Road to Wellbeingville
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[Applause]
[Music]
so i’d like to take you with me on a
trip
if you don’t mind it begins at a place
i’ll call
brokenville technically or in
chattanooga tennessee
headed to southern california but trust
me
where i am is brokenville as bad as it
gets
let me explain my wife recently filed
for divorce
for good reason i’m frail because i’ve
lost
30 pounds without trying the tv network
where i’m hosting a national cable show
the david mcgee show is thinking about
dropping me off the air because every
few days or so i’ve got one excuse
or another to not get on the air oh and
i’m almost out of money and i’m not sure
i got a paycheck coming anytime soon
it’s early on a monday morning in late
january
and i’m running away from myself we’re
the only possessions i have
left in the world my honda insight
compact car my clothes
and this box of books i’d written over
the past decade studying
enduring iconic brands like is an author
like john deere moonpie
ford motor company louisville slugger
toyota the dallas cowboys
don’t bother looking any of them up most
are long gone out of print by now
it’s just that for me studying these
brands with inside access as an author
was the apprenticeship of a lifetime
i learned so many valuable lessons yet
here i am
my son william is occupying the front
seat on the trip
he’s a 21 year old junior in college at
the university of mississippi
who’s coming along for the ride our
32-hour journey west
he’s coming along honestly because he’s
worried about me he wants to make sure i
don’t have to make this trip alone
that’s fine he looks good on paper
he’s been in the honors college making
a’s on the track team is a letterman as
a sprinter
and he’s got the sweetest soul of about
anybody i know
but i’m worried about him too i’m afraid
he’s got a growing
alcohol and drug problem based on
evidence
so here’s my plan i’m going to counsel
him along the way on the virtues of good
living
and i’m going to hope some of it sticks
we’re so close in the car our elbows
touch in the center console
and we’ve got jackets in our lap because
there’s record cold
and snow forecast for the road ahead
i’m taking the first shift driving
because i’m all hopped up though on the
morning’s coffee
and vivance pill
i started on an adderall prescription 18
months ago
that’s part of how i got here a doctor
suggested
these pills dispensed to me at maximum
dosage
possible would help me focus more on
work instead of distracting life
problems
he later switched me from adderall to
vivance
when i complained a little bit still at
maximum dosage
suggesting these won’t be as addictive
but so much for that
every morning when i take those pills
it’s like communion with the devil
because it makes me crave alcohol and
nicotine
and i gotta tell you daily alcohol use
combined with even prescription maximum
dose
speed that’s a recipe for disaster
it’s taken my life away and it’s
harnessed my soul
by late afternoon we’ve moved into
western arkansas
snow has started to fall william has
dozed
nearly the entire time i’ve tried
talking to him
wake him up asking him questions and he
just answers groggy
almost incoherent
i suspect he’s on something opiates
like painkillers without a prescription
we need gas in a bathroom break so i
pull into a station
and i wake him up he grabs his backpack
be right back he says and he goes inside
the station
i fill the tank with gas go inside the
bustling store
get a coffee stand in line pay for it
and william’s nowhere in sight back at
the car
20 minutes later the door swings open
with a quick pull
what are you waiting on daddy-o
back on the road my son is now talking
so much i can barely keep up
he’s talking about the song on the radio
and the weather and the fact that he’s
never been to oklahoma less than an hour
away
i’m now concerned my son is high as a
kite on an upper
cocaine perhaps that he used in the gas
station bathroom
i’m so upset i could cry but i can’t
the vivants
we’ve moved into oklahoma now the day
has turned to night in the winter storm
is raging
the snow has fallen so heavy flakes are
clumping together they’re the size of
cotton balls and they’re piling up at
more than two inches an hour
and the wind is blowing blizzard
conditions
my honda insight car is struggling
barely getting through
and i’m concerned we could be in real
trouble william sees an exit up ahead
and
even though i see cars and trucks lining
both sides of the road in a giant pile
of white in the middle
i figure it’s our only chance so i push
the floorboard
petal down to the floorboard and we hold
our breasts and
swoosh we crash into a big wall of white
great we’re stuck we’ve just got one
option
we see a hotel over in the distance
barely through the snow
we’re gonna have to get our essentials
william gets his backpack
i get my bottle of vivants we’re gonna
have to leave
all my possessions in the car and leave
the car in the road overnight and hope
for the best
we pull on our jackets and we make a run
for it
and we’re clumsily slipping and falling
and falling and slipping
and picking one another up until we
finally made it inside the lobby of a
warm holiday inn express
and we are high-fiving and hugging and
celebrating and cheering
like we have just won an olympic race we
got to tell your mom i say she’s never
going to believe it
we’re connecting like we once did it’s
funny william says
this trip is a disaster but it’s also
amazing
and right there i see my opportunity
here’s the thing william it’s a lesson i
learned studying those enduring brands
failure cultivates opportunity
take the moon pie as an example more
than a century ago
the chattanooga bakery which makes the
moon pie started out
producing everyday snacks like lemon
cookies and
ginger snaps and demand for those
products was eroding and
it was very competitive among other
regional bakeries and so
the chattanooga bakery was faced with
extinction
or getting creative thus
the moon pie was born and now
100 years later it’s the only single
product chattanooga bakery makes
and it’s an icon i get it william says
what else did you learn
okay i got one read all that
adds no value it’s a basic premise of
the toyota way
how this once small japanese automaker
became one of the world’s largest and
most efficient
by focusing on the regular elimination
of
waste they developed a process
of continuous improvement
okay i get it william says what else did
you learn
yeah i got more here’s another plan big
execute small plan big
so that you have you know ambitious
elevating goals
something to reach for but execute
small do the little things every day
that contribute to that end
but make your daily life that much
better
tell me more william says all right look
we got to go to bed
we got a long day ahead last one but
it’s a favorite
the power of design in the early 20th
century
john deere was log jam among several
agricultural equipment manufacturers
worldwide
they had the power and they had the
quality but something was missing
so in the early 1950s john deere decided
to double down on cutting edge design
with its products
utilizing the talents of world-class
industrial designer henry dreyfus
literally almost overnight john deere
became number one
a position they haven’t relinquished yet
today
i’m up early the next morning drinking
coffee
and i see on the television news
we’ve survived one of the biggest snows
in the
history of oklahoma at more than a foot
and a half and i’m thinking about those
lessons i shared last night with my son
william
read all that adds no value plan big
execute small in the power of design
yeah when i look at myself in the mirror
i see a man broken
and frail how can i expect to get my son
clean when i’m addicted myself
why do i keep drawing a line between my
doctor prescribed drug use
in his illegal one when both of us are
being cored
by the very same sharp knife
i want to be a positive an influential
father not a negative
a father under the influence
i walk into the bathroom and i get my
vivants bottle and unscrew the top and i
dump the 25 remaining pills into the
toilet and
flush and they’re gone
get up get up the sun is up i shout to
william we got new frontiers to conquer
buddy
it’s hard to believe but that car is
still waiting on us
it’s still sitting out in the road we
have no idea how to get it unstuck
so we just start digging with our hands
but lo and behold and i promise this is
true is every bit of this story along
comes a man
riding on a well-styled john deere
tractor
and he gives us a push and we get back
on our way
slowly down the interstate
and i strike upon this opportunity to
father my son a bit more
using another lesson i learned studying
those enduring brands
it doesn’t matter whether we mess up
william because
everybody messes up but as long as one
casts blame
it’s hard to achieve self-respect
when we take complete responsibility
we can learn to respect ourselves and
others
we can find peace it’s not lost on me
that i’m talking to william but
lecturing myself
and it’s working i can see it now
i felt stuck unsure of how to break the
vicious daily cycle
and fix my broken life but i have all
the answers right here in this box
that’ll work for me anyway i just need
to put them
into daily practice
so we’ve moved into the higher
elevations of new mexico
and the sun set an hour ago it’s a
crystal
clear night which is helping the
temperatures drop
rapidly it’s already 16 degrees below
zero
the coldest either of us have ever
witnessed in our lifetime
i’m worried about my honda’s hybrid
battery but there’s nothing in sight no
cars no houses no hotels no gas stations
nothing we only got one option and
that’s to press on
it feels like we’re traveling in space i
say
whatever that feels like well william
says
we should stop and get out and find out
what that feels like
well son here’s the problem i got an
update for you
the car now says it’s 18 degrees below
zero
which means the wind chill’s probably 30
degrees below
zero so i don’t know well daddy oh
he says you only live once
he’s got a point on that so i’ll pull
the car
over to the shoulder put it in park and
leave the engine running
we pull on our jackets look at one
another and smile
let’s go i say we bolt into the frigid
night
and we’re laughing and shouting and
having a time of our life running in
circles around the car like mad men and
exhaling icicles
until finally we’re huffing and puffing
and we’re catching our breath
and we meet at the back of the car
and i link my arm with my sons
and i say we’re at the center of the
universe right now
it’s never been so cold william in the
history of record keeping
is it is it this spot at this moment
and we’re here for it we lean back
against the car
and i look up into the sky and i promise
you
i have never in my life seen
stars so many and i have never seen so
many stars
shine so bright and for the first time
that logical part of my brain
that works to keep faith at arm’s length
away from my soul
gives way i have an insight
and i don’t mean the car i’m driving
i’m just a man traveling in a universe
that is so much bigger than myself a
universe that’s managed by a higher
power
and i just a man must trust this
because i am powerless and my life has
become
completely unmanageable
as we near southern california the next
day
it’s clear to me that i’m on the
outskirts of a new destination
and it has nothing to do with where we
are on the map
i’ve left brokenville i’ve got a plan
that’ll work for me and i’m taking up
residency in a new location
well-beingville
that trip was taken precisely 10 years
ago
two years later i found my son william
dead
from an accidental drug overdose
i miss him so much each and every day
you just can’t even imagine yet a part
of him lives on
because my son william helped save me on
that journey
as a result i put a simple plan into
place
based upon the valuable lessons that i’d
learned from these enduring iconic
brands
and it worked i got my life back
i got my wife back and i
found lasting joy durable enough even to
navigate life’s most
difficult circumstances like losing a
child
that’s why i’m sharing this story with
you
because i want everyone everywhere
who’s stuck in brokenville to know
that there is a much much better place
well-beingville is waiting on you
thank you
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you