Paul Glover

[00:00:00] Michael Pacheco: Hello, everybody. Welcome once again to another episode of the remarkable coach podcast. As always, I’m your host, Michael Pacheco. And today with me, I have Paul Glover. Paul is the no BS workforce legacy coach recovering trial lawyer. I love that recovering and an ex felon off author of work quake, a presenter On creating leadership legacy and having a fool in your life and a member of the Forbes coaches council paul is also an alumnus of the remarkable coach podcast.

This is his second showing so paul welcome once again to the remarkable coach, man. We had a great conversation the first time for our listeners and viewers, if you guys hadn’t heard that definitely recommend you go back and check out the first interview. It was a great one. And I’m looking forward to just chatting with you about nothing in particular this time, just whatever comes up.

[00:00:57] Paul Glover: Well, first, Michael, thank you so much for the return visit that I tell people that I’m acquired. I’m an acquired taste. So apparently the taste wasn’t too bad last time. So I certainly appreciate the opportunity to do some chatting with you for sure.

[00:01:12] Michael Pacheco: Awesome. Awesome, man. For those who have not had a chance to listen to the first podcast or who may not be familiar with you, why don’t you tell us a little bit more about yourself in your own words, who you are, what you do, why you do it?

[00:01:27] Paul Glover: Well, first, you’ve already mentioned all the accolades, right? The titles that go with the with the name. I am a coach. I, I, Bill myself as the No BS workplace legacy coach. I work with people in the C suites throughout the United States. I’ve got a national practice and it’s I became a coach involuntarily.

It was not my choice. My choice was, as you mentioned, a lawyer. Unfortunately, it was not as a recovering lawyer. But because of my own blind spots and the triggers that activated those blind spots, I committed federal crimes that got me indicted on 33 counts and I served five and a half years of a seven year sentence in prison.

And so, being an ex con, that no, no practicing law anymore. And that was the love of my life. Got out. My family had stayed by my side. Miracle in itself spending that much time in prison normally destroys most families. But my wife and my two boys stood by me. And when I got out, I, I had some.

And to make a decision, what was I going to do with my life? I was 52. So definitely was was not going to go back to school. And by the way, I, even though you do the crime it’s not as if you are forgiven for the offenses. So I took a close look around at That what was available for me to engage in something meaningful and I decided that that my experience obviously as a, as a lawyer, I’m a critical thinker, but the experience that I went through going to prison and being humbled by that experience.

We talked earlier about humility and I was a guy that had no humility. I had hubris. One of the H words, right? And I was the smartest guy in the room and I was I was just so terribly arrogant. And as I started to think about the people that I had done business with, it came to me that most leaders are that way.

The Gallup research shows that the higher up the hierarchy you go, the less empathetic you become. And until finally you reach that epitome of the C suite where everybody kisses your ass and nobody tells you the truth. And you start to believe, what do they say, never read your own press clippings. You start to believe that you are above it all, that you’re entitled.

That was my attitude. I didn’t believe that anyone would ever be able to catch me committing these crimes or put me in prison. So I, I said, hmm, all right, I’ve got this very unusual mix of skills, critical as a lawyer, but also as a lawyer, I developed a a, a. A storytelling mentality because I found out early on that the only way I would win a case was to take the jury on a journey.

And I turned my client into the hero, a recovering scoundrel, maybe. In fact, I found that the juries loved recovering scoundrels. The guy that did something bad, but was remorseful. And apologetic and wouldn’t do it again. But still was that scoundrel. By the way, a recovering scoundrel, like a recovering lawyer.

My wife says, you know, recovering lawyer means one thing. You are still a lawyer. You just can’t practice. So the same thing with humbled me.

That destroyed my legal career that damaged my family dramatically actually made me a really good person. What it made me was a person who was who was able to recognize my blind spots and the triggers and with the help of other people put the blocks in place so that I don’t. Fall back into temptation.

I know it’s a terrible, terrible analogy, but if you’re an alcoholic, you’re a recovering alcoholic, don’t go set in the bar. Don’t tempt yourself because I guarantee you we’re a lot weaker than we think we are. And so I’ve structured my life so that I don’t have the temptations that I had That caused me to commit the crimes that put me in prison.

So I looked at this again back to the skill set. So critical thinker, good storyteller, and suddenly the realization about being humble and about what leaders face. as their temptations. And I decided that I was in a very good spot to be able to talk to leaders about how they needed to lead, about how they needed to be, how they needed to act.

And so I started with this concept of being their fool. And the concept of the fool is a Middle Ages, right? When we think of the fool, we think of a entertainer and tell, tell a joke, sing a song, entertain the king. That’s not the role of the fool. The role of the fool was as a trusted advisor to the king who saw his blind spots and his triggers and had the psychological safety to tell him the truth.

And I looked at myself and I said, that’s a role for me because most leaders do not have that person. A coach is a really good fool if they’re doing their job correctly. That means you have to have the ability to see the blind spots and the triggers, but also have the courage to tell the person, the leader, the king, when they’re making a bad decision or engaged in bad behavior.

That’s what developed my practice and I tell people 80% of all those who come to me as leaders don’t do business with me because they don’t want to do the hard work necessary to improve. It took me five and a half years of prison before I changed who I was, and only when I knew I was going to lose my family if I didn’t.

That I have the motivation necessary to do that hard work. So that’s what I do now. I I I just act like a king’s fool. I act like a leader’s trusted advisor.

[00:08:06] Michael Pacheco: Interesting. Yeah. The, when I think of, of the, the phrase fool in, in. terms of like, you know, you know, kings and queens and that sort of thing, right?

I think of like a court jester. I never thought that I didn’t, didn’t realize that a fool was kind of, you know, I guess in, in game of thrones, they call it the king’s the right hand. There we go, the hand

[00:08:26] Paul Glover: of the king. Yeah, correct. And the reason that it had to work this way, I’ll give you too much history, but the king was appointed by divine right, which meant God selected the king.

And because God was infallible, anyone who challenged the king, God’s choice, challenged God. And that was the crime of heresy. And if you committed heresy in the Middle Ages, you got your head cut off. So, who was going to be given the ability, the psychological safety permission to tell the king they were wrong?

The reason we see the fool dressed like he is, is because the fool was perceived because of the way he acted as a crazy person. And crazy people were not held accountable for their words or actions. So as long as the fool was seen as an entertainer who was crazy, the psychological safety and permission was baked into the role that allowed them to tell the king to give them the gift of truth and not be killed.

And it actually worked. It counterbalanced the divine right of Genghis for 1500 years. And I believe everybody alive needs a fool in their life. Not just leaders, by the way. I believe that each of us needs someone that we trust and respect, that will give us the gift of truth. about our behavior. Because our blind spots, my blind spots put me in prison.

My ego, my need to belong, my need for acceptance, caused me to associate with people, because of how I practice law, that fed off of those blind spots. And they knew what would activate those needs. And then would make me act to their benefit. Everybody’s like that. We all have blind spots. They are so deeply embedded in our personality.

And, and the deal is you can’t eliminate them. The deal is they’re blind spots, which means we can’t see them. We need someone else. To see those blind spots, but also to tell us this is the behavior that activates those blind spots. These are your triggers because once we’re aware of that, then we can start to exert control.

Otherwise, we just do the knee jerk reaction when somebody irritates us. So that that’s our role. That’s ours. And I believe this is so important to have someone in your life. By the way, my wife is my food. Huh? Absolutely. Every, every fool. And I’ve got my little pattern down with this, but the deal is if you’re blessed enough to have a fool in your life, your obligation is to become a fool for someone you care about because they need you in that role.

And It’s interesting to me that people realize they’re doing bad things, hurting people. They normally don’t know why. And if someone doesn’t step in and say, let me tell you why you’re doing that. Let me tell you what I see. That simply makes you aware because the whole concept of being self aware is you can see the damage.

But you don’t understand the why. You need someone else to engage you in that conversation so you suddenly understand why. Then you have a choice. Are you going to do anything about it? That to me is where we need to be helping each other be better. Yeah,

[00:12:08] Michael Pacheco: that’s great. That’s great. I want to I want to ask you a question.

Without pulling punches, with no BS. You mentioned earlier that juries love a recovering scoundrel. And part of your bio, you, you, you lay everything out on the table. I am an ex convict. I am a recovering lawyer. Are you branding yourself as a recovering scoundrel because you know juries like that? People like a recovering scoundrel and that would, would, would, you know, help endear you to, to, to potential clients?

Oh, absolutely.

[00:12:50] Paul Glover: Brilliant. First, why, why deny who you are? Sure. I know what I am. I mean, I’ve accepted that. I mean, I like it and I have worked hard to avoid the damage that I can do and did do. Absolutely. When I, I don’t, if I were to go to my client and say, by the way, I’m not going to tell you I’m an ex con.

First, that’s, there’s this thing called Google. Yeah. You find out about me in a heartbeat. But, but I go into that and I go, yeah, I am a recovering scoundrel. And by the way, just like being a recovering lawyer, I still have those tendencies. That’s why it’s recovering. You know, my father was an alcoholic. At the end of his life, he was recovering alcoholic.

That didn’t mean he was not an alcoholic. That just meant he wasn’t drinking. Right. That’s something I feel about my life. My wife is my true north. We have this agreement. I don’t engage in a relationship that she doesn’t approve of. Mm-hmm. spot on Uhhuh because she says you, you are attracted to bad people.

There’s a, I, I’m, I find them fascinating. Uhhuh. . I really do. And I’ve got that same thing, right? And so guess what? Yeah, I am recovering scoundrel now. And I tell everybody, never let me have your money. I mean, I’ll coach you, but don’t put me in charge of your finances because that’s the temptation that I might not be able to avoid.

So Being honest about who I am is required for me to fulfill my role. Yeah. Because when people go, so you went to prison based on your bad behavior, I’m not that bad. I will listen to what you have to say because of your experience. Huh. But I tell them, we, it’s our obligation to control ourselves, right?

I mean, is it someone else’s obligation to control you? No. Yeah. Yeah. We, we won’t. By the way, free will, right? Even God has stopped controlling us. He’s saying, you get to do what you want as long as you know there are consequences for your actions. That’s the whole concept of free will, isn’t it? Otherwise…

If it’s determined that we’re going to act this way and do this thing, why would we pay any attention to any of the rules? You’d say, well, obviously I did that. I must’ve been meant to do it. We have got to exert control over ourselves.

[00:15:29] Michael Pacheco: Yeah. The, the idea of fate is, is kind of a cop out in that sense, right?

I mean, you gotta, you gotta accept personal responsibility. You just

[00:15:37] Paul Glover: have to. I and and by the way, every person at some point stops being children. Children may not be in control of their lives because we don’t allow them to until we teach them how to live it. At some point, they become responsible for themselves, don’t they?

Of course. Become a, we don’t, it’s called adulting. You suddenly become an adult, which means you’re responsible for yourself and your behavior. That doesn’t mean you just cut you loose and forget about you. But, but but so, so yeah, you’re a long, long winded answer is always recovery lawyer. Never, never three words when 10 will do.

So Well, absolutely. I am right up front about it. And people, by the way, you, I have to be cautious because people want to hear the stories, right? And they, and They engage as a part of that is a part of what makes me interesting as a person is that thing that they’ve not experienced but know about, right?

Being a criminal is something most people know about, but they’ve never done it. Thank God they’ve never done it, but they it’s it’s piques their curiosity. They want to know, why did you do that? What caused you to do that? And that’s that by itself could be a good story, right? But it’s a story with a mold.

I don’t, I don’t talk about prison as if it was a wonderful experience. I talked about it in the context of. I was separated from my family for five and a half years. I saw my wife once a month for two days. My children came down every other month. I did not watch my sons graduate from high school because I was in prison.

The damage I did to them, both financially, because when I went to prison, I left my family financially destitute. I’d spent all of the money we’d saved, my colleague, my two sons, college education, and I put a second mortgage on the house. All in an attempt to not go to prison, right? And I still went for five and a half years.

But, but even worse than that was the, was the emotional devastation that they went through when they found out I was a crook. When everybody we knew found out I was a crook. But I didn’t, you know, and I know that I don’t want to get too far afield here, but everybody’s like, yeah, you know, you talk about these blind spots and how they exert control.

You know, give me an example, because I use myself as an example here. I was sentenced by the judge standing in front. And by the way, I practiced in front of this judge. So I’ve been found guilty of all these crimes. And he said, if I could give you more time, I would. But I can’t under the sentencing guidelines.

So you have, you’ve got seven years you’re going to serve. He said, I will give you the opportunity to reduce your sentence by a year and a half. You only have to do two things. One, you have to admit that you committed the crimes you’ve already been found guilty of. You have to accept responsibility. And two, you have to cooperate with the federal prosecutor and give him information about the people who participated with you in committing those crimes.

Now, a year and a half off. This should be a no brainer, right? Sure. Yeah. I refused, refused the offer and spent an additional year and a half in jail. That’s how the blind spots, my ego would not allow me to do that. The people I associated with, no, they, they, because I bonded with them and their crooks.

Anyway, yes, it is it is a, it is a group of facts. And a story that I’m able to work into the coaching process.

[00:19:50] Michael Pacheco: So, when it comes to, when it comes to your clients, right, we’re talking, we’re talking C suite executives. How do you, how do you set up your life as an executive to avoid whatever blind spots they’re facing?

To avoid being that alcoholic sitting at a bar?

[00:20:09] Paul Glover: Well, the first thing is you need to be humble. I preach humility. Once you start, once you lose the ability to be humble, then you are headed down that path that’s going to get you in trouble, right? Because, and by the way, the hardest person for me to coach is someone who’s successful.

Absolutely. That’s all

[00:20:34] Michael Pacheco: of your, that’s all of your clients. ’cause your clients are C-suite executives.

[00:20:37] Paul Glover: Well, but, but guess what I’m looking for. The, the best thing that can happen as you move up the ladder, uhhuh, is for you to fail. Uhhuh. I’m not saying fail and be done. I’m saying suffer failure. Yeah.

Because it stays you so long, it leaves an indelible mark on us. We hate failure so bad that once we’ve experienced it, it never leaves us. So we do what is necessary not to fail. Got to be quite careful with that because that then means that if I’m failing, am I willing to do the wrong thing necessary to succeed?

So there’s a, there’s a tightrope that a leader is on. If you’ve never failed, you don’t believe you can. If you have failed, you’re so afraid of failing again that you may do the bad thing to avoid it. My role is that tightrope with you. To be honest with you to say, here’s what it looks like on this side.

Here’s what it looks like. Let’s cross this chasm together because I’m going to be your fool. I’m going to be the guy that offers you not only the gift of truth, but I’m going to give you the gift of support. And if there’s a problem that you’re dealing with, you’re going to have the, the first, I believe the coaches have got to be trusted and respected.

And that means that you’re willing to engage in a relationship that makes both of you vulnerable.

And by the way, it works really well because when I come into the relationship, I go, let me show you how vulnerable I am because I’m going to tell you everything and that’s exactly right. But what that does is it opens the other person up. And suddenly we have a relationship based on a very unusual symbiotic situation.

And we engage together and they now trust me. Once they trust me and respect me, then they open up and we’re able to get to those blind spots and say, okay, we’re going to deal with those and let’s identify the triggers that activate them. And now let’s start to practice being better. Humility. Empathy.

Mm-hmm. , compassion. See, these are the things that are tough for people who are leaders.

[00:23:08] Michael Pacheco: Well, and so I’m was gonna say like, those are not right. These are soft skills you’re talking about. How do you even, I mean, how do you teach something like empathy? How do you train empathy?

[00:23:18] Paul Glover: Practice? I swear to God, it’s, it, I, I believe it’s a skillset, and I, I say this, you first, you as a leader, if you want to be empathetic, you must be perpetually curious.

Okay, you must and you must go out into the group. If you stay in your corner office. I believe me, they’re going to feed you horseshit till it’s coming out of your ears. You need to go out of that bubble that you’re in and get the unfiltered truth. But you only get that by going into the place where people know the truth and then you have to convince them they should tell you the truth.

And the only way that works is you’ve got to be Perpetually curious. Mm-hmm. , you have got to ask people questions all the time and then listen to those answers, right? Mm-hmm. and lemme I, the, the, the guys I like the best by the way, is a, I I do, I do, I do distribution and manufacturing. There’s my client base, right?

Because my personality fits that. It’s a hardcore, I’m, I’m always interested in whether or not you have a third shift, and if you do, My first question when you tell me that is when was the last time you were on the third shift? Deer in the headlights

[00:24:38] Michael Pacheco: at 11 o’clock at night? , exactly.

[00:24:41] Paul Glover: It, it’s me. That’s called the third shift.

It’s midnight. Yeah. When were you there? Oh. They’re not your employees, right? I mean, you subcontract ’em a different company. You need to go to the third, third shift because the third shift’s where all the bad shit happens. Huh. And he’s there except the one supervisor who’s in charge, right?

He’s the guy who’s committing sexual harassment. Why? Single mothers who need overtime. You want to see a vulnerable group, here you got a supervisor who’s a powerful guy who can give you overtime or deny you. Huh. That’s the bad stuff. So I tell the, I tell the guy, I said, yeah, get off your lazy ass. And go to the third shift.

Don’t tell them you’re coming. Huh. Whoa, wait a minute. Yeah, show up. And I said, the first time you show up, go sit in the cafeteria at a table. Now they’re going to call the police. Because they have no idea who the hell you are. And they think you’re an intruder.

[00:25:45] Michael Pacheco: Put on a fake mustache and some glasses.

[00:25:49] Paul Glover: What’s the name of that show, The Bosses in Disguise? Don’t go in disguise. You don’t have to. They don’t know who you are. They’ve not seen you in years. Now sit there. Tell the supervisor when he comes in, get out of here. Go away. People come in for their break. They set out. They’re like, The hell are you?

You tell them who you are and you say, I’m here because I want to ask you some questions. I want to know how things are. First time doesn’t work. By the way, they think it’s a trap. Like, this is not right. This guy really doesn’t know. The third time you show up is when they will tell you the truth.

[00:26:30] Michael Pacheco: This is you got to You got to build that trust with the repetition,

[00:26:33] Paul Glover: right?

Right. Now, you can’t build that trust unless you actually leave your corner office and start to engage with people. And you have to mean it. People have, people have very finely attuned bullshit in tennis. If you don’t mean it, they know you don’t mean it and they’re not telling you anything. Second, when they tell you something you don’t want to hear, don’t get defensive.

Don’t push back. You’re there to collect information, not to argue. The first time you argue with someone, they stop giving you the gift of truth. Then you better do something with that information. Don’t go if you don’t want to know. But once you know, you better do something. Otherwise they’re like, No, that was bullshit.

Practice. And by the way, I tell you, when I, the way I structure my coaching is every other week we have an hour conversation. And I give you a task to do based on what you tell me you want to accomplish. Two weeks later, when we meet again, you’re going to tell me about that task. And if you didn’t do it, we got a different conversation.

So that, and so that’s how, that’s how you become something you’re not. Huh. I’d love that. Go ahead. Yeah. No, it doesn’t make sense. Or does it sound like, well, that’s not

[00:28:00] Michael Pacheco: going to work. No, that completely makes sense. I was just going to say, I’d love to be on a fly on the wall while you’re riding the ass of some CEO who thinks he’s a hot shot.

[00:28:11] Paul Glover: Absolutely. Pisses him off. You know, I had one guy said, you can’t talk to me like that. I said, you pay me to talk to you like that. What don’t you get? Oh, oh, okay. Yeah. By the way, I, where’s my wife at? My wife gave me a plaque a few years back and it says, I’ll be nicer when you get smarter. And that’s, that’s the approach because first you’re right.

It’s a shock to them to hear someone tell them something that they don’t want to hear. But, but I truly believe when someone enters into the coaching program, first, I have a client sign a commitment letter. And I signed a commitment letter for them and we commit to do these things. And by the way, half of my compensation is based on outcome.

Well, if you don’t reach the goals that we’ve set, I don’t get half my outcome. This, I believe that that’s put my skin in the game. I don’t understand coaches who don’t put their skin in the game. By the way, I, and that, that is my wife says just because they don’t do it your way, doesn’t mean it’s the wrong way.

Yeah. But I want to put something at stake so that I am much more engaged. Other people say, well, you should be engaged because you’re a coach. Now I’m like everybody else. If I’m not motivated, I can lose interest. This motivates me. Money motivates me. And I’m like, okay, half my dough is tied up in this.

I’m going to make sure that you are going to succeed. One of my clients describes me as the Sherpa. But he says, Paul will get you to the mountaintop, but carry your pack. Yeah,

[00:29:56] Michael Pacheco: I love that. That’s great. That’s a great analogy, man. That’s great. That’s

[00:29:59] Paul Glover: what a coach should be doing is still the person you’re coaching.

I can’t do that work for him or her, but I can, I can help you. I can support you. I can point out the path you have to choose to walk.

[00:30:14] Michael Pacheco: Yeah, yeah, that’s great, man. Good stuff, Paul. What what else is new with you since we last spoke? You mentioned before we hit record, you just did a TEDx

[00:30:24] Paul Glover: talk. Yeah, I did a TEDx talk and the title of the TEDx talk is everyone needs a fool in their life.

Shocking. But yes, it has not gone uploaded yet. It was done last Thursday. It should be uploaded in about three weeks. It is a bucket list item. Five years. The pandemic intervened. So finally did it. It was well received. I felt very good about it. I also think that it is that idea worth spreading. And I hope that people will watch it obviously, but also will take away something from it.

[00:31:03] Michael Pacheco: That’s great when, when that gets released, be sure to reach out to me and Kev and Kevin as well and send us the, the link to that so that way we can get it, we can get it on the, on the show notes for, for this podcast. ’cause that’d be good because I’m sure there’s probably people listening and watching that are searching for it right now.

If we can just link it right over, that’d be great. Anything else? What, what else is new? Are

[00:31:24] Paul Glover: you kidding? You allow me to babble on here and say everything I wanted to say and you say, what else is new? Life is good, man. I tell people I, I, I, my life is better than I deserve. Family’s doing well. Business is doing well.

And you know, I, I’m grateful to God and it’s, it’s a good life. I get to talk to guys like you which is a blessing. It really is. I, you, you’re a good guy. You do a real good thing for your audiences. I’m so pleased you had me back. Obviously it shows that it, it expresses, it validates. How about that?

I’m human enough to want to be validated. You validate me.

[00:32:05] Michael Pacheco: Thank you for that, Paul. I don’t want to, I don’t want to take, I don’t want to take too much credit, but I will I will accept, I will accept the compliment. Thank you.

Awesome, man. Is there gosh, I’m trying to think about where to go from here. Is there… Do you have any offers? Any, any, anything you wanna pitch right now? Any offers you wanna promote?

[00:32:26] Paul Glover: Well, first I, I will tell anybody who contacts me, I will email them the handbook on how to be a fool and how to find a fool.

There you go. So I’ve got to hear a book. It’s free. Why it’s an idea we’re spreading anyone who wants it They just contact me and I will send it to them That’s how strongly I believe in in this concept because I truly believe that if we are either being a fool Or becoming a fool, you, it matters. I truly believe that all of us can be better.

We just have got to figure out how. And I think it’s a hard task to try to do it on our, on our own. It just, it, it doesn’t work well. Self reflection. I love people who are self reflective, right? I spent the first two years of my life in prison. I self reflected. And what I, what I tell people is it, well, I’d look in the mirror and I would see me and I would go, all right, asshole, why did you do those things?

And me would go, I don’t know. It was fun. How about that? We were having a good time. Well, yeah, but we don’t want to do that anymore because there’s consequences. How are we going to stop? I don’t know. You know, and I, the experience in prison. Which I don’t recommend, but because I had a five and a half, I ended up five and a half years in prison.

I was there long enough to see guys leave and come back. I’m thinking about this. You’ve already been in one or two years and then you leave and I’m still there and you come back and I’m like, dude,

[00:34:10] Michael Pacheco: life choices, man. Come on. You can do better than this.

[00:34:13] Paul Glover: Exactly. But, but it was one of those things where, when I would talk to a guy, I would go, what’s the deal, man?

You’re back. You know how you hate it here. Yeah. I hate it. Okay. Well, I went back to the same environment and I engaged with the same people doing the same things. And you know what those were? Things have put me in prison the first time. I’m like, wait the cycle. And then we’re like, I don’t, we don’t know how I don’t have any support.

I don’t have an action plan. I, I just go back and that’s the easy, that’s my comfort zone. We all love our comfort zone, don’t we? I mean, that’s what stops us from doing hard

[00:34:54] Michael Pacheco: things. A hundred percent, man. I mean, I, I can think, and this doesn’t compare. And I’m not trying to compare it to being in prison, but I know, you know, for the first 29, 32, 33 years of my life, I was a little bit of a scoundrel, you know, playing in rock and roll clubs, doing some drugs, doing a lot of, a lot of drinking and about, I don’t know, I must’ve been 34 years old.

And I met, I met my first mentor, as my first adult mentor, a guy named Tim Justice, and And I, I mean, he and I are still friends to this day, and I remember it was, it was difficult, and it took a little bit of time, but I slowly just shut myself off and away from that old friend group. And I stopped going to the bar that everybody, where everybody knew my name because I was there every night.

And I just, I, you know, I stayed at home and I spent a lot of time reading and building my business. And, and just, you know, but a big part of it for me, and it sounds like maybe this is maybe the direction that you’re going with. This is to, you know, you gotta keep yourself. You can’t be an alcoholic and sit at the bar.

And, and part of my trigger was that, was that friend group. And, and that friend group was, you know, a bunch of great people that I, that I, that I have fond memories of and my life is better now. Without, you know, that much alcohol, the cigarettes, the drugs, without all

[00:36:34] Paul Glover: that in my life. See, and you are a, you’re a really good example because this, this mentor was your fool.

Right. He said to you, whatever, whatever it was, and by the way, we often don’t know what triggers that different response, but, but at some point you saw something or he pointed something out. He opened

[00:36:55] Michael Pacheco: a door and showed me that there is. It’s a different path, a path less taken, so to speak, right? He’s like, there’s, you’re a smart kid.

You could do X, Y, and Z. And what he was actually, he, he, he is a retail trader. He did stock trading. And I went to, it was a, you know, it was a Robert Kiyosaki event for stock trading and I just went to it on a whim and met this guy and he and I just ended up hitting it off and, and, and. I was like, this is, this is a much better life than the one that I’ve been living.

[00:37:29] Paul Glover: You added, you added itch. Yeah. Even though you may not have recognized that there was something there that, that you were like, I’m going to go to this thing because it’s not what I’m doing. Let me go do this because what I’m doing is not satisfying enough. If it was satisfying enough, you’d still be there, right?

And you met a guy, but you were looking, you were self aware, you were looking and you were fortunate enough to find a person. See, and that’s the deal why I say if you’re blessed with having a fool in your life, you have to become a fool for somebody else, because there are people you know that you care about that need that.

And then, so that’s why it’s kind of a pay it forward. Sure. If you found that person that I call a fool, right? Mentor, coach co worker, family. By the way, my deal is all the, the, the, your fool is disguised like the medieval fool, right? We don’t, we don’t, they’re there, but you know what? If we’re not looking for them in that role, we don’t see them.

But when we suddenly have that itch and that person is there looking at us going, let me say, let me tell you something. Let me give you some information about what I see in you. This is what this person did. Congratulations to him and fortunate for you, right? Because these guys I’m talking about that left and came back, there was nobody in their life to do that.

They didn’t have anyone who said, you don’t have to be there. Now, by the way, once someone gives you the gift of truth, you have to do something with it, right? You can choose to go, not so. I actually love my life. Really? You’re sure about that? Yes. And you continue to live it, whether you love it or not. But I, but, but it was hard for you.

It had to be hard for you. You suddenly left the group of people that you had associated with, and you liked their company. You’ve said they were good people. It wasn’t like they were bad people. You made a difficult choice. Change requires that difficult choice. That’s why most people fail in the change situation because they support.

So a fool not only gives you the gift of truth, but if you want them to what they will support you as you. Change. So that that’s the concept that you’ve gone through it. By the way, it worked. Yeah. If this works, but you have to, you have to want it, then you have to find that person. And then you have to take action.

You can’t just look at this and go interesting, but I don’t care. Yeah, this is how you know, and by the way, I, the deal is, how do you change the world? Yeah, first you change yourself. Then you change one person at a time. I’m not fortunate enough to be able to go out and, you know, and have thousands of people say, Oh my God, you’re really going to influence us.

Maybe that’ll change. I don’t know. I would love the opportunity to be in front of a group and have them understand what I went through and why it matters to them. Because as I do my TED talk at the very end, I go, If I had had a fool of my life, I would not have been standing in front of that judge. and spent five and a half years in prison.

But I know that some of you are still thinking you don’t need a fool in your life. And I can only tell you based on my personal experience, that if that’s what you think, you have the biggest blind spot of all. And that’s absolutely true. I see it in every leader that I talked to because I’ll have somebody that starts the coaching process and they’ll tell me, he says, you’re too hard.

You, you want me to do things that, why would I do that? Look at me, look at what I’ve accomplished. Well, you’re right then. Why am I, why am I wasting my time and your money? But yeah, there are, there are 80% of them go, no, too hard. Okay. Well then continue on your path. Just realize that you came to me for a reason.

No one seeks out a coach just because they think it will be a fun conversation.

[00:41:46] Michael Pacheco: Right. Yeah. It’s not supposed to be easy. It’s not an entitlement. It’s, you know, you got, it’s that self responsibility we were talking about before, and you got to want to change and you got to put in the, you got to put in the work.

[00:41:58] Paul Glover: Do it. And by the way, it’s hard work because leaders normally are given a problem here. Give me a solution. Here it is. When the problem is you, the solution is a hell of a lot harder to come up with. You know, we were always able to tell a friend of ours goes, you know, this is the problem. Well, here’s what you do.

Here’s how you should do it. And then you go, by the way, you know, I’m having problems with my kid. Well, you know, well, here’s what’s I’d never do that. But he would say, you know, it looks completely different. Again, I tell people the reason I’m successful at what I do is because I’ve had the experience. I don’t believe you can coach someone unless you’ve had the experience that they’re having.

Yeah. I think it’s very difficult for someone who has never had to go on a diet to coach somebody about a diet. I’ve always been 110 pounds, never a pound over, but I don’t lose weight. What do you know about why I read a book? I have an idea. No, I, and I, that’s why, again, I look at my coaching practice and I go, the reason I’m successful is I’m telling you, I have gone through this and made it.

So can you. Let’s talk about how that happens. That, that is a connection that only experience gives you works still hard. Do not, I never, I never denigrate the amount of effort. And a lot of people will tell me it’s too hard. Okay. I get it. By the way, that commitment letter that you reached, I will read that to you every time you tell me how hard it is.

Here’s here was the, this is how hard it’s going to be. And it does, it reads this. I know you’re going to want to quit. I know, by the way, if you do, you pay me everything, right? We just had the relationship and you give me everything I would have earned if you were successful, because I wanted. I want quitting to be as as difficult as hard as continuing.

Does that make sense?

[00:44:13] Michael Pacheco: How many yeah, how many how many clients first of all, that’s a great clause to have in there not only I mean, that’s just a win win, right? If they quit and they bail on you, you get paid either way. So you’re laughing all the way to the bank. And it gives them incentive to cowboy up.

[00:44:33] Paul Glover: So see, we both have this skin in the game. Yeah. And by the way, don’t rub it in your face. Yeah. If you say, I’m quitting, I’m going, fine, write the check today. Yeah. Yeah. Look at your contract. It’s one page. It says, if you quit, you give me the money. Write the check. You’d be surprised about how many guys are like, I won’t write the check, then you’re not going to quit.

Okay. And we get to another hump. By the way, if things go smooth, you hit a roadblock. Now, now we get to test the commitment, right? You talk to me about how you haven’t gone to the third shift. I’m like, you either go or else I’m not interested in coaching you. You know why? You’re not doing the hard thing.

[00:45:19] Michael Pacheco: Right. It’s when you, it’s when you hit those. In my experience, at least, it’s, it’s, it’s when you hit those roadblocks that you’re right on the precipice of, of a big level up, right?

[00:45:34] Paul Glover: Yes, you are. You’re like right there. If you do it, you now gain both momentum and confidence to do the next one. And I believe life is based on momentum, build it up, right?

You’ve got to, and you do that. And you say, all right, I’m going to hit this one hard, right? I’m going to make it happen because it matters. By the way, if you engage in a, in a in a coaching process and the change doesn’t matter to you, get out. Seriously, what are you wasting your time for? You don’t, you don’t mean this.

What are you talking about? Well, I thought it’d be an interesting experience. Well, it will be, but it’s going to cost you. No, you want, I don’t want people in the program, in my program that aren’t committed. And at the very beginning, we established what you’re going to accomplish. We established the change because we know that’s our focus.

I will not let you deviate. Now you can say, well, I’ve changed my mind. I’m like, let’s go back to the beginning and find out why either you didn’t mean it, or there’s something more important that happened because I’m willing to accept the fact that life. You know, life does what it does, right? But you can’t tell me that you can’t make the commitment, we put together the action plan, we start to work the plan, and then you decide you’ve had

[00:46:52] Michael Pacheco: enough.

[00:46:53] Paul Glover: Right. You know, it’s kind of like you know, all kinds of weird things you can connect it to. G. I. Jane, did you see the movie? Demi Moore was in it.

[00:47:03] Michael Pacheco: I remember the movie, but I didn’t

[00:47:04] Paul Glover: see it. She’s the first female who’s going to be a candidate in the SEAL training. Sure, yeah. How the SEAL training is miserable.

I have no idea how anybody does that. But the thing is, ring the bell, and you get to go home. Only those committed to be that are willing not to ring the bell, willing to get through the pain. And it is, it’s painful. Especially when we start getting into why you did that bad thing to someone. First, did you apologize?

Oh my God, I have to apologize? Yes. They know you did something wrong you know you did something. How do you not apologize, humble. People hate to admit they were wrong leaders, they believe that that’s fragility. Now

[00:47:55] Michael Pacheco: that’s, it’s not

[00:47:58] Paul Glover: the, the, the most empathetic, empathetic and charismatic leaders are the ones who share their feelings.

If you are truly sharing your family, you know what that tells the person that works for you or with you. I recognize you’re a human being because I’m a human being. Therefore, our relationship is not a transaction. It is a relationship that changes everything.

[00:48:28] Michael Pacheco: Yeah. I think, I think that builds, I think that builds a, an incredible amount of trust too, between subordinates and, and their, and the, and the leaders, if the leader is able to swallow the ego.

And be like, yeah, guys, I’m sorry I fucked up. Like I didn’t, I I missed, I missed it .

[00:48:46] Paul Glover: And by the way, I said it, I said it earlier. That’s why I tell, that’s why I tell my story to a leader. Yeah. You can’t get any more vulnerable than saying, I messed up, I’m messed up my family, I’ve spent. Lost my career. I, I had to go to prison.

These are all things, by the way, if your failure is worse than that, you know, you want to go on the run. You want to get the hell out of here. And yes, when, when a leader goes, yes, I am this successful, but here are my vulnerabilities. Here are my failures. And that person, I truly, you said it out. I’m being repetitive.

It creates a bond. 100%. And the, the, the, you know, the secret of engagement, right? People will not engage unless you’re a human being. Otherwise, why would they? And if, if you’re not engaging with them, all you’re looking at them is as a means of production. Nobody will ever give you engagement if that’s how you perceive them.

I don’t know. It seems to me to be a set, by the way, I truly, I’m a simple, I truly. Believe everything in life is simple. We make it hard. We just do. We refuse to accept. We refuse to do the thing, refuse to apologize. One of the things back to my father, right? When he went through the program, the first thing they tell you is you have to make amends.

Huh. And when you make a list of all the people you hurt. Huh. That’s what I did. When I got out, I was like, I got so many people that I have got to call and say, I know how terrible I was to you. And I’m sorry.

[00:50:36] Michael Pacheco: It’s not easy. And I don’t think, I don’t think that gets any easier. Even to this day, like if I get into an argument with my wife.

It’ll take me a minute. If I realize that it’s my fault, I’m cursing under my breath saying, God damn it, now I have to apologize.

[00:50:53] Paul Glover: And by the way, over a period of doing that, at first you do it, you recognize, see, self reflection. I recognize I’m wrong. I have to do something to correct it. Even though I don’t want to because it hurts me to admit that I was wrong.

My ego… So fragile. It might kill me. And then you, and over a period of time, I found because I had such a long list that it actually got

[00:51:16] Michael Pacheco: easy. It did get easier. Oh, I’m waiting for that moment. I’m waiting for that moment, Paul.

[00:51:22] Paul Glover: By the way, hopefully you don’t have that long a list. All I can tell you is that at some point I was like, you know, I mean it.

I, and And it was interesting because I became grateful for the opportunity to do it. Huh. That was the weird thing is that at some point, gratitude became a part of the process. And I thought, you know how close I was in my life to not doing this, not having this opportunity. And I tell everyone, prison saved my life.

I guarantee you I would never have made it. I that I was definitely headed down that path with those associates that I would’ve ended up being in a situation that got me killed. Mm-hmm. . And, and so when you say, I’m grateful for things in my life and I, you know, you’ve got me on so many tangents here. I think our life is equally e made up of equally good and bad things.

Uhhuh, , do we like it or not? Yeah. Ying, and Yang, and life, I truly believe it is. If we only embrace the good, we miss half. We miss half of it.

[00:52:36] Michael Pacheco: There’s a, I think it’s, I want to say it’s Marcus Aurelius, there’s a Marcus Aurelius quote that says, nothing is either good nor bad, only what we make of it.

[00:52:44] Paul Glover: That’s correct.

You’re right. It is to the stoicism. Yes, how you perceive it or others perceive it. That makes it that way Life is what it is when someone says the universe hates me. I’m like the universe didn’t even know you’re alive But says hate you, you know, you don’t look at life like that that you’re personally penalizing me god god is not doing that You’re Yeah.

And the reality is that that, that we need, we need all the support. You tripped one more trigger then I’ll shut up. Roman General was successful. They would have a parade, Uhhuh , and he would be in a golden chariot, Uhhuh . And he would ride at the, and they, all the prisons and the prisoners and the loot and the soldiers would come behind him.

And he was, you know, here he is. The conquering hero, there was a slave standing next to him in the chariot and through the entire ride the slave whistled, you are but a human.

We need that, we do, when our ego takes over, we need someone to say, you’re a human, treat the other person as a human. And yet, That is, that’s the last thing we want to hear,

[00:54:04] Michael Pacheco: right? There’s got to be, yeah, well, I mean, there’s got to be something to be said for taking a moment to celebrate a big win and feeling like you’re on top of the world.

[00:54:14] Paul Glover: Absolutely. Then, let’s get back to reality. And

[00:54:18] Michael Pacheco: remember that you’re but a human.

[00:54:21] Paul Glover: Because once you think you’re not human, Right. I don’t believe the rules apply. I’m a god. No one challenged me. That was the king. See, I am appointed by God. How dare you question me? And in fact, I’ll cut your head off if you do, except for this guy, this crazy guy that is saying Dude, stop acting like that.

You’re hurting yourself and your kingdom. Huh. And they listened. Yeah. Because you know, once you got the right person, you, yeah, by the way, you found your right person. You listened. This guy told you something and it resonated with you to the point of where you said, Yeah, I need to listen to more of that.

And it changed your life. Huh. That’s a fool. Huh.

[00:55:19] Michael Pacheco: Nice. Good stuff, Paul.

[00:55:22] Paul Glover: Give me the opportunity and it’s wonderful.

[00:55:25] Michael Pacheco: No, this is, this is great, man. I, you know, I’m sorry we didn’t talk. I mean, we talked about coaching, but there were, there were good, there were good tangents in there. This is an interesting, I always enjoy this podcast because I get to have, you know, conversations without an agenda with, with people who are generally speaking super smart, very wise, and that I respect like yourself.

So I, I appreciate you taking the time to, to chat with me today.

[00:55:51] Paul Glover: Oh, it gives me such an opportunity to do exactly this. First, as you can tell, I do have ideas worth spreading, and you give me that opportunity, and I appreciate it.

[00:56:01] Michael Pacheco: Paul, where can our listeners and viewers connect with you

[00:56:03] Paul Glover: online? The, the, it’s paulglovercoaching.

com and paul at paulglovercoaching. com will get you a email back for me with the handbook if you want it. And if you don’t want it, You’ve got the biggest blind spot.

[00:56:22] Michael Pacheco: So you better want

it. We Paul Glover coaching. com. We, we have Kevin and I have taken to, to referring to you as Paul G lover.

[00:56:39] Paul Glover: That’s

[00:56:40] Michael Pacheco: a great, that’s a great nickname, paulglovercoaching. com.

All right with that ridiculous notion, we’ll wrap this up. Thank you again, Paul, for taking the time. I appreciate it. Thank you to our viewers and listeners. This, none of this matters without you guys. So appreciate you guys tuning in and take care. We’ll see you guys next time.