0:01

Eh, not what your country

0:03

can do for you and what

0:05

you can do for your country. You are like

0:09

an entree trade . One word. I

0:12

have a dream. One day this

0:14

nation will, has

0:18

the chains or well , it

0:21

turns .

0:26

Hello, welcome to leading good a

0:28

podcast hosted by myself and Russell

0:31

. We don't believe in good leaders since

0:33

we all have weaknesses and shortcomings and,

0:35

but we do believe that people can

0:37

lead others to do good. Today I want

0:39

to talk about, I want to get a little political on the

0:41

podcast today and I want

0:43

to talk about , uh, the top

0:45

10 ranked presidents and why?

0:49

Uh , cause when I was looking at the top 10 rankings of

0:51

the 2017 c-span presidential

0:54

historian survey, which

0:56

pulled 91 historians, they,

0:59

they had the top 10. And I found it interesting

1:01

because I found some commonalities amongst

1:03

the ranked 10 through six

1:06

and then five through one. So

1:08

Russ, I want to throw some of these guys at you,

1:10

throw them at me and then we could talk

1:12

about it. LBJ,

1:15

Lebron James, is he on there ? LBJ

1:17

is on here. Okay. Uh , Brian

1:19

James made it. Lebron James 20, 45

1:21

or whatever. So

1:24

again, just want to focus on the top 10 and uh,

1:26

also to contextualize it for everybody. So

1:29

historians evaluated these based on

1:31

the 10 qualities of a presidential of

1:33

presidential leadership, including economic

1:35

management, international relations , uh

1:38

, citizen leadership of public persuasion

1:40

skills and whether they pursued equal justice

1:43

for all. So I

1:45

found that also interesting and I want

1:47

to do a podcast on that at a later time. So

1:49

a little preview, a little teaser for

1:52

the people out there. Wow. You're going all presidential

1:54

on me here for sure. I'm going to rank a

1:57

number 10 , uh, through a number six.

1:59

So number 10, we have Lyndon Johnson, LBJ,

2:03

number nine, Ronald Reagan. Ooh

2:05

, I liked the graphics. People who are listening

2:07

can't see the graphics. I like that

2:09

graphics. Wait a minute. Who's

2:11

the guy next to the Truman? Truman.

2:14

Now I know who trim it is. Who's that guy? A Thomas

2:17

Jefferson that does not look like Thomas

2:19

Jefferson, but okay. Google

2:23

images . I don't go with Google

2:25

image search. Google it. I've done Google image searches

2:27

and come up with people, don't look anything like you.

2:30

All right , let's keep going. That's Thomas

2:33

Jefferson at a young , uh , young surly age.

2:35

He looks older . So 10 Lyndon

2:37

Johnson, nine Ronald Reagan, eight John

2:40

F. Kennedy, number seven, Thomas Jefferson, and

2:42

number six, Harry Truman. So we're just going to stay

2:45

in this zone for the moment. Okay . The thing

2:47

I want to talk about, and the thing that I noticed

2:49

that all these guys scored well in his

2:51

vision, knowing that

2:53

these guys wanted to

2:56

create the America that they want or build the

2:58

America that they wanted or for shape

3:00

America into what they want it to be. Okay.

3:02

And then why is it important for a leader to

3:05

have vision and to know what they want to build?

3:08

Because I think, for example, Thomas

3:10

Jefferson, right? Uh , he's kind of the earliest

3:12

one on that , uh , on that list. And he ranked

3:14

high and his vision and agenda setting.

3:17

And he was one of the principal authors for the declaration

3:19

of independence. Um , and so

3:21

he was a guy who even from day one, shaped

3:24

what America was going to become and

3:26

was an influencer amongst his peers.

3:29

You liked those jokes? Ah, well

3:31

I liked him. Uh, I liked watching him

3:33

on that , uh, John Adams Doc , uh,

3:36

not Docu sear HBO. Yeah . The HBO

3:38

series. Yeah. Um, but I

3:40

found it so interesting that all these guys really had a

3:42

great vision for it and when they picked up

3:44

the mantle of president and

3:46

they wanted to shape America.

3:48

Okay. Um, so I dunno if you have any

3:51

thoughts on any of these presidents. So the first,

3:54

you're , the first thing you're saying is that the thing that

3:56

attracted you to these particular ones,

3:58

these leads are the ones that are rank 10

4:00

through six is a , is

4:03

is their vision. Correct. Alright . And

4:05

you want to know what I think? Well, I want to know what you

4:07

think about what it means

4:09

to be a leader that has vision

4:11

as well as why is it important for people

4:13

who are in a leadership role, whether in their

4:15

community, in , at their job,

4:17

or even in their, in their immediate

4:19

family or extended family or whatever.

4:22

Like why is it important for us to have a

4:24

vision? And when we step into a leadership

4:27

role, I think we can ex talk

4:29

about these different presidents and the , and the visions

4:31

that they also had for the country at the time that

4:33

took over. But what say you? Well,

4:37

I think , um, you

4:40

know, vision is important to lead good

4:42

because usually when you're

4:44

doing good, there isn't a direct

4:46

profit from it. So if

4:49

, uh , um , I forget the name of that shoe

4:51

company that they give portion of our money

4:53

to Tom's yet at Tom's , um,

4:57

they're going to make money off their shoes.

4:59

That's how they make their money. But

5:02

they didn't necessarily know they were gonna re would be rewarded

5:04

with greater product sales when

5:07

they decided to donate a portion of the sales

5:09

to doing good things. But they were,

5:11

a lot of people were attracted to the brand because they were like,

5:13

okay, I got to pair by pair of shoes.

5:15

I'm going to get a pair of toms because they have

5:17

this vision of we want to do good.

5:20

And now they'll either even advocates that say,

5:22

if you want to run a company, but for profit company,

5:25

you want to make sure you're doing something good.

5:27

Because there are like a

5:29

climate climate good, environmentally good.

5:32

It attracts those people. So if people are into

5:34

the environment, they're going to buy your product because you give it to the

5:36

environment. If they're into saving

5:38

whales or protecting dolphins

5:40

or whatever it may be, they're going to come and buy your product

5:43

. So I think you have to have a vision that

5:45

goes beyond just making money.

5:47

Uh, because I think people don't, they, they're not going to give

5:50

you their money just because, you know,

5:52

they're like, oh, we just want to give you that. So I think

5:54

in building an organization, whether it's for profit, not-for-profit

5:56

, people need to be inspired. I

5:58

think that's what visions about vision is a tough one to start

6:01

with though, because I don't know. So

6:03

for instance, let me take these guys. Uh

6:05

, linens , Johnson's vision was the great

6:07

society. Correct? Some people don't like that

6:10

because they feel like that's what put us on the course

6:12

of an extraordinary dependence by

6:14

a lot of people on government instead

6:16

of them creating opportunities for themselves

6:19

by hard work. And that's a big political discussion.

6:21

It's loaded with racism and

6:23

sexism and all that, but it's way outside my depth.

6:25

Well, and , but the , but here's this

6:27

great society. Uh , Ronald

6:30

Reagan's a shining city on a hill. Uh,

6:32

John F. Kennedy, great frontier. Uh,

6:36

I don't know of any vision Harry Truman had.

6:38

I'm unaware of it. I think it was a great president.

6:41

I do, but I don't know that he had a vision. Some

6:43

people may say, well, he had a international relations vision

6:45

for the world and was part of after

6:47

dropping the nuclear bomb, which puts him on the,

6:50

you know, a lot of people's, not good president

6:53

lists , but, but I don't know about

6:55

his vision and Thomas Jefferson, but he's a tricky one

6:58

because you're talking about a guy who

7:00

said he believed in a less

7:02

strong president and ruler

7:04

rule rule by the people. But when he became

7:07

president, he governed a totally different

7:09

than that. And it was a slave owner with

7:11

something like 300 plus slaves. When

7:13

he wrote the declaration of independence, he said

7:15

all men are equal and all that. But then

7:17

he had 300 plus slaves and never said , I'm go George

7:21

Washington who I believe is ranked number two on this

7:23

list. He, when he died, he let his slaves

7:25

go free. So I think when

7:27

you talk about vision and Thomas

7:30

Jefferson's vision, and I love Thomas Jefferson, I

7:32

think there's a lot of skill sets that he had as a leader.

7:34

But I think his is a vision

7:36

that's a little compromise by , didn't

7:38

actually execute it. But he did write it. So

7:41

the question comes, how important is vision

7:44

to leadership? I think that

7:46

it is essential to defining

7:49

what you're trying to do and getting

7:51

buy in from other people. So Shining

7:53

City on a hill , uh, I believe unemployment

7:56

among blacks and Latins was extraordinarily

7:58

low under Reagan. So there was a shining

8:00

city on a hill. But Mario Como speech

8:02

at the 1984 , uh , democratic convention,

8:05

he said, I know our president talks about

8:07

a shining city on a hill, but I want to take him to places

8:09

he's not been. And to see people, he's not seen

8:11

to know what's going on in these places,

8:14

which are not as shining city on the hill. So, so

8:16

I think part of what they did, all of them did.

8:19

I can't think of Harry Truman's vision, but

8:21

all of them did. It was great as they had a

8:23

vision. And then with our, what

8:26

it is is we try to live for a more perfect union.

8:28

So I think part of having a vision is saying I

8:30

may not perfectly live it ina

8:33

not perfectly execute on it, but I know

8:35

it's right. I know it's the truth

8:37

and I think that that is, that

8:39

attracts people. And so I

8:42

think each one of them attracted

8:44

a significant number of people to follow them

8:47

because they had that vision. I

8:49

just don't know what Harry Truman's vision was. Do you

8:51

a not really. He kind of fell into

8:54

the , uh , the next category of people, which we'll

8:56

get to. But I do think the, the, on

8:58

this continued topic of vision, like

9:00

it as you said, like people were

9:03

willing to follow you, but also these guys, he,

9:05

he, they compelled people to vote for them,

9:08

which I think at the end of the day, right. Strategically

9:10

that's what you needed to do, right . To win the presidency.

9:13

But I think it's so interesting that like

9:15

I think of , uh, Lyndon

9:17

Johnson who's ranked number 10 on this, on this list

9:20

is that he, I

9:23

would say at the time, right, he didn't think

9:25

he was naturally going to be president cause he was vice president before

9:27

JFK got assassinated. But he almost,

9:30

he picked up the mantle that John

9:33

F. Kennedy had started. Cause if , if

9:35

I remember correctly , um,

9:37

correct me if I'm wrong, cause politics is not my strong

9:39

suit. That's why I'm deferring to you on

9:42

someone that thinks, but I've been studying

9:44

it since I was about 10. You've read a few more books

9:46

than I ever .

9:48

I think presidents are some

9:50

of the best people to learn from because of the massive organizational

9:53

challenge because they have to be able to select

9:55

people in an extraordinary way. And one thing

9:57

you can say about all these people including Truman

10:00

is that I think Truman had

10:02

a vision for, for,

10:05

for, for getting America through

10:08

, um, World

10:10

War II. And I think that is probably what would

10:12

be his vision as we've got to win this war

10:15

and then we've got to move it ahead. I

10:17

also think he was a plain-spoken guy

10:20

who's he? You know, he started out as like a city commissioner

10:23

and so I think, yeah, in Kansas actually

10:25

in the political machine that got him

10:27

in the elections and one of the things that was thrown against

10:29

him is he was owned by that political machine

10:32

and didn't have any opinions of his own very

10:34

tough guy. But I think part of Truman's

10:36

vision I would say, and again I'm not

10:38

a presidential expert , you got to go to Michael

10:41

Beschloss and Doris Kearns Goodwin and people like that

10:43

to get the the, and I , I forgot

10:46

David McAuliffe I think wrote the biography of Truman. That's

10:48

probably the preeminent biography, but I think

10:51

what we've said is he was extraordinary

10:53

in his vision for the everyday person, making

10:55

sure the everyday person was going to get

10:58

something from government that they needed. And

11:00

he also I think had a discipline in restraining

11:02

power. He was the guy who was like,

11:04

I'm not into my charisma and

11:06

I'm, I'm, I'm plain-spoken

11:08

guy and I've got to , I've got a

11:10

deal that's gonna take care of everyday life. So

11:12

I think what you're trying to do and , and get

11:14

into is , is you have to have

11:17

a vision. I think the difficulty with a lot

11:19

of these guys is Reagan and Kennedy

11:21

were probably two of the most charismatic people.

11:24

So there's a difference between charisma and vision.

11:26

Vision is, I know where I'm trying to take

11:28

us. Truman, I know I'm trying to

11:31

get us out of World War II, save

11:33

as many lives as we can, and then rebuild

11:35

America and restart it so that America,

11:37

on his watch and beyond became

11:39

like the dominant nation in though in the world.

11:42

And He, and then Jefferson, when I

11:44

see a vision of a country that I'm not

11:46

necessarily able to make happen, but it's

11:48

a country where people are equal and there's freedom for people.

11:50

People can be who they are, they can believe

11:52

what they want. I definitely think he,

11:55

he envisioned that he took

11:57

that from a lot of other people. I think Kennedy caught

11:59

us at a time after, after

12:01

, uh, uh, after the war was

12:03

completely over when people

12:05

were like, okay, what are we going to do now? Where

12:07

do we go now? How do we handle this cold

12:10

war with Russia? And so I think he had, and

12:12

I think you can go down the line. Uh , I

12:14

think Reagan, I , I grew up,

12:16

I was a big sort of Democrat

12:18

guy when I was a kid. And

12:21

then after going through some Democratic candidates

12:23

that disappointed me, that didn't, I did not think

12:25

I have vision. I don't want to be negative. I think these are

12:27

good guys. The govern and

12:29

Carter, I felt like they did not have a vision

12:31

for the country and the country got depressed.

12:34

Uh, Carter gave a speech on the malaise of America.

12:37

And what Reagan did is he showed up and he said,

12:39

let me tell you something. America's not got

12:41

malaise. We're a shining city on a hill.

12:44

We, you know, we are the, we are the bright

12:46

beacon of freedom. He had all these things

12:48

and it made you feel good about being an American.

12:50

And I think Johnson came through at a time after Kennedy

12:53

died. Everybody was like, oh my gosh,

12:56

what's going to happen now? And he came through

12:58

and grabbed this agenda, drove through civil rights

13:00

, uh, made sure people had all kinds

13:02

of programs. Uh, I don't even know them all.

13:04

Enhancing unemployment, all that. So I think each

13:06

guy made people go, you know what? The

13:09

world is gonna be better because

13:12

these guys are in power. And I believe,

13:14

I think they believe, and I think that's what vision is about,

13:16

is can you convince people that you

13:18

have a vision that's not about your advancement?

13:20

Because I think each of them had a vision. It was not about

13:22

their advancement, but about the advancement

13:25

of the country. So that's why I took a long

13:27

time to get there. But I think that's probably what visions about.

13:29

Do you have a vision that's bigger than about you

13:31

and your ambition and what you want to

13:33

accomplish? And I know that's what I've learned in my life when

13:36

I've been a good, a good leader or

13:38

leading good. It's been when I've been about other

13:40

people seeing the dreams of their lives come true.

13:43

When I've been about me, I've been, I've not been,

13:45

I've been, I've not led good, great.

13:47

I don't know how good that was, but hopefully people enjoy

13:49

that. No , I think that was great. That was on the nose,

13:51

I think. A and where we wanted to get move on

13:53

number two. Yeah . Well I was going to say, let's go the next,

13:55

the top five. Let's go to the top five. Top.

13:58

We're skipping the top five. Okay. Now we're going,

14:00

we're going to , uh, the top five on

14:02

the 2017 c-span

14:05

presidential historian survey. Oh,

14:07

I got it. Top Five is a Dwight

14:09

d Eisenhower , uh , Theodore

14:11

Teddy Roosevelt at number four, number

14:13

three, Franklin d Roosevelt. I love these

14:16

graphics, man. I could watch these all day. Hey man,

14:18

we're just trying to prepare a little bit for us. You did

14:20

a number to George Washington and

14:22

the number one, Abraham Lincoln. Again,

14:24

I'll run through that to id Eisenhower , five

14:27

for Theodore, Teddy Roosevelt, three Franklin

14:29

d Roosevelt to George

14:32

Washington and one Abraham Lincoln. And

14:34

so the thing, the commonality that adds , I was looking

14:36

through these things through these rankings

14:39

and I saw all these guys scored well

14:41

or historian scored them well in [inaudible]

14:43

in the category of quote crisis

14:46

leadership. Yeah. That means war. Well,

14:48

yeah, war specific . Yeah.

14:50

A lot of were going on , uh,

14:52

during these guys' presidency. But I think the

14:54

crisis leadership topic made me

14:56

think about staying calm,

14:58

being able to make the tough decisions when , when,

15:01

when necessary. Yeah . But as well

15:03

, um, you know, for

15:05

me, I'm a little bit of like a

15:08

nervous Nellie , a , uh , an anxious

15:10

individual. So I worry, and

15:12

so when I see these guys and I see how they responded,

15:14

you know, during their president presidency

15:17

and throughout history is there was a level

15:19

of calmness, of love , of Poise , um,

15:22

when there's turmoil around them, right.

15:24

Specifically to these different wars that were going

15:26

on. Um, but I think the,

15:29

the question that Kinda came into my , into

15:31

my head was, you know, why is a calming presence

15:33

important to , for for someone who's a leader,

15:36

eh , we can't just respond to

15:38

the, to the change of the wind, you know, as,

15:41

as someone who's leading a nonprofit or for profit

15:43

or, or what have you is

15:45

, um , is a level of

15:47

calmness and then even, cause

15:49

I don't know if that's a question, if that's something, a calmness,

15:51

is that something like I can think that that's,

15:55

I'm not born with that so then I can't do that. You

15:57

know what I mean? I kind of get to go out . These guys weren't

15:59

born with it either. Okay. Then

16:01

that's a good thing for us to talk about. Cause I think

16:03

there's the, I can get a little down on myself.

16:05

I'm like, oh I wasn't born born with that. But I think

16:07

people could maybe develop that or develop

16:09

that part of them to be able to have a calmness

16:12

in the middle of crisis. Um,

16:14

yeah. So like as you're talking about them , cause I'm getting my

16:16

head around it. So

16:17

this is a challenging topic in some

16:19

ways. I know about all these presidents, I've read about him for a long

16:22

time. Um, the

16:24

rankings are interesting because

16:27

I cannot, I

16:30

cannot see Harry

16:32

Truman at number six. Okay . Um,

16:36

um, and I would definitely put Lyndon

16:38

Johnson up there a little further than number 10.

16:42

Um, but I know they had their categories.

16:45

Uh , it's amazing. John F. Kennedy makes it

16:47

because he wasn't president very long

16:49

and there a lot of people said he didn't do that much. I

16:52

have a view on that. But let me just address

16:54

your, your crisis leadership thing.

16:56

So, you know, Dwight d Eisenhower

16:59

basically manage the

17:01

World War II victory. And then I think

17:03

he was, you know, I think loaded to

17:05

go into office as president,

17:07

but I don't know, I don't, I

17:09

don't know what crisis, like

17:12

the crisis he dealt with, he [inaudible]

17:14

century desegregated the u s armed forces

17:17

and he obtained a truce after years of war in Korea.

17:20

Well , even two , like if he's leading the,

17:22

the, he oversaw, you know, the American

17:24

armed forces right. During this presidency.

17:27

Correct. But he, he showed the , the

17:29

people that he could be

17:31

calm and oh, absolutely. Yeah. I

17:33

think during the years of his presidency, things

17:36

were extraordinarily calm. Yeah. I think

17:38

he, I think he, you know, what people want

17:40

today that you hear a lot people criticizing is where's

17:42

the calmness? Where's the president? Who Calms

17:44

us down? Who shows us the way,

17:47

who helps us understand? Cause I think a lot of the we

17:49

experienced today and a lot of that sort

17:52

of angst is, is because you need a

17:54

president who can steer you through that.

17:56

Yeah . You can sort of by example and by his words,

17:58

get you through it. I think the thing

18:01

you're hitting on here is, okay, there's,

18:03

it seems like you got two key things you

18:05

want to look at. Vision and crisis leadership,

18:07

right? Yeah. Um, I

18:10

want to add something. Um , I wanna

18:12

I want to add, I want to add the journey

18:14

of leadership because I think if you look at each of these guys,

18:16

one of the reasons they had vision and one of

18:18

the reasons that they manage well in crisis is it's

18:21

well recorded. The Lincoln lost just about every

18:23

election possible before he became

18:25

president. George Washington. I

18:27

think only one , two battles

18:29

in the revolutionary war. Maybe through prior

18:31

to that in the French , in any war, he'd lost. He lost

18:34

far more battles than he ever won. A

18:36

and the one, the ones that counted though, right?

18:38

I would argue that he did. I'm just saying that

18:41

the development of a leader, a lot of times people go,

18:43

well, the leader, it wins all the time.

18:45

Uh , the leader never loses. Well, the top two

18:47

guys lost a lot, didn't

18:50

win all the time. But like you said, they

18:52

won the important ones or it was their

18:54

losses that made them able to get the big

18:57

wins. So you say what was the most

18:59

important thing? Lincoln managed this through

19:01

the civil war, which most people would say defined

19:03

us as a nation. Washington led

19:06

us to have a country that did not

19:08

have a king or a dictator by

19:10

saying, I could be, I don't want

19:12

to be. And so that choice changed

19:15

the presidency and what it could be a,

19:17

when you look at FDR, he got polio

19:19

and he spent a trip . He was a brilliant guy,

19:22

awesome in personality

19:24

dynamic. Then he got polio and

19:26

it wrecked his life. And yet

19:29

he came through that. A totally different

19:31

person. Some great biographies on

19:33

that. I wish I had the list of the biographies. And so

19:35

he was transformed by that theater. Roosevelt

19:37

was like , uh , he was the police

19:40

commissioner for New York. I think he was a governor

19:42

of New York. Like there's this whole process

19:44

he went through. He was a , a

19:46

naturalist who went all around

19:48

protecting nature. He did a lot of that. Like

19:50

he was a writer. He did all these

19:53

things. I think that made him who he was.

19:55

And so I think there's a process. Eisenhower,

19:57

he , uh, he, you know, he, he , he never,

20:00

he never led troops in battle. You know, even

20:03

when he was low grade , he was a

20:06

frankly administrative guy and

20:08

he was incredibly good at management.

20:10

And I've read a couple of biographies and I may, I may

20:12

have forgotten the times he thought, but I

20:14

don't, I don't remember him actually

20:17

physically being like, he wasn't like Patton

20:20

actually was in war. Uh

20:22

, Bradley was in war.

20:25

Eisenhower was not like it

20:27

. And He, I'm not saying, couldn't handle a gun and wouldn't , was

20:29

willing to fight, but his greatest skill

20:32

was not as a general on the ground. His

20:34

greatest skill was diplomatically

20:36

getting Britain and all those people to come through.

20:39

But when you watch his life was , um,

20:42

I think it was a , it

20:44

was George

20:47

Marshall who was the head of all , all, all the u

20:49

s forces at the time who picked Dwight

20:51

Eisenhower out as a, as a young officer

20:53

and said, I want to pull this guy in and develop him

20:56

and called him in his offset . I want you

20:59

to develop a plan for

21:01

us , uh, entering World

21:03

War II, where we're , we're going to enter, are we going to enter from

21:06

a main mainland sort of mainland

21:08

Europe or we gonna come from North Africa. I think

21:10

that was it. And he developed that. So he had

21:12

this whole process of being a young officer

21:15

than being found in the crowd, literally

21:17

in the crowd and then being brought

21:19

up. It's a really incredible story. So it's

21:21

a process. Uh , when you look at Truman,

21:24

he didn't even want to be vice president. It

21:26

was a fluke. Really ? Yeah. He

21:28

wasn't like he , he, they grabbed

21:31

him and, and FDR didn't include

21:33

him in any meetings when he became president.

21:35

He didn't even know what was going on the,

21:38

he walked [inaudible] I'm

21:40

not sure all we'd been doing here cause FDR

21:42

was like, Nah , I don't want him in the room. I don't, I don't, I don't need

21:44

him. He had his own team and

21:47

no vice president will need when like it is today. And

21:49

so Truman came up, like I said, I think it was like a city

21:51

commissioner. And all these things

21:53

in Kansas, and it was a whole process.

21:56

Jefferson, he failed as

21:58

governor of Virginia. When the British

22:00

came into Virginia, he ran

22:03

away and he was criticized throughout

22:06

his whole career for running away

22:08

when the British were coming in to take Richmond

22:10

or whatever it was, instead of staying in fighting.

22:13

And so he had, anyway , like I said, he was a slave

22:15

owner . So he had this extraordinary process of

22:17

becoming a leader. And you look at Kennedy, you

22:19

know, Kennedy was actually the , the, the

22:21

goof off , uh , not

22:23

serious, real reader, real thinker,

22:25

but not like serious about being a leader

22:28

party guy. And then his brother

22:30

dies in a, in a , in a plane mission

22:32

in World War II. And after he dies in

22:34

that plane mission, Joseph Kennedy, the

22:36

father says, you're now the guy's gotta be president.

22:38

So he had to suddenly go from being this, not,

22:41

not, you know, party guy, hang out with his

22:43

friends, all that to being

22:45

a very serious guy. Not a war

22:47

made him that way in part, but I think

22:49

he had to really like go, okay . I don't get fooled around.

22:52

I get, so yeah, if you watch it and people are

22:54

going to look at the bad things they say he did. And certainly

22:57

each guy has, I have all of us have

22:59

problems, but his process

23:02

of development was extraordinary. When

23:04

you look at Reagan, Reagan was an actor. Yeah.

23:07

His own , he's one of the most famous actors in Hollywood

23:11

yelling about famous. I mean he was known

23:13

he wasn't a major actor. Now it's a B actor.

23:16

Okay . Okay . Yeah, yeah. But he, I knew was no Clark

23:18

Gable or nothing. No, not even close.

23:21

Not even close. Um, but,

23:24

but he was, he was a legit actor. I'm not

23:26

trying to taking that away from him to be actor, but

23:28

he was president of the actor's guild.

23:31

Oh . And that's where he got his first experience

23:33

in leadership. And then he worked for GE as

23:35

a spokesman and that's where he honed

23:37

his conservative ideas.

23:40

He started out as a Democrat and he

23:42

honed his conservative ideas. Now, some people will

23:44

point at some of these guys. Well yeah, his conservative

23:46

ideas didn't include minorities and all that. I'm not debating

23:49

all the policy things. What I'm saying is there's

23:52

a process he went through to become who

23:54

he became Lyndon Johnson. Now

23:56

that guy wanted to be a

23:58

politician and powerful from day

24:00

one, but can you guess

24:03

what his first job was and what he studied in school?

24:05

I think it was his first job. I mean, first significant job.

24:08

Is he a janitor or something? After College.

24:10

After College. Okay. Okay. Um,

24:14

police department teacher, a

24:16

teacher and I believe he taught

24:18

underprivileged kids were African American kids,

24:22

which when you look at that and you,

24:24

you look at that, that role as a teacher

24:26

and you see what he later on did. A

24:28

guy who used the n word is

24:31

a guy that was him, is the guy who

24:33

did more to give African-Americans

24:35

rights in the country. And I'm not saying he did

24:38

it all willingly and all that, but got it done with Martin

24:40

Luther King. Got He got the political part done. Martin

24:42

Luther King had the cultural part. Yeah , he had to have Linda

24:45

Johnson do the political part. Um, so interesting

24:48

cause I that's, I might , I

24:50

need to go probably read up on that cause that's super interesting

24:52

cause you know that kind of reveals a little bit about

24:54

him as a person and like tough guy that

24:56

you read about him. Man. You want to talk about like

24:58

if he, if he was in the Senate right now he

25:01

would be president. Cause when he was in the Senate it was

25:03

like he was president and he would run the show.

25:06

Oh my gosh. Oh you should read

25:08

about it . There's a whole series called the master

25:10

of the Senate. Extraordinary, extraordinary

25:12

education with the Senate is how the Senate works.

25:14

The bottom line is, and I'm going to get political here for a

25:17

minute. The bottom line is there's nobody in the Senate

25:19

that can run the Senate the way Lyndon Johnson did.

25:23

Mitch McConnell's a nice guy. I mean, I mean I

25:25

don't want to say anything negative about anybody but he

25:27

doesn't even belong to the same sins. Lynn Johnson . So

25:31

my position would be this though you

25:33

said vision and crisis leadership, but I

25:35

think the thing that's often neglected about leadership

25:38

is no one ever talks about the process.

25:40

No one ever talks about all that people have to

25:42

go through in life to arrive at a point where they're

25:44

useful. Winston Churchill was the same. He

25:46

liked becomes prime minister, something he

25:49

longed to do from very early in his life

25:51

at in his sixties his Mitts , I

25:53

think he's 66 and people

25:55

just ignore the whole process and I think that's

25:58

the part of the problem we have in leadership is

26:00

that we want these finished products, but

26:02

I give me this finished product. Why can't this guy do

26:04

this right now as

26:07

a country and organization, you have to have the patients

26:09

to say, I'm going to let a guy do

26:11

all this stuff. That is dumb.

26:13

It's a not serious why people

26:16

are looking on Twitter and other places and finding

26:18

stuff. Say, well, this person said this once and

26:20

they're now evil and I'm not going to have them , you know

26:22

, lead anything or be in charge. Okay, here's the problem.

26:26

None of these guys would

26:29

have been president if

26:31

we took the approach we took.

26:34

We take now a little bit

26:36

of microscopic examination of their life.

26:38

None of them, and somebody said, well maybe good writtens

26:41

Thomas Jefferson should have never been president. Okay

26:43

, let's say Thomas

26:45

Jefferson was never president. Okay , lets say Thomas

26:47

Jefferson was banished immediately because

26:50

he wouldn't give up his slaves. Okay,

26:52

let's say that you know you don't have the declaration

26:55

of independence. Now he did that before he's president. Okay.

26:58

Louisiana purchase Bingo. I know that.

27:01

That's like Bingo one third of the United States basically.

27:03

Right? Bingo. You got no California,

27:06

you got no Texas. [inaudible]

27:09

America is basically the 1820

27:11

colonies. Hmm. There's

27:13

a lot of implications for when you look and you

27:15

say, well this person was evil and wicked

27:18

and they should've never been president and

27:21

there's just a lot of things. If Reagan doesn't become president,

27:23

I'm not being a Democrat or Republican. I'm

27:26

in event. If Reagan doesn't become president,

27:28

does America ever lift itself out of the

27:30

deep, deep, deep discouragement of

27:32

Watergate? The Vietnam War, Carter

27:35

couldn't pull us out of it. Do they ever

27:37

do it? And he said, well, he was, he was not. He

27:39

was a racist. Some of those, he's a racist. He

27:42

hurt blacks. I think

27:44

there's an argument for, for him, this policy's not

27:46

doing a lot for African Americans, but a lot

27:48

of people don't know when he was a governor of loss , a

27:50

governor of California, he would oftentimes

27:52

go to dinner in inner city Los

27:55

Angeles with an African American family and eat dinner. Some of

27:57

them he'd been , he never talked about it . So

28:01

there's , there's a process and I think

28:03

you're never going to get perfect. And I think one of the challenges we

28:05

face in America in the 21st century is

28:07

that as a country, we don't

28:09

understand that. If you

28:12

really want great leaders, all

28:14

of them are going to have something wrong with them. Yeah.

28:16

And, and the real challenges can

28:19

the people look at that and admire

28:21

that process. And I'm not saying that we should

28:23

have them be president when there are criminals

28:26

or something. I'm saying that'd

28:28

be interesting. Well, I'm just saying that

28:30

when we , when we look at their past,

28:34

we need to be able to look at it with the perspective of not

28:36

what did they do, but

28:38

who have they become? Hmm . I

28:40

think that's a good place for me to stop. I

28:42

totally agree. Well, everybody

28:44

trust the process. Embrace it. Love it.

28:47

Thank you for listening. Make sure to check out breasts , fuel.com

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