High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 254: How to Have a Silent Impact with Keynote Speaker & TV Sports Anchor, Joe Schmit

Episode Date: June 2, 2019

Great leaders are the happiest, most productive people because they have discovered how to lead a life of significance. It's all about making an impact. Joe Schmit has been interviewing and researching influential people discovering the factors that truly make an impact in the lives of others. He is a storyteller who has spent 30 years as sports anchor for KSTP-TV (ABC-Minneapolis/St. Paul) and has been awarded 18 Emmy's and a National Headliner Award. Joe's keynote, workshops, video series and book help individuals and teams put those principles into practice and make a true impact. In this podcast, Joe and Cindra talk about: · What is the silent impact · The blueprint to have a silent impact · Lessons he learned from interviewing the world’s best · How to use impact resolutions · And what is the “Mount Rushmore of Influence”?

Welcome to High Performance Mindset with Dr. Sindra Kampoff. Do you want to reach your full potential, live a life of passion, go after your dreams? Each week we bring you strategies and interviews to help you ignite your mindset. Let's bring on Sindra. Welcome to the High Performance Mindset Podcast. This is your host, Dr. Sindra Kampoff, certified mental performance consultant, speaker, and author. And welcome to episode 254 with Joe Schmidt. Now, the goal of these interviews is to learn from the world's best to help us reach our potential or be high performers in our life in our field. Now typically with two episodes every week we explore everything

related to mindset. You can learn secrets from a world-class consultant, speaker, entrepreneur, coach, athlete, or leader each week or every Monday I provide a short powerful message to inspire you to be at your best consistently. Now if you know that mindset is essential to your success then this is the podcast for you and I'm grateful that you're here ready to listen to episode with Joe Schmidt. Great leaders are the happiest most productive people because they have discovered how to lead a life of significance and as Joe describes it's all about making an impact. So Joe Schmidt has been interviewing and researching influential people,

discovering the factors that truly make an impact in their lives. He's a storyteller who has spent the last 30 years as a sports anchor for KSTV in Minneapolis, St. Paul. And he's been awarded 18 Emmys and a National Headliner Award. And I know Joe from The Speaking World, but also see him pretty regularly on TV. And so Joe's keynotes, workshops, and video series,

and his books, The Silent Impact and The Impact Blueprint, help individuals and teams put their principles into practice and make a true impact. So in this podcast, Joe and I talk about what is the silent impact, his blueprint to have a silent impact, the lessons he's learned from interviewing the world's best and how to make an impact, how we can use impact resolutions, and then something that he describes are Mount Rushmore of influence. So I know you'll enjoy today's interview. To find a full description of the podcast, you can head over to cindracampoff.com slash

Joe Schmidt. And I would love to hear from you in terms of what you enjoyed about this podcast or any other comments you have about the podcast or maybe even a recommendation of who you'd like to see interviewed on the podcast or maybe even a recommendation of who you'd like to see interviewed on the podcast. So you can head over to Twitter and I'm at mentally underscore strong and Joe is at at Joe Schmidt KSTP. All right, look forward to hearing from you. Enjoy this interview about making a silent impact with Joe Schmidt. Welcome to the podcast, Joe. I'm really excited to have you. How's everything going there? Everything's going great, Cyndra. Good to see you and talk to you. I know. It's on Zoom. Nobody else knows that. Exactly, exactly. I'm

looking forward to talking to you more about your new book and just the impact of the silent impact. So to start us off, Joe, tell us a little bit about your passion and what you do. Well, you know, it's interesting because I'm a sportscaster and I've been a sportscaster in the Twin Cities for 32 years. I've been doing this for almost 40 years now. And so I've always loved sports. I've always loved doing TV. I've always loved telling stories. But I really never had a hobby.

I like to golf. I like to fish. I like to read. But nothing that I really sink my teeth into, you know, forever, spending time with my family, things like that. Yes. But I found my passion when I started speaking and talking about impact. And I started doing research on people who make an impact. And that has become my passion. And it is, it's a great hobby to have, but it's also a business. And in the TV world, I never had a chance to have an entrepreneurial side to what I do. So I love that entrepreneurial side. I love making decisions in my own business. I love kind of

figuring out what to spend money on, what to spend time on. And I love the results I get in the relationships and the friendships that I've had since I started speaking. Absolutely. Well, I know you make a lot of impact just by delivering a message about impact. So tell us a little bit about, you know, how you got to Minnesota, how you got 32 years as a sports anchor on KSTP. So tell us about how you got there first. Well, I always tell people that when I was a kid, like a lot of kids, I wanted to be a professional athlete. And that dream died pretty early, probably about Little League. But at some point, somebody said, you know, Schmidt, with your big mouth and your love of sports, you ought to be a sportscaster. And really from that moment on, I decided I wanted to be a television sportscaster at a pretty young

age. And I went to school for it and I just worked my way up. I worked in, in the old days, you really had to work your way up market size, almost like a baseball player going from single A to double A to triple A. I worked in La Crosse, Wisconsin, where I went to school, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Green Bay, Wisconsin, and then I came to Minneapolis in 1985. And it was just the perfect place because of all the sports it had, working at a great station that, you know, put a lot of resources and money into covering sports. And, you know, I look back, I pinch myself, I'm a pretty lucky guy to get to do what I want for all these years. And I realized I've had one of those jobs that a lot of people are jealous of looking at. But, you know, it's like anything, there's work involved, there's time involved,

there's, you know, a tough schedule sometimes involved, but it's been very, very fun. And when you think about 32 years in one place, I think maybe that's also what people are envious of, you know, that stick around for 32 years. So what do you think is your mindset? What's helped you kind of stay with something for that long? Well, I like to keep it fresh. I get bored easily. So I think that's helped me because I like to look at things differently and take different angles and look at stories and events differently. So that's probably helped. As I've gotten older, I like to work with younger people.

You know, when I was younger, I remember, you know, some veteran people who helped me out. Now I'm in the opposite position where I can help out younger people reach their dreams and succeed in the business. So the mentorship thing has kind of turned around. So I really enjoy that. My ego is at the point now where I don't need to be, it doesn't need to be all about me. You learn as you go on. So I'm very, very willing to share airtime, share all this stuff with the guys I work with. And I think that that works out pretty well. Yeah, that sounds great. So tell us a bit about why you chose to speak and write on a silent impact. You know, where did that come from?

Well, what happened was, you know, for years as a sports anchor, I got asked to speak at athletic banquets and rotary clubs and chambers of commerce. And I used to tell kind of the win-win for the Gipper stories and, you know, TV stories. And all of a sudden I started telling stories about people who make an impact on the world. And people started saying, that's really good stuff. You ought to write a book. Well, eventually, at one point, I ran into Walter Bond by accident at the airport. And in the speaking business, Walter Bond is kind of a legend. I covered Walter Bond when he played for the University of Minnesota. And he played the year for the Timberwolves. And I've always liked Walter, always had a great relationship with him. We met at the airport one day, and he played the year for the Timberwolves. And I've always liked Walter, always had a great relationship with him.

We met at the airport one day and he started talking to me and he said, we're having coffee when I get back from my trip. And he told me, you got to become a professional speaker. You can do it while you're a sports anchor. And from that moment on, I decided I wanted to be a professional speaker. And at that point, he told me, he said,

you got to invest, not only time, money. I hired some coaches. I hired content coaches. I hired people to help me with the internet, my website, not only time, money. I hired some coaches. I hired content coaches. I hired people to help me with the internet, my website, videos, all the things. I made the investment not only financially, but also time-wise to make this work. The great thing is, as you know, Cyndra, you and I met through the National Speakers Association, the Minnesota Chapter, and other speakers. All of a sudden, I have a whole new set of friends where, you know, I know you've reached out to me before, and I've reached out to you when we've had a, what do you think about this?

You know, you have people to bounce it off of because as a solo entrepreneur, sometimes that's a little bit difficult. You know, we don't have a committee meeting. There's not a board meeting to decide whether or not you're going to market this way, or you're going to take this speech, even though it doesn't fit exactly into what you do. All those little things that happen. It's really good to have kind of a tribe to bounce it off of. Absolutely. And that's one of the things I see too, just getting involved in NSA Minnesota. It's, you know, you get to be with other people and you see this other, this, the other set of friends and people who are doing the same thing and have the same goals as you. Yeah, it's very interesting because you would think that would be very competitive.

But the reality is the guy who started the National Speakers Association was a guy by the name of Cavett. And they talk about the spirit of Cavett. And Cavett figured out that the pie, there was enough pie for everybody, just make the pie bigger. And the way to make the pie bigger was to have people who went out and spoke, be professional, deliver great content, be thought leaders. And as the speaking business grew and the credibility around that grew, everybody would get better. Everybody would have better businesses. And it's really been the truth. And that's really the way I kind of look at the speaking business. You know, you and I may be up for the same speech one day. And if I don't get it, I hope like heck you get it. And that's really kind of the way I've approached it. Where in the television business, when you're competing, I'm looking at the ratings

every day. I'm looking at, you know, our content. Did we, you know, did we do the right thing? Did we beat the competition? In the speaking business, I really don't look at it that way. And it's, I think that's kind of refreshing. Yeah, it is refreshing. Gives you more energy. So Walter Bond kind of encouraged you to write the book about impact and, you know, pursue the speaking career. Tell us what you explored or what you learned, like, while you were writing the book about

having the silent impact? Well, so the first thing that happened was one of the first people I hired was a content coach. Her name was when LT got to Texas and she and her company, she had worked for Zig Ziglar years ago, you know, one of the legendary professional speakers of all time. And she basically, I had started off, the name of my speech was The Pursuit of Happiness. And after we started talking and talking about the stories I had and the content I had, what she did was encourage me to look at it differently. And as I was talking one day, I was saying, you know, all the stories we have, these people are great leaders because they just kind of have this silent impact. And I talked to her, what did you just say?

And I went back and I said, well, these people kind of have what I would think like a silent impact. She goes, there's the name of your keynote. There's the name of your speech. That's what you're going to talk about. And really, it went from there. She made me do a ton of research that it wasn't just me getting up there telling stories and throwing out fake research. It was a process. And like I said, it's a little bit like anything.

You tell your kids, the harder you work, the luckier you get. Well, I think that's the same way in the speaking business too. Yeah, I agree. And so tell us what you mean by a silent impact. Well, through the research, we figured out that we make our biggest impressions when we're not trying to be impressive. And the impact we have is real, it's powerful, it's profound, it's contagious, and it can last a long, long time. And at many times is the little things that really turn out to be the big things. So what I do is I have a bunch of stories. I have

a stories, you know, one of my big stories is, you know, Joe Mauer, when he was the former Minnesota twin, one of the great players of all time, when he was in high school, he would walk a special needs student who happened to be blind to the lunchroom every day. And what I did is I put my reporter's cap on and found out the impact that I had. And what I found out was the impact had a pinwheel effect. It just didn't impact the young man who Joe walked every day to the lunchroom. It had an impact on the six guys that sat around the table with those two guys. It had an impact on a teacher who was watching. And now when I tell the story, I hear stories back from people, the impact it had on them. So that's kind of the way it works out. That's a silent impact. It's a personal leadership

type thing. And so then I've been able to take that to business. And when I talk to businesses and work with businesses, I say, you know, there is an ROI. You know, in business, you always think return on investment. I said, no, there's a return on impact. How do you care about the people who work for you? Do you care about your customers? If you care only about the bottom line, or if the bottom line is the first thing you care about, you're going to struggle. If you care about the impact that you have on your employees, on the people you serve, and on your community, the bottom line is going to take care of itself. And I've seen it time and time again with the businesses that I work with that have success financially. You know, they don't chase the shiny objects. The shiny objects, the money, the fame, the awards,

they're the byproduct of living a life of impact. Yeah, that's good. Joe, how would you suggest that businesses or, you know, us personally, how should we keep that impact front and center? Because I think sometimes it can be really easy to, you know, you have a goal. Maybe you want to make this certain amount of money or you want this, your business to become X, or you want to be a pro, pro player and sign a contract for blank million dollars. Right. So, but that's all about these external things. So what do you think about how do we keep this impact? And I heard the word service and I was thinking about how that's something I'm trying to do too. Right. One of the reasons I have this podcast is try to keep the service in my heart.

So what do you think about how do you do that? Well, what I figured out, and this was kind of through the research, that people who have this impact gene, they're more aware and they're more intentional with the impact they have on each other. So how can we all be more aware and intentional? Now, this is going to sound like a promo because it leads into my second book. Okay, well, that's great. I was going to ask you about that in a second, so it's perfect. Well, this is going to sound like Joe the Shill.

No, so I wrote Silent Impact. And in Silent Impact, I tell a lot of stories, and they inspire and motivate people, and they make you look at your life and how you can have more impact. And I give some suggestions on how to do it. And one of the things I do is I talk about impact resolutions. How can we be more aware and intentional? Well, they're like New Year's resolutions, except you keep them fresh every month, or in some cases, every week, you come up with a new trait that you're going to concentrate on that month. So when I work with companies, and some of the companies, I started off doing keynotes.

Then I did breakout sessions. Now I'm doing keynotes, breakout sessions, and seminars. Now I've got year-long programs. And one of the things we do in our year-long programs is when I work with a company, we come up with impact resolutions. We plan out the next 12 months that the company is going to concentrate on these traits that are going to make them better. For example, patience, empathy, communication.

You can go diversity, respect, on and on and on. And what happened is I've now worked with enough companies that I kept gathering these traits. Okay. Okay. So I figured that's a good way. I've had success. People have come back to me saying these are great. And, you know, we put it in our newsletter and we send out reminders.

So the companies have kind of kept the momentum going from what we learned in the presentation. So I had a back fusion surgery in May of 2018. And as I was going to know, knew I was going to be out for a month or five weeks, my goal was to sit down and binge watch on Netflix and read about five books I wanted to read. Well, I did that for one day, and I was bored silly. So anyway, I took all this information. I had all this content that I'd done research on, and I started writing. So the next thing I knew, I came up with my new book, and it's called The Impact Blueprint, A Step-by-Step Journey to a Life of Significance. Because what I figured out is people who make an impact and do it more naturally, and they're more aware and intentional with the impact, they live a life of significance.

You know, I talked about the shiny objects. Well, those shiny objects happen not because they want to win awards or, you know, be successful in their careers. They happen because they put impact first, the impact they have on other people. So this new book has 52 traits in it. Every trait is researched, has a a story and then something to do at the end of the book and uh or at the end of the chapter so what i suggest for people depending on what your learning curve is i suggest some people read it read one chapter a week and make that your impact resolution so what i do and i do it right now on my mirror in my bathroom i put a little sticky note up there on what my impact resolution is.

I do them monthly just because that works for me better. Everybody can kind of do their own thing. Some people put it on their phone for their phone picture and on and on. So it's worked out really well. So that is a way that we can all do it. When you all kind of take a look at your life and figure out how can we have more impact. And a lot of times, it's just taking the time all do it. When you all kind of take a look at your life and figure out how can we have more impact. And a lot of times it's just taking the time to do it. Absolutely. And what happens, I tell the story that I worked in this office situation and we had this company, they decided

to take the impact resolutions, but have accountability partners so they could check up on each other. And there were these two women that were in a gossip situation where the office just was full of gossip. So they decided their monthly impact resolution was not to gossip. So they checked on each other the entire month and it worked great. And when that month was over, they had a lot to talk about. I suppose. Yeah. But anyway, so it does really work when you make that commitment. It's very easy. Can you give us an example of what you got on your mirror right now, what you're sticking out saying,

and how you think that impacts how you show up or the ways that you want to intentionally make an impact? This month I have Let It Go, which is one of my chapters. Most of my traits are like just singular traits, you know, introspection. I'm trying to think of some of the different chapters I have, but one of them is let it go. And I think what we all have to do once in a while is you get upset about something, you think about, is this going to matter in five weeks? Is this going to matter in five days? Is this going to matter in five minutes? Just let it go. Just let it go and control what you control. Worry what you should worry about, not what you can't control.

And so I am letting it go this week. I love it. Just as a little example, the other night I'm on the news and it was on a Sunday night and the weatherman went like 30 seconds too long. Well, I'm the last thing in the newscast, so they cut me 30 seconds. I had to cut out the story that I really wanted to get on the air. And at first, I was ticked off. So all of a sudden, I thought to myself, remember my impact resolution, let it go.

And when I found out there was kind of a nice result, it was nice, I was not stressed about it. And the other thing is it didn't impact my performance. If I'm mad, even if you're faking it, if you're upset, you know, or you're thinking about it, you're not all in on a conversation. In that case, I wasn't all in on delivering the sports that night. So that's what I had. Letting go is what I have this month.

Were you able to move on really quickly? Because I'm sure they just told you right there you got 30 seconds less probably during the commercial. Yeah. And you know what? I remembered my impact resolution to let it go. So I think it does work. I really do. And it's just, it's making a little commitment to yourself to be better. And I always say, just imagine if you make one impact a day, one positive impact a day, that's 365 impacts a year. And if the people that you've made an impact on do it because you made an impact on you, I mean, it can have this really wonderful snowball effect. But, you know, over the course of 10 years, you've made over 3,600 impacts, you know, so that's kind of the way I look at it. And I think that there's so much negativity in the world these days that we all need to

kind of figure out how to be more positive. And it is one of the things I talk about in my keynotes is, you know, the impact we can have is negative too. And just like a positive impact, it can last a long, long time. So Joe, when I'm thinking about just this idea of the silent impact and making sure people sort of really grasp it, you gave an example of Joe Maurer and how he impacted everyone in his high school, you know, by what he did in the lunchroom. But tell us another example or two, maybe tell us a few stories about people that you've

seen make a silent impact. Well, we just had my book launch and I'm not trying to promote my book. It just happened to come up here. Well, that's the reason I had you on, to talk about it. So it's all good. You know what? The way I look at it is selling books are great, but I like to just get it in someone's hands because it can impact somebody's life.

I just got the nicest letter from a woman who I didn't even know who said they used the chapters in my book as conversation starters at family dinners. And she said, you know, how often do you ever talk about great character traits? However, do you talk about morals and values with your kids? And you really don't. Usually you do when you're yelling at them, you know, and you say, you know, we don't steal. We don't talk back. We don't, you know, whatever the case is.

But all of a sudden, if you open up a conversation and the conversation is on loyalty, you know, you can get everybody in. So a story that I had because I was able to honor this gentleman at my book launch because I had a bunch of friends and clients and speakers and so forth there. And I really didn't want to sell books. So I thought, well, if I give the proceeds to the books, you know, to charity, it's not going to be as bad. So Dr. Frank Pilney, this is a story that I have. And this was under the chapter of hope. Dr. Frank Pilney was traveling with his family to a ski resort in Montana. They had to rent a family truckster because he had 13 kids.

And they stopped at church in Fargo, North Dakota for Sunday. They went to mass. And at the mass, the priest talked about just coming back from Peru, where the poverty was unfathomable. And so many kids had this cleft palate problem. And so they took up a collection for it. Well, Dr. Pilney stayed after church to talk to the priest to ask him more about it. Long story short, Dr. Pilney was a plastic surgeon in Minnesota and serendipity kind of took over because 30 years later,

Dr. Pilney has done 6,000 surgeries of kids in Peru. He has taken all 13 of his kids, all 27 of his grandkids. He has taken, the first year they went down there, they had a crew of three. This last year, they had over 60. Dr. Pilney is now 85 years old, and everybody pays for their own. They do not have, it's not like one of these big charity events where they have an office and office staff. This is 100% grassroots. If you wanted to go, you would have to pay for your airfare, your hotel, your food, everything, and then donate your time. And Dr. Pilney was saying, I said, well, why do you still do it? And he goes, well, when you see the joy in a mother's face when you just changed their child's

life, how can you not go? And the nurses, a lot of the nurses take vacation time. They work with Dr. Pilney. They take their vacation time, pay their own way. And they say they're going to do it once in a lifetime. Well, they end up going back multiple times because of how powerful it is and the impact that they're having. So when you want to talk about a person who made an impact, you know, and a person who gives hope in this case, you know, how can you not honor Dr. Pilney? Now, we all can't do that, but we all have to look for opportunities to help somebody, and they're out there. And when I think about how you define silent impact, you know, that it's the impact that you make when you're not trying to be impressive. So I like that.

And I was thinking about how he's not trying to be impressive. He's just trying to impact and help somebody and improve someone's lives. It's 100% not about him. Yeah. And, you know, it ends up being a little bit about him because he started it and he promotes it and he has to get it. But it truly is about helping those kids and those families. And I remember one of the nurses said that when I asked her, I said, I use my reporting skills on this, which is great. You got to use what you got to get what you want. So I found some nurses. I called the nurse and the nurse called it a vacation for the soul. I thought, that's pretty cool. We all go on vacation,

try to rest and relax, but how many times do you go on a vacation for the soul? Absolutely. That's great. I know you cover a lot of sports. That's where I see you a lot. So you think of an example in the last couple of years of an example in sport that you've seen people make an impact, you know, that they weren't really trying to be impressive, that they were just trying to positively impact someone's lives.

Yeah, it's interesting. You know, Kendra, we see it a lot because a lot of times the athletes that we cover do the charity event, like the Vikings, for example, have Tuesday Community Day. And we see a lot of those people, you know, go out and they, whether it's Children's Hospital, Cancer Research Fund, whatever,

they're doing great things in the community. And many times they're covered on TV. What I always appreciate are the people who go and do it, not because they're going to be on TV or the cameras are going to show up, but they just go and do it anyway. I have a story in my first book. So when I was in Green Bay at WBAY-TV, I covered Bart Starr. Now I grew up in Wisconsin, about 13 miles from Green Bay. Yes, I grew up a packer fan i'm no longer a packer fan number one question i get when they found out i grew up in green bay i cover the vikings here for 32 years if the vikings go to the super bowl i go to the super bowl who do you think

i'm rooting for but anyway um so i covered bart star and bart star is one of these people who what he's i use the one of the things I use in my presentations is the metaphor, who would be on your Mount Rushmore of influence? If you could build a monument to the most impactful people in your life, who would be there? Well, Bart Starr's pretty much on my Mount Rushmore of influence because he was a man who walked the walk and talked the talk. So I had the opportunity as a kid to watch him win Super Bowls and then later cover him when he was with the Green Bay Packers. And I tell a couple of stories about Bart in the book, going above and beyond. He was just a real man. The other guy that kind of reminds me of Bart is Tony Dungy. And it's the same thing. Walks the walk, talks to talk, 100% genuine, and just truly men who

love their wives and just great guys. If you want to emulate somebody, they're pretty good people to emulate. Well, I had written a couple of stories about Bart and the impact that Bart had on me and had on other people in Green Bay. And I sent him the book. I had a speech at Lambeau Field. I went and I talked to the Packer ticket director. I said, you got Bart's address? I'll send him a book. Oh, awesome. So I no longer sent Bart the book. And about, you know, the way things work nowadays, about three hours later, I get a ping on my phone, found out that Bart had a stroke and a heart attack, and he was in very serious condition. Now, I felt terrible. I should have been,

you know, I couldn't grab the book back. You know, people are sending cards and what have you. Well, about three weeks later, I got a beautiful letter, a letter from Cherry Star, Bart's wife. And she said, Dear Joe, thank you so much for sending Silent Impact to Bart. As you probably heard, he's had some serious health problems. But I want to tell you, I read the two stories to Bart that you had in the book, and you should have seen him light up. Thank you for thinking of Bart. And I was like, I was not trying to have an impact on Bart because Bart had such an impact on me. But that's sometimes how it works out. You know, I just wanted him to know that I honored him in my book. And the next thing I know, I ended up lifting him up just on a very small basis.

But sometimes we forget to take that extra step. And that's all I did. I just said, you know what? I think Bart would appreciate this book. And he did. Little did I know it would be under such difficult circumstances. Absolutely. And so you weren't trying to make an impression there, right?

You're just sending somebody a book and trying to be helpful. So when you think about, like your idea of... Can I just interrupt you one second? Because I did think something. I was not trying to make an impression, but I was trying to acknowledge him. I was trying. So I sent him the book to acknowledge him. And I wrote up, you know, in the, you know, where you're signing the book, I wrote something, what he meant to me and that I admired him. So I was acknowledging him. People who make an impact acknowledge other people. You know, we, the one thing I always, when I talk to businesses, we have seven or eight generations in the workplace now. And you hear the baby boomers complaining about Gen X, Gen Y, and Gen Y complaining about,

you know what? There's one thing every generation has in common. They all want to be acknowledged. They all want to feel value. They all want to be validated. And as a leader, it's our jobs to make sure everybody does feel value and everybody does feel acknowledged. What I was trying to do with Bart was not leave an impression. I was trying to acknowledge him and to let him know that, you know, he meant a lot to me. It didn't cost me a dime. It cost me $3 to mail the book, you know, whatever. But sometimes we just have to acknowledge people. And we all have those people in our lives. We can go back. I call it the second thank you. When you go back and give

somebody the second thank you, you might have thanked that teacher when you were a junior who changed your career, who made you decide that you were going to become a sports psychologist. You might have thanked that person. Well, go back and thank them again and tell them, look what, you know, I'm happy. I'm successful. I'm working with the Minnesota Vikings. I have a great husband and these beautiful kids.

I mean, you know, just imagine how much that means to them. Acknowledgement is a huge, huge deal. So I'm sorry I interrupted you, but I wanted to make sure you had that thought. Yeah, that's good. And I think that it connects back to the Mount Rushmore of influence. And so, you know, I know when you're delivering trainings or keynotes, you have people actually think about their Mount Rushmore of influence. So tell us how we might use that and then how that can connect to the second thank you. So what us how we might use that and then how that can connect to the second thank you. So what I literally do is I started off by having them thinking of it,

but now I figured out it's a lot smarter. I made up this beautiful little card stock Mount Rushmore and I put four openings on it and I make people say, who is your Mount Rushmore? And I make it a little more difficult for them by saying, you can't put your parents on it. Because A, I don't want you to use two-year spots for your parents. Or B, I don't want you to say, my mom, and then feel guilty because you didn't put your dad on there. So I said, I'm going to acknowledge that your parents are on there. And then sometimes I'll even say, let's make it all business-related. Depending on the company or the group, I'll customize to it. And it's

an amazing process. Could I tell you a story that happened? Yes, that'd be amazing. Okay. So I now use this story in my keynotes because it just happened. And the great thing about speaking, as you well know, is people come back to you with their stories. Then I can do research on them and find out, man, these are amazing stories. So I was speaking to the Minnesota Correctional Association. It was a bunch of prison guards, wardens, and leaders who guard prisoners. In Minnesota, we've just had a couple of tragic situations

where two guards lost their lives while they were doing their jobs. This was the toughest audience I've ever worked because it was right after that. The emotion was raw. I'm going, how am I possibly going to get my message to these people in a job I don't understand and right now in a job that is the most stressful job probably in the country? And anyway, we got to the Mount Rushmore, and I made people fill out the Mount Rushmore. And one of the prison guards by the name of Mark Magnuson, I offer people an opportunity to talk about it because I think this is a really good way to make connections, especially with

people you work so you understand people better. And he told me about his brother was on his Mount Rushmore. And he said his brother was not on his Mount Rushmore until he passed away. And he said that his brother, they grew up in Northern Minnesota. They were all good athletes. They had a big family, played a lot of sports together. But he said, I could have put any of my brothers or sisters on. But when my brother Tim died, he went on my Mount Rushmore. He said that Tim had taken a job in Columbus, Ohio. And when Columbus got an NHL team, Tim wanted a part-time job with the team because he was a big hockey fan growing up in northern Minnesota.

So he ended up getting a job as the elevator operator for the team on game day. So he was there for the players, the players' families, the players' kids, all the management, their kids, their families. But Tim wasn't just a guy who pushed the buttons. Tim was a guy who pushed people's buttons. He got to know all the families. He got to know their names. He had nicknames for the players. He found out when it was a kid's birthdays. He always had candy and treats. He became part of the family. Tim, unfortunately, was diagnosed with ALS. And as a half hour before the service started, a bus pulled up. It was the Columbus Blue Jackets, the entire team had just gotten back from a long road trip. Instead of going back home right away, they went a half hour out of their way to come and pay tribute to the guy who ran the team elevator.

Wow. But the story goes a little bit deeper in that I talk a little bit about, I talk about a track coach at the University of Minnesota who lived this life of impact and how he lived a life of significance. I have a strong story on Roy Gryak. Mark said, you gave me goosebumps when you told my story because I told you we were athletic when we were kids. Well, Tim ran track when he was in college,

and he ran for Roy Gryak at the University of Minnesota, this guy who had this major impact. So the story came back full circle, but it's pretty powerful just because you think an elevator operator can make that big of an impact. Absolutely. You know, one of the lines I use in my speech is, and this came from the research, you know, the person who has the biggest impact in an office situation is not always the person who sits in the corner office. Sometimes it's the person who cleans the corner office.

You know, just saying that anybody can be a leader. Anybody can make an impact. And, you know, we all, we all are own leaders of our own personal lives. So I like that story about the Mount Rushmore of influence and particularly how, you know, his brother was on his list and had passed. I think that's really powerful about, you know, like how he lived his life is why he was on that list. So do you recommend if the people are still alive, then we go back and send them a thank you and email, phone? What have you found to be most impactful? Absolutely. That's where the second thank you comes in. And if they're not around, if they're not around to find a family member or friend, my dad is a big influence on my life. And unfortunately, he passed away,

you know, 30 years ago, and over 30 years ago, and somebody started a Facebook tribute a few years ago. And they were telling stories about my dad I hadn't heard before. The second thank you, that's when I was all of a sudden realized the second thank you can be powerful. You know, it made me really feel good. It made my entire family feel good. These stories people were telling about my dad all these years later. So it's strong stuff. The other thing I encourage people to do is this. I had a speech in Northern Minnesota and it was in the morning I spoke to leaders from about 100 high schools in Minnesota. These were, they had strong leaders in these high schools. And in the afternoon,

I had their parents doing kind of the same thing, working on leadership. And that night, I put them all together. Well, I all had them do their Mount Rushmores. Then I had the parents compare theirs to the kids. And that session, I had planned on like 15 minutes, and they went like 45 minutes. It could have gone another hour. And I just let it go. And when the whole thing was done, I had parents come up to me saying, I learned more about my kid today than I had my entire life. I had kids come up to me saying, I learned more about my dad and my mom today than I ever did.

So I say, I encourage people, do this with your family. You know, you talk about conversation starter. All of a sudden, you're going to find out, do you know who your kids admire? You might know who they admire, but why? Why is this teacher their favorite teacher? You know, why do they think this friend is so cool? You might have told them a story about an aunt or a neighbor or a teacher you used to have, but they might not know exactly why this person is so important to you and why this person would be on your Mount Rushmore. It's, you know, it's all about making those connections stronger. Love it. I'm going to do that tonight at the dinner

table right here. There you go. Yeah. It's, it's, I have people come back to me on it. It's, it's a pretty powerful thing. And, and I, and I use it as the metaphor just because it's a really nice metaphor. Everybody knows what Mount Rushmore is and it makes everybody think. And people say, I've got five. Well, and I said, well, find somebody who's two-faced. Ah, love it. Love it. Love it. That's good. That's good. So Joe, a few questions that I always ask in the interview. So I want to make sure that I ask these as we wrap it up. So one of the questions I usually ask at the beginning, but we just jumped into silent impact is I ask people a time that they failed and what they learned from it. And why I think that's powerful is, you know,

32 years as a sports anchor, speaking nationally, professional speaker, you know, now you got two books, might seem like you've never failed. But I think we can also learn a lot from people's failures, however you want to define it. So tell us about a time that didn't go so great for you and what you learned from it. Well, I've failed a lot. And, you know, they always say, if you haven't failed, you're not trying hard enough. You know, I think it's always interesting when somebody dies or is dying, they say, do you have any regrets? And they say, I absolutely have no regrets. I know I have regrets because I know that I've hurt people without trying to, or maybe opened my mouth, live by the mouth, die by the mouth kind of thing. I've made choices in my careers, whatever. I do have regrets, but I try to make up for them and learn from them. And I guess one of the mistakes, and once again, I write about it in the book, when I was in high school, we had a classmate who came from a small high school who was different, and she got picked on. And I might not have been the instigator, but I certainly didn't stop it. And I certainly joined in anything to get a laugh. And, you know,

I think today we'd call it bullying. You know, back then it was just being mean in any way. I remember going back for a class reunion just several years ago. And as I was driving back, for whatever reason, I was thinking about her the entire way. I'd never seen her at a reunion. Our reunions are every five years. And I walked in the door and there she was. I'll call her Rebecca. I don't want to give her name away. There she was. And I thought I knew what I had to do. So later that night, I asked her if I could talk to her. And she looked at me kind of suspiciously. And I asked her how she was doing and what her family was like. And I talked to her a little bit. And then I said, I really had to, I said, I came here because

I don't want to, I want to apologize for the ass I was, you know, 35 years ago. And I said, I've thought about it a lot. I'm not that person. And I really feel bad. And she told me that she said, I'm not the one she thought about the most when she thought about people who were mean to her. She appreciated the apology, but she said that she had turned the car around three times. This was the first reunion she had gone to. And finally she said she had enough courage to come in to the reunion. And we talked and she accepted my apology. And that was a really good moment. But the best moment was when the night ended, she sought me out. She gave me a big hug and she said, I'll see you in five

years. And since that time, we've become Facebook friends. I asked her if I could write the story in this book. And I wrote the story, not using her name. And we talked about it a lot. And she said, and I said, thank you for letting me let it go. Thank you for letting me, you know, apologize. I hope this has helped you. And she said, yeah. She goes, she still battles that she let it happen. And I said, remember, we were kids.

And I said, you know, what I battled about a little bit is I said, I know some people who probably saw what was going on, didn't stop it. I said, I feel bad that I didn't stop it. I didn't have the courage and the guts to stop it myself. And that's just as bad as saying mean things. And we both discussed that a little bit. So, but anyway, you learn from your mistakes, you move on. Every time I talk, I talked to, I'll talk to fortune 500 companies, but I talked to a lot of high schools too. And I tell that story and I tell the kids, I said, you don't want to be that guy. And to the girls, you don't want to be that mean girl. You know, I know that's right now you kind of look at it's

part of life. It's part of the process. You know, kids can be mean, that's true, but it doesn't have to be that way. Yeah, I remember maybe last year when I heard you speak at the middle school here in my hometown, I remember that story. And I thought that was a really powerful story because I think at the time when you're in middle school, high school, you don't even think about maybe that it's going to have a long-lasting impact on someone. But it does. So, Joe, how did you connect that story in your book to silent impact? Well, I just, what I did was it was a trait and it was forgiveness. Awesome. Part of the idea was I wanted her to forgive me, but the bigger part of was I had to forgive myself. Yeah, for sure. I mean, the fact, you know, it was bothering her, obviously, but the fact that 35 years later, it was still bothering me.

You know, that's, I'm still not proud of it. But I think I've been able to move on because I reconciled to the fact I made a mistake. I was stupid and I've learned from it. And now, now my job is to do everything I can to make sure the kids I speak to don't do what I did. Yeah, and I like what you said about how you can learn from those regrets, right? My job is to do everything I can to make sure the kids I speak to don't do what I did. Yeah, and I like what you said about how you can learn from those regrets, right? And do something different the next time. Yeah, and the other thing I always say is we all make mistakes,

and we're all going to have regrets. And, you know, to this day, you know, we all make mistakes. We're not, we're human. But learn from it, learn to move on from it. Try to teach yourself something. It's personal leadership. And it's about your values and your character and your morals. We have a friend, Dave Horshager, who talks about trust. And he says just one breach of trust can wreck everything that you've done for a long, long time, you know, for your entire life.

So you want to be that person people can trust. Love it. Love it. The last question I have before we wrap it up is, you know, you get to see so many great sports moments and athletes perform at their best. You know, the podcast is called The High Performance Mindset. I'm curious what you see that the best athletes do. Great question. Great question. And I am convinced, and this is what I'm convinced at. I've seen a lot of great athletes with great talent burn out in two or three years. I've seen a lot of very good or great athletes have very long and successful careers. And I always say that the people who survive in professional sports,

and I think there's, you can make the analogy to business or to teaching or to whatever you do. The people who survive learn how to be professional. They learn how to take care of their body. They learn how to take care of their mind. They learn how to take care of their diet. They learn how to treat other people. They learn how to understand that this is just a care of their mind. They learn how to take care of their diet. They learn how to treat other people.

They learn how to understand that this is just a part of their life. That's the reason you survive 10 years or 15 years. You know, Chad Greenway just retired, you know, and Chad even admitted to me he probably got another year, maybe even two years out of his career, because he not only did all those things right, but he was so good in the locker room. He was so good in the community. He was so good that he added value, not just being a great athlete on the football field and making tackles. He added value in that locker room as a leader and as somebody other people could look up to. And yeah, that's the difference. I would

be curious to see if you kind of agree with me with that. Well, I think all of those things are really important. I thought of a few athletes, as you were talking about, who maybe don't care for other people or don't treat other people as well as they can. And I do think that stunts their career in different ways. So I think that's a really important point. And I think what Chad Greenway did for the community and for the team, like he treated people well. And sometimes I think when you get to this high level sport, you think, you know, that, that maybe that's not important. It's really about performance on the field,

but all of these things contribute to performance on the field, in my opinion. So there's no question. And, you know, we just went through the NFL draft and I remember uh yeah this is 30 years ago covering the University of Minnesota the old equipment guy came up to me one day and there were some some players weren't weren't turning in their dirty clothes weren't turning in he goes he goes you know what he saw guys like you'd miss the garbage can with something you know you're throwing you'd missed the garbage can with something. You know, you're throwing tape, you miss the garbage can, you don't care, you don't pick it up. He goes, you know what,

Schmidt? And I said, what? He goes, I've learned over the years that the guys that don't care about that stuff, when the game's on the line in the fourth quarter, you can't count on them. And I thought that I thought that was pretty interesting. And then I found out after then I continued to talk to him, pick this guy's brain, because I knew there was more there. And he said, yeah, the smart NFL teams when they're going to draft one of our kids, they come and talk to me. They talk to the trainer. They talk to, they want to find out how they treat other people. You know, how, how do you treat the janitor? How do you treat the security guard at the door?

How do you treat, because how you do treat those people, how you handle those relationships will tell you a lot about, can I count on you in the fourth quarter? And that's who you are too, right? And that's the way that you show up in the last minute when you really need a play, you know, it's because who you are and, you know, you'd kind of go to your default. So awesome, Joe, I really appreciate your time and your energy today, helping us think about the impact that we make tell us how that we can get a hold of the book so you have two books the silent impact and the silent impact blueprint a step-by-step guide to a life of significance yep tell us where we

can get both of those you can get them on my website joeshmidt.com and that's schmidt with no d s-c-h-m-I-T. They're on Amazon. They're on Kindle. I'm not sure where else they are, but kind of the all-normal spots. They're not in any stores. I don't care about them being in stores. There are no stores anymore, are there? I don't know.

I don't know. Yeah, a few, but. Yeah, but you can get them there and order them up and go from there. Awesome, Joe. Thank you so much for your time and energy today. All right, Cinder. Keep the good work up. You too.

Bye-bye. Thank you for listening to High Performance Mindset. If you like today's podcast, make a comment, share it with a friend, and join the conversation on Twitter at Mentally Underscore Strong. For more inspiration and to receive Cinder's free weekly videos, check out DrCinder.com.