SeaWorld's Undercover Boss Who Showed That Love Works in Business

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Alex Cortez now brings us the story of someone you likely don't know but will be glad to have met. Joel Manby was born into a poor family. My mother told me when I was, after my father passed away, that my father was making about $50 a week for three to five years when his business was going under.

So that's, you know, call it $2,500 a year, $3,000 a year. And that had a huge impact on me because I felt it in our home. Every fight we had, every disagreement was always about money. It was about the lack of it.

Why did my mom buy this? Why did we do that? And it impacted me. As a matter of fact, I'll tell one little story. When I was in Little League, I was a pretty good player and I hit a home run to win this big city tournament. And it was the first time my dad had ever come to a game because he always worked second shift in a factory job that he had later in life. And the whole team went out to A&W to celebrate and my dad took me directly home. And the car was really quiet and I thought he was mad at me for some reason and we didn't go celebrate. And at nighttime, when I went to bed, I was crying and I asked my mother, why doesn't dad love me?

Everybody else went out and she said, your dad loves you but they have payroll to make tomorrow and he doesn't have any cash and he can't afford to take you guys to A&W. That had a huge impact on me because it made me not ever want to be in a situation with my kids where I didn't have resources to take care of them. It drove me so much that sometimes I think I have done things in life for the money and when it wasn't necessarily what I really love to do. And for anybody listening to this story, I would implore them not to do that because I think money does not make you happy and you got to do things you love and if money comes as a result, great. But it really dominated my life for way too long. That fear, that fear of not having enough, it did drive me sometimes to really bad behavior because of that fear.

I took all the psychiatry tests of what I should do. I have a huge heart and a lot of them said you should be a minister or a coach and you don't think of people like that being in business and being extremely successful in business. But that's exactly what Joel did with GM making him CEO of Saab North America when he was only 35 years old and they later gave him Asia and Latin America too. And so that was really my big business break that I was able to run a large division of General Motors at a very, very young age and that was a big break.

We had a great season there, a great turnaround for a lot of different reasons. But at the same time, that was a period of my life where I think my work ethic and this fear of failure and just doing whatever I had to do not to fail and really hurting my relationship. Especially with my wife. I was traveling 70 to 80 percent of the time and I could feel the tension growing. My wife at the time started putting up the white flag of hey, this is not what I signed up for and I really wanted to try to honor that. So I went to my boss who was the CEO of all of Saab worldwide in Sweden and said, look, I cannot handle physically doing Asia and South America. I want to just have the United States and the United States was their biggest market. It was a big job.

And that's how I started with them and then added these other regions. And I said, I just can't do this. And he said, no, I'm not going to take you out of those countries. You're doing a good job. We need you here. You know, here's a five percent raise. You stick with the job. I'll never forget that. He refused that. And in hindsight, I do wish I had gone back and said, hey, look, I'm going to leave if you don't make this change. And at the same time, I was getting some huge pushback from my boss on our track record, even though it was really, really good.

They always wanted more and they wanted faster. I'll tell one story about what happened with him and some of the treatment that taught me a lot a lot of what not to do. He calls me on Easter Sunday morning and just starts to remember this is he's two o'clock in Sweden. So it's like eight a.m. or so in the United States. He wakes me up basically out of bed and just starts chewing me out over the numbers for for one month.

We had a three year track record that was really good. But because one month was way off, he starts chewing me out and he orders me to get on an airplane and fly to Sweden that afternoon so that I could be at a meeting Monday morning. So literally, I miss Easter Church. I get on that 4 p.m. flight out of Detroit, fly over to Sweden and literally just get chewed out for about an hour and a half in front of my peers.

And some of the some of the reasons we were off were just manufacturing issues in Sweden. But, you know, be that as it may, I can't remember what was said exactly, but I never have ever forgotten how that made me feel. It just made me feel disrespected, unimportant, unneeded. And I mentally checked out at that moment. And on the way back, I just started thinking, what am I doing? Why am I giving? I have stress at home. I'm traveling all the time. What am I what am I afraid of if he's not going to treat me properly?

It's time to be open to other things. So that was just a real indicator to me that people have to be treated better in business. And you're listening to Joel Manby's story and my goodness, his reaction to the lack of money at his home, the searing memory of that night in Lidley where he, well, he couldn't celebrate with all of his friends at A&W. His dad took him home.

The year drove him. More with Joel Manby's story here on Our American Story. This is Lee Habib, host of Our American Stories, the show where America is the star in the American people.

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The NFL Frankfurt games, November 5th and 12th, only on NFL Network and streaming on NFL Plus. Hello there. This is Malcolm Gladwell, host of Revisionist History. eBay Motors is here for the ride. You saw the potential through some elbow grease, fresh installs, and a whole lot of love. You transformed 100,000 miles and a body full of rust into a drive entirely its own.

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Exclusions apply. And we continue with our American stories and with Joel Manby's story. At this point in his life, Joel is tired of the stress that travel is putting on his family life, so he decides to lead an Amazon startup called Greenlight.com. It sells cars online, and he hoped this new venture would give him a successful life. But then the dot-com crash hit.

Here's Joel. I thought I would be at the pinnacle of quote-unquote success in my life and found it quite differently. Unfortunately, on my first day of work, the NASDAQ dropped by 35 percent.

And by the end of the week, the NASDAQ had dropped 50 percent, and we had about six months of cash left. And we were literally laying off 75 percent of our people. And I felt so responsible for it that I wouldn't delegate it. But I literally pulled people into the rooms, department at a time, and told them myself. And it was so upsetting to me that I had to end these people's livelihood, that I would go into the bathroom afterwards and throw up. I think I threw up three times that morning, just the pain of doing that, because these people had depended on my leadership. And the people out there who think leaders don't struggle with that, if anyone cares about other human beings, they struggle with that.

But sometimes you have to do that so that the organization survives. But it was one of the most painful things that I've ever gone through. I was just so, so distressed and depressed.

I was sitting there with a glass of wine, just really a lot more than a glass of wine, probably more like a bottle of wine, and just trying to figure out what am I going to do from here. And certainly not trusting God with what's going to happen next. And I think as a believer, that's the toughest thing to do. Because we see people, like my father, who didn't end up with enough, or you see really good people have really bad things happen to them. And that's a struggle.

Honestly, I still struggle to it to this day to some degree. But over time, I found out, if I can say this correctly, we all start life, we want to change the world, and we want to change some big issue going on. And that's what I want to do.

When I went to Greenlight, I wanted to make car buying fun and simple. And what I realized as the years went on is the only person, some of the horrific mistakes I've made in my life that we'll get into, the only person I can really control is myself. And I can't worry about the outcome of income or position or what people think of me. All I can control is being consistent with my own set of values. To me, that's the only way contentment really comes. You may not achieve what you want from a business standpoint or from a media standpoint. But in the end of the day, on our deathbed, I think we have a set of values by which we want to live.

And if we've mostly lived by those, I think we'll be the most content we could possibly be. In that hotel room in California, all of a sudden my phone rings, and it's Jack Hirschland. Who, with his brother Pete, created the largest family-owned attractions company in the world, helping build Branson and owning Dollywood with Dolly Parton.

And out of the blue, he says, Joel, I know you're really struggling. The board and I have talked about it, and we'd like to make you chairman of our board of directors at Hirschland. And that Jack Hirschland, who had been the only CEO, the only chairman of a company for 50 years, and he feels, for whatever reason, to recruit this automotive CEO who had never worked in the theme park business, who had been on his board for two years, the timing of that is just unbelievable to me.

I mean, to me, it's an ordained thing. And it was such an incredible moment for me. It really completely changed the trajectory of my life. In essence, for the first 20 years of my career in the auto industry, I had had this huge angst that I worked in these autocratic, fear-based cultures, where people weren't really rewarded, they were intimidated into doing a good job. But I knew in my soul there was a better way to lead people. And when I went to Hirschland Entertainment, literally for the rest of my 20 years in the theme park industry, it was a learning of how we lead with love and how we take love, the verb, and treat people really the way we want to be treated.

And I know that doesn't sound like rocket scientists or rocket science, but you would be shocked at how few companies really, really behave that way. Jack and Pete had a really family-oriented business. They treated everybody like family, but that was in Branson, Missouri, where they were all from.

But as they started to acquire properties and work outside of Branson, the culture had really diminished. And so my job as a CEO was to try to create this vernacular that we could teach other people to try to create this family culture that Jack and Pete had. And I was having a quiet time. One time, I read 1 Corinthians 13, and it just hit me that this is what Jack and Pete are like.

And I'll read it for your audience. It's a famous verse that Paul wrote and used in a lot of weddings. Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not envy. It does not boast. It's not proud. It is not dishonest to others. It is not self-seeking. It's not easily angered.

It keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices in the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. And we sat down and defined it, and we defined it into seven words, which were love is patient, kind, trusting, truthful, unselfish, forgiving, and dedicated.

But I want to say one thing now about that is in educating our organization, we had to make it clear that we are talking about a verb here. Agape is a Greek word that is represented. When Paul writes about this in 1 Corinthians, he uses agape. Sacrificial love. And the Greeks, which the New Testament is written in, have four words for love. There's eros, which is what Americans think of love. That's the romantic love. There's orge, which is the family love. And there's also phylos, which is the Greek word for friendship, and that's what Philadelphia is named after, which we all know doesn't really represent that name, the city of brotherly love. So the most common problem with love is people misinterpret it as eros, because Americans have one word where the Greeks had four.

So a lot of it's a language barrier. But this is not a feeling, it's a behavior. And I can dislike you, or I could distrust you, or I could have had a really bad meeting with you yesterday, and I should still treat you with agape love. That's what Jesus and Paul are talking about here.

And that's the magical difference. We took those seven words, we put behaviors to them, so it wasn't just you need to be patient, it was what does patience mean? It means praise in public, but admonish in private. But what we did so differently than what most other companies do is a lot of people put their values on a wall.

You know, Cheryl Batchelor calls it the plaque problem, where people just put it up on a plaque and they leave it alone. But what Herschen did, and other successful companies, I think, do this, is we defined it, then we taught it, and then we reinforced it. We would literally ask our employees, are their leaders behaving to these seven words? And then the last thing we did that was really important is we would always reinforce through pay and bonuses.

And this is really interesting, actually. Think in your head of a two by two matrix where you have do goals vertically. So do goals are what everyone has in business, right? Like you have to increase profit, increase margin, increase attendance. Those are the do goals. The horizontal axes are the be goals. What kind of leader do I want to be?

Those were the seven words of love. If you did great in both top right box, you got the biggest raise. If you didn't do either well, you probably weren't around very long. And then most of the leadership work was in those other two boxes.

You're either hitting the do goals and not the be goals, or the be goals and not the do goals. That's where all the time I spent mostly trying to get our leaders into that upper right hand box. And when we come back, more with Joel Manby, his story, part of our American Dreamers series here on Our American Story. Then rise, shine and watch two Sundays full of football.

The NFL Frankfurt Games, November 5th and 12th, only on NFL Network and streaming on NFL Plus. Hello there. This is Malcolm Gladwell, host of Revisionist History. eBay Motors is here for the ride. You saw the potential through some elbow grease, fresh installs and a whole lot of love. You transformed a hundred thousand miles and a body full of rust into a drive entirely its own. Look to your left.

Look to your right. No one's got a ride like this. There's nothing else that sounds like, feels like or looks like the set of wheels in your garage. With over one hundred and twenty two million parts for your number one ride or die, you can make sure your ride stays running smoothly.

So there's no limit to how far you can take it. Brake kits, turbochargers, engines, exhaust kits, roof racks, LED headlights, bumpers, whatever your baby needs. eBay Motors has it. And with eBay Guaranteed Fit, it's guaranteed to fit your ride the first time, every time for your money back. Plus, at these prices, you're burning rubber, not cash.

Keep your ride or die alive at eBay Motors dot com. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply. The holidays will be here like any second, so you're almost out of time to get your place looking good. Because when the holidays come to town, so do your friends and your family and sometimes their friends and family, too. Right.

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Get holiday ready right now at the Home Depot. How doers get more done. And we continue with our American stories and with Joel Manby's story of leading Herschen Family Entertainment, the largest family owned attractions company in the world, and cultivating a culture of leading with love.

Let's return to Joel. Every month in our financial reviews, we would also talk about our employee scores, which would include the definition of leading with love. In fact, we would talk about our values and how are people adhering to it just as much as we would talk about the financial performance.

And I guarantee you very few companies in America do that. We doubled cash flow. We doubled. And this is, by the way, in the middle of that was 2007, 2008. So we went through the greatest recession other than the Great Depression, and we still more than doubled. Even through that period, we remained profitable. Our return on investment was north of 20 percent on a consistent basis, which is really good.

And, you know, when you think about for the Herschens, they wanted a great place to work for great people. So that's the engagement scores. If they love it, they're going to show it through higher engagement scores. They also owners are going to want a great financial investment.

And so that has to happen. And at the same time, we were from a guest standpoint, we wanted to create memories worth repeating for our guests. Now, there are absolutely tensions between those three principles or those three circles and any idiot. I shouldn't say idiot, but anybody can increase one of those circles, give great financial results or have a great place to work for great people. Or have the third circle, which is memory worth repeating for our guests. What's really hard is managing all three of those so all three numbers are headed in the right direction.

I think that's what great leadership is. And I'll give you another stat that's really interesting. Gallup has measured employee engagement for 50 years. The average over that 50 year period is about 35 percent of employees are top box engaged, meaning they give the best score. That's a horrible score. That means 65 percent are not engaged or not fully engaged.

That's a really bad score. When Herschen would take over property, some of them were in the 15 to 35 percent engagement level. And very consistently, Alex, almost every time in about 25 different scenarios within three years of applying this principles, our engagement scores were 75 to 85 percent top box, which is absolutely world class. It all comes down to leadership and expectations and getting the right people on the bus. And I think that's what people miss.

I mean, if you care about human beings, I think this is the only way to lead. We were working away at Herschen, implementing the seven words of love, and we were approached by CBS to do undercover boss. And they had gone to Six Flags and Sea World and all those companies that said no. We were next on the totem pole. And I was a fairly new CEO, so we had acquired new properties as well.

So there were some properties I hadn't even gotten to yet and still getting to know people. And the board and I decided it was worth the risk. Now, remember, this is the first year of undercover boss, so no one knew it. This could be like 60 minutes with Mike Wallace walking in and, you know, who knows what happens then. And so we took a huge risk, but it turned out phenomenally well.

We trusted our people. And for those who don't know, it's a show where the CEO goes undercover. The employees think it's a training film, that they're getting filmed for new employees. And then the boss reveals who they are at the end, and then usually something good happens. But a couple of stories that really impacted me, one was Richard, who was a street washer.

I had to get up at like 3.30 in the morning to meet him at 4.30. The guy is cold in Branson. It's kind of the fall. And the guy is washing streets. That's what he does every morning.

The streets of Silver Dollar City are beautiful and clean. And it turns out that Richard, unfortunately, didn't have house insurance and he lost his home in a flood. Therefore, they were living in a pop-up tent.

So here's an employee, you know, probably making just over minimum wage in a pop-up tent. And I wanted to help him. But I also was stubborn enough that I refused to give anybody who just happened to meet me something that other people were not eligible for. Because I didn't want to be like, well, you kiss the CEO's ring, therefore you got this special treatment. Because that's just not, to me, not what servant leadership's about. At the same time, we happened to be starting something called Share It Forward.

This is perfect timing. Share It Forward is an amazing program where it starts first with the employee's generosity. They have to give a dollar. If they give a dollar, then the company matches it and then the Hirshens match it and made it three for one.

Now, that was figurative. They can give whatever they wanted or could afford. And the amazing thing is we had 80% participation, even of, you know, not greatly paid frontline employees. But they were giving into this fund. A hundred percent of that fund was used to help our employees in need. And so I asked Richard to apply for a grant from Share It Forward. And so at the end of the show, when he comes in the office and he didn't realize I was the one working with him, I was able to tell him we were going to completely fix his house up and actually add a bedroom because all of his kids were basically sleeping in the kitchen and he was off on the side.

They didn't even have a bedroom for their kids. So that grant, though, that he got, which made him tear up and very emotional, was something that now we could give other people in the company. And I know now Share It Forward is helping at least 10% of the employees of the company a year, giving thousands of grants away. But the Share It Forward program is a phenomenal idea for companies. There's so many times they focus outside into the community.

I think really companies should take care of their own employees first. What was phenomenal for us, Alex, is we happened to be placed by CBS right after this NCAA quarterfinals. So there were 20 million people viewing our program as a hangover from the quarterfinals and most of them stuck.

Here's what happened that was magic to me. I talked earlier about the angst I had in my life that, boy, there has to be better leaders. There has to be a better way to lead. There just must be a more caring way. I thought I was the only one that really felt that way.

It wasn't a topic I discussed with people a lot. When Undercover Boss happened, we were inundated. Like, literally, my phone started lighting up.

Our servers actually were shut down during the show because so many people were Googling Herschen Entertainment and we weren't used to that kind of volume. I still have, upstairs, I could show almost a four-foot stack of notebooks and letters that people sent in, all saying there is a crisis of leadership in this country, that they wanted to see a better way to lead and they saw it on this show. That's actually what convinced me to write the book Love Works, that I knew I wasn't the only one, that everybody wants to be in a caring and reinforcing environment and that they can get results that way. And so that's what prompted me to write the book. And we're listening to Joel Manby's story and what an idea to actually not just care about your employees, but have your employees care for each other.

And I remember seeing that episode and it does not surprise me that a stack of letters came to him because in the end, you were like, oh my goodness, you can do that. I want to do that. Thank you. What a great idea. 80% of the employees contribute and when there's a need, 10% collect. Usually the team is always looking up to the boss for the raise or the help, but it's right there among the teammates where the help can happen. And my goodness, only special leadership can even think of something like that. And it means in the end that they care too, but that they're sharing the caring and sharing the responsibility for each other through the organization, not just from the top down, but horizontally as well and vertically. Oh, and by the way, you can buy Joel's powerful book, Love Works, at Amazon.com. That's Love Works at Amazon.com.

When we come back, more of Joel Manby's story here on Our American Story. This November, Sunday morning football debuts in Frankfurt, Germany on NFL Network. With back-to-back weeks, must-see match-ups. First, the Dolphins take on the Chiefs. Then, the Colts face the Patriots. So set your alarms. Then rise, shine, and watch two Sundays full of football, the NFL Frankfurt Games.

November 5th and 12th, only on NFL Network and streaming on NFL Plus. Hello there. This is Malcolm Gladwell, host of Revisionist History. eBay Motors is here for the ride. You saw the potential through some elbow grease, fresh installs, and a whole lot of love. You transformed 100,000 miles and a body full of rust into a drive entirely its own.

Look to your left, look to your right. No one's got a ride like this. There's nothing else that sounds like this.

No one's got a ride like this. There's nothing else that sounds like, feels like, or looks like the set of wheels in your garage. With over 122 million parts for your number one ride or die, you can make sure your ride stays running smoothly so there's no limit to how far you can take it. Brake kits, turbochargers, engines, exhaust kits, roof racks, LED headlights, bumpers. Whatever your baby needs, eBay Motors has it. And with eBay Guaranteed Fit, it's guaranteed to fit your ride the first time, every time, or your money back. Plus, at these prices, you're burning rubber, not cash.

Keep your ride or die alive at eBayMotors.com. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply. The holidays will be here like any second, so you're almost out of time to get your place looking good. Because when the holidays come to town, so do your friends, and your family, and sometimes their friends and family too, right?

But hey, no problem. The Home Depot has everything you need to prep your home for the holidays with up to 40% off select online bath for all the easy updates, projects, and refreshes you've got planned. Get your bathroom guest ready with a modern Glacier Bay Tobana vanity for tons of extra storage space. Or give your sink a new look with a stylish Oswald Faucet in matte black. Trust me, swapping out a vanity or a faucet is quick and easy, and it'll give your bathroom a completely new look. Right now, you'll save up to 40% off select online bath for your project with free delivery on all online vanities and faucets. So head to the Home Depot and make it happen before your auntie starts ringing your doorbell.

Get holiday ready right now at the Home Depot. How doers get more done. And we continue with our American Stories and our American Dreamers segment. And we're with Joel Manby and him recounting his life story. After seeing that love worked at a privately held company, Joel wanted to see if it could work at a publicly held one.

SeaWorld. SeaWorld was experiencing an incredible decline after the critical documentary Blackfish, which Joel called 5% true and 110% powerful. And while Joel was successful in getting SeaWorld on a better path, not everything in his life was a success.

Here's Joel. You see a lot of success stories in business magazines, but they never talk about the personal side of the person usually. I remember reading something about Jack Welsh, all his business success, but it didn't talk about his three marriages and all the failures there.

And I think that's sad that they don't show the whole person because sometimes success, quote unquote, success in business comes at a huge cost. And when I was at SeaWorld, it was just, for lack of a better word, a shit show. And excuse me for that, but just imagine about the worst possible situation in business you could have. And it necessitated long, long days. And I was literally working, this is not an exaggeration, sometimes 24 hours a day, but often 20 hours a day, seven days a week. I did not take a day off.

Our profitability cut in half, cash flow cut in half, fixed cost business of theme parks, slashing costs, board pressure, public company, have to turn it around quickly. And I worked all the time, didn't sleep well, didn't exercise, started drinking a lot more than I should to numb that pain just because I didn't want to fail and I wasn't going to fail. And in the midst of that, my wife, Marky at the time, we had already been through a struggle, mostly kind of my lack of attention on things. But at SeaWorld, in the midst of that really unhealthy lifestyle, I made some mistakes and didn't give my wife the attention in our relationship that it should have been. And I made the mistake of focusing on another relationship.

And then I also lied to her about it. You know, it just caused her to not want to be with me. The biggest failure of my life by far, by far is the loss of my marriage. You know, I still can't talk about it. I'm sorry, but I just never dreamed that I would do things so self-destructive that I would lose a 31-year marriage.

So, you know, in essence the business failure has nothing to do with it. It's relationship failures and especially when you don't live according to the way that you say you want to live. You know, I wrote in the second version of my book, the most painful thing in life is when you have a set of values and you don't uphold them yourself. And when the person who knows you the best doesn't want to be with you. That's just, there's nothing that hurts worse than that. And she had every right not to want to be with me, but I still didn't want it to end.

I would implore anybody that listens to not, if you say that your relationship with your wife and your children is the number one thing, then make it the number one thing. I mean, I kept telling her I loved her, but I wasn't showing her that and I wasn't spending the time to rebuild the relationship that I should have. I should have immediately quit SeaWorld. I should have focused on that relationship. You know, it's so obvious to me now, but in the middle of it, I think I was so afraid of failing and so afraid of the financial consequences because I had left a really good job.

And everything was based on the stock options, if I wanted to create any wealth. And in the end of the day, I failed in something that was much more important to me. And so I hate Alex. I just hate that that's part of my story.

I don't want that to be part of my story. And I just, I felt like, what can God do with someone like me? I thought about killing myself so many times and I don't mind talking about it because I got so specific and I was so close and thank God for a few friends that came by my side. But when you're in that dark space, you don't see what good you can do other than just hurt people.

And so if anybody hears that, there is hope on the other side. I'll never forget a breakfast I went out with a great friend and I was started to cry at the breakfast and say, I can't forgive myself. I can't move forward.

I'm stuck. I hate, I hate myself. I don't want to be, I didn't want to be this person. And I'll never forget. He looked me in the eye. He says, Joel, do you think God's forgiven you? I said, yeah, I think he has. He's I think he forgives everybody for everything if we believe in his message. And he said, well, then why are you pretending to be smarter or better than God?

And it just hit me right between the eyes, like, OK, he's right. I have been forgiven. He said, so start acting like a forgiven person. Start acting like the great dad that you really are. Your kids still love you. So start acting like it. Start acting like a forgiven person. Here's somebody who wrote a book about love works.

I have seven words of love. One of them I failed that miserably. And the shame that comes from it is so deep.

They can take you down to where you don't even want to live anymore. But that is such that is an I firmly believe that's not what God wants. I don't think that's what any human being should do, because we all fail. Mine was unfortunately catastrophic for my marriage.

It was public. And that's harder than than many. But I do not think we should stay down because everybody goes through it. The truth that the very important thing, though, I think that's an important principle is to be open and honest about it. Look, I I had two paths I could take, Alex. I could leave that first book out that talks about how wonderful my marriage is and that divorce isn't even an option for me. And it wasn't.

I could leave that out there. But then to me, I wasn't being a truthful man. And I, I had to change to say I'm going to always be truthful.

And part of that was writing the second edition, which included the SeaWorld issues, but also included my my own self-destructive behaviors that ended my marriage that I felt had to be out there. And I was going to take the consequences because I'd rather if people want to say, oh, he was inconsistent. That's fine. They're right.

I was. If they want to hold that against me, that's OK. But I'd rather the truth be out there than having people mumbling underneath their breath about it.

Everyone has their own issues. Now I'm just focusing on I'm going to live by those words. I'm going to be a truthful man going forward and let the chips fall where they may.

And that's what I would encourage other people to do. I've found that my story and sharing with others has really helped a lot of other people. And so instead of going into my hole, I decided I was going to get back out and talk about love again, because I still feel love is the answer. It was it always has been. It always will be. There was a moment in time where I didn't honor my own words and it cost me so dearly.

But I can hopefully keep others from making the same mistakes I have and show people that love can work. And to close, we go back to the very beginning on Joel's dad, who struggled financially, but whose love did work at my father's funeral. We were all getting together and we were just having coffee and so forth. And there was a knock on the door. I went and answered the door and I recognized him immediately, although a lot, lot older. It was a person that my dad employed at his farm machinery dealership before it went out of business. He had gone from like five employees down to one.

There was one left and his name was Glenn. And he was dad's mechanic. And Glenn came in and he said, I want you to know a story about your dad. That when the dealership had to shut down, he said, I know your dad was broke. And yet somehow he wrote me a personal check out of his personal checking account for nine hundred dollars a month, which was enough to keep me afloat for six months until I got another job.

And I've never forgotten that about you. So here's my dad. I know he had no savings to speak of. I know we certainly weren't living well or eating well.

Powdered milk was our number one horrible thing. But the fact that my dad was that generous with very, very limited resources, that taught me a lot that there's no excuse for not being generous. And a special thanks to Joel Manby for his candor, especially about his marriage and success. You've heard it firsthand from Joel. Joel Manby story.

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