EntreLeadership - This Is the Leadership That Formed America with Stephen Mansfield

Episode Date: July 4, 2022

Join us as our host, George Kamel, talks to Stephen Mansfield. Stephen is a bestselling author and speaker. And he’s the guy Entreleadership goes to when we want to talk history and leadership. In this episode, Stephen takes us back to history class as he talks about the leadership that formed America. Get ready—we’re headed into a time machine! You’ll learn: •      Things you didn’t know about the Founding Fathers •      How leaders change history •      If we’re celebrating independence on the wrong day •      The top leadership lessons to take from the Founding Fathers Sign up for The EntreLeadership Podcast takeaways—a weekly email where you’ll get three tangible takeaways and a tactical action step related to each episode: https://bit.ly/podcast-takeaways Support our sponsors: •      Hite Digital: https://bit.ly/HiteDigital •      Kyro Digital: https://bit.ly/KyroDigital •      NetSuite: https://bit.ly/NetSuiteEntre •      Trainual: https://bit.ly/TrainualEntre Links mentioned in the episode: •      The EntreLeadership Podcast: https://bit.ly/TheEntreLeadershipPodcast •      Stephen Mansfield’s website: https://bit.ly/3qQbkRC •      Stephen Mansfield’s books: https://bit.ly/39GOHe9 •      Recent episodes with Stephen Mansfield: o  How to Effectively Lead Through Uncertainty: https://apple.co/3QGi80n o  Thanksgiving: An Example of Staying the Course: https://apple.co/3NcLIrA o  4 Steps to Kill Gossip: https://apple.co/3naGO3E Learn more about EntreLeadership Events: •      EntreLeadership Master Series: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipMasterSeries •      EntreLeadership Summit: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipSummit   Learn more about EntreLeadership Coaching: •      Elite: https://bit.ly/3tI2fN8 •      Advisory Groups: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipAdvisoryGroups •      Executive Coaching: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipExecutiveCoaching •      Workshops: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipWorkshops Listen to all the Ramsey Network podcasts anytime, anywhere in our app. Download the Ramsey Network app: https://apple.co/3eN8jNq Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On today's episode, we've got a special edition of the Entree Leadership Podcast. We're going back to history class to learn about the leadership that culminated on July 4th, Independence Day. From the Ramsey Network, I'm George Camel, and this is the Entree Leadership Podcast, where we help business leaders like you grow themselves, their teams, and their profits. Today, I'm sitting down with best-selling author, speaker, and my personal historian, Stephen Mansfield. He's the guy we invite when we want to talk history and leadership. and today is no different. Stephen's going to share how the leadership of our founding fathers led to the signing of the Declaration of Independence, why these men were chosen to be part of the Continental Congress, and why it took so dang long from the Boston Tea Party to the vote and the signing of the declaration. Get ready. We are headed into a time machine. So hold on and enjoy this conversation. Well, Stephen, it's so great to have you back on the podcast. How you been?

Man, it's great to be here. I've been doing really, really well. Busy like all of us, but rocking it. Awesome. I have to ask, are you a happy 4th of July? Are you a happy July 4th? Are you a happy Independence Day? What's your style? I say happy Independence Day, because I'm the historian, trying to remind people that it has more to do with hot dogs and, you know, fireworks. Well, a follow-up question. Is a hot dog a sandwich? I think it is. Any piece of meat between two pieces of bread is a sandwich. I mean, come on, I'm an American. I keep it simple. There we go. Well, we already got all my questions out of the way. So we're done here.

Sure. Now, you're here today to help us learn some of the leadership lessons from Independence Day, from the founding fathers. And as you said, you are my personal historian. All right. That's a challenge. I'll take it on. And we got that done today. All right, I'm in. So as we celebrate Independence Day, there's some amazing leadership lessons that we can learn from those founding fathers. So I want you to take us back to the 1700s. You weren't around. Let me make that clear. Thank you very much for that note. But you know what was going on with King George and the Continental Congress. What was happening there? Yeah, here's the flyover. Basically, the colonies and the mother country

have been growing apart for a long time. But then there was this war, we call in America the French and Indian War, from 1754 to 1763. It was hugely expensive. And it was largely between England and France in the American colonies and in the Americas. Well, England emerged from that war,

serious war debts, heavy burdens, and they decided to get all that paid back on the backs of the colonists. So from 1763, the end of the war, of the French and Indian War, just about 1770, you've got all these taxes that we all learned about in school and floated around in our heads, the molasses tax and the Stamp Act and the Sugar Act and the Navigation Acts and the Townsend Acts and all those kinds of acts. There were all taxes and levies and tariffs put by England on the colonists.

Well, they resented the heck out of it. And something very important was going on, too, and that is that most of the colonies had started as charters from the king. But now Parliament is inserting itself into those relationships. And that doesn't sound like a big deal to us. It was huge to them. It was massive to Thomas Jefferson. They thought that was the main reason for revolution.

So by the time you get to about 1770, which was the first bloodletting, I'm sure we'll talk about it in a minute in the American Revolution, the colonists are ticked off. They're burdened by taxes. They've got British soldiers being quartered in their homes, the insistence of the king. All of it's about raising money. All of it's about controlling the colonies. They're ticked off. And so it's obvious there's going to be.

be a revolution. The question is how and how long is it going to take? So the founding fathers, the adversary here is King George III. Right. That's the target they're going. This guy is causing all of us. And parliament. Yeah. So tell us about the few of the men in the room, Continental Congress going on, Jefferson, Franklin, Washington. Who were these guys? And why did they get a seat at the table? You know, it's really important for us to realize that there was something historians call a genius cluster going on at that time. At certain moments in history, World War II is another example, you have geniuses arising to the fore, and you have a cluster of them, and that's really what produces the history that we know about. And the founding fathers, as much as we might pick on them for slavery and other excesses, they were brilliant.

So you have George Washington, a man who had fought for the British during the French and Indian War. He was wealthy. He was a plantation owner. He was deeply revered. He was a man of character. He had bad dentures and didn't speak a lot. That's one of those little sidelines of history. But he was honored as a man of character, a man of heft, a man of weight. He was known worldwide for some of the battles that happened in the French and Indian War. Then you've got Jefferson. He's sort of the poet historian. He's sort of the writer and the visionary. And he's a creative, if you've ever been to Monticello in Virginia. Inventive. man, develops new silverware, new kinds of cups, new kinds of bookstands, new ways to... So he's like the Steve Jobs of its time. It's unbelievable how invented it is. Even his bed is his own invention. It's crazy. Everybody needs to go to Monticello.

So he's also, though, we wouldn't call it liberal necessarily, but he had been offended by the church. So he'd moved away from traditional religion. He was a little bit out of step. He was a little bit more enlightenment, some folks might have said. And that's going to be important when it comes down to the writing of the Declaration of Independence. And then you've got Franklin. And Benjamin Franklin is the big personality. He's the older man.

He's the big gregarious guy, the big eater, the big drinker, the big talker. Unbelievably accomplished. He was a printer. He was a scientist. He was perhaps the most popular author, poor Richard's Almanac. He had written in the colonies. Unbelievable. He had known worldwide for his scientific investigations and experiments.

So he's going to be the guy who pulls them together. He's going to be the guy who, with his big personality, and his big vision and his ability to put his arm around the guy and ask him to have a drink and talk things through. He's going to be sort of the spirit that lapses over all of it. But all of these men were brilliant. John Adams, Hamilton, we've heard so much about of late. All of them were brilliant. All of them were very unique. They were very different from each other. But together, they formed this genius cluster that gave us our country. Wow. That's impressive. And it sounds like they were very complimentary in their different strengths and weaknesses and how they supported each other. Well, like any team,

any team in any business anywhere, they drove each other crazy, right? Very different, but needed each. And big personalities. Needed each other. You had Hamilton, who we all know now is this orphan from the Caribbean,

who just drives Jefferson nuts, you know? And Jefferson drives Washington nuts. And Franklin drives them all nuts because he's so inventive and so creative and such the big personality and so loud. But they needed each other, and the hole that they formed

gave us what we have. We've got to be grateful for all of it. And it should be encouraging, too, that no matter how weird and misfit we might be, we fit in a team in a way that makes us better than than we are alone. Yeah, great reminders that we need to be self-aware of our unique giftings and use them appropriately, not as a weapon, but to support each other. And also not be too apologetic or upset about the uniqueness of our past. I was raised as a military brat, for example, moved every year of our lives, lived mainly

in Germany. At that time, if you talked to 18-year-old Stephen Mansfield, I would have been ticked off about it. I didn't have the typical American life. Now I'm thrilled for where I live, thrilled for the languages I learned, thrilled for the people that I know. My father danced with Princess Margaret of England and our living room.

Wow. Now that's a great thing. But earlier on, I would have resented it. So I have to be careful and realize that there's a weaving to our lives that's valuable. And that's what came together with our founding fathers. Yeah, that background, those experiences, that context really shapes you and gives you such a unique perspective

that you can use in business and leadership later on. And then, of course, the wise person, I think why this was most Washington, realizes that from his perspective, with his background, with his personality, he doesn't see the whole. He doesn't see the entire picture. So he knows he needs other people. And he also would write about the fact that in his journals, and they irritate the heck out of me. But I need them. And that's a wise leader. Hirling 1700s insults at the...

Exactly. Exactly. Which I won't repeat now. That's another episode. We need that for sure. You mentioned Jefferson was a prolific writer. Yes. So was he kind of at the head of the...

the writing of the Declaration of Independence? Yes, the writing of the Declaration had begun in June prior to the adoption of it later, obviously, and what we now celebrate is the Fourth of July. And he was the main one who wrote it. Now, what we've got to know, though, is, again, these different giftings of the founding fathers work so wonderfully. Jefferson wrote the initial draft, but Franklin and John Adams and others edited it, and thank God they did, because Jefferson had his biases. A lot of the religious language got added later.

the Declaration of Independence, one eminent scholar said that America is the only country founded on a creed, and it's the Declaration of Independence. And it has about seven or eight statements about God. So almost all of those were added later. Jefferson would not have put those in. Not that he was secular, but he just was hesitant about public religion. And then Jefferson did some things in the Declaration that were odd. He blamed King George for slavery.

Well, it may have been his own conscience dealing with him a little bit. I don't know why he would do that. King George had not put slavery in the colonies. The colonists had welcomed it themselves. So John Adams had that cut. And there were some other things that they had cut in some language that they smooth. Some of the classic language that we now memorize was a combination. But we're grateful for Jefferson's draft.

It's about 85, 90% of what we ended up with. Wow. And I can't imagine the editing room there of everyone yelling at each other about why they need to keep their part or take this out or add this, man, to be a fly on the wall. As you know, my main fame, or so to speak in the world are mine best known as an author. And I've written about 25 books. So I have been edited heavily by professional editors. and I can feel Thomas Jefferson at this moment. He was not happy about it.

He was ticked off. So what you've got to do is you've got to remove the author from the room where the editing is happening, or he's going to blow a gasket and let the editors do their job. And that's what they did. They sent Jefferson away because it's painful to be edited, especially when you're just grieving every single word that's cut. And I certainly felt that. And so they separated him from the process, but what they came up with was pretty powerful. There's a powerful leadership lesson right there.

If you're the CEO, you're leading the place, you've got to get out of the way and let your team do it. They're best at. And not meddle with it. That's good. So I'm a Boston native. You know that. And I love the history of the Boston Tea Party and Paul Revere's ride. But those events happened in 73 and 75, 1773, 1775. What's interesting is that it wasn't until July of 76 that Congress approved the Declaration of Independence. So what was the journey that led up to that? What was the gap there? Well, what we have to realize is that the founding fathers initially didn't want to separate from England. It really was a conservative counter-revolution. We think of revolutionists being some radical thing that people overthrow the government, you know, and establish something that's a little bit left-leaning politically. That's not what this was. The aggression seemed to have come from Parliament. The misdeeds, the silence was on the part of the king. And we've talked about in history, King George III's problems, he was probably bipolar.

He was sick a lot. So he was probably weakened. Parliament was intruding itself. What the colonists wished for initially, the founding fathers wished for initially, is that there would be a correction of this system, and they would continue to be British colonies. The idea of separating from England wasn't in the minds of everyone. It had to come gradually. And it came as there was bloodletting, 1770, the Boston Massacre.

It came as you had attempts on the parts of the British to take the Charleston Harbor and blockade Boston or all of these things that we've talked about. But the reason there was this gap between Lexington and Concord and the Declaration of Independence was that they were still hoping against hope. be British citizens. That's very important for us to realize. This was an attempt initially at a conservative counter-revolution. They were trying to restore an order rather than break from one. They could have gone back to the original order they would have done it. They realized that their problem was with parliament. In time, they realized that wasn't going to happen. And as an author, I have to celebrate Thomas Payne because it's the booklet common sense that really puts the ball sort of or into the goal.

There had been a lot of people who wanted independence. There had been a lot of people who had realized we're probably going to end up having to separate, but that hadn't been decided as a group.

And then Thomas Payne wrote this beautiful pamphlet called Common Sense and talked about the Patriot and the Sunsaint Patriot and how there were patriots, people who were only patriots when things were good,

but when things were hard, you know, it was moving language. It's pure poetry. Every American should read him. And that's, that was released in January, of 1776, and that really started to move the leaders, the founding fathers, more towards independence. And that's what led to all the events in 1776.

So the question you've asked is very, very important, because why is this, there this more than a year, 14, 15 months between Lexington and Concord and the declaration? And it really has to do with their hope against hope. It really has to do with their naive belief, perhaps, that they could restore the order that had been destroyed by the king and by parliament. When they realized that couldn't happen anymore, things changed. I want to throw one more thing in, too. And that is being an historian of religion primarily, there was a revival happening all up

and down the colonies. That's really important in this matter. George Whitfield was leading a revival all up and down the American colonies. You have to realize the 13 colonies were primarily connected individually to England. They weren't primarily connected to each other. They did a little trading over borders. But Georgia didn't have any connection to Maine. New York didn't have any connection to Carolinas.

And George Whitfield came along and said there really is a conspiracy in London to spy out your liberties. That's the phrase he used. So this preacher was preaching revival, Billy Graham figure up and down the colonies, going to all 13 colonies, not only unified the colonies, but also made them aware that there was this conspiracy cooking in London to, quote, unquote, spy out their liberties. And that rallied the people. Every family was to have somebody who was converted in this revival. And so Whitfield's certainly as influential as Billy Graham was maybe in the 50s and 60s in our time.

And so he really began to work with Thomas Payne, so to speak, and part of this motion towards we need to push for independence. So by the time we get to June of 1776, there's already been a decision, although not formalized, that we're going to issue a declaration of independence. Richard Henry Lee has said these colonies are and of a right ought to be free and independent states. That had been accepted as the mood. So now a declaration is being written. Wow. That's fascinating. So it sounds like there was a lot of communication and influence happening to kind of get people riled up about the issue.

History is often this way. There's not one event, one person, one book, one sentiment. You have a number of things all gathering towards what we now call a trend. You know, on Twitter we see it's such as trending. And that's really the way it is. There's this trend. this mood, certain events feed it, certain things in the news enhance it, but we're moving towards a conclusion. And by, really, by January of 1776, we knew we were heading towards independent.

It was just a matter of how it was going to happen and how soon. Wow. So influence back then looks different than today. Today, you know, you can turn on whatever news channel you feel, you know, it agrees with your own echo chamber and you go, great, this is what I want to hear. Back then it was a little different. Where did the influence come from when it came from, you know, when it comes to leadership? It came from pulpits. It came from anybody who could write. This is a real important thing.

Franklin could write. Jefferson could write. Tracks were real important at that time. Common sense came out and people read it in taverns, read it in churches, read it in their living rooms. It was a different way. There was sort of a public nature to literature. And so the thought leaders were not primarily the founding fathers.

It was those who were watching the founding fathers and then putting sentiments into print. So obviously no twin. no television, no radio, no internet. But tracks are the main ways that happens. The pulpit, you have to realize that almost, almost maybe about 90% of the people in the American colonies would have been impacted in some way directly

or indirectly by what was said from the pulpit. So if the clergy were moving towards independence, the nation was moving towards independence. So writers, preachers, newspaper publishers. That's where the intellectual leadership came from. And the actual political leadership, of course, came from the men we now know the founding fathers. So this is an interesting question then. Do you think all of the major events and changes in history stemmed from powerful communicators, for better or worse? The better you were at communicating, the more you could persuade and rally people around an idea.

Yes, it's an interesting dichotomy. Leaders aren't necessarily the best communicators, and communicators are seldom the best leaders. But you have to have both. And so you have great movements. For example, the Reformation, the changed history. It's because Martin Luther could write and he could write track. And he wrote in the common, what was called the vernacular language. People weren't doing that. People of his type were writing in Latin. Well, the average person didn't read Latin. So he started writing in street German. And that's what helps spark the Reformation. So you're absolutely right.

The communication is critically important. And that's more important today than ever. And we thought it was going to go away. We thought the moving image and movies and television was going to replace the written word. The fact is it's taken to a whole other level. I mean, I read whole articles that are half just printed tweets. The news is happening in tweets. and somebody's putting it together in an article.

So this is one of the real leadership issues today is that a true leader has got to take responsibility for communication, even if he or she aren't that gifted for it. You've got to make sure that somebody's doing it for you. You've got to make sure you stick close to the communication devices and mechanisms and people and leaders and technologies. But it's absolutely true. George Washington, you would never have wanted to sit through a speech by him,

but somebody had to communicate for him, and that's where pain came is. that's where certain newspaper publishers came in. That's where Jefferson came in. That's even where Franklin came in. So that ability to systematize, bring together the thought, make it moving, make it poetic, that's what changes history. And then somebody then once the sentiments have changed, I've got to galvanize that change and take us on to victory. So my takeaway is if you've got a vision and you're a leader, you've got to communicate that thing very clearly, a lot, and persuasively. Yes. My firm in D.C. coaches a lot of speakers, and it's fascinating for me. I only mention that for

this reason. It's fascinating to watch how many times the person I most like would most like to see be president, would most like to see be Speaker of the House, they're not good communicators. And they're probably never going to get there. In a TV age, in a media age, I just grieve because I don't know that anybody can coach them to the level they need to be to achieve to defeat an entire field of presidential candidates, but they might be the best person. And so, you know, I've got to trust God about these matters. But the fact is, that communication is the issue. And I work with a lot of CEOs,

and sometimes they've started brilliant companies, but they're just not good communicators. So it doesn't mean that they have to give up and quit. It means that they've got to manage the communication while they may not be the person to do it themselves. And that's one of the arts of leadership in our age, certainly. Yeah, delegation, getting the right team around you, it's crucial. Make sure you mastered the technologies.

I don't care if you're on TikTok, but you need to know what it is. You need to know how it works. You need to know who in your firm would be best on TikTok. You need to know how to monetize it. So the companies that I really admire and kind of Viglabel are where a 70-year-old West Texas good old boy actually owns and is running the company, but he's brilliantly hired the right people.

And he's able to say, over coffee, well, I think we're on TikTok, but I don't know what he actually knows. He's just doing the awshucks thing of West Texas good old boys. But because he sticks close to the issue of communication. And by the way, the one I'm thinking of right now is an oil company. But even today, you've got to be able to communicate. And the wise person, even if not good at it, personally knows how to hire people to round them out. And that's what happened with the founding fathers.

You had Washington, really a poor verbal communicator, poor speechmaker, but he put brilliant people around him. And he had the opportunity to do it because there was a genius cluster at the time. So we celebrate Independence Day on the 4th of July. But the vote, you know this, was on July 2nd. And there's a hot debate out there. Among super historic nerds on whether it's July 2nd or July 4th that we should be celebrating, which camp are you in? I'm among the nerds and I'm in the July 4th camp. And here's why.

July 2nd, they voted for independence, but July 4th they ratified the declaration. And I don't think declaring independence would have been near, had near the impact on history that it did, if we hadn't also ratified the language that declared to the world why we were doing what we were doing. So obviously it took two things. It could have happened on the same day, just happened to have not. I'm glad we devoted for independence, obviously. But the reason July 4th was what John Adams thought we would celebrate, the reason that the declaration mentions July 4th in its text is that that was ratified on July 4th. And I think that's the day we ought to celebrate.

We're declared independent. If it had stopped there, there'd been no declaration, I think people would have said, well, that's their dream. That's fine. But the power of the declaration, you know, studying history and studying social movements as I do, the number of times. the number of times that the Declaration of Independence has been quoted by people fighting for their freedom. Right now in the Ukraine, you can go on and hear English language podcast, broadcast, a little bit of video clips on Twitter from people in the Ukraine. And what are they quoting? The Declaration of Independence.

And it's powerful language. And this happens over and over and over. And so I've just seen revolutions constantly during the Arab Spring in the Middle East, during revolutions in Russia. People are quoting the Declaration because it's one of the greatest declarations of human freedom and the rights of the individual. And again, it's a creed. And so it's beyond just a declaration for 13 colonies on the coast of North America. Wow. I'm glad we're celebrating on the right day.

We are. You have my permission. And that's also, by the way, with founding fathers thought would be the day. They saw as July 2 as the preamble, so to speak, to July 4th. And it's funny because John Adams said, oh, there'll be fireworks and they'll be feasting and they'll be, he mentioned everything about hot dogs and baseball games because he thought July 4th would be the big celebration day. He was right. He was right. That's right.

Head of his time. Stick with the fourth. Stick with the fourth. So the signatures on the Declaration of Independence, very important. John Hancock famously signed larger than anyone else right there front and center in the signature section there. What was happening? Well, he was the president of the constitutional. convention. And he wanted everyone to know it apparently. And he had no problem everybody knowing it.

But picture now, the declaration, by the way, this didn't happen on July 2nd or July 4 that happened on August 2nd. So it took a while to print all these documents and then for him to sign the original. So when he was handed the document to sign, it was blank. So he goes with his handwriting and he wants to be prominent. He even is supposed to have said, well, I'm going to make this big so the King George can see it without it. Actually, one version, one version says that he says, I want King George to be able to read this without his classes. So it's just language. So he's kind of throwing shade at King George at the third there.

He's showing. Yeah, exactly. As the kids would say. So he, the reason is signature is so big is, yeah, he was having a little bit fun with making it prominent, but he was also the first one to sign it. You know how it is. If you've ever signed a birthday card or anything and you're the first one, you might go real big, you know, signature. And other people are going, well, hey, I got to go up the side here or go in miniature language over here. That's why it's that way. But he was having some fun.

He was a big personality, and he wanted to declare his patriotism in no uncertain terms. So that's the one we remember. And in fact, I think it's interesting that now if I want your signature, I might say, give me your John Hancock. Yeah, I was going to say, that's pretty epic that he just coined the phrase for all signatures. He owns signatures for all times. Wow. Well, he's not getting royalties for me. I tell you that much.

So a lot of leadership lessons to be learned. What are some of your biggest takeaways from this moment in history for leaders listening? The idea of a genius cluster. The idea of everybody playing their role to put it in modern, almost sports language, were better together. You would not have wanted Jefferson to be alone.

He was weird. He was extreme about some things. He was hurt. He was terrible with money. He was in debt every day of his life. He was a mess. We all know now famously he was having an affair with basically his half sister-in-law,

you know, a slave called named Sally Hemings, etc. You wouldn't want it in Washington to be alone. But together, they were powerful. I think also that we have to realize that Even at that time before the acceleration of our modern communications media, it took ideas a time a little while to take hold. This is why I study trends.

I study what's trending. I study how social movements happen. How do you gain speed? Things don't usually happen just overnight. Even if you have a revolution or something that happens seemingly suddenly, those ideas have been in place for years. So as an intellectual historian, I like paying attention to what were they thinking, what were they What's also interesting about these guys from the standpoint of their ideas, that they were all self-educated. They went to maybe some schools earlier in their lives, but all of them were self-educated.

Washington hardly ever went to a school. And here he is one of the most prominent men in our history, and certainly at that time. So the leadership lessons for me are the uniqueness of each person, the way we team together well, the way we need to look for genius clusters in history, the way we need to own communications. and the way we need to take hold of ideas, the way that we need to realize what the ideas are in our times. And then I think the final thing I'd say is the overwhelming courage that it took.

Any war is going to take courage to win. But what these people suffered, there are books written about what each of the signers of the declarations suffered. Some of them were killed. Some of them watched their wives being raped. Some of their estates were burned down. Some of their children.

were killed in front of them. I mean, this was not just a bunch of guys and lace cuffs and so on like we see in the movies. These were guys who had to pay for their ideas. And I'm perhaps most moved by the last lines of the Declaration of Independence in which they said they pledged together their sacred honor.

And that's what they had to do. It cost them something. Years later, John Adams said, posterity, I hope you realize what it cost my generation to give you your freedom. And I hope you'll use it well. And that's, I think, you know, I realize the founding fathers are coming in for beating these days because of slavery and some things they didn't do.

And slavery was atrocious. This is the American original sin. There's no question that they were of their times when it came to slavery and it harmed our country. We wish that they had banned slavery immediately. But aside from that, they gave us what became the basis for civil rights, what became the basis for the freedoms we know today. And we should honor them and live out John Adel. hope that we would live it well. Beautifully said.

It also reminds me of the disciples in the Bible suffering because of their passion and belief in this vision and this mission. And it makes me think the leaders out there, what are you willing to suffer for? What are you so passionate about that you're willing to take all the hate out there? Right. In the world that I live in, the exchange of ideas in D.C. and all that kind of thing, there are what I call cheap ideas. Cheap ideas are the ideas you have, you enjoy, you talk about it at your dinner table,

you never have to pay a price for, right? I can sit here right now until I absolutely believe in this and that, the other thing. But if I'm not willing to put my life on the line, if I'm not willing to put my treasure, my life, risk my family's life, do I really believe it? Am I really a Christian or a conservative or an American or a guy who believes

in the freedom of individuals if I'm not willing to put my whole life into that? And these men did. They risked everything. They suffered. They suffered horribly. I often like to tell the story of Valley Forge. I won't do it now.

but men had so had their own clothes destroyed that when Mrs. Washington visited during a freezing winter, the men had to trade clothes to put enough men in the front of the ranks so their private parts wouldn't be seen. This is how torn up their clothes were. This is how poor Congress was in giving them supplies. And this is how much they suffered at Valley Forge. They were literally freezing to death.

Literally freezing. Something we don't think about of our troops today. we have all these great fibers and uniforms and so on. But I could go on and on and on about the suffering, but they suffered and they suffered horribly. And it was because they believed in the ideas for the future that would shape the future. Well, I'm very grateful for all the men and women

of the shoulders that we stand on, the giants of history that we now have these freedoms to benefit from, thanks to all of them. Well, they were amazing. And, you know, one of the ways we get on to them is by reading a little bit about their story. Don't let them just be symbols. don't let them just be statues.

Don't let them even be a play. I think the play is amazing. I've read the script. I haven't actually seen it. But I think all of that's wonderful, but let's know a little bit about them. These were human beings. These were flesh and blood people.

They weren't just general this and congressman that, reverend that. They were flesh and blood human beings who were living on the edge of a continent, breaking from the motherland, trying to build something amazing. And they talked about posterity. They talked about the future a great deal

because they wanted to build something that would last for generations. And so reading about them, knowing a little about them, that would be a way to honor them this year. Well, Stephen, I always learned something new. Today I learned about 17 new things. Grateful for your wisdom. Grateful for how much you care about leaders listening out there for this country. Always appreciate having you on. Great to be with you, buddy. Thank you. Big thanks to Stephen for coming by the studio for this special edition episode.

Like you mentioned, your homework is to do some further reading on some of these incredible historic figures. And if you want to read one of Stephen's books, you can check those out on his website. We've got a link for you in the show notes. Well, that's going to do it for our 4th of July episode. Go enjoy some time with your friends and family, grilling out, eating sandwiches, which we now know officially includes hot dogs. If you enjoyed today's episode of the show, do us a quick favor, follow or subscribe wherever you listen, and leave us a review. And if you're feeling extra generous, share this episode with your team, with your friends, or on social media.

All of that helps us impact more people and more leaders like you. Be sure to follow us at Entree Leadership wherever you hang out on social media. This episode was produced by Tim Hull, edited by Jacob Harrison, and mixed and mastered by Will Rudder. I'm your host, George Camel, and on behalf of the entire Entree leadership team, thanks for listening. Until next time, keep learning and keep leading.