Former Up with People CEO Tommy Spaulding Interviews with Matthew Kelly
Matthew Kelly:
Hi, I'm Matthew Kelly. Welcome to Profoundly Human. My guest today is Tommy Spaulding. Tommy welcome.
Tommy Spaulding:
Great to be here, Matthew.
Matthew Kelly:
How are you?
Tommy Spaulding:
I just got to speak to your team, I couldn't be better.
Matthew Kelly:
Yeah, it was great. I really enjoyed that. It's very powerful.
Tommy Spaulding:
Yeah. I was thinking about it, I didn't want to speak to them before because I thought I'd sweat and it wouldn't be all disheveled, but I got the Holy Spirit so revved up in my heart, just to share my heart with your team. Now I'm excited about being with you.
Matthew Kelly:
Thank you. Thank you. So, there's some tough questions to get started. Are you a coffee drinker?
Tommy Spaulding:
I'm the only one that drinks decaf.
Matthew Kelly:
Decaf.
Tommy Spaulding:
And every time I ask for decaf, they say, "Let me go brew you a cup." So, I always get a fresh pot because no one drinks decaf. But in 2000 I had my last caffeine and I was jittering and said, "I'm done."
Matthew Kelly:
Got it.
Tommy Spaulding:
Yeah.
Matthew Kelly:
What was it doing to you?
Tommy Spaulding:
It just makes me jitters. So I'm kind of clean. I like to drink water and wine and tequila and that's about it.
Matthew Kelly:
Water and wine and tequila.
Tommy Spaulding:
And decaf once in a while.
Matthew Kelly:
There you go. What about favorite food?
Tommy Spaulding:
You know I'm half Italian. Sorry or 48%. I used to say half Italian, but then you get these 23andMe and then they give you actually a number. So I'm 48% Italian, so I love Italian food. But I spent a couple of years living in Japan and I just fell in love with Japanese food.
Matthew Kelly:
What is your favorite Italian dish?
Tommy Spaulding:
Well my mama she cooks chicken parm that will just out arrive by anything. So she got this stuffed bread and baked clams. And then she does raviolis and chicken parm, Italian sausage. That's for the appetizer and every morning. She's the best.
Matthew Kelly:
What about favorite movie?
Tommy Spaulding:
I'm a movie guy, so that's going to be hard. But we're a hockey family. My stepson, Anthony plays hockey. My little one, Tate plays a hockey at boarding school. Our dog is Gretsky. So, I just got to say Miracle. I just love that movie.
Tommy Spaulding:
Just that the 1980 Olympics, how this junior, nobody, just US team takes on the giant of Soviet Union and won straight gold medals and so intimidating. And with leadership and heart, we just watch it over and over again.
Matthew Kelly:
It's a fantastic movie.
Tommy Spaulding:
Yeah.
Matthew Kelly:
Do you have a favorite scene or a favorite line?
Tommy Spaulding:
When the coach, Herb Brooks says, "I'm tired of this Russians winning. This is your time and take it." I'm like running to this screen, "Get me on the ice. I'm ready to fight."
Matthew Kelly:
Yeah. Yeah.
Tommy Spaulding:
It's just hockey guys have just a gift. I've just dropped off Tate at boarding school, at Shattuck which is like the top hockey school in the country. They won national championships where Sidney Crosby and Nathan MacKinnon all went there.
Tommy Spaulding:
We dropped him off and the head coach, Tom Ward who runs the prep team, and then the junior coach Christian and these guys were talking about hockey and I was crying. I was so motivated. Hockey guys know how to motivate.
Matthew Kelly:
Yeah.
Tommy Spaulding:
And they're so real and so authentic. I was like, "Sign me up. I'll go anywhere." Just amazing.
Matthew Kelly:
So Tate's your youngest?
Tommy Spaulding:
He is, he's 14 and still mourning. He's five days at the boarding school, never seen the kid cry ever, even when he broke his collarbone. Kid has got full love, he doesn't cry. He's been crying this week. He misses home. But by tomorrow, by the time this video comes out, he'll be fine. It's me I'm worried about.
Matthew Kelly:
Yeah. What's it like to drop your 14-year-old off to boarding school?
Tommy Spaulding:
Yeah. The only analogy I can give Matthew is when I was in college, I went skydiving and I didn't want to do the tandem with you jumping with someone. If I'm going to do it, I'm jumping out that damn plane by myself. Right? So I did the course where you pull the thing and the zip line and the static line.
Tommy Spaulding:
And when that plane got up there and said, "Okay, ready to jump." I just didn't want to jump. I paid the money. I did the class, it was I'm ready to do it. But when that plane opens, something intuitively is that human body's not supposed to jump out of this plane. They had to push me out.
Tommy Spaulding:
And that's the only way I felt with dropping Tate off. And I get dropping off an 18-year-old kid. We dropped off Anthony at West Point. That was hard.
Matthew Kelly:
Yeah.
Tommy Spaulding:
But he's 18, 19. But when you're 14 and you're going away, it just didn't feel right. I know he is where he needs to be, and he's going to do well there, but it was painful.
Matthew Kelly:
Now, when will he next come home?
Tommy Spaulding:
Christmas.
Matthew Kelly:
Okay. Yeah.
Tommy Spaulding:
Yeah. Christmas. Yeah. But I'll see him in five days, four hours and 30 seconds, I'm going to see him.
Matthew Kelly:
Talk to us about childhood. What was your childhood like? Where did you grow up? What was Tommy like as a kid?
Tommy Spaulding:
Yeah. I grew in Upstate New York. I have to be careful when I say that because the Upstate people from New York say I live in the city and then the city people say I live in Upstate. I'm 25 miles north of the city in Rockland county, in a little town called Suffern, New York.
Tommy Spaulding:
My parents were school teachers. My dad taught English for 40 years. My mom didn't go to college. But when I was in high school, went back to college, got a degree, became a teacher. So they were educators. And my sister became a teacher. My aunts and uncles were all teachers.
Tommy Spaulding:
And I think I wanted to become a teacher, but the reality was school was really, really hard for me. And I struggled with dyslexia and just learning challenges, probably had ADHD and ED, I had it all. And they didn't know what to do with kids like me back in the '70s and '80s.
Tommy Spaulding:
So, they had this room called the resource room and that's for the kids with dyslexia and autism and all mental challenges. And that was my room, the resource room. And I hated that room. Matthew. The R word, it was used a lot. And I hate that word. "Where's Spaulding going? He's going to the retard room." And I didn't want to be defined by that.
Matthew Kelly:
Yeah.
Tommy Spaulding:
And so I wasn't strong. I didn't have good grades. I wasn't very athletic. So, I had to pick something I was really good at, and that was love. And I just love people. And I love the blacks, the whites, the Jews, the smoking section. I can walk in, I didn't smoke, but I could walk in a smoking section know everyone's name. The geeks, the dungeon and dragons people. Remember those people?
Matthew Kelly:
I do.
Tommy Spaulding:
The chess club. Anyway, I became class president and I just really just served that school and really found my confidence outside the classroom and loving and serving people, bringing people together.
Tommy Spaulding:
And then my senior year in college, I never thought I would ever play varsity football. I was a soccer player in the fourth team.
Matthew Kelly:
Yeah.
Tommy Spaulding:
I just was terrible. But the varsity football coach, Bob Veltidi saw a leader in me. And he pulled me in his office right before my senior year and said, "We need a field goal kicker. Have you ever kicked a field goal? Ever kicked a football?" I said, "I don't think I've ever thrown a football coach." And he's like, "I could kick a soccer ball, it was no different. Just take two steps back, two steps over."
Tommy Spaulding:
So he gave me a bag of footballs and a kicking tee. He said, "Tommy, I really need a field goal kicker. If you can figure out how to figure this, kick a field goal, you practiced during summer, come to practice and tryouts in August 10th and if you can kick 10 in a row, I'll put you on the team."
Tommy Spaulding:
Well, I failed three classes that year, so I had to go to summer school. So, I guess I was to take my bag of football to summer school, and then I would just kick hundreds of them. And I got my leg strong enough. Even today if I took my pants off, which I won't, my right leg is bigger than my left. I just built muscle and I kicked, kicked and kicked because I wanted to be somebody.
Tommy Spaulding:
And I kicked 10 extra points in a row, and I made the team, and I was the varsity field goal kicker. We went undefeated and the championship, the county championship, we were losing to Clarkstown North by two points. I didn't kick a field goal the whole year because Danny Muno was our quarterback, always put in the end zone. I just kick extra points. Didn't kick a field goal the whole season.
Tommy Spaulding:
Last game of the season we played Clarkstown North, they're winning by two. And with 37 seconds left of the game, we had the ball and Danny Muno had to either do a 37-yard wide out to win the game or put me in for a 37-yard field goal.
Tommy Spaulding:
And I was just praying and yelling, "Put Munos in, Munos in. Put the kicker in." And stadium was packed, it was undefeated season, both teams were undefeated. And my parents were there, my grandparents were there. Coach Bob Veltidi. You know he calls them the kicking crew, and my heart was just pounding.
Tommy Spaulding:
I couldn't even walk out in the field. I was peeing my pants. My legs were shaking. And what does the other coach do? Calls time out, it's called icing the kicker. So, now I had three more minutes to think about how I'm going to lose this game.
Tommy Spaulding:
And coach Bob Veltidi, who passed away this year of cancer, he walks out to the field. He was a big man and he just spoke so calmly. And he said to me, "I didn't put you on his team to kick winning field goals. I put you on the team because I believe in you. You're a leader. And whether you make this field goal or not, I want you to know how much I love you, but I really want you to make this damn field goal." And he grabs my mask and he pulls me in and he puts his face right in my face. And he says to me, "I believe in you."
Tommy Spaulding:
And now I never had a coach ever tell me that or a teacher. I was just the resource room kid. We put it through the uprights and we won the game and it was the start of my life, October 11th, 1986.
Matthew Kelly:
Wow.
Tommy Spaulding:
I know that game, got carried off the field. We went to Friendly's restaurant after the game and we never went there. We didn't have much money. So going to Friendly's was a big deal, I think a diner. And I walked in the restaurant, it was packed with people from the game. When I walked in, everyone gave me a stand ovation and I never got a standing, they don't do stand ovations in the resource room.
Tommy Spaulding:
And I just felt like somebody. And then the manager of the restaurant walks up to my parents right in front of me and says, "Your kid's a hero. And here's a booth we saved for you and your kid can have all the ice cream he wants to eat today on the house."
Tommy Spaulding:
I ate a lot of ice cream that night, Matthew. It was just the best day. I kissed my first girl that night too. It was a great day. Yeah. Someone believed in me, man. And that's what I want to do to others the rest of my life, is believe in people.
Matthew Kelly:
Yeah. So, how old were you that day?
Tommy Spaulding:
I was 17.
Matthew Kelly:
17?
Tommy Spaulding:
Yeah.
Matthew Kelly:
So, you graduated high school, you go off to college.
Tommy Spaulding:
I didn't go to college. I couldn't get in.
Matthew Kelly:
Didn't go to college. So what'd you do?
Tommy Spaulding:
This international global youth leadership organization called Up with People came to my high school.
Matthew Kelly:
Okay. Yeah.
Tommy Spaulding:
And I shouldn't say I didn't get into college, I got into college. They just weren't colleges that you could actually put letters on the Jersey and be proud of. And Up with People came to my town and it just changed my life. There was this Up with People show. There are blacks, whites, Jews, Christians, communists, capitalist, young people, singing rock and roll music about building bridges and love.
Matthew Kelly:
Yeah.
Tommy Spaulding:
And this is what the world needs, is people that are different forming bonds. So after the show, I just walked right up to the stage and, "What kind of GPA, what kind of SAT score, how do I get Up with People?" I had a 2.0 and they said, "We don't look at grades, we look at people's hearts. We want to find people that want to love and serve people." "Sign me up."
Tommy Spaulding:
So, instead of going to Springfield College, I joined Up with People and they changed my life and I just traveled all over the world, went to 85 countries, 84 countries, lived in thousands of host families and went there when I was 17, went there and then I went to college and came back and really expanded my career.
Tommy Spaulding:
And then when I was 30 years old, I became the CEO and president at Up with People, ran it for five years. Just changed my life, taught me how to love all people, all people.
Matthew Kelly:
So, how did you get into doing what you're doing now?
Tommy Spaulding:
Yeah. That's Ken Blanchard and Steve Farber and these great speakers that Steve was on the board of Up with People, a speaker, author. Wrote the Radical Lead, Radical Edge. And then Ken Blanchard, we hired him to come do a benefit fundraiser for Up with People.
Tommy Spaulding:
We had this thing called Celebration of Peace. We had Colin Powell one year. We had Bill Cosby one year before that whole thing went down and we had Ken Blanchard one year. And so like Meg picked me up at the airport yesterday, I picked up Ken and got to know his heart and played golf with him and really spent time with him.
Tommy Spaulding:
And then that night we had our big fundraiser for other people. And Ken was our keynote speaker, but I was the president. And my job was to share the vision for other people to the 1,000 donors in the room. And I shared my heart and told stories and shared my heart and told stories.
Tommy Spaulding:
And when I drove Ken to the airport next day, he looked at me and he said, "Tommy, I've never seen anyone move an audience like you. Have you ever written or thought about writing a book?" I said, "Ken, I don't think I've ever read a book before, let alone written a book." He says, "Oh they've got ghost writers for that. You got a heart, you got a story you should think about doing this."
Tommy Spaulding:
And he hands me an envelope and he says, "Don't open this until you get home." I went home. There was a check for $25,000 made out to Tommy Spaulding not to Up with People, CEO of Up with People, it was made out to me. And says, "You're going to need this for a website. I already called my agent in New York." And Steve Farber helped me with more connections.
Tommy Spaulding:
Before you know it, I met Michael Palgon, my agent, blah, blah. And I had a book deal and the rest is history. And when I went to pay back the 25,000 years later, Ken didn't take it. He said, "Give it away." That guy's the real deal.
Matthew Kelly:
He's great.
Tommy Spaulding:
The real deal.
Matthew Kelly:
Yeah. Really good. What's leaving Up with People, what was that like? You'd been doing it for so long, so committed to it. Was it like when you left?
Tommy Spaulding:
Well, it's interesting you asked that Matt, because I've been telling the story for years and it's a true story, but I never told the full truth because I wanted to protect the founder, but I really prayed about it. I thought about it. And the founder's now 98 years old, he's still alive. And I wanted to respect him.
Tommy Spaulding:
But I wrote the story, the real answer to that question in my new book. And he's probably going to be still alive when it comes out next week and I'm just praying it doesn't break his heart, but I really owe my life to him because he founded the greatest mission in the world I thought, at Up with People, and still do. There's nothing more important than bringing Jews and Christians and Muslims, and blacks and whites, and rich and poor, communists, capitalists together, young people to learn to love each other.
Tommy Spaulding:
That's what the bridging mutual understanding of young peoples. I defended that mission when I was a student, staff member, CEO, my whole life, 20 years in that organization. I still love it and still think it's the most important organization.
Tommy Spaulding:
And Blanton Belk was larger than life. He founded the organization, right? Built this worldwide movement and he was my mentor and he was my hero. He was the second father. And he groomed me. When he retired, I replaced him. I was his chosen person to run this organization 45 years later.
Tommy Spaulding:
So, I loved him and idolized him. He taught me how to play golf, taught me how to fish, take me down this place in Mexico. My home in Mexico now is because of him, the love from Mexico. He changed my life.
Tommy Spaulding:
And then I became CEO and president, he was the chairman. And then I saw a different side of him. And I just ... My mom always said never say anything bad about anybody, but let's just say he wasn't the leader that I thought he was. He was that way to the masses.
Matthew Kelly:
Yeah.
Tommy Spaulding:
But how he really treated people behind the scenes was something that really broke my heart.
Matthew Kelly:
You didn't see that working with him all those years? Only-
Tommy Spaulding:
When I was CEO, when I fully, fully took. And I think if there's been six CEOs of Up with People in its history. I think if you had interviewed all of us, we would all say the same thing, but I had so much respect for him. I just kept my mouth shut. Those four and a half years of being CEO really broke my heart because he wasn't the guy I thought he was.
Matthew Kelly:
Yeah.
Tommy Spaulding:
And I believe the mission's about to die. It's this close to being done. Up with People's almost gone.
Matthew Kelly:
Really?
Tommy Spaulding:
Yeah. And I really believe if he was a true heart-led leader, truly treated people with love and not ego and narcissism, other people would be on the greatest missions in the world right now, still. So I owe my life to Blanton because, Mr. Belk, because I'm in the leadership space now, not because I will work for a leader that I want to become. I'm in the leadership space now because I worked for a leader that I didn't want to become.
Matthew Kelly:
You mentioned Bill Cosby, got to come back to that for a minute. When you met him, did you have a sense that something was off?
Tommy Spaulding:
I just sensed arrogance and humor. And I have lot of friends that have a lot of humor and sometimes when you're sarcastic all the time and humor all the time, you're hiding something.
Matthew Kelly:
Yeah.
Tommy Spaulding:
A story.
Matthew Kelly:
Yeah.
Tommy Spaulding:
And I think humor's great. My best friend from high school, Corey Turer, still my best friend, he's sarcastic and he's hiding something, he's hiding. And we talk about it, right? Sarcasm is the first red flag when you're hiding insecurity.
Matthew Kelly:
And when you confront your friend about a sarcasm and what he's hiding, how does he react to that?
Tommy Spaulding:
I just love him so much. And reality is he's the best dad I know, his boys are amazing and he's been most loyal friend. When he was going through a divorce, I called him every day for a year, told him I loved him. When I turned 50 years ago and we were on the table, everyone's kind of honoring me. He said, "I've known Tommy since Little League and 12 years old. And when I went to my darkest time, that guy called me every day for the rest of my life."
Tommy Spaulding:
So, we have kind of a friendship that he can call me and my stuff, which I have my stuff and I call on him. But you go through your whole life with a bunch of pasta in your strainer, hundreds of noodles. And then they kind of slip out at the end of your life if you got six or seven noodles, and I got six or seven Corey Turers, I'm a pretty blessed man.
Matthew Kelly:
What would you say to someone who has someone in their life who uses sarcasm to hide, who uses sarcasm to avoid intimacy? What advice would you have for that person?
Tommy Spaulding:
Well, that other person's broken and hiding something and got deep pain. And so I challenge you to go to them and say, "I love you unconditionally." And get to know that story. I have someone in my men's forum, I have a men's forum that I love, these guys I love.
Tommy Spaulding:
I got a guy in my foreman, love point anything, amazing husband, father, has sarcasm to hide a lot of it. I know there's a story behind it and I'll find out that story. You just got to keep loving him. Yeah. Keep loving them. These are beautiful people, they're just hiding, they get to mask.
Matthew Kelly:
Yeah.
Tommy Spaulding:
Everyone hides things. Like my insecurity, I hid it with hard work and just work, I just worked, I worked at it, I hid it. But it's a journey. I just had a retreat this weekend called the Tommy Spaulding Man of Faith Retreat. Had like 28 guys, CEOs from all over the country, high level CEOs come in for the weekend and really learn about how to be a heart-led leader.
Tommy Spaulding:
One of the CEOs, a guy named Jackson McConnell runs an amazing bank in Georgia. One of the most successful small banks in the country. He's been to a lot of my retreats. He's been to my marriage retreat. His daughters have done my leadership retreat. So, he's bought-in. He's bought books, I've spoken to his team, so he knows my heart.
Tommy Spaulding:
The last exercise of the weekend was just a couple days ago I asked all the guys to write a love letter to their wives, because the night before I had surprised love letters. I contacted all their wives, surprised them with the love letter from their wife. So they got the love letter, got to feel that love, and I wanted them to return it.
Tommy Spaulding:
But Jackson didn't write a love letter to his wife, probably because he's been to my retreat bunch of times so he's done it before, but he wrote the love letter to me. I just got this letter on Sunday. Today is Tuesday. So I'm on the plane reading this three-page handwritten letter.
Tommy Spaulding:
And he basically says to me, "Tommy, I bought your books. I heard you speak, you changed my wife's life, my kids' life, my life. I love you. But do you love yourself? I just watch you and you give and you give, you're on the road 250 days a year. And you tell this story about the stadium, all these people of 80,000 people. But I'm concerned about the four people, your wife and your children. They'll be sitting right there front and center stage. You don't spend enough time with them."
Matthew Kelly:
Yeah.
Tommy Spaulding:
But he really challenged me, "Do you love yourself? What are you hiding?" And I just wept. And this was a couple days ago.
Matthew Kelly:
Yeah.
Tommy Spaulding:
Because the reality is maybe I don't, because I had this teacher in high school named Mrs. Dizeni. She was my 10th grade typing teacher. And I told her I wanted to go to college and law school and change the world. And she said I was stupid. She literally said those words, "You're stupid. And there's not a college in America that'll accept you."
Tommy Spaulding:
And I just spent my life proving to the world that I'm not stupid and no amount of books or no amount of houses or no amount money I have in a bank account. And I just go and charge and charge and charge until I got that letter on Sunday, I realize I'm still chasing something that I'll never get. I'm just trying to prove to the world that I'm not stupid, and it's time to stop and get my worth to God.
Matthew Kelly:
Yeah.
Tommy Spaulding:
Only God.
Matthew Kelly:
Yeah.
Tommy Spaulding:
Just so my answer to your question back to is I teach this stuff. I read books about this stuff and I'm learning this stuff. I just learned it on Sunday that we got to love ourselves to really, truly love other people.
Matthew Kelly:
Yeah.
Tommy Spaulding:
And the only one that's going to love us unconditionally is Jesus Christ. Yeah.
Matthew Kelly:
You talked about hockey, you talked about football, do you have a favorite sport?
Tommy Spaulding:
I'm a baseball guy. Because I'm a New Yorker, I love the Yankees. '77 Yankees and Chris Chambliss, Mickey Rivers, Bucky Dent, Graig Nettles, Thurman Munson before he died in a car crash. George Zeber, Reggie Jackson, Lou Piniella. You got Catfish Hunter on the mounds, Ron Guidry, Tommy John, Catfish Hunter. If you grow up with those guys, you just love the sport.
Matthew Kelly:
You have memories of going to Yankee stadium as a kid?
Tommy Spaulding:
Yeah one. We didn't have much money, we went once with my dad and we sat in the cheap seats and I smelled something there. And my dad said it was popcorn. And I learned later that was marijuana. I never smelled it before.
Tommy Spaulding:
My dad was a great guy. He loved his kids. We just never went ... He hated New York city. He hated the Bronx. He would just have a heart attack driving there, parking. It was just too much. And so I never really went, but I watched my TV all the time.
Matthew Kelly:
Now marijuana's legal now in Colorado.
Tommy Spaulding:
Yeah. I don't want to not talk about that. Gosh.
Matthew Kelly:
Why? I'm just thinking maybe you should open a store.
Tommy Spaulding:
It's crazy.
Matthew Kelly:
You could call it Burn Popcorn.
Tommy Spaulding:
Burn Popcorn. But they're everywhere. They're everywhere.
Matthew Kelly:
Yeah. So, what was it like sitting in the Yankee stadium as a kid?
Tommy Spaulding:
Yeah, it was amazing. Even the seats right up top, it was just to be there. And when Tate was born, I want him to be in Yankee stadium and they were to tear it down after they built a new one and I took him to one of the last games at Yankee stadium in the back seats. And I got the same section my dad took me, and he's in a baby viewer. I have that picture of him. But he didn't grow up liking the Yankees. He's a hockey guy.
Matthew Kelly:
Yeah.
Tommy Spaulding:
He wanted be like his brother. So he goes to baseball games, but we have a hockey family. And my wife, Jill, she loves hockey. Our dog's Gretsky. We got a hockey family.
Matthew Kelly:
Now did Jill like hockey before?
Tommy Spaulding:
No. She loves her boys and she just grew up going to all the boys games and she just loves it. But she gets on that TV now and screams and yells. She goes crazy. It's really cool watching my wife fired up for the Avalanche. We won the Stanley Cup this year, which was awesome. Yeah, it's pretty cool.
Matthew Kelly:
You've been to 85 countries, met so many people, who is the most interesting person you've ever met?
Tommy Spaulding:
Wow. Well, I got to live in Europe for a few years with Up with People and lived to Japan for a couple years. Australia. Probably that story I told this morning to your team when I was in business school in Australia. I went over to New Zealand to see the country and one of my mentors introduced me to Rod Dixon who's an Olympian, a great Olympian lives there.
Tommy Spaulding:
And he spent some time with me couple days, few days. And I really fell in love with his heart and got to spend time with his family. And just a guy that won the New York City Marathon, the Olympian, just was one of the most decorated New Zealanders of all time. And he was humble, down to earth and hung out with me.
Tommy Spaulding:
And after my visit took me to the train station. I just said, "Mr. Dixon, I got a question, I spent the last three days with you in your house, your office, your ranch, met your staff, met your people and your wife, kids and been in your home, and nowhere to be found are your Olympic medals. I heard you went to four or five Olympic games and heard you won the 1980 New York City Marathon where all your medals?"
Tommy Spaulding:
And he said to me, "Oh Tommy, all that crap is in a shoebox up in the attic collecting dust where it belongs because I'm not going to be measured on my awards and my medals. I'm going to be measured on the people I love and serve." And he drops me off.
Tommy Spaulding:
I had no idea that 20 years later I'd be writing leadership books, but I wrote about him. And humility is everything, Matthew. You could be so good at what you do, no matter what you do, whether it's hockey or business or the doctor, whatever you do. But if you become arrogant, it's like game over. And in the coaching business says you are.
Tommy Spaulding:
That's the sad part. There's a lot of arrogant leaders in the world. We need more confident, humble leaders. So, I've decided to dedicate my life to building those types of leaders and they start in high school, get them young.
Matthew Kelly:
Yeah.
Tommy Spaulding:
And then you do your job well and get the high school kids to understand humility, you don't need the coach, the CEOs because they've learned it when they're 16.