When Someone Sees Something in You That You Can’t See Yet | Richard Buckingham

What if someone else can see something in you that you haven’t learned to see yet?

In Episode 6 and the opening conversation of Week 2: CHOOSING of Delay the Binge™: The Journey, Pam Dwyer talks with Richard Buckingham about possibility, transformation, and what can happen when someone believes in us before we’re ready to believe in ourselves.

Richard shares the story of being a shy young boy who stuttered and the English teacher who recognized something in him that Richard couldn’t yet recognize in himself.

That experience stayed with him.

Today, Richard talks about giving others permission to pursue what they want, to dream, and to try, even when there is no guarantee things will work the first time.

Together, Pam and Richard explore how transformation continues throughout our lives, why becoming never really ends, and how sometimes the first choice isn’t making a dramatic change.

Sometimes it’s simply allowing ourselves to consider:

Maybe there is more in me than I can see right now.

THE DOORWAY: Seeing possibility.

Your Week 2 reflection:
What has someone seen in you that you haven’t fully allowed yourself to believe yet?

Maybe your next choice is simply to stop dismissing it.

🎧 Listen & watch: https://geni.us/dtb-richard-buckingham 

Pause. Choose. Build momentum. Finish stronger.

Transcript

Welcome And Meet Richard

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to Delay the Binge, where we explore the moments that shape us, the patterns that quietly influence our lives, and the pauses that help us choose a different path forward. I'm your host, Pam Dwyer, and one of the things I've come to believe is that none of us become who we're meant to be entirely on our own. Sometimes it's a teacher, sometimes it's a coach, a mentor, a friend who sees something in us before we can see it ourselves. Today's guest has spent much of his life helping others discover their potential and step into the next version of themselves. Richard Buckingham is the CEO of Ascend 21 Mentoring and Coaching, a Yale University graduate, author, speaker, and transformational leader with more than three decades of experience helping individuals, students, professionals, and organizations unlock growth and achieve meaningful success. He is also the author of Customer Wants, Client Forever, 12 Tools for Building Lifetime Business Relationships, and has worked with organizations including American Express, Merrill Lynch, Bank of America, and Macy's, y'all. But what interests me most today isn't Richard's resume. It's the person behind it. Richard, welcome to Delay the Binge.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

Oh my goodness. It's an absolute pleasure to be here, Pam. I'm as interested in learning about you and the things that you've done. That that was such a generous introduction.

The Teacher Who Changed Everything

SPEAKER_01 1:40

You know, to be honest with you, when you said in the very beginning, I had a an English teacher in junior high school that took an interest just like you described. I'm getting goosebumps. Because for and he was really difficult. I went to the same high school as my brothers went to, and I said, Hey, I've got this person as a teacher, and they go, Oh, you're in trouble.

unknown 2:03

Oh no.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

Don't you just you gotta love that?

SPEAKER_01 2:06

Oh, and I mean, I'll never forget he the one of the first days he he read the opening uh paragraphs of Tale of Two Cities, and I was hooked. I went to that school to play sports, and the light went on. And I he I he passed away a couple years ago. He and I were great friends. I don't know what was better, having him as a teacher, having him as a friend. Aww. And he was phenomenal. But there were there are 10 million people like me that he influenced. It just he did that. So I don't I don't want to hijack you. I just thought that when you said that, it just reminded me of of of this man. And um wow.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

He influenced you, and that's why you do what you do.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

You saw something in me that I didn't see, and he believed in me when I couldn't or wasn't ready to believe in me. And I stuttered when I was a kid and and I was shy. I'm still shy. I still stutter, I'm still shy. Well, I haven't noticed that. But he he just and he and he just was this giant of a man. He was a gentle giant, and he introduced us to all this literature and and thinking and and growth. Sometimes you just hang around with people because of the vibe that they give off, and you're just a better person because of it.

SPEAKER_00 3:31

Yes. Yes. I I realize that too, especially growing up the way I did. So I'm so happy that our listeners get to hear about you, the person behind your work. Sure. Um where are you joining us from today?

SPEAKER_01 3:45

I am in a little town called Bridgewater, Virginia. I'm right outside of Harrisonburg, and I'm right on the on the border of Bridgewater College.

SPEAKER_00 3:54

I bet that is absolutely beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 3:57

It's very pretty. It's it's kind of it's not the heart of the Shenandoah Valley. I think we're a little bit of upper valley, but the Shenandoah Valley is really pretty, and we've enjoyed like two or three days of just smashing weather, not too hot, not too cold. Perfection. Right, right. It's like this is a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 4:16

Well, can we tell our listeners, I always like to bring a little something personal out before we go into your work. Like what's what's something that's bringing you joy in this season of your life?

SPEAKER_01 4:29

It's a great

Writing As Therapy And Discovery

SPEAKER_01 4:30

question. I'm working on two or three writing projects. You mentioned the the Kiplinger book, and I um I'm actually working on getting that what I call refresh because I did it about 20 years ago. And I've I've gone back in and polished it up and I've added stories and I'm figuring out an online portal. So I've got a I've got a an an act, I have a real book, but I've also got an online companion to it. So I j just like you, I mean, I like to write and create, and like to think, and and it it causes you to to look at things in a different way in a different light and figure out what what reaches people.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

Exactly. And and writing for me is therapy.

SPEAKER_03 5:12

Amen.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

I mean, it's it literally healed my soul. And so I do love to write as you do, and I love speaking with other authors because we all think alike.

SPEAKER_01 5:22

Well, we all think alike, and I don't know about you, but I work everything out by writing. If I can't figure something out, I start writing about it.

SPEAKER_00 5:29

Yes, yes, and it it will come to you. So I play this little game with my listeners, and I usually send out questions like, okay, so next week we'll be interviewing this person, and it's just a little spotlight on you. And if you think of any questions that we could ask, and this one came in, I think it was from a young person. And I just I'm gonna honor that question because it's probably normally get skipped over, but it they want me to ask when you think about your younger self, what kind of kid were you? And what did you think you'd be when you grew up?

SPEAKER_01 6:06

Oh, what a great question. Well, I was I was shy and uncertain. I think the word diffident is a good word because um I was trying to find my way. And I grew up in a big family, and I hold older brothers. And remember, as I said, when I went to this school, I wanted to be an athlete. And all of a sudden I got introduced to Charles Dickens, and I got introduced to all these great writers, and I'm a I'm a history nut. I read American history all the time, and there's a part of me that was finding myself. And when I was younger, I thought, okay, well, I'll become a lawyer or a big international businessman. And I think I've ended up kind of becoming like that teacher that I had. I think that I find enjoyment in helping people find their purpose. I worked with a young man who was great. He sent me a text the other day and he just said, Thank you for helping me find my rhythm. I thought it was great. That was a great way of saying it. And I'm sure you're the same way I am. This is all transitive. This is all, this all works both ways. I mean, that's the beauty of it. And, you know, because when you help them find it, you you re-find it in yourself and you find it at a different level. And it like success, like like builds upon like.

SPEAKER_00 7:29

It really does. And that does remind me of something. My daughter is 30 now, but when she was young and in middle school, I was trying to tell her, these girls that you're hanging out with get in trouble a lot. So be careful. And she goes, Mom, how on earth am I supposed to shine this light you tell me I have in light places? I need to go into the dark so my light will be seen.

SPEAKER_01 7:51

What a great daughter. What a great daughter. It stumped me. I'm like, uh what a brilliant answer, right? I mean, I I work with these young people and I learn things from them every day. It's fun, right? I mean, if you think you know everything, what good is it?

SPEAKER_00 8:08

I know. And everyone has a different perspective, especially young people, because it's so genuine and innocent. That's the only way I can describe it.

SPEAKER_01 8:18

Absolutely. And because they're still learning. And what I find was fun with working with them is meeting them where they are. Because each each young person is at a different place. I I met a young lady whose mother found me on this next door app and the things that I've written, and the father brought the daughter for an essay session. She never met me before. Here we are at Starbucks and her dad's two tables over, and and we just start talking, and she has having writer's buck, and literally five minutes into it, a host of ideas come out, each idea better than the one before. And it was great.

SPEAKER_00 8:54

I can so relate to that because a lot of times we'll be driving down the road and someone will just say something, and it will immediately spark because I write short stories. Every Tuesday I post them.

unknown 9:06

Right.

SPEAKER_00 9:10

Sure. But people love them. And so every week I think, oh, I'm not going to know what to write about. But every week something happens that it's like, oh, that's a story.

SPEAKER_01 9:18

Well, I mean, I'm a huge music buff and I love music. And Tom Petty has a great song called The Waiting. And the story goes that Roger McGuinn and Tom Petty and a couple guys were waiting to go on stage, and McGwinn just says off-handedly, the waiting's the hardest part. Waiting to go on stage. And from that, Petty locks it in his brain, goes out on stage, and then writes a song about it. But but I think the best inspiration comes from, right? I hear people say things and they phrase it in a way that makes you stop a second to look at it and go, you never thought of it that way.

unknown 9:53

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 9:54

And they literally, I mean, I don't know if you realize this, but even what we're doing right now, a podcast or as a speaker, or even a mentor, we're literally just vessels sharing a message, I think, that was meant to be heard. And everyone comes from a different type of background when it comes to faith. But I do feel like there's messages people need to hear that they don't aren't going to figure out on their own. And a lot of times we can spark that in them. And it's like the teacher you were talking about. Do you think he influenced you in the way you turned out now?

SPEAKER_01 10:30

Oh, absolutely. I think that he gave me the confidence to become the person that I am. And I'll be honest, Pam, I didn't really learn to write till after college. And I was asked to do some writing and I reconnected with him. I'll never forget because I just I felt uncertain. And I'll never forget he said, okay, you're gonna write this. He said, pay a nickel for every word you use. I thought that was great advice. Goodness? Be really a lot of nickel with your writing. Right. Be really efficient with your writing. And he was the best email companion you could ever have. I mean, he emailed me. I saved his emails. They were brilliant. I mean, they were, they were like works of art. And he wrote books, and he and his wife would do book readings of his books, and it was just um just flat out inspirational. I think he had, besides my parents, I think he had an incredibly significant impact on me. I think about him every day. And the questions I always asked him, and I said to him, he did a great class. It was called back in the day, I'm not sure if it's the right vernacular, but it was called Black Voices. But it was all about African-American literature and America. It's interesting. I went to a private school, and in the time that I went to school in the 80s, some people thought the class shouldn't be taught. Some African-American people thought he shouldn't teach it. And he ended up being this wonderful, like panacea. Like he was able to wade into a very challenging topic and do it magnificently. But he introduced me to all these writers and Martin Luther King. And I would say to him, we'd live in this, you and I were talking in the beginning about the lack of kindness in the world. And I would always say to him, How would Dr. King have handled this? Wow. He would always go with dignity. He wouldn't jump into it and think the worst of the other person, probably a little older than you, but yeah, sometimes it's a little frustrating. I don't know if we have the kindness that we had in the world. I was reading something the other day about Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan, and even though they were from competing parties, they got along swimmingly. They were good friends. They respected each other. The kindness and the respect, if we could reinstill it in our world, I think we'd all be in a better place.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

We definitely would.

Dignity, Shame, And Real Help

SPEAKER_00 12:40

And instilling dignity, I mean, I grew up in a very poor situation, so we were constantly getting help from the government with what's called here food stamps, but you would get a certain amount allotted every month based on your income. And I was always so embarrassed of it because there was shame involved with being needy. And my mother, I just remember watching her. She asked me one time, we came out of the grocery store and she goes, Are you ashamed? And I was honest. I said, Yes, mom, I am. And she's like, Well, how do you think I feel? I can't feed my own children. And that was just such a huge eye-opener for me. And I started looking at other people because I think people that in that situation are viewed differently. Right. When all they need is their dignity. And how do you do that? Well, you don't just throw food or money at them. You give them some of your time with what your expertise is. Absolutely. Well, they have trouble handling money. Well, guess what? Spend an hour or two with them saying, okay, this is what I've learned. We can help you with that. But no one's willing to do that even now. They they would rather just write a check or throw throw

Coaching For Responsibility And Identity

SPEAKER_00 13:50

food at them on the corner there at the red light.

SPEAKER_01 13:53

One of the things that I was drawn to about you is that you focus on the transformation and you focus on because I think that every day all of us have the possibility to transform and to do things differently. And as you and I were talking earlier, I also do business consulting, but the young people are so much more enjoyable and fulfilling to work with because they they take right to it. They ask you questions and they implement and they try. Whereas the older people tend to be a little bit more jaundice and they're there's a little bit reluctant to do it, and this is someone else's fault and it's not my fault. I mean, one of the greatest lessons I learned in my life is take responsibility. If your life isn't what you want, uh it starts with you.

SPEAKER_00 14:39

I say own it and use it.

SPEAKER_03 14:42

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 14:42

But everyone, but I've that's why I really focus on the older folks because they are the ones that are most depleted, right? I talk a lot about quiet depletion, but they have so much potential to use all their expertise and their wisdom, but they don't. They have been ignoring their identity for so long that now they're at a place where they're bitter or angry or they don't know who they are anymore. Right. And all they really need to do, always try to remind them the person you are is there. You just need to come back to that person. You need to find that person again.

SPEAKER_01 15:21

I think that's beautiful. Re-being reintroduced your self is a powerful thing. You know, it's funny. I we do the mentoring, and it's as much interesting to find the mentors and work with the mentors because one person can't do it all. I spent, I was up a couple weeks ago with a friend of mine in New York, and he's retired, he sits on these boards, and we were talking about some young people and the energy he had, he would have been the antithesis of what you're saying. Like, like he wants to give back and he wants to share and he wants to up coach and he wants to learn. Because, you know, at the end of the day, it's like what I said, you're constantly trying to figure out is what's the best way to reach this person? How can I have the most meaningful impact?

SPEAKER_00 16:04

Exactly. And and just having the desire to do that and be aware of your own uh transformation story. I mean, transforming into the person who you were always meant to be, it doesn't happen overnight.

SPEAKER_01 16:17

It doesn't.

SPEAKER_00 16:18

There's things, but the potential that you see in young people, it just makes my heart sing when I hear you say that. Because let me just tell you, there was a woman in my life when I was probably was in third grade, actually. But I went and spent the night at a little friend's house for the first time. And I did I thought everyone lived in filth like I was living. But she had a beautiful home, a mom and a dad, lots of food. And I opened my suitcase and roaches just scattered out everywhere.

unknown 16:48

Right.

SPEAKER_00 16:48

But I wasn't that wasn't the embarrassing part. The embarrassing part was how they reacted. They were stomping them and screaming, ah, and that's when I thought, oh, you're not supposed to supposed to have bugs in your home.

SPEAKER_04 17:01

Right.

SPEAKER_00 17:01

And but Mrs. Kelly, the mom, I'll never forget this, she kneels down because I was crying and embarrassed. And she takes my face and her hands. I can still feel it. And she looks me in the eye, she said, Don't ever let anything on the outside determine your worth, Pam. She goes, I see a light. I see so much potential inside of you. She's I can't wait to see what you do with it.

SPEAKER_03 17:26

Right.

SPEAKER_00 17:26

And that's the first time anyone saw potential in me.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

And made me feel that. That was like my teacher. Like, and then you start looking for and you kind of rub your head, oh, well, he thinks I have it. Maybe. Maybe there's something there.

unknown 17:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:42

But people like you are I'm not gonna say rare, but there's not a whole lot of folks that care so deeply about improving, educating, and helping people transform.

SPEAKER_01 17:55

Well, you you're nice to say that so much of what I've done is based on all the failures that I've had and the things that I haven't done well. And I mean, I'm a guy that stuttered, as I said to you. I found myself in the public speaking field. It'd be funny, they'd be pitching me these gigs and they'd be telling me they're gonna be X number of people, and they didn't realize that I wanted a smaller group. Yeah. The more numbers, they'd tell me, oh my goodness, how am I gonna talk to this this number of people? But I think that so much of what I did, I mean, I I when I got in the business where I couldn't sell, and then I I learned to sell, and then I wrote a book about it. And I find that a lot of things that I do are things that I've overcome. And they're, I mean, I really wasn't a great student in the beginning.

SPEAKER_00 18:38

Yes, we learned from the past. We learn from our mistakes, that's for sure. I mean, that's my whole mantra is is pain can be turned into purpose. It doesn't go away. Whatever happened to you, it will never go away, but you can use it.

SPEAKER_01 18:53

Well, I have a friend of mine from high school, and he's a doctor out on the West Coast. He he's a Navy guy, Navy doctor, but he and I would do some seminars together, and he had that great, he he I texted him this morning about actually, and he says is Machiavelli, but it's don't waste a good crisis. That's the opening line, which right. And then the next part of it goes, because you're gonna find stuff about yourself that you never knew existed, and you're gonna find talents and strengths within you that are theirs. I think what's funny is when you're working with people, you're trying to draw out that life force in them. You know, it's it's it's that great phrase by Carl Young. The privilege of a lifetime is to live the life that you're meant to live, to become the person you really truly are. And it's hard in our world.

SPEAKER_00 19:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:41

Money's prestige, all these trappings, that's not what it's about. It's about what's on the inside. It's an inside journey.

SPEAKER_00 19:50

Well, and finding it to shine it. You gotta find that light.

SPEAKER_01 19:54

But if it's what makes it fun. And I think people like, you know, I meet someone like you, and I can immediately I get it. I get it right away. And I mean, I meet people in sometimes the most fascinating of circumstances.

unknown 20:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:10

And and it it's interesting the connection. I rode a bus to New York 14 months ago with the woman, and she talked about her son, and I so wanted to meet her son. And he he was on the cusp and he was struggling, and and he was in the basement playing video games, and I'm like, give me an hour with him. Let me talk to him.

SPEAKER_02 20:32

And how'd it go?

SPEAKER_01 20:34

I didn't get a chance to. The bus got a flat tire. We just happened to be sitting next to each other on a bus, and it it's funny how these conversations kind of start, but yeah, her son went to the same school, same high school that a young man I was mentoring to going to, so it just you just never know.

SPEAKER_00 20:54

Well, and you never know how it's gonna be paid forward, right? In in any given conversation. I mean if people don't see their own potential, they usually feel like they're limited by their circumstance. Right. And then I know that that's how I grew up, my circumstances. I believed the lies that I was telling myself.

SPEAKER_01 21:18

See, I think that's that I've heard four books in what you've said. And and and that's beautiful. And there's that great Marianne Williamson quote where it isn't our darkness that scares us, it's really our light. I have friends of mine, Pam, that are just my feeling of working with young people is they're Ferraris and they need the owner's manual, and some of them are way out of control. I get it, I was out of control for a while.

SPEAKER_00 21:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:52

And because they've got so much talent that it just blinds them. So it's like, how do you teach a 15 year old? Safari, how do you give him the the owner's manual? And really what you're trying to do is you're not trying to give him the manual, you're trying to get him to see the DNA inside of him or her.

SPEAKER_00 22:11

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 22:12

And it's fun because when you get there, they hit this level of peace. I'll watch these people come in and they come in as one person, and then everything's all done, and they walk out as a different person. And they're more grounded and they're quieter. I worked with a young lady and she took her essay. First of all, I feel like with the high school kids, their essays are their personal anthems, they're their walk-up songs. Don't turn in your rough draft. Get serious about this, go deep. And this young lady wrote a great paper, and we took and we changed one word. And in changing one word, the essay opened up and blossomed. And you know what? She opened up and blossomed. So I'm a business guy and I want to market my business. And I'm very, as you can probably tell, you and I are, I'm sure the same way, I'm very much about truth. I never want to over-exaggerate. So I called her and I said, I'm trying to put some stuff together, was it's helpful. She's like, it's incredibly helpful. And and it almost kind of surprised me. And then I said, Well, what was the most helpful? And she said, it was the questions that you asked. And I said, Well, could you write them down and send them to me? Because I forgot what I asked.

SPEAKER_00 23:23

I need to recycle those.

SPEAKER_01 23:25

Well, I need to recycle them, but part of it is that you're meeting them where they are, and you kind of pull out, like you heard me talk about Tom Petty. Well, I love to talk to young people about music. Yeah. I work with this one football player, oh, strapping star of the team, had a business on the side, and he was struggling with a paper on Joseph Conrad. And it was a C minus, it was a D paper. And I and we tried to go through and I finally I put the paper aside. I said, tell me your paper. And the first iteration was a C. But it was a second iteration that went to like a B minus. And the look at the look in his face, and he was just like, and he looks at me, he says, Richard, writing is speaking, and I'm writing and speaking.

unknown 24:11

That's it.

SPEAKER_00 24:12

It is. We all have stories to tell.

SPEAKER_01 24:15

Amen. Amen. And and I think it's one of these beautiful things of literally helping people find their voice. I love giving people a voice. Yes. That I mentioned that I, you know, I met the woman on the bus and her son went to the same school. Well, I've worked with him on three or four little projects. I've known him since he was in junior high school. Great young man. And his dad said, hey, look, he wants to apply for scholarships. Can you help him with the essay? And I met him, and um, you know, you always wonder what they're going to come up with. Yeah. And he starts talking about Pam. He talks about being the backup to the punt returner. The punt returner gets hurt, and he has to go in in a night game on a cold October night and field his first punt under the lights. And I'm like, what a great essay, Topic. Like this is right.

SPEAKER_00 25:00

Yeah. And I'm just gleaned all kinds of stuff out of that.

SPEAKER_01 25:03

Well, the essay's writing itself. And I'm watching him, and again, you see the energy increase. You see the confidence. You see the belief that. And I say to these young people, you know, you're writing best better essays at your age than I did when I was at your age. I had a tough time putting words together. And again, I like I said, I didn't learn to write until really after. I'm still learning to write myself. I read all the books. I read Stephen King's on writing. I love George Elwell, George Orwell wrote a great essay, Politics in the English Language. It's not long, but it's a beautiful primer on writing well. I think it's fun. It's a craft. I I'm not wild about AI. I mean, I I like the writing because within the writing comes the energy and the transformational forces within the writing, I think.

SPEAKER_00 25:53

It really is. And it's not human. It cannot tell my story. I use AI for just organizing, structuring things. Right. That's what I struggle with in a long story. But it's my story. Right. There's no way it would know about roaches and things like that. And bugs coming out of a suitcase, so to speak.

SPEAKER_01 26:13

And it can't catch that ethos. It can't capture what happened in that moment. And your story to the X number of people that listen to it, it transforms other people.

SPEAKER_00 26:27

Yes, because they see themselves in it. They see themselves in the story.

SPEAKER_01 26:32

And in a lot of different ways.

SPEAKER_00 26:34

Yes. Yes. They could be Mrs. Kelly, you know, they could be me, but whatever.

SPEAKER_01 26:38

But the beauty of it is her getting down and putting her hands, the transformation of the energy from her hands to your cheek and the sincerity that she felt.

SPEAKER_00 26:49

I mean, it still makes me tear up. It was such a special, profound moment.

SPEAKER_01 26:53

But that's the essence of a transformation is I think they're they're constantly ongoing. They're a beautiful thing. The trans transformational force, this young man that learned about the writing, I hope he took it out and applied it. I mean, the young man that said to me, Hey, you helped me find my rhythm, he called me the other night and said, Hey, Richard, I've shared three of your ideas with three other people and they're grooving. And I'm like, that's brilliant.

unknown 27:18

Brilliant.

SPEAKER_01 27:19

Because what I always tell

Permission To Fail As A Breakthrough

SPEAKER_01 27:20

people that I quote unquote mentor, because we're mentoring each other, but I always say, hey, pass it on. Find someone to mentor. Yes. Because I it it's an empowering thing, and it teaches you to listen and it teaches you to figure out, okay, how am I going to approach Rick? How can I get this across to him?

SPEAKER_00 27:38

Well, and I have to ask you, because a lot of times I wonder myself, I am so inquisitive and curious because of the way I grew up, right? Because that's the only way I could learn. I wasn't being influenced at all at home. I had no one to learn from. So I had to look outside my environment to decide, okay, I like what that person, like Mac from the store, I like what he did, and I want to do that. So how do I do that? But then there's people that grew up perfectly normal, amazing family life. And sometimes I think that they are limited in their belief of themselves for some reason.

SPEAKER_01 28:24

I think that's beautiful. And it goes back to the Machiavellian quote: don't waste a good crisis because you can't find out. If you live your life in this parameter rather than in this parameter, where you really have to figure out who you really are and how deep you can go. I mean, the the thing that the greatest thing in the world is seeing the untapped potential and unleashing it. The saddest thing in the world is seeing the potential not go anywhere, that it's just not being tapped. Yeah.

unknown 28:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:58

Sometimes you're not the person to tap it and the event isn't, and you just, you know, you never know with people.

SPEAKER_00 29:03

I noticed working with young people in my career that all I had to do was explain, give them permission to fail. Believe it or not, permission to fail. And it's like this huge relief, this weight off of them because they're so afraid of disappointing parents.

SPEAKER_01 29:22

I think that's brilliant. I love that. I I say to people, a lot of times, I'm not your dad, but I can say things that your dad might say that you wouldn't hear from him, but you'd hear from me. And then I think a lot of what I do is give people permission to follow what they want to do and to follow their dreams. And oh, by the way, if you're going to do that, here are three things you might want to try. Do this, this, and this. And all of a sudden, they walk out of the conversation like they're floating on air. Yes. Now, does it mean that they get what they want on the first couple phone calls? Of course not. It's a sign marker, it's a roadpost on the way. Lewis and Clark, you're trying to get out west, you're trying to go inward and find out what you really are all about.

SPEAKER_00 30:05

Yeah. And do you notice the difference? With younger people, you can give them permission to fail. But with older people that have lived a lot of life, they have failed, but they are either ignoring it or not using it or feeling so much shame about it. It's really hindering them as well. So it's almost like you got to give them permission all over again.

SPEAKER_01 30:29

I I didn't ask you if you worked with Steve's group up in New York. I'm an older businessman, and it's very rare in my life that someone tells me something and actually does it. When I signed up with Steve, everybody goes, Richard, you're not going to be happy. You have high standards. Well, I called Steve halfway through and I said, Bravo. He said, Bravo, what? And I'm like, it's exactly what you said. Every interaction I've had with your group has been uplifting. It's been his team, Tyrone, Mary Kate, the things they say, but but I want to say this. When I did the business book, the first chapter is continual improvement. It's all about building on your failure and not being afraid of it. I've been talking about this for 30 years. I don't know if you've met Lauren or not with his team or not. But I'm talking to Lauren about it, and Lauren goes, I hum out four bars of me. She goes, Oh, I get it. Failure is a path to success. I fall out of the chair. Right. I fall out of the chair. She's like, what's up? I'm like, I've been doing this for 30 years, and no one put it as concisely as that. So you give people, not only you give them the permission to fail.

SPEAKER_00 31:34

Oh my gosh, Richard, you're gonna love this. When my son was in third grade, the teacher, the first day of school, and the teacher called me into the classroom. I thought, what has my son done? So I went in and she goes, I just wanted to meet you in person because I asked the class today, how do we learn? And your son raised his hand and he said, by messing up.

SPEAKER_01 31:54

Some of my heroes, so I love songs, I love literature, and I love history. And I read about Lincoln and I read about Kennedy, both of their presidencies initially were disasters. Lincoln didn't expect to be able elected a second term. And there's a great line from Kennedy when they said they're saving the info to write a book about it. And John Kennedy, John Fitzgerald Kennedy says, who wants to read a book about disasters? What are we, if we don't learn from the things that we've stumbled with or failed with?

SPEAKER_00 32:26

Yes, it would be sad. And young people have taught me one thing. They have so much courage, Richard. They are probably the bravest humans on the earth. And it's not just from ignorance or innocence. It's they aren't afraid to try things. I think, isn't that great?

SPEAKER_01 32:44

Because you just literally never know.

SPEAKER_00 32:47

I know. And but you know, business leaders, what I've learned is they're full of fear and shame and they're afraid to be vulnerable. All the things that's happened to them in their past life, they haven't been taught how to deal with failure.

SPEAKER_01 33:03

Remember, I'm a stutterer, and I don't even know how I got into public speaking. I think people said to me, Hey, you seem to do pretty well sales, come and talk to our people. So I start doing this. Why didn't I get a feedback form? It made me more comfortable. I'm gonna address your company, I'm gonna give you a feedback form, and we're gonna go over it in the very beginning. I'm saying, look, I'm here to talk to you about these three topics. But by the way, pull this out because I want to get your feedback. And I was convinced that they were gonna tell me all these things that I was doing wrong with my speaking. Like that was my somehow it made it easier to go out and do it knowing that I've asked them and given them permission to come back to me. That's not what came back to me. What came back to me were brilliant ideas. Hey, Richard, why don't you talk about this, this, and I I wrote chapters in a book based on what people wrote back to me. And it's amazing that when you meet people at a respectful level, the level they they come back to you with. And that and I read everything that they wrote. This was back right at Lin Cosper being able to submit things electronically. But but I took the feedback so seriously, and and everything I do, like whenever I finish with a young person, I always ask them, what did you hear? And sometimes it's interesting, sometimes it's not what you would expect, but it's always something along an uplifting line of I'm gonna do something different. I shouldn't be so afraid of this.

SPEAKER_00 34:22

Yes, or what do you wish we would hear from you?

Listening, Feedback, And Better Questions

SPEAKER_00 34:26

I interviewed a woman once about listening as a skill. And there's a lot to be said about tell me more. When you say that to a young person, they're like, oh, she's listening.

SPEAKER_01 34:38

Well, I mean, I I am not a political guy. I don't understand the politics thing. You know, when Charlie Kirk passed away, the New York Times had a pretty good write-up on different testimonials. But I remember one young lady wrote and said he would come and talk to us and listen to us.

SPEAKER_00 34:54

Listen, yes.

SPEAKER_01 34:55

And I thought that was a really generous. Would that we all like, okay, so I've got this business book. There's a feedback chapter. I suggest having a feedback officer at your company. I suggest feedback Fridays. I suggest just take the time to listen to people. Just go ahead and pop yourself down and say, I want to understand how you experience what we do. And it's amazing because in the beginning, they're the your expression, they're huh. And then when you start taking notes and asking questions, then the floodgates open. I worked for a client once with a client in Texas, and I went down to people in Texas, and the the they gave me 15 pages of the most brilliant data. The company was leaving $20 million on the table. It was brilliant. Right, it was brilliant. And all it is is just asking a better question.

SPEAKER_00 35:50

Yes, definitely. And I find that people that listen are the ones that grow the most. They really are. They have they can transform their whole lives.

SPEAKER_01 36:03

I think there are two levels to that. There's the demonstrated willingness to want to listen. And this is kind of a crazy world we're in. My whole summary of speakers and everything, everybody's talking. Who's listening? Well, and really listening.

SPEAKER_00 36:20

The greatest writers in the world write for the reader.

SPEAKER_01 36:24

And that goes down to so many levels, just for the structure and the format of the book, have they made it reader-friendly? And I think one of the best things, remember, these feedback forms, I thought they were going to tell me how to improve my speaking. And don't get me wrong, they there were suggestions about that, but the overwhelming suggestions were different ways to present the material. And one of the things I heard really early on was tell more stories. Tell more stories. People love that. So I wrote the when I wrote the business book, I put true stories in the business book. And then I got to the point that I really just call them business parables. And, you know, in the beginning, like I wrote this book 20 years ago, so different time, and I wrote a lot of things about me. Well, I've taken me in a rewrite, I've taken me completely out of it. And the story, right? They're about other people. So it's fun. And you can find yourself being a court reporter, you're you're watching these circumstances and you're transcribing it.

SPEAKER_00 37:20

The tribe or caveman family that's sitting around the fire telling the stories about how they escaped a dinosaur that day. We learn, we tell stories. That's how we communicate.

SPEAKER_01 37:33

I think the I mean I think Abraham Lincoln was as effective as he was because he told stories. I mean, Jesus Christ taught parables. I mean, I remember reading on the prodigal son, I think it was uh Charles Dickens or John Updike said it's the greatest short story ever written. I find that fascinating. I love that. Right. You read these things years later and you see different things in it you never saw before.

SPEAKER_00 38:01

Exactly.

Fear Of Change And The Hero’s Journey

SPEAKER_00 38:02

And well, I do want to bring up a point of how some people, some people you try to help that have issues with transforming or becoming aware for more clarity, or they don't want to change because they're afraid they're not going to recognize that person.

SPEAKER_01 38:22

And it's back to the Marianne Williamson that they're they're just afraid of who they really can become.

SPEAKER_00 38:28

Who are they without it? They they want the issue to stay. They're not even aware that they're keeping this issue in their life alive because who are they without it?

SPEAKER_01 38:38

There's a great show. Have you read a lot on Joseph Campbell, Follow Your Bliss? I'll send you the link to it. It's about an hour and 20 minutes and it's on YouTube, and it's absolutely brilliant because it's a whole bunch of uh Joseph Campbell acolytes talking about the transformations in their life. And remember, the gist isn't multi-millionaire, a lot of them became that. The gist is finding your bliss, finding what you're really meant to do. And and a guy tells a story about the golden Buddha. I won't tell it to you. You probably am the Golden Buddha. Well, his is, I think his, I've heard three different versions of it, but I think his is like one of the best versions of it. But again, it's back to the Machiavellian that you have something that goes wrong. And rather than then then become paralyzed by it, you overcome it and you become a different person. I mean, it's the whole hero's journey. That was inside them all along. Love it, right?

SPEAKER_00 39:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:35

Right? It's all it's all encoded in your DNA. Spent all this time going outward. We're on our phones, we do all this external things, but it's inside of us. And it's like, okay, how do we tap into that and and how do we experience? I tell a lot of people get up in the morning and just nod at your mirror. Yes, I have this talent. Yes, I know how to do this. I will be able to accomplish this. And then watch how your day goes. And one of the signs, I think, too, I don't know if you follow this, but it's the everyday events that can shape us if we allow them to. Something bad happens and we deny it and push it away, and we don't realize that embracing it is really going to be a life-changing venture.

SPEAKER_00 40:20

Exactly. And not giving your energy to rejecting it. Your energy needs to be put into using it. That's energy.

SPEAKER_01 40:28

Did you ever read The Surrender Experiment by Michael Singer?

SPEAKER_00 40:31

No.

SPEAKER_01 40:32

I've heard it so well. I can't remember what the order is. I read on Tether, I didn't like it. My friend Duran says, Richard, you really need to read the surrender experiment. And I'm like, Duran, I don't want to read it. For sure enough, I spend an hour and I order and I read it, and it's a great book. And the guy basically says yes to everything that happens in his life. And he ends up selling his software company for like billions of dollars. That's not why you read the book. It's it's the peace of mind that he finds, but but it's that willingness to accept and acknowledge and not push away the things that happen. When someone wants to move into his house, he doesn't say no. He always tries to figure out a way to say yes. I think that's incredibly empowering.

SPEAKER_00 41:14

It really is. And you have such an outlook on

Music, Rhythm, And The Ascend21 Story

SPEAKER_00 41:17

things. I'm sure that's why Ascend21. Can you tell us what inspired you and and how you created Ascend21? What is that?

SPEAKER_03 41:25

By all my failures.

SPEAKER_01 41:29

It's just, it's just seeing that look in people's faces when they get it. And I love talking to kids about their essays, their high school kids. It's their anthem, it's their walk-up song. I love talking about a piece of music to help them find their cadence and their rhythm. I didn't realize when I was a kid, listening to music was one of the best positive habits I could have because it was self-soothing. It taught me about cadences and rhythm. It taught me about diction. It taught me about rhyming. Like I learned so many valuable things from that. And I don't know about you, but a lot of times when I'm at my creative best, it's usually when I've been involved with music. I've done something outside of, you know, me trying to figure out a business plan isn't the way to do it. Me going to the gym, me playing golf. I get my best thoughts when I'm not working. And they come at me like a they come at me like in threes. And I've got to stop what I'm doing and write it down. I mentioned to you before we got on the air, I told you that I went up and saw Lyle Lovett and John Hyatt in New York, and they're both accomplished songwriters in their own right, and they they traded off songs. But at the end of the night, Pam, they did a rousing five-verse stanza of This Land Is Your Land. And when I was a kid, right, when I'm a kid in second grade at Burning Tree Elementary School, we learned and sang that song. Great, what a great Woody Guthrie song. And I find myself as an older adult up at the Capitol Theater of New York, Port Chester, singing the verses about private property with such enthusiasm and gusto because it's as pertinent today as it was when I sang it in the mid early 70s. And when I guess Woody wrote it, I don't know, in the 20s, I guess. I guess Irving Berlin had written God Bless America, and then Woody Guthrie said, Well, let me, Irving, allow me to give you my version of what the song should be.

unknown 43:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:28

It's incredible. If you've got a plan or growth in mind, do you expect it to be uncomfortable at first? And if so, how do you deal with that discomfort?

SPEAKER_01 43:39

Well, I love that question. I think what I've done is having lumbered and struggled and collapsed through the first two or three disasters, I've learned now to I don't run out and embrace the next disaster, but I'm a lot more accepting of it. And I'm a lot more recognizing that I'm going to learn something from this. And in my better moments, I see things lining up. I can see it lining up, and I can see that the lesson is going to be this. And all along the way, you're trying to help other people.

SPEAKER_00 44:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:10

Because it's good karma. It's the right thing to do. I have a question for you. I don't know if you'd like music as much as I do, but if you had a playlist for what you do, what would be the songs? What would be the songs that would highlight positive transformation?

SPEAKER_00 44:26

Okay. It could be anything from Queen.

SPEAKER_01 44:30

Tell me more about that. I love that.

SPEAKER_00 44:32

I don't even know why. Or Prince, believe it or not. I love Prince. You know who Prince is.

SPEAKER_01 44:36

I love Prince.

SPEAKER_00 44:37

I mean, some of them are kind of risque, but I don't care. It's it's the music behind it. It's just so uplifting and energizing.

SPEAKER_01 44:45

Let's go crazy. Hero of Man Monday. I mean, um I, you know, one of my thoughts is I hope there's stages in heaven. And I hope I get a chance to see Prince and I get to see Michael Jackson.

SPEAKER_00 44:59

Bohemian Rhapsody is just like Freddie Mercury. Bohemian, yeah. I'll put that on in a heartbeat if I'm feeling down or not energetic. I'll put Bohemian Rhapsody on.

SPEAKER_01 45:08

I think that's so important. And I spend my time making playlists. Steve and the team were working on a thing called Shoot Higher. Yeah. And I I don't think I told him this, but within a day or two of the development of that, I started a playlist about songs that I think um personify that and songs that put you in that mindset.

SPEAKER_00 45:34

I'm telling you, they have been such an influence on me because they help me in a lot of ways, but I've been approached by many agencies that are just focused on the package that you purchase, how much you invest. And sweet Steve, I'll call Steve, I hope he's listening to this. There came a moment where I said, okay, I'm not producing fruit from all these efforts, so I cannot utilize you anymore. And he's like, I don't care. I believe in your message, and I'm going to help you as much as I can. And they still do. They believe in my work.

SPEAKER_01 46:07

I got I got interviewed by Steve, and and he's a New Yorker. He's great. And and it's it's the transformative effect of his team. I think about Tyrone, we're talking about the shoot higher thing. And again, I kind of I'm in the woods, I'm I'm stumbling, I'm falling, and he then he says, Well, Richard, isn't the question you want to ask, what are you not doing? Yes. Brilliant. I said the same thing because again, it's in our DNA. You and I know it. You and I know when we get up. Yeah. I've got two books and a screenplay I need to finish. And there's enough, and there's enough of it written that it needs to get done. It whether it can get rejected, and that's fine. But I need there's something inside of me that keeps I I'll be out doing something. Boom, the line comes to me. You need to say it this way. A a friend of my mother passed away and and she called me up and well, the better version. I'm in a Lululemon store in Charlottesville, and this young lady gave me this line that I I called her back to say, can I use this in a screenplay?

SPEAKER_04 47:15

Because it was just so good.

SPEAKER_01 47:18

It was so good. It stopped me in my tracks. Wow. And it just was great. I think that we all need that because I think we need to raise our game. I think every day, you know, complacencies. Someone asked me a while ago, how are you do you get complacent? Not at all. Like I I have I've dug into the rewriting the Kiplinger book. Kiplinger book got good reviews on Amazon. Not a not a ton, but they all were high-star reviews. But I went in and said, now that this could be a lot better. Let me let me give you a quick story. There's a golfer, I won't name the golfer, but he came out highly touted. He won a prestigious tournament. He won breaking a bunch of records. And he asked for the video from the event. This was back before, again, you could stream into all this, but he got the video and he watched it and he started to recognize all the things that he wasn't doing. So he got the video to be like rah-rah session. And he he it ended up at the end of the video, he called the coach up that he was working with and he says, there are 15 things that I want to do better. And I think that, and he went on a tear, by the way, the next three or four years, he just broke records that no one only now are people like they're nibbling at the edge of the cookie, but they may not get to where he was with it. And and I think that that's the way I want to be. I never, again, that's why I asked these young people, it's funny. I don't know if you do this, Pam, but I asked him on a scale of one to ten, how effective. And the football player's like, 8.5. I love it. He right, right. He puts the 6.7, like he puts a number number to it, but you're always trying to figure out how can I reach these people.

SPEAKER_00 48:58

I always try starting out when I'm just meeting a client and just trying to get a feel for who they are and how we're going to communicate. I'll ask them, what does success mean for you today? I want you to define what or tell me what success looks like. And then I ask them, they'll tell me, and then I'll say, well, how is that different from what success meant 20 years ago?

SPEAKER_01 49:23

Right. I think thank you. That's a great question. And I think I'm going to ask that when I'm with the young people and they're working on their essay. Usually it's like, can you get a topic sentence? Like what I say to them is if they give you an essay on a Friday, write the bloody first sentence on Friday. You're probably like I am. I do the best writing when I'm not writing, because when the minute the sentence is in my head, then the rest of it comes. But if you wait till Wednesday night on a Thursday delivery date, you're never going to get the paper. You turn in the rough draft.

SPEAKER_00 49:55

I tell them, time passes anyway, you might as well use it. Use it and use it well, but just get something down on paper. Yeah, there's so many good questions to get young people to

Becoming, Better Habits, And Next Steps

SPEAKER_00 50:07

think. Like, what are you still learning? What are you still becoming? I love the word becoming so much.

SPEAKER_01 50:12

One of the books that I want to write is there's going to be another salacious book that comes out on John Kennedy, but I think there's a beautiful book to be written on his becoming. And it's interesting. He was very close with Robert Frost. Robert Frost was the first poet to read it at an inauguration. And he came in the Oval Office and he said to Kennedy, he said, Be more Irish than Harvard, which would be the title of the book that I want to do. Because I, and I think you're nodding. How brilliant is that? And I think brilliant. I think that John Kennedy's life was a series of undoing kind of what his family had done and the way his father was, and he was finding his own stride as painful as it was. And I have to be honest with you, I think there's a beautiful story to be told between him and his wife because I think at the end they had really it became almost an awkward arranged marriage to a love story. And I don't think I'm exaggerating in saying that. I read a book last summer that chapter and verse bore that out. But it was his process, to your point, becoming is a great verb, and I think it's something that we never stop doing.

SPEAKER_00 51:30

You don't ever want to be finished. You know how we're always striving for the summit. But really, should we strive for that? Let's just never be done.

SPEAKER_01 51:39

Correct. There's always something. If you're looking inside, you're always going to be guided to something more, something greater.

SPEAKER_00 51:46

There's so many wonderful nuggets. I can't wait. People are going to listen to this episode over and over.

Walk-Up Anthems, Contact Info, Closing

SPEAKER_01 51:52

I I learned a ton from you.

SPEAKER_00 51:55

If someone listening today feel stuck or discouraged or unsure of their future, what would you want them to know? What how could they get started today?

SPEAKER_01 52:06

Find their walk-up anthem. Find their walk-up anthem. And if they can't find it, email me and I'll help them find it. Put it on and dance. That's one thing I'd have them do. The second thing I'd have them do is sit in front of their mirror in the morning. The first thing is just nod to the universe. Accept. Don't push away. Accept that it's going to come to you. I love it. It's the guy that climbed Mount Everest, Edmund Hillary said. The minute I announced the world, I want to climb that mountain, all the forces I needed were coming to my aid. Okay. Well, I think that's if you want to write a great paper, send me the forces for me to write a great paper. Oh, Richard's sitting at Starbucks. Let me talk to Richard. He's one of a number of mentors that can get me to where I want to go. Just like when young man said to me, writing is speaking, writing is speaking. And nowadays you can dictate your opening line into your phone. Yes. I'll do that. I'll be out playing golf or something. I'll slip over and boom, boom, boom. This is what I want to try to say. And I'll have it there and I'll save it. So I have it.

SPEAKER_00 53:11

Well, can you tell our listeners how we can find your work? What can how can we find you out there?

SPEAKER_01 53:17

Well, there's going to be kind of a relaunch. So the you're so nice to ask that. Um the fastest way to get me is just my email right now, Richard underscore Buckingham at iCloud.com, just like it sounds. And within the next month, though, that there'll be a revised landing page. Um the business book will probably come out in the fall. I'll probably create the the companion portals to the to the business book. I'll probably have that up in like about a month. You can go on there and it's kind of like a corresponding chapter. And I'm big on feedback and I love back and forth, and I love people writing and saying, I didn't like that story, but this story I liked. And when the when the woman wrote on the feedback form, hey, teach me to teach tear down the walls of client distrust, I turned that into building client rapport. But had someone tell me work on the distrust part of it, and I I will do that in the part.

SPEAKER_00 54:10

Well, and if there's one thing that you hope people remember from this conversation, and I'm gonna share what I'm gonna remember, but what would it be?

SPEAKER_01 54:23

Well it sounds really corny, but but find your passion. Y-O-U-R and and it's inside of you. Don't don't don't get robbed of life. Life's like an amusement park. You want to ride every ride and decide what's the best one to go back and ride again. But I I would be curious what what what what yours is.

SPEAKER_00 54:45

Well, um, one of the things I loved about it, about our conversation is the is the reminder that growth doesn't happen in uh isolation, believe it or not. Often the people who change our lives are the ones who see possibility before we do. And sometimes the greatest gift we can give another person is helping them recognize their own potential.

SPEAKER_01 55:13

To borrow a word out of meatloaf, you took the words right out of my mouth. And I think if every day each of us let someone else see their potential or have them know that they're recognized, I think that's the you can give someone a $20 tip or you can say, hey, I watched you deal with that disgruntled customer, you did a great job. You at 20 taught me how I could do that differently. And the look on their face, wow, someone noticed me.

unknown 55:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:43

And tell me more. I'm telling, telling everyone listening, try it. If someone's talking to you, do not say anything about yourself. You just say, Oh, tell me more. And they'll feel very heard. Yeah. It works. It's it's very powerful. Just like so you don't have to become someone entirely different, everybody. You simply have to become who you were created to be. Just know all of Richard's information is going to be in the show notes. And so you can find him that way in case you're not writing anything down, which none of us do. Because we're usually driving, right?

SPEAKER_01 56:22

And if you're struggling with a walk-up song, reach out to me. We'll we'll find one.

SPEAKER_00 56:27

Well, you're truly amazing. What a blessing to the world you are. What a light.

SPEAKER_01 56:31

I don't know if I think back at you. I your story about the the mother and the the that's beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 56:38

Yes, I had very few.

SPEAKER_01 56:41

But I can feel it. I still feel it.

SPEAKER_00 56:45

And and that's it just it's honoring her by killing of her beads. There's so many more in my book. You can uh you can read the book, maybe. I don't know. Oh, that's right. I'm gonna send you a signed one.

SPEAKER_03 56:57

I can't wait.

SPEAKER_00 56:58

All right, everybody. Pause, choose, build momentum, and finish stronger than you started. Thank you, Richard. We'll see you next time.

SPEAKER_01 57:09

Absolute pleasure.

SPEAKER_00 57:10

Uh, we'll see you next time on Delay the Binge. See y'all next week.