitol hill in
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2015 he was appointed by u.s secretary of labor tomas perez to serve on the
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advisory committee for competitive integrated employment of people with disabilities he is the author of two
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critically acclaimed books the lighthouse effect which highlights the goodness of humanity and empowers
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readers to be lighthoused to others and the usa today best-selling memoir and subject of the film a chance in the
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world in which steve chronicled the extraordinary journey of his search for family
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his tireless advocacy for the disenfranchised has also earned him multiple honorary doctorates in the
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prestigious horizon award presented by congress given to private sector individuals who have expanded
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opportunities for all americans to their own personal contributions [Music]
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steve welcome to the one away show thanks brian thanks for having me it’s a pleasure uh it’s so good talking to you
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a few weeks ago and glad you’re back from hawaii so refreshed and ready um steve what is
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the one away moment that you want to share with us today it’s the lighthouse effect
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it’s the idea that all of us immersed in the hustle and bustle and busyness
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of our own lives can on any given day any given interaction
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be a lighthouse for another and find one for ourselves very cool and steve just so the audience
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knows you just published a book on this topic why don’t you just tell us a little bit more about what made you
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publish this book on this topic and truly the the definition behind what it
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represents the lighthouse effect was published a couple weeks ago and its origin came from my first book a chance
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in the world i wrote a chance in the world about 10 years ago and i’ve wrote it as a family
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history my children are younger than have begun asking me
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about my origin story and so i wrote the book as my response to them
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and what i imagined that it would be would be something of a family history
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that future generations of pembertons would read well it’s a story of growing up
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in massachusetts no memory of mother father
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family as a family construct growing up in the foster care system very turbulent very difficult and
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navigating all of that to get to college and then ultimately looking for and finding my biological
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family it’s a near 100 year story when all is said and done but still i thought that at this
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conclusion it wouldn’t go any further and didn’t really need to go any further than my own family
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well i learned really quickly that in the course of writing my own
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journey i’d written chapters unknowingly of other people’s lives these universal stories of family and faith and
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fortitude forgiveness redemption the things that touch all of our lives at some point
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when you share your story and it finds a wider audience what happens
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is that it’s an invitation for people to share their stories with you and you begin to see really the depth the
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essence of humanity which is very different than what we see on a daily basis
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and hearing all of these stories over the years reflecting on those stories
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and also seeing the need for us to find a different way as human beings to connect to move
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beyond labels and to find that more common experience is what led to me to
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write the lighthouse effect where in essence i have chronicled the stories of these 10 people
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that i met along my life journey at different times in my life as a young boy
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as a younger man or as recently as just a few years ago and in each instance they made me pause
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reflect they affirmed a life lesson that was very important they all overcame something very
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difficult brian and it could have broken them and not only didn’t it but they
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persevered through it but with a particular aim of the greater good
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and that just fascinated me and continues to so their lives were in our instructor for me
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and i think they’re instructed for all of us well steve i really appreciate the context on your background in your own
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story the first book and then also what contributed towards the second book and sharing these life
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lessons through the stories of others before we get to
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the lighthouse effect i think a central question to this how this is all built out because i think the thread is very
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clear here what i’m curious about is one when did you start making sense of
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your own story and then two after you started making sense of your own story when did you realize the
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power of maybe the healing experience of sharing your story with someone else who
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also shares a similar story and what that can do so i’ll let you take it away well
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boy i think it might take sometimes a lifetime to make some sense of one’s story you know and so i think that for
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me that making sense is ongoing you know it never really stops you’re always i think
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trying to make sense of it right uh you know i i would probably say that it didn’t really fully happen for me
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until i became a dad you know because i went through the
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stage in all honesty where i said you know okay you know this happened and you
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know moving on you know moving on and so um you know i said that it’s relevant
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only to the degree that i have the occasional thought about it and i just did not anticipate how much
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fatherhood would really alter that and more specifically
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it made me revisit the story of my own mother and father their journeys their lives their
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probability of my own in a way that would be instructive and helpful to
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others that’s what makes the most sense the value of one’s life is
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for me largely to the degree that it can positively impact someone else’s and
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maybe we endure what we endure we overcome what we overcome the epiphanies and awakenings we have
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maybe they’re not really for us maybe they’re for others who might see in our struggles our victories
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the possibility of overcoming their own so that mission i think becomes clearer
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and clearer to me but never as clear as when a chance in the world was published i mean that’s
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when it hit me in ways it hadn’t before that story that experience
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was needed people needed to hear it and they still need to hear it they still need to hear it so for me it comes out
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as word responsibility having this responsibility to share one story uh in the hopes that it will touch and
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impact someone else’s especially when you’re sharing out of a place of being a guide and wanting to
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impact right not sharing or maybe pity in the sense of getting an audience
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reaction to feel bad but to be inspired by what you’re doing and just one more question if you don’t
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mind i know i’m cutting in a little bit why fatherhood me you maybe take a step back and maybe
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reckon a little bit with your past ultimately leading to a chance in the world why was it fatherhood that finally
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made you look at yourself and try and maybe put some puzzle pieces together for the first time it was a realization
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that that there really isn’t such a thing as you just starting with a blank slate
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because that’s how i saw it i belong to a rare fraternity
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of individuals who have never experienced parents my uncle
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is like that too we grew up in orphanages and foster homes and so
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we didn’t have parents and i think we have that experience you just say well okay i want to begin again but i think
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this this idea of legacy of continuity that you really do
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see in your children and specifically breaking a cycle because that’s what i
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had come from i had come from a cycle of family separation of being orphaned i was orphaned my
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father was orphaned my grandfather was orphaned my mother passed away at 40
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as did her mother before her and her mother before her
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you know it was this was a cycle and i was just messed up why that cycle avoided me has been
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important for me to share to understand so that the cycle doesn’t
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get repeated i so appreciate this and just the vulnerability here because
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it’s making a lot of sense but i’m sure action was extremely hard to navigate growing up
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with what you saw growing up were you kind of headstrong in the fact that you wanted to break this cycle you wanted to
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do it a little differently um yeah headstrong is is is
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an understatement uh i i was unrelenting
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and brian i still am you know this idea that i was going to have to repeat that
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cycle and that i didn’t have choice which a
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teacher in high school my senior year of high school said of me or said to me that i was determined
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there’s nothing i could do and i remember she threw me out of class we got into an argument about it i i think that
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that drive that you know relentlessness you know came from having to live like that and and
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then i i think it becomes very practical at the same time so you can have the aspiration to do anything right you say
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i don’t want this anymore i don’t and it could be whatever it is but you have to pivot from that emotion
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to the practice the behaviors that’s going to allow for that vision to become realized what are you willing to
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sacrifice what are you willing to work for or towards
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what are you willing to be vulnerable about that has to be a manual has to be something that you live by otherwise
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without that you’ll lapse into the same kind of behaviors that might have landed you in the
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circumstance to begin with it’s a daily regimen it’s a daily focus
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in some way shape or form what’s my best and if i continue to try to answer that
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question every day an answer that has less to do with comparing oneself other than maybe to a better version of
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yourself better dad better husband better writer better businessman you know how good can i get
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at anything that fuels me and over time i do think it creates a recipe
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for success with one caveat which may seem odd i’m actually less concerned about
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the outcome i am much more concerned about the effort and about the journey like that’s my focus and it’s liberating
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in that sense right to say okay i’m going to sit down i’m going to get up every morning 4 30 in the morning to
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write a book which is what i did with both books by the way now whether or not they achieve commercial success
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is almost irrelevant it doesn’t matter the fact that they found that is it’s nice but it was not necessary
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and that to me is the real victory there’s a certain kind of value
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to pursuing anything with a degree of relentlessness and just seeing like see
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where it takes you where’s it going to take you there’s a lot there steve but i
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really respect you know talked about your high school teacher the headstrong was an
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understatement it seems like something so fundamental to your core that’s driven you and
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asking that question what’s my best in all my areas of my life i mean well that kind of beautiful way to live without
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maybe the rigidity of the outcome at the end so it’s interesting how you’ve created
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what you said you know some of these behaviors so that you can have a better life for yourself in sacrificing sleep to put out work
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that’s going to help inspire others through your story and now the stories of others so let’s let’s get to the lighthouse
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effect something that i want to ask you before we dive in a little bit to some of the shared stories and lessons is
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on our first call you said something really interesting that i don’t want to gloss over for the audience you talk to
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me about the definition of a lighthouse and what a lighthouse represents more
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symbolically can you maybe give some context to what you shared with me
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one-on-one i think that would be a great place to start when you grow up by the sea as i did
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there is a language of the sea like there’s a language of the farm there’s you know
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currents and tides and compasses and there are lighthouses the lighthouse
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as an architectural structure has been with us since ancient times the first tested lighthouse was on the greek
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island of pharaohs which is why people who study lighthouses are called virologists so as an
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architectural structure it is quite a marvel and there is almost a clash
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between what the lighthouse looks like and the elements that are around it it’s
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this incredibly tall structure built very differently than most buildings because it’s round and that’s
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for a very specific purpose this is to fuse the winds that that come and maybe
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the bridge the sister companion to the lighthouse is the other that we could quite accurately define as the most
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selfless structure that humankind has ever created because the lighthouse exists for no purpose other than to be
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of service to something or someone else it’s not there to serve itself in fact what it is known for emanating light it
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is meant to project that light outward if you’re around the lighthouse at night one of the things that will jump out at
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you is that the area around it is not particularly well lit it’s not meant to
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shine the light upon itself it’s meant to shine that light outward for for others this dichotomy of the structure
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and its mission is fascinating wherever you see a lighthouse there is one thing that you know for
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sure danger is nearby that’s an unequivocal truth doesn’t matter where it is
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something difficult and dangerous is nearby could be coral reef it could be
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very turbulent currents it could be an old shipwreck and in a way i found
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the lighthouse to be a beacon for humanity as well you give me a problem here’s a fascinating thing technology
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really has disintermediated the lighthouse we we don’t need them the way that sailors of yesteryear did so they were
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guides for sailors of yesteryear now we have technology that does that for us global positioning system
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electronic navigational charts and we don’t as a technical matter need the lighthouse and yet there’s still 23
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000 of them all across the world and there’s actually an effort underway to preserve them and has been quite some
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time so why is that i think a lot of that has to do with what it means to
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us to navigate the world you don’t need it to navigate the sea then
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its relevance i think is to remind us how to navigate humanity what we should be to one another and how
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we should be with one another to be humble to be steadfast to be resilient
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to not render judgment to be a guide a protector of another’s journey so so
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much of how to navigate humanity does exist in the lighthouse itself for any of us if you and i let’s say we’re in a
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you know big conference room and we had a lot of tables around and we asked them so tell me who your human lighthouse is
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everybody knows nobody has to sit back and think for a moment okay
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i really don’t know who that is we all know oftentimes gives you more than one person
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and it could be an elementary school teacher it could be the bus driver who picked you up take you to school
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a high school coach college professor first boss because when you as you get a little bit older and you look down
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really the voice that’s been your own life you realize how different your life is because of those people they’re not in your life every single day you might
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not talk to them every day but their impact upon you is with you every day
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i really appreciate the definition and what you’ve shared just a symbolic structure
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even though technology may have replaced what it you know used to be what you said about we all have these lighthouses
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in our lives but that we don’t even have to think they just show up the fact that you took that concept for
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a book you let other people use their stories to create like for others through their
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own journeys i think is a really cool concept something that i want to ask you
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is you talked about something really poignant and you said around every lighthouse
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there is danger to a coral reef or currents or things
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that could pose danger my question for you before we dive into some of the stories in the book
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is do you believe for an individual to have light to shine a light on others if
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they need to pass through some difficulty um i i think it’s just the nature of
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breathing this air living this life is that you know adversity from the time we arrive in the world it’s a battle
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just to come into the world and it’s often times a battle when you’re in the world it could be inherited circumstances it could be some things of
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our own doing the people that i wrote about all endured something very difficult and as i said earlier when you
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hear other people’s stories you realize how common overcoming adversity is for all of us
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it’s just part of the way we have to navigate the world what we miss sometimes is how important and helpful
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those life experiences can be for someone else who is similarly battling
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something and might not be able to see the way through and forward until they meet us and there is at least in our
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time we are seeing a lot of systemic breakdowns we’re seeing record levels of
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addiction of family separation of incarceration of homicide there’s a
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lot of people in the world who are are hurting because the adversities that
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they are dealing with seem too big to overcome and they’re looking for hope
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and it’s not to be found in the traditional places that sometimes we do especially the elevated figures in
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society you know the wealthy the well-known the celebrity it doesn’t mean that those individuals aren’t
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lighthouses what i do think it means is that we also have to find others that are more closer to us
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in our life experience and to recognize that they are indeed all around us
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that’s what i meant earlier when i said that every interaction is this opportunity to be a lighthouse
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for someone or to find one for ourselves just asking someone their name so the conference
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some years ago and anytime someone is in a capacity where they’re serving me and they have a name
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tag i use their name that’s just a moment of recognition of me making sure
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that they know i see them and you never know what a gesture like that might mean to someone
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this conference i was at i asked this man how do i pronounce his name even though it was obvious and he said
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minombre is samwell as in damn well like everything i do
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i’ve never forgotten somewhere now that interaction and my immediate
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respect and regard for him his pride at what he did was so instructive to me and
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very inspiring small interaction i never saw samwell again probably never will
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but that interaction that moment mean somehow the pride the joy was was really
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something yeah i’ve chills going down my spine wow
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well to your point there’s so much joy that can happen in these happenstance
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moments and when you maybe cultivate an environment and experience to fully see it and try and understand people
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and when the conference backs to the simple questions it seems like from your life experiences create ways in which
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you can you can make people feel seen which is so special so thanks to the
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stories and also the context to the question around difficulty and in the light and the relationship between
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i want to shine a light on you for the you know 4 30 a.m wake up sessions to
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write about others and then the light that they can go shine on the world if you had to share
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a few of the individuals or maybe one that is just based on this conversation
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we’re having right now that is really speaking to you i would love for you to talk about the
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book and someone that you were able to highlight who overcame extraordinary beats in his triumph
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forward to inspire others to do the same they all fit that bill they all fit that standard
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they do in different ways so there’s not one i would say that is more
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reflective or more the embodiment of that than another they all do you know certainly uh someone i met much later on
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in life greg who grew up in orphanages without parents
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as did i forged his way through that to become [Music]
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very successful in his career you know doting dad devoted husband you know he was dropped off at an orphanage by his
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mother he was young and he never saw her again the common thread that he and i have is that he is my biological uncle
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and many years later i came looking for him and i found him and what that meant to him you know one
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point he he said all these years that i was looking for family or wanted to be
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found by them i never imagined that you know one day that somebody would come looking for me you know the orphan
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actually is an example of adversity and
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what we can glean from those over overcome it to be orphaned is very tough
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it’s very tough because you’re aware of it you don’t have the language or the life experience
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to put it in any kind of context but the orphan actually is
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a staple of the world the orphan as a word is mentioned 27 times in the bible our
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childhood heroes spiderman superman batman frodo baggins jane eyre all
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orphaned the attributes of the orphan the strength the resilience the grit the the determination is is part of how
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and why we are so attracted to the orphan story and those are real life examples of people like that too
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greg my uncle is one of them i would love to ask a few more because greg incredible story that he had been
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looking all along to be found being reunited for the first time create i’m
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sure such an emotional connection beyond words what as a result of
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maybe reconnecting or maybe and answering that gift that he had always been looking for maybe you yourself
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clearly have been looking for it i’m just curious you know what has happened as a result of you both coming together
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and who maybe tell us a little bit more about greg and what he’s up to today and and sure you know what you long for if
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you’ve had to move from foster home to foster home or back then orphanage to
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orphanage you long for normalcy for continuity for legacy that’s what you
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long for and as long as you live you long for that that’s the irony of it
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it’s not something that dissipates when you’re when you become an adult and self-sufficient you always long for that
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because you don’t as families will often do they’ll sit around and share stories
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and you don’t have those stories to share because that’s not the story that you came from
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and and so you know what has been restored is that sense of connection
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and for he and i that come specifically for our children he has three children i
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have three children they have their own relationship they know each other very well and they
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are to me so healing those interactions for us
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for my uncle greg and and for me uh you know so he is now retired uh he’s a
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physical therapist that was his career coming out of college uh helping
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people heal which i’d say no doubt helped him heal too right
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uh bringing people back to themselves you know so to speak very quiet and very humble man
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doesn’t like the lighthouse doesn’t seek fanfare doesn’t seek recognition and still doesn’t consider it particularly
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extraordinary i on the other hand think it’s very extraordinary and we have a great relationship i’m in
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fact my uh my oldest son his full name is quinn gregory pemberton
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i love what you said about restorative and healing and how he’s maybe healing people through eating them back
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physically to themselves you know i think you’ve taken a similar like your approach helping others heal through
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words and stories and through your own and now the sharing of others like greg so it’s very special connection so thank
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you for sharing about greg i would love to learn more you know to tell us uh about some of these other
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lighthouses that you’ve identified yeah uh holly robinson pete and
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her son rj and her husband rodney pete endured the
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diagnosis of autism for r.j and everything that that family went through
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and how she in particular resolved that he was going to have his own place in
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the world remains extraordinary you know she says that she wouldn’t change rj for the
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world but she would change the world for him and that’s what she’s done when you’re
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a parent in the early days of there being developmental delays you don’t
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know the source of the origins of them you’re seeing advice here
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it’s very challenging very challenging and they went through all that and i
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think this expectation especially because rj’s dad rodney pete
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uh was a heisman finalist an nfl quarterback for 14 years
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holly robinson pete of um 21 jump street fame fantastic actress
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you know they with a quote unquote you know all american couple and then here comes the diagnosis of autism and
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how do you handle that as a family what does it mean for rj i mean r.j is a
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lighthouse because this diagnosis of autism has
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nevertheless still enabled him to be a beacon for others he is today an
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attendant for the los angeles dodgers he’s the lifeblood of the clubhouse and nobody imagined that that was going to
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be his impact on the world but it is a great deal of admiration and affection
29:38
for him and for the family you know another story is of fl kirby who
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was down behind enemy lines in in vietnam although he was quick to point out to me that it’s all enemy lines when
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you were fighting in vietnam you know fighting brian you and i don’t know what this like is like
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because we’re of a different generation uh but fl fought in a thankless war because those who served in vietnam were
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not thanked for their service and in fact nearly all of them purposefully took the uniform off when
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they came home so they wouldn’t be targeted and you know fl whose helicopter went down twice in
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vietnam the first time on a training mission the second time when he was going to
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pick up a chaplain to bring some spiritual restoration to
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you know his fellow soldiers and he survives both crashes and the
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second one you know by all in for all intents and purposes he should have been a prisoner of war
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uh because he was in a very desperate situation but somehow found his way back to safety
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and did so with an even greater desire to be of service to humankind you know
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and you when you sit there talking to somebody like that brian you know just that that that kind of
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courage that kind of conviction that kind of strength is extraordinary that’s
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just and he doesn’t he couldn’t convince him of it you know
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and i think about all of our social collisions today all of the copying at one another the
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negativity the cynicism and then i think about fl small in stature giant in heart
31:24
though e2 a lighthouse two helicopter crashes and survived both
31:31
in a war yeah and i should also point out flying a helicopter in vietnam
31:36
very dangerous very dangerous so my grandfather he was a wild weasel in vietnam and you
31:43
know where the wild weasel is yeah well i just shared for the audience his
31:48
job was to fly in first to get shot at so bombers could come in behind him and drop bombs and i know it really she
31:55
controlled my my father but they never talked about war i almost i think i was
32:00
too young to maybe ask the questions i was asked today basically but there was this sense of strength
32:08
inner strength that was so clear about this man and it’s hard to appreciate them but to to
32:15
your point you see the name is rj sorry for no yes okay i was right i mean he said uh small
32:23
and stature but big and hard or something i mean that that i mean it’s just incredible right listening to
32:29
that that he had the fortitude to keep going and my question about him is you said that
32:35
the way he’s moved forward to i think like impact people or to share more
32:40
kindness because what what does that look like you know i think for for fl you know fl
32:48
is in many ways the embodiment of what any of us can do what i mean by that is that it’s in his daily interactions now
32:55
he moved into the financial sector upon his departure from from the military and
33:01
so for fell it shows up in his faith
33:06
it shows up in his family and his grandchildren his children and his grandchildren in particular it shows up
33:13
in the way that he tries to you know impact and touch the life of another as
33:19
i think about being a lighthouse you know sometimes i i think we assign it to
33:25
these larger enormous gigantic things you know i’ve gotta build a non-profit
33:31
and i’m not so sure about that i i think a kind word matters i i think a listening ear matters
33:39
you know being a lighthouse is also in the small things too nfl really does embody that and what i also find is so
33:47
important and particularly in american society today
33:52
is the need generally for us to live the lessons
33:57
of people like fl the selflessness the courage those are
34:03
qualities that i find in our daily interactions if they’re not in short supply they certainly are not
34:10
celebrated as much as they should be where the the the nexus the foundation
34:16
of culture and the way we enact is cynicism it’s judgment it’s criticizing
34:22
rather than celebrating acknowledging uplifting and if you social media unfortunately has
34:30
only accelerated a lot of that and those things change society brian they do you don’t need to be the big
34:36
figure the person with the title that accolades to to have a massive impact on the lives of others and they can do that
34:43
through the smallest of things and yes it needs to be the red line through a lot of these individuals they’re not
34:50
massive in social stature but they truly care uh
34:56
a couple more questions here before we wrap you share a few moments from becoming a father and how it made you
35:01
put together some of the pieces of your story writing the first book what i’m curious about is what is the
35:08
biggest thing maybe you learned about yourself through giving others the torch and hearing
35:14
those stories probably the biggest thing i’ve learned is the sense of
35:22
mission and the willingness i i think to do the hard things for the greater good
35:28
i mean i always knew that but i just realized that i am the you know i’m a fighter i just came into the world that
35:34
way and i’ve just it’s not that i’ve learned that as much as i’ve gotten very very comfortable
35:40
with it i battle and i think we all have to get to those journeys those
35:45
realizations in our life of this is who i am this is what i am and to be
35:52
comfortable with that whatever that is when there are the external world of comparisons and expectations
35:59
but i think realizing what your core is at your core and getting comfortable with that accepting it embracing it
36:05
celebrating it has been important for me because you’re not drawn so much into
36:11
the well boy i should be a lot more like or i should it’s like none of that it’s
36:17
more about now this is how i am and i think about that with my wife tanya’s like what’s her way
36:23
um you know she loves the moments of celebration as we were
36:29
just in hawaii and she just kept pointing out the flowers i mean she notices things like that
36:36
and appreciates them and appreciates the beauty that is life that’s her that is her
36:41
trying to make her something else [Music] of her trying to be something else is like
36:46
what’s the point of that what’s the point of that that’s who she is you have yours right this is who i am at
36:53
my core i think that’s an important realization for all of us to have that we not get
36:58
caught up in comparison everybody has their own journeys to walk so to speak you know
37:05
so i think that that for me has been the greatest affirmation in this process
37:10
quick secondary point to that the importance of being willing to share
37:15
the struggles because what we can be drawn to is title and success and those
37:20
might be the things that say ah here’s the standard so you’re looking up to that uh not so sure about that not so sure
37:28
about that i think it’s the moments of uncertainty moments of hey i didn’t know the way forward either
37:35
i remember that i see that’s where you are now let me help you you know that to me is a very different approach than
37:41
than saying look at me and i’m the you know you should do all the things that i did what resonates more with me is
37:48
here the times i was in the storm wow it’s actually the experience for you of
37:55
getting closer in touch it sounds like with humanity and the storms of humanity
38:00
despite having an extra storm that you had to walk through yourself and i just have so much
38:06
respect for the body of work that you put together how you’re sharing about it you can tell
38:12
this whole conversation has just been from the heart you’re not even thinking it seems like it’s oozing out of you so naturally and you just have a lot of
38:18
respect steve for your journey appreciate that brian yeah and last question and then we’re going to
38:24
tell people where to find you and all the fun things um someone in my background i the cycle of certain things
38:30
in my life growing up has really driven me maybe similar to you and not the same way not the same storm but
38:37
definitely propelled me in a certain way and so i’m curious for you even the fact that you never had the
38:43
structure in your life what’s been the most gratifying aspect of being a father
38:48
and having asia it sounds like a strong loving family unit and a beautiful wife who who truly cares about you and the
38:55
family you guys are cultivating it it’s the stability it’s normalcy that’s what i treasure
39:02
that’s what’s been by far the most satisfying my three children watching
39:07
them chase their own life pursuits is really satisfying now what they what they go on to do i’m not so concerned
39:14
about that if we’ve raised them right then they’ll choose wisely that gives me an enormous amount of
39:20
satisfaction and not just for the obvious reason that it’s them and we love them but it’s also the end of a
39:28
cycle for the pemberton side my line of the family it’s the end of the cycle that gives me a lot of satisfaction and
39:36
then uh more broadly just knowing that some part of my journey inspires others
39:42
like that to me is particularly meaningful because
39:48
i do remember those storms i remember how difficult they were
39:53
and to be a small beacon in the midst of those storms is
39:58
is living the actualized life like maybe that’s what you’re here to do and maybe that’s why you endure what you do and so
40:04
that you can be that beacon for somebody else beautiful thank you steve for sharing so courageously and
40:11
about a few of the people although i know there were there were many more uh in the book that they did not discuss so
40:18
for others to connect with you find you find your work where where shall they go how do they go
40:24
about doing that well you can find me on all the big social media channels
40:29
linkedin instagram facebook twitter at isteppemberton
40:35
so you can find me there provide a lot of updates on the lighthouse effect you can also find me
40:41
and reach out to me at stevepemberton.io or all the places that
40:46
i am those platforms i hear a lot of people’s stories and i share a lot of those stories through those channels
40:53
specifically so i’d love to hear from your listeners i too greatly appreciate this time this
41:00
conversation we should all you know begin our days like this [Music]
41:06
thanks for the opportunity to ask you some questions and he answered them
41:11
beautifully and hopefully it was a little different for you than others but i really enjoyed it myself and
41:19
i know the people who listen will be impacted as well so thank you so much yeah thank you brian great to be with
41:25
you if you enjoyed this episode as much as i
41:31
did i hope you leave a review on the platform of your choice and share it with a friend who you think would find
41:36
it valuable if you’d like to receive a written newsletter and thought leadership head on over to
41:42
bwmissions.combackslashnewsletter [Music] and subscribe see you on the next show
41:50
[Music]

This post was previously published on Arcbound.

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The post Steve Pemberton: One Book Away From Being a Lighthouse for Others appeared first on The Good Men Project.