The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 461: Brad Meltzer - How To Tell Your Story, Respond From Rejection, & Love Your Work

Episode Date: February 28, 2022

Text Hawk to 66866 for "Mindful Monday" Full show notes at www.LearningLeader.com Twitter/IG: @RyanHawk12      https://twitter.com/RyanHawk12 Brad Meltzer is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Inner Circle, The Book of Fate, and ten other bestselling thrillers. He also writes non-fiction books like The First Conspiracy, about a secret plot to kill George Washington – and the Ordinary People Change the World kids book series. His newest thriller, The Escape Artist, debuted at #1 on the bestseller list. Brad is also responsible for helping find the missing 9/11 flag that the firefighters raised at Ground Zero, making national news on the 15th anniversary of 9/11. Former President George H.W. Bush also gave Brad, for the very first time, the secret letter he left for President Bill Clinton in the Oval Office desk. If you need a good cry, read this story about Brad reading to President Bush before he died. The Hollywood Reporter put him on their list of the 25 Most Powerful Authors, and he's been asked to serve as a member of the America250 Council, to celebrate the upcoming 250th birthday of the country. Notes: "Stories aren't the beauty of what did happen. They're the beauty of what could happen." "For me, Superman's greatest contribution has never been the superhero part: it's the Clark Kent part - the idea that any of us, in all our ordinariness, can change the world." The 3 things he tells his kids each night when he tucks them into bed: Dream Big - Young people have the biggest and best dreams. Work Hard - Your first book got 24 rejection letters. And in your TED Talk, you share the story of your Dad and how hard he worked (maybe open with this?). When you were writing your 9th book, your book of heroes for your soon. A story about The Wright Brothers… Every time The Wright Brothers would go out to fly their plane, they would bring enough extra materials for multiple crashes. Every time they went out, they knew they would fail. And they would crash and rebuild, and crash and rebuild. And that's why they took off. Stay Humble - Noone likes a jerk. When Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, he never took credit for it. It was announced when he died and it was in his obituary. All history ever is, is a bunch of stories. How to change history, all you have to do is write your story. History is a selection process. It chooses every single one of us, every single day. You will change history. "Brad's meticulous research and interviews with top-level government sources — including U.S. Presidents — fill each page with authenticity and make his characters come alive." His belief is that ordinary people change the world. It is that core belief that runs through every one of his projects. How to respond from rejection? Brad's first book was rejected 24 times… And then later that book went on to become a bestseller. As a culture, we're starving for heroes "We are all ordinary. We are all boring. We are all spectacular. We are all shy. We are all bold. We are all heroes. We are all helpless. It just depends on the day." "There's nothing more intimate in life than simply being understood. And understanding someone else." "In this world, there was nothing scarier than trusting someone. But there was also nothing more rewarding." "No matter how far we come, our parents are always in us." "The worst lies in life are the ones we tell ourselves." From Brad's book to his daughter: "As your father, my instinct is to protect you ... Other people will want to protect you too. But remember that you are not a damsel in distress, waiting for some prince to rescue you. Forget the prince. With your brain and your resourcefulness, you can rescue yourself." "You need to understand something... In this world, we're not humans having a divine experience. We're divine beings having a human experience."

Welcome to the Learning Leaders Show, presented by Insight Global. I am your host, Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. Text, Hawk to 66866 to become part of Mindful Monday. You along with tens of thousands of other learning leaders from all over the world will receive a carefully curated email for me each Monday morning to help you start. your week off right, you'll also receive details about how my new book, The Pursuit of Excellence, will help you become a more effective leader. Text, Hawk to 66866. Now, on tonight's

featured leader, a treat. The great Brad Meltzer, one of the only authors in the world to ever have books on the bestseller list for nonfiction, advice, fiction, children's books, and even comic books. He's also responsible for finding the missing 9-11 flag that firefighters raised at Ground Zero, and he helped save the original house where Superman was born. This is amazing stuff. He's a fascinating guy. During this episode, we discussed how to respond from rejection.

Brad's first book was rejected 24 times, and then later, It went on to become a bestseller. Then how to become a better storyteller? Brad tells stories throughout this conversation, and we break down his thought process so that you can do it too. And then he shares about the emotional moment. He read one of his books to President George H.W. Bush

during the last days of his life. It was emotional and amazing. Ladies and gentlemen, a great one. It's Brad Meltzer. All right, Brad. So great to have you here on the last. Learning Leader Show. Welcome. Good to be here, my friend. All right. So you've written a ton of books, bestsellers and multiple categories. In fact, I think you're one of the only authors ever

to have books on the bestseller list for nonfiction, advice, children's books, and even comic books. But to start, I want to focus on two of those books. Those books are heroes for my son, and heroes for my daughter. Can you share more about those two books and why you wrote them? Yeah, those books changed my life. And I think one was actually right behind me. It has my daughter on the cover. I usually can't do that.

Only, you know, the best thing that was sit in front of shelf of just your own books. It's always the best. But this is heroes for my daughter, which would put my daughter on the cover. And what happened was I wrote Thrillist for a Living. That was my job. I murdered people for a living, killed people every day. That was the job. And there's no better way to segue to children's books from that. But when I was born on the day I was born, Ryan, my father bought a bottle of champagne.

And he said, I'm going to open up this bottle of champagne on the night my son gets married. And my dad lost his job when he was 39 years old, had nothing, literally nothing left $1,200 to his name. We moved down to Florida. He lost his job in New York. It was a disaster. One of those moments where you don't know your own security. You're not just worried about money, but you're worried about safety. And he started over. I remember, you know, you give all your stuff.

You put your stuff in the with the movers, right? You give them your clothes. You give them your furniture. You give them your stuff. But there's those things you don't trust to the movers. Those things you keep in your car and you say, no one's taking this. And maybe jewelry, maybe pictures, whatever it is. But you're like, I'm moving this myself.

And for me, I remember we drove my mom and dad were in the front seat. I was 13 years old. My sister and I were in the back seat and behind our headrests with two bottles of champagne that used to roll back and forth in the Florida son. My parents didn't know anything about taking care of champagne, but we were their lives. That was what they cared about. And all these years go by. I write these thrillers.

I'm murdering people all the time. And then I had a kid. I had a son. And I didn't care about champagne. And I should tell you, though, Ryan, is that we did open up that bottle of champagne on the night that I got married. We drank with it. It was the foulest nasty.

The nastiest glass of champagne we had in our lives. It had been referred to him as a mess. But it was the greatest class of champagne ever because filled out of my dad's love for me. But when my son was born, I said, I don't care about champagne. I'm a writer. I want to leave him a legacy of a book.

I'm going to write him a book of rules on how to be a good man. And I'm going to write down all the rules to be a good man, to be a good leader. And I started writing these rules down on the day he was born. And the book was garbage. Because as anyone knows, if you have kids, telling your kid to be good and expecting it to work is just useless. It doesn't work.

So what happened was, and it's so funny, he called me, I'm not joking 10 minutes ago, my friend Simon Sinek told me the story about the Wright brothers. He said every time the Wright brothers were out to fly their plane, they would bring enough extra materials from multiple crashes, which means every time they went out, they knew they would fail. and they would crash and rebuild and crash and rebuild, and that's why they took off. And I loved that story. I wanted my sons to hear that story. I wanted my daughter to hear that story. I wanted everyone to know if you dream big and you work hard, you have a good side order of stubbornness. You can do anything in this world. And I said, that's the book I want to write, not a book of rules, but a book of heroes. And so I did. We started with heroes to my son, filled it with 50 heroes, one page stories. First one was the Wright Brothers story. I just told you. We did it.

heroes for my daughter because my daughter's like, where's my book, right? Girls are smart. She's like, you got one for your boy. You better get one for me. And the truth was is my thriller publisher, you know, they like selling thrillers. That's what they know is a known commodity. And I said to them, listen, I'm writing this kid's book. If you don't like it, I know you have all these authors who I never get to tell this story, but I'm not joking. I said to them, if you don't love the book, don't do the book and feel like you got to service it because I sell a lot of thrillers for you. If you don't like it, just tell me you don't like it. And they're like, oh, thank you, Brad. We don't like it. I'm like, what do you mean?

You don't like it. It's freaking great. And I wound up selling it to another publisher. And Heroes My Son came out, hit number two on the best serial list. It had an advertising budget of $0. Zero. No ads for it. When we do our thrillers, it's like I'm invading a small country. And everyone said, how'd you do that? And I said, it had nothing to do with me. It said as a culture right now, we're starving for heroes. We're starving for them. And I knew that there had to be other parents out there who wanted to give those same lessons of leadership and kindness and perseverance to their kids.

And that book changed my life because it made me from a thriller author to now being able to write kids books and inspiration and how to and all the other things you mentioned. Wow. I didn't know we get that much out of that question, but I'm so glad we started there. Next place. It's a story. Everything's a story, man. I know, man.

That's why I was pumped to do this one. because I've watched your commence or I've read about your commencement speech. It's hard to find the actual video of that, but it isn't hard to find your TED talk about that, which you told that Wright Brothers story. If you look at this book right here behind me, man, David McCullough's book, because I live in Dayton, Ohio, right down the street from where their bicycle shop. Truly right there. You're right there. And so that that's a personal story to me because everything around where I lived is named after the Wright brothers, Wright State University. It's everywhere. But another emotional story, and I wasn't expecting to go this way, man, but I'm glad it is,

is that I read that you spent time reading one of your books to President George H. W. Bush Right before he died. How did that come about? Yeah, this is a crazy story. This is one of those ones where you're like, you'd never plan to happen. And what happened was, is just before President Bush died, what no one knew at the time, and we weren't allowed to say at the time, but they were bringing in some of his favorite writers and having them read to him.

And I got the call. And I was in Kennebunk, Port Main. They were, like, come in, and my wife and I went in, and we knew it was the end, right? You know what you're going into here. And the Secret Service leave. And the Secret Service said to me, listen, you're going to read for like five minutes. That's it. If I have 10 minutes, he's going to fall

asleep. He's just not awake a lot these days. Read him for five, 10 minutes. Let him fall asleep, and then you'll excuse yourself. You got it. I'd be honored to do it. Five minutes. And I go in the room, the Secret Service leave, and it's myself, my wife, President Bush, and his service dog, Sully. And on his desk is a stack of books. And one of my books is there, the first conspiracy about the secret plot to kill George Washington, a nonfiction book about a real plot. to kill Washington. And I brought the book. He had given me a blurb for it.

President Clinton had given me a blurb for it, too. And I said to him, sir, and it looked like it was dog-eared. Like, I gave him an early copy. And so it was all dog-yered. Like, I'd been read a million times. I said, sir, you want to read this book? And he says, mm-hmm. Because, Brian, at that point, he can't speak.

It's mm-hmm or mm-mm. And that's it. I say, you want to read this one? Mm-hmm. And I start reading five minutes, 10 minutes go in. He's asleep. And like, you know what? I'm just going to do my job.

I'm going to finish this chapter and excuse myself. And the chapter that I brought to him is the moment where George Washington brings and has the Declaration of Independence read for the very first time to his troops. And I get to those words, those words we all know, we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. And in that moment, President Bush's eyes pop open and he's wide awake. It's like it's been an infusion from the Declaration of Independence itself. And I get to the end of the chapter and I say,

sir, he's wide awake. I say, sir, you want to read another chapter? Mm-hmm. Get to the end of that chapter. Want I read another, sir? Mm-hmm. And another? Mm-hmm.

And instead of being there for five or ten minutes, I'm there for an hour. And when it was over, after an hour, I said goodbye. I knew I'd never see him again. I knew it was the end. And we were at his funeral, and they invited us to the funeral. I remember there was this one word that kept being used over and over again. It was this word decency. And all the eulogies, people,

we're giving the word decency. And to me, you know, it's not just because it was a decent man, but again, like heroes, we're starving for decency. We're starving for heroes. We're starving for like that morality to come back to this culture. And obviously it was something I never, Ryan thought it was ever going to happen in my life, but wound up to become one of the craziest moments I've ever experienced. Why do you think we've lost that? That's the better question. You said the best parts were always in the follow-ups. And it's right. I think that what we got obsessed with is thinking that we can change the world by making everyone else change and forgetting. It's what egomaniacs always do, right?

There's a line in the book. It says leadership is not about being in charge. It's about taking care of those in your charge. Right. And George Washington embodied that. And I think what we started to do is think those people did this to me. We got to change those people. and forgetting the classic old quote that says,

if you want to change the world, you start by changing yourself. And I think the more you blame and try to make everyone else change, the less responsibility you take and the more we get away from it. Now, listen, that's a very simple answer. I think part of it has to do with, you know,

I was reading this Harvard study that said, when you and I were growing up, even despite our difference in age, but whatever, anything, anyone that grew up 20, 30 years ago, what your parents taught you and built into you was that being smart was the valuable thing. You had to go to school and be smart.

And what we do with our kids today, whether we like it or not, and we don't do it by choice, but it happens is we are teaching our kids through social media by all those likes and all those thumbs up and all those followers that we care about is we're not showing, we're not trying to teach them,

but we're teaching them that it's more important to be popular. That's what the message is. Even when you don't say it, when you're checking your Facebook page, you're checking your Instagram, you're checking how many likes you got, you're checking if your old girlfriend gave you the like to or if she saw it. You're teaching your kids of being popular matters. And that is also a hand-in-hand disaster. And I think the third part of that is everyone wants to blame the news media did it, right? The media did it. It says corrupt media.

But the news can't put on and serve you stuff unless you're eating it. They can't just put anything on. You got to watch. We all want to blame the meatists. They did this. They put this on. They became corrupt. But if you're not watching, they won't serve it.

So as long as we keep eating garbage, they'll keep serving garbage. And I think that those three things put together have just kind of put us in this spiral where we forget what's, we've lost our compass. We've lost our true north as a culture. And it's why I've taken, even though I write, you know, the new thriller is the lightning rod. And it's this great thriller, blah, blah, blah. But in companion with that, I felt my own need to say, we need to do something for our kids and teach them right and started this whole line of children's books

because I was like, we have to fight back against what we see and not just, don't just complain about it. Everyone can complain. If you complain about it, you're just walking Twitter. The key is to actually do something about it. To get back to George Washington. So because of the prep needed to be done for this conversation, I actually took a deep dive into George Washington. I'm kind of embarrassed to admit that I hadn't really ever done that before. I mean, I just went to school and paid a little bit of attention and then kind of, you know, I was done with that.

And I didn't realize there's so much awesome stuff about this guy. And I read a line from your book. The soldiers saw Washington risk his own life to save the lives of his men. And I love for you, because I know a big part of your writing both nonfiction and fiction books is you do an amazing amount of research leading up to putting anything in a book. Can you share more about the leadership, the leadership qualities and the essence of George Washington? Yeah, listen, obviously, as someone who's written nonfiction books on Lincoln and Washington, I betray myself as to whom my favorite presidents are. And the moment you're talking about is the beginning of the Revolutionary War.

It's 1776. It's in New York. And Washington, you know, we all tell the story that George Washington brought the country together and we held hands with the British and we all against the British and we took down the British the greatest fighting force at that moment in time. And what an amazing story. And it is an amazing story, but it's not a true story. That's not how it went. What happened was is George Washington in those early battles of the Revolutionary War, we got our butts kicked. In the first big battle, he gets pinned down to the East River. The British are in front of him. He's got the East

River behind them. That's it. He's got no way to run. He's got no way to run. And this is the moment where George Washington should die. He's supposed to die here. The Revolutionary War should be over in this moment. And in the middle of the night, he does what all great leaders do in moments where it all goes south, as he improvises. He does the best thing he always does. He improvises. And in the middle of the night, he starts commandeering every boat along the East River, one by one.

And he starts putting his men aboard the boat and sailing him in safety. But the key moment, Ryan, is that he won't get on any of the boats until all of his men. are safely sailed across the East River. And not just his high-level generals, but the lowest people out there that he's working with. And they see that. They see that he's risking his life so they can get across safely.

And again, what I said before, leadership is not about being in charge, it's about taking care of those in your charge. Another of my friend Simon's beat that into my head. And to me, it's not that that's the magic moment that created America. There are plenty before and plenty after.

always want to simplify, but it is the moment that shows you what leadership is. And to me, you don't forget that. That is why we get as far as we get is because we have someone like that. The greatest thing George Washington ever does is not win the war or win the presidency or any of that. The greatest thing he ever does is you saw at the end of the book is he basically, when we win, he can be the king of America. That's a system we know. Have a king. He'll be king Washington. We will happily have people are ready for it. And instead, he chose to be president. They'll elect them another time. They'll go for another term.

They'll happily sign up for him. But instead, he decides to have faith in us as a culture, faith in us as a country, faith in us as a people, and he walks away from the power. And King George at the time says, what's George Washington going to do now at the war's over? And they said, oh, he's going to go back to his, he's going back to his farm. And King George says, if he does that, he'll be the greatest man who ever lived. And that's what he does. That's what he does.

And again, I think that level of character is the world. word that I'm really describing here is something that's become sadly a lost art, especially in leaders. And by the way, one of the thing, I do think the more money is in the process, the more it's corrupted the process. That's my little fourth part. I think from leadership, especially in government, the more it's about how much money you have as opposed to what your ideas are, that's thrown us for a loop all.

Yeah, I want to shift a little bit to storytelling, Brad, because that's what you do for a living. And you've been exhibiting that from the second that we've connected here, which is awesome and why I was I was pumped to talk with you. And one of the things you've said is that we, as in the collective we are all ordinary. We're all boring. We're all spectacular. We're all shy. We're all bold. We're all heroes.

We're all helpless. Just depends on the day. And in your TED talk and I know in the commencement speech, things you've shared publicly. Can you talk more about how everyone has a chance to become a storyteller and tell their own story and why it's important and an important skill, I guess, for us to develop and to think about this, regardless of what we're doing in our career, I definitely think this is important for leaders. But regardless of what we're going to do, this skill of understanding our story and how to tell it and how to become a better storyteller in general, I think is really important. Can you share more about that? Yeah, I think what people don't realize is, you know, we all think that history is something that happened back that way behind us. And history is that, but it's also what hasn't happened yet, right?

What's in front of us. That's history that hasn't been written yet. That's your story. Obviously what behind you, the story you leave behind. But every day you get out of bed, every decision you make, it's part of your story. And I think the thing we forget is we don't just have a story, but we have this legacy. And one of the things I talked about is years ago, this guy, I worked to save the house where Superman was created. I love Superman.

And I've written Superman and Batman and other characters like that. And this reporter from the Wall Street Journal was interviewing me about it because we helped to save the house with Superman as a character was created in Cleveland, Ohio, not far from you. And he said, you know, this thing you did with the Superman house is going to be in your obituary. And I was so struck by that. I was like, well, thanks for so clearly contemplating my death, right? But I was struck, like, what is, what's my story? What are they going to remember about me, right? What, I mean, was I good, did I, was I bad?

Did I matter? Did I achieve great? Like, what's my story? And I'll spare you, I'm not going to do a TED talk. You can watch the TED talk, but I went on this quest to figure out what my legacy is. What is that story? And we all know our family. We have an effect on our family.

We know we have an effect on our friends. but I think the thing that we forget as people is all the other people that get affected by us. And it's, you know, it's not just your family and your friends, but it's, or even your coworkers, but it's people in your community. And for those of us who are lucky enough, you know, those of you out there who are lucky enough to really impact your community, you're also going to affect complete another strangers. All of us do. You know, whether it's being nice to the waiter who comes to your table, my friend and I always say

all the time, if you're nice to me and you're a jerk to the waiter, you're a jerk. That's it. And that person remembers that. I scooped ice cream for four years in the mall. I remember what it was like when people were going like this and snapping for me to come. I swore like Batman at his parents' graves, I would never, ever do that to anyone else. Just by that one person's crap act on me. And to me, I think the more you can kind of remember and really, and I don't mean this in

the egotistical way, but remember your impact. Your impact is not about changing the world or like your impact is just being a good person. If you help one person be kind to one person, if you do nothing else, when I'm done talking with Ryan here today, I'll say this to everyone out listening right now. There's someone who took a chance on you at the start of your career. There's someone who took a chance on you at the start of maybe they gave you your first real job, the first person who ever told you were good at something. I want you to think of that person in your head. And I want you to thank them. That's it.

That's all I ask. When you're done listening here and the podcast over, track them on Facebook, put them their name into Google. And right, thank you. Maybe it's an old teacher. Maybe it's the first person who was at your job, a camp counselor, whatever it might have been. But go say thank you. You won't believe what comes from it.

And when you do, you'll see your legacy. You'll see your story. And they'll see theirs. It's an amazing, amazing adventure to go on. Speaking of that, Brad, I did this about six months ago with one of my high school football coaches who changed my life. The great Ron Allerie, I'll talk about him a lot. but that one text message then led to a dinner with our spouses, you know, and we're hanging out.

And we stayed there for like three hours. It was just, it was an amazing, amazing night. So I just want to reinforce this. Reach back out to somebody who's had an impact on you. It may even take it a step further. There is zero percent chance you will regret it. It was just amazing. I love that advice.

And it's an action you could do literally right now. press pause and just shoot a note to somebody and see what happens or multiple people, you will not regret it. Yeah, and listen, that's what we all do is we all try to see the big thing. Like, whatever is my impact going to be? You don't realize, like, the small thing is the big thing. Yeah. Small thing is always the big thing.

I know you have a Brad's Invisible Army, and at one point you sent them stickers. And the stickers, there's two of them that I saw, at least. And one of them was choose kindness. And the other one was laugh more. Can you share more about why, Choosing kindness and laughing more is important to you. Yeah, you know, we, the two stickers you saw, one was for Abraham Lincoln, which was choose kindness and laugh more was for Lucille Ball. We had Chris Eliopolis, our amazing artist, draw them up on our kids' books. And we just realized that it was,

I mean, what's crazy is about five years ago that we did this. And we just saw the shift in the culture happening, and we saw people had this appetite. And I'll tell you where it started is, Chris, the artist, was signing, I am Albert Einstein, one of the books we do for kids. And this family comes up and she says, my son's autistic and he's just really different. And you can sign the book to him. And so Chris writes in the book, stay weird. And she starts sobbing. And she says, what you can't know is it's not just my son who's artistic, but I'm autistic.

And that's our mantra is that. you have to stay weird. And it meant so much. And then, of course, it gets so emotional. And we realize, why don't we take these mantras and put them out there? And I will literally still see, I see, there's a car that has our stickers on them. And I just love that those stickers, people put them on their car or on their computer or somewhere. Choose kindness. Be daring. Laugh more. Be weird. Like, those were great things to put in the universe. We made no money from. In fact, it cost us money. It was just, we were just like, let's just do it. And it's so stupid, but it's one of the most important, again, the big thing is always the

little thing. The little thing is the big thing. Right. And I love the fact you saw that somewhere. You've got just your life is built upon a series of stories. Every response, there's a story. I love it. It's like, it's my favorite thing about doing this, honestly, man. And so, but what I want to to deconstruct a little bit from that. And this is the practical portion of the conversation is, Again, as I mentioned, I think the most impactful leaders are, they're great communicators and they're great storytellers. Those go hand in hand. I think of my long time mentor, Brian Miller, who was amazing at opening every town hall when I worked in corporate America with this awesome story. He would go find it from some other place in the world, bring it back. He would open

the town hall with the story, and then he would relate the story. to us at that time when I was working as a sales rep. And I never forgot. I'm still talking about it more than a decade later. And because of that, Brad, I would be making mistake if I didn't ask you basically general pieces of what makes good storytelling or how can a leader think about becoming a better storyteller? Think about implementing this into their life. And you, one of the greatest storytellers in the world, I feel like it's a good question to ask. So if you had to break it down into storytelling 101,

what are some of the elements and then practical application for a leader right now to become a better storyteller? Yeah, no, that's a really good question. It's funny, I never break it down. Like, I know that there's, there's a, I never do. I truly don't. I know that there's a three-act struck. You know, there's all these books you can read on storytelling.

There's a three-act structure. there's, you know, we call them beginning, middle and end, but there is that beginning and then things take a turn. Then you go to the middle and then you know, some resolution, then you know, or disaster. And then you go to the third act, which is, and every movie you've seen has that. And every TV show you watch has that. Maybe there'll be five acts. Maybe there'll be three acts. But it's all, it follows the same structure. But I firmly believe, Ryan, I can teach someone, you know, hey, here's how, here's the structure of it. This is how a good story's told. But I think the best story that any of us can ever tell. And the only story that we can always tell better than

anyone else is our own story. It's the most authentic story you can tell. And I think more important than the structure is the authenticity of it. I can tell you that if you look at my interviews, this is with the release of the Lightning Rod. It's my 25th anniversary as a published author. And if you look at my year one interviews, they all had like these baseball quotes kind of stories. You know, they were like, I'm just happy to be here. I'm so happy. I can't. And the reason they were just so corny and didn't say anything is because I was terrified, to be honest.

I was really, I was terrified that if I said I'm nervous, that I would look weak. I was terrified that if I said, I don't know what the hell I'm doing here, people would laugh. And I just was, everything I said was,

and I was just thankful. I couldn't believe my book was published. I had 24 rejection letters in my first book. There were only 20 publishers. And I got 24 rejection letters. which means some people are writing me twice. But I, somewhere along the way, I said, I don't care. I'm going to just tell them I had a bad day. I'm going to tell them it's hard every day. I sit down the right. I'm going to tell you how many rejection letters I got. I don't care. Like,

I would rather be honest with you and tell my authentic story. And that's the better story. So I think to answer your question, how do you do this practically? I think, and listen, we don't want to hear every honesty that runs through your head. You know, like I, you know, my, my foot is itching right now. I know that that's honest, but you know, you can leave some parts out and edit. But I do think being honest about yourself and, and what you feel is so much more appreciated. I had this thing a couple years ago where as a test, everyone I would go to see, they'd always say, I'd do the same thing we all do. I'd say, how you doing? They say pretty good. I'm like, what's going on with you? They say nothing, what's going on? And that would be the

conversation. We make some small talk or talk about some sports or some score. And as an experiment, It was so boring. It was such boring small talk. As an experiment, I said to someone one day, you know, and not a close friend, but a friend that you would just run into it at the grocery store. And I said, I'm just having a crappy day. Writing was really hard today. Just offered up something that I would never offer up. And the person immediately said to me, me too, ma'am. My work has been sucky lately. And just came out with this incredible honesty that I never thought. And someone who I thought was pretty much a boring flat person, but suddenly had this whole life. And we all think like that person's boring.

They don't want to share it. No, they just don't want to share it with you because you haven't been open to their story. But when you're open to people's stories, you'll get the best stories. And I think it's vice versa. You want to tell your best, tell your authentic story. And it will be the one you can tell.

When you try and structure it to make yourself look good, sound good, this is, it has to have a three bar, you know, forget it. You're just, you're just, you're coloring by, or drawing by like dot by dot following the numbers. But when you tell your true story, I think that's where the masterpiece comes. Why do you think people are afraid to do this? Because we're terrified of being looked at as lesser than what we are.

I can tell you, I can only give you my reason. I have no idea why other people are. But for me, I don't want to be judged. I don't want to, you know, we all go through life. This is a great line yesterday that I heard and said, you can leave where you grew up. but there's always some part that never leaves you. And I love that idea. And it's so true.

And I think at the end of the day, no matter how high you rise on the ladder, no matter what your title is, we all are just simple human beings who just want to be loved and want to be understood. There is nothing more intimate than being understood. Nothing. And I think we are terrified of someone judging us

and thinking, again, you're weak, you couldn't do this. And so we just kind of like lock up and we tighten up. And I think if you can, when both my parents died, the one lesson I took away from it all is I couldn't control it. I'm someone who loves control. What writers do, when I write my thrillers, when I write the lightning rod, for 400 pages, I tell everyone what to do.

And every character in this imaginary universe does everything I say. It's a control freak's dream. I never realized it in the beginning of my career. I just thought I like to write. I like to tell stories, but it's control. And those of you who are out there who have these positions of power in your companies, and you also love control. Whether you want to admit it or not, you do.

And that's why you're good at what you do. But your greatest strength is always your greatest weakness. And I think the one thing I learn with my parents dying is you have to surrender sometimes. And I don't mean give up because that's the wrong use of the word. But I mean be more open to acceptance of other. people of other things that are not your way of doing things. And I think that that is just a miraculous thing to do. And then when you do that and you don't feel a judge, you'll be more open. And again, people will be open to you. Yeah, like the focus on what's within your control and

almost surrendering the outcome, right? Like it's almost when you write a book, I would imagine. I know this feeling from publishing a couple of books, I'm going to do everything I can to write the best possible book I can at that point in my life. And I'm going to try to sell it to. I'm going to get out there. But after that, you know, like, it's, it, it, that I have to almost surrender the outcome and just focus on the process or focus on what I do day to day. I can't worry too much about that. Like, and I'm curious from a goal setting perspective, because when you write and publish books and you said when you market these things, you put a lot behind it. And the publisher does too, because I don't know, you're in however many bestsellers, tons of them.

how do you think about that when it comes like book sales or these events in your life that are kind of out of your control that within your control is writing the story right and then you'll be a part of the marketing that's part of you know how we got connected for this but how do you think about goals book sales and all of that um you know in the beginning I was terrified of them I never I didn't know there was a bestseller list until I was on it there were no books in my house growing up. My parents literally like read that my mom read the star in the and my dad read the sports page. We were no books in my house. I didn't know that was the best star list. So I didn't give a crap. The publisher recently tried for the lightning rod. They wanted to

move our date because it was a big book coming out against us. And they were really, I think, worried that if I wasn't number one, I was going to be upset. And I literally said to them, who cares? It doesn't matter. Stay where it. We kept the day right where well. I'm like, are you kidding? And they're like, they said, I'm not joking. They said to me, I wish I could tape what you just said and play it for other authors. I'm like, I've been every number on that list. You know, from every number one, it's okay. And yes, it's great being number one. I've been, you know, you do it and you feel good, but it doesn't make any better. It doesn't make any smarter. It doesn't make you a good person. So I did, you know, I remember when we hit number one for the

very first time, I called my mother. May she rest in peace. And my wife had known they called looking for me at the time. And they couldn't find me, but they got my wife's, my wife knew. And I called mom and so we were number one in the best cellar list and my mom starts sobbing crying and i said mom i was worried she was driving so i'm like where are you i don't want you to crash the car and she said i said where are you she says i'm at marshals and of course my mom was at marshals trying to buy like irregular socks for two dollars right and it was the greatest lesson for me that my mother could ever give me which is you know you it doesn't matter and nothing you know you never ever ever changed don't let you think that I remember when my first book didn't work out. The second book, I'm sorry, the first book

hit the best sell list. The second book didn't work out. It was a disaster, total disaster. We thought to the publisher shut down. We thought I was never going to get a book contract again. I called my mom terrified. And again, in this moment of just pure, just blurting stuff out, my mom said to me, I'd love you if you were a garbage man. And she wasn't taking a crap of garbage man. My uncle was a garbage man. But she was just saying, whatever you are, I love you. That's it. And I think that was the best lesson for me. So, you know, the only thing I care about is the publisher happy. If you ask me right now, how much the last book sell? I couldn't even tell you the number. I don't look. It doesn't matter because all it does is feed my ego. Either I get really impressed with myself or I feel really insecure and both things are a waste of my time. So I don't know. I don't look. You're happy? We want to do another. Let's go do another. I know if they went up or down by a little bit, but I couldn't even tell you how much because that's the wrong priority. The priority is make the best. book, live your life in a good way, live by the values that you expect everyone else to live by. With the lightning rod, your latest thriller, you focus on a character. And I'm fascinated by

like this character development part of how you get that out of your brain onto a page and write in a compelling fashion, something I have never really done before because I'm a nonfiction writer. What is that like? What space do you have to get to in order to create these characters? And basically, I would feel like you have to live in their world in order to build these stories. Can you share more about character creation in that world and how you're able to go from the regular world into that one in order to write these incredible books? Yeah, you know, and it is. You do have to step. you know, what the best thing that a book does is it lets you look through someone else's

eyes. It's an amazing thing. And as the writer, I have to look through someone else's eyes to put that on the page. I remember I do a lot of work with the U.S.O. I do a lot of work with the military. I've been all over the world with U.S.O from the Middle East and Kuwait and Qatar and Oman and Turkey in Cuba, they've sent me to. And it was there. I found it about Dover Air Force Base. And Dover Air Force Base, if you don't know the name of it, you've seen it on TV. It's when a coffin with a flag covered coffin comes off the big plane, you see everyone salute that flag. You saw at the end of when we left Afghanistan, you saw those 13 soldiers, you saw those flags come off. And that's where the government's most secret funeral home is. That's where that's a place that's

filled with secrets. I was like, I want to know about that. So I was like, I'm going to research the people who worked there. And I said, I met with the morticians who work in Dover. And I said, have you ever had a body come through where there's like a secret message in their pocket or maybe a tattoo or something interesting. Like I wanted to see through their eyes. And I'll never forget, they said to me, well, if you're on a plane and the plane is going down, it's going to crash. If you write a note and you eat that note that depending on the height of your plane and when you crash, the liquids in your stomach will actually preserve the note upon the crash. And I was like, that's a really good idea. And he said, it's not an idea.

It really happened. I'm like, what? And the opening scene of, I just ruined chapter one of the new book, but the opening scene of the escape artist is literally that. And I was like, I got that. Now I have it. And once I had that,

and I saw that this is the kind of person who does this kind of work. But what cracked them open for me was not, that's the plot. What cracked them open for me was seeing his life. And these are the men and women who work there. They will spend 12 hours rewiring a fallen soldier's jaw, smoothing it over with clay because a family wants to see their son one last time

or rebuilding someone's missing hand because a mother says she wants to hold her son's hand one last time. These are the best of the best of us working on the best of the best of us. And I was like, that's the kind of person I want to write about as a hero for my book. So Zig became the hero of the books. And it was literally looking through all these other imaginary Zig's. I built him on all these other real people's experiences. And that's how I built the character, literally just looking at their lives. looking at their things and making this amalgam of all these people that I got to encounter.

That, you know, why does someone spend their whole life just trying to give a fallen soldier the dignity and respect and trust that they deserve? Wow. Are you, are your brain ever able to turn off or are you always thinking about this stuff? Like even let me tell you right. This is again, greatest strength, greatest weakness, right? I mean, so I, so so the lightning rod has a perfect example, it opens with what I firmly believe, again, be honest with your fears and you'll get far more. So I literally took my own advice. One of my greatest fears, Ryan, is when I go to the valet, and I'll tell you this is the opening scene. Okay, this is what I came up with. This is literally my brain on when I'm going out to dinner. And the opening scene is, is a valet, guy pulls up in a

BMW, throws a keys to his valet, but kind of slaps him against his chest in a kind of dickish way. and the valet takes the car, gets in the car, the BMW, and the guy's like a kind of Captain America type through the keys. He's like this big burly guy, like blonde, buzzed hair, military type. And the valet gets in the car, and instead of going to the parking lot to park the car, he hits the GPS on the button on the car and says,

go home. And the car goes, do, do, do, do, do, do, too, too, too, too, too, too, and plots, of course, to home. Now the valet is riding to this guy's house, to Captain America's house, with his keys and his house keys in the car. One of my greatest fears I think of every time I parked my car in LA, when he gets to the house, he's going to rob the house. That's what he does. He robs people's houses. He just steals one thing because when you're missing a ring or you're missing an earring, you never report it. You just think you lost it.

Goes into the house. As he walks into the house, someone there says, you really think we didn't know what you were doing. And he realized this isn't a robbery. This is a trap. And he goes running out of the house. He gets outside the house. He gets into the car to get out of there because the guy has a gun is going to kill him. and someone grabs him from behind. It's Captain America who saw what he did and followed him home. He says, you would rob me. You come and steal from me. And the guy's like, we got to get out of here. There's someone in your house.

You got to get out of here. And they hear a knock, knock on the window. And they both turn to the left. And all of a sudden there's a guy with the gun, shoots one, shoots Captain America. They both go dead. And that's the end of the chapter one of the lightning rod. And needless to say, who done it is the most important question of it.

But that's based on my literally fear and never been. able to shut it off, just going out to dinner that gave me the chapter one to that book. So this is a real fear of yours and you turn these real fears into stories in your books. Always. These are movies, though. These are movies, right? This has got to be a movie, right? I know.

We're always trying to do them. We're working on one right now with Netflix. But they're, you know, if they do them, God bless, have fun. But after 25 years of doing this, that's icing on a nice cake. It's fine. But to answer your question, yes, my brain doesn't like, thankfully, I, it doesn't shut off on those moments, but I use it for all it's worth. What's your process to take these stories and get them out of your head onto the page? Like, how do you just type it on your phone really fast?

Are you then to then put that on the computer? Like, how do you do it? Yeah, no, I type right in the computer. I mean, I'll take no. I mean, I keep notes and stuff like that. I'm, you know, in books all over my house and there's things and, you know, all over the house has paper and everywhere where I can write stuff down if the phone's not nearby. But the truth is, it's you know, writing a book is like building a sand, castle a grain of sand at a time. Just got a day one,

you got one page, you got nothing. You got a grain of sand. Day two, you got two grains of sand, you got nothing. But if you put a page down every single day,

in a year, you will have a book. You will have a little castle. So your, your process is just show up and get to work every day. Get your butt in the chair and do the work.

Just get your button in the chair. You know, people want to think writers are like, you know, oh, it's magical. We sit on the beach. And then you, you know,

you have a, you know, Margarita, but it's work. It's work like anything else. And it's hard every day. It's hard every single day to sit with a blank page and try to create a universe. And when it's nonfiction, it's oddly like, I just have to follow the story. This is what happened to George Washington. This is what happened Abraham Lincoln. Here's what happened next. And I love those stories. And we tell a lot of them, obviously. But the fiction side is the house you get to build with your own hands. There's nothing but a blank page. There's no characters. There's no nothing. You just write chapter one and you start.

and you show up every day. You also are prolific in that you're constantly publishing. As mentioned, you've been on like four different bestsellers list at the same time. So do you ever have moments where you're like, you know what, I'm kind of good. Let me relax. It seems like with the amount of what you produce that you don't really ever take breaks. You know, it looks like I'm super fast, but I'm not. The truth is the kids books are what make me look like I'm faster.

The lightning rod is a sequel. The last thriller I did came out four years ago. That's how slow I've been. I can write a book a year. They'd be garbage. And you know the author. There are authors who do it great. Well, God bless and they do it great.

But you know which authors are churning it out. And I know if I wrote a book a year, they would be garbage. And I don't want to ever be that guy. I've read that some in this in this field have a team of people kind of constantly writing. I sense that's not. Yeah, I mean, anyone that I work with, I work on the nonfiction with.

He's on the cover. You see his name. I work on all my stuff. If my name's on the cover, I wrote it myself. When I work with Chris Eliopoulos, who's the artist, you'll see his name. I don't believe in a team. I don't believe in the ghost writing like that. Everyone we work with, I work with for a different reason.

They bring a different skill set, whether it's research or writing and we're drawing. But I can't do it like that. For those thrillers, I have to sit down and write that book. I have one book I did with someone who was a dear friend and we had just a blast doing it. But beyond that one, every single one I sit there and just you do the work. I read it online. It says Brad's meticulous research and interviews with top level government sources, including U.S. presidents, fill each page with authenticity and make his characters come alive. I really love the research process of podcast, of writing. And it sounds like this is a huge part, even when writing novels, when writing fiction books. Can you share with me your thought process on doing research and why that's so important? important. Yeah, you know, some people just make it up. And I can make it up, but I need it. You know, if I said to you, there were tunnels that go from the White House, their underground tunnels in the

White House, and they go all the way from the White House all the way down to Disney World. You would do, your face would do exactly what you just just did, right? Which is you're like, that's bullshit. You know it's, you know that that's not true. You just know there's some in turn, we have a great BS meter. The one thing of being a society that has more access to information, is we know we're being lied to for the most part sometimes. But we, well, these days you don't know. But truthfully, like, you know that that one's not true. You just know it. Something in your core tells you that's I mean, that would be pretty cool, but yeah. It will be cool, right? We'd all love it. But if I tell you that when you're in the ground floor corridor on the first floor of the White House and you're looking down the

red carpet, I want you to go halfway down that red carpet on your left will be two statues. It'll be one of Winston Churchill and FDR. Make a left in a door that's right there. And you're In that door, you're going to open up. There's going to be all these chairs stacked up to the ceiling. That's where they store the chairs for the state dinners. On the back of that room, there's another door. I want you to go out that door. You'll see the ceiling's going to start sloping down a little bit.

You'll smell the flowers in the air. The White House flower shop is there. You're going to pass the bowling alley on your left. And as the HVAC equipment slowly makes the ceiling go down lower and lower, you're going to find a dead end. Now you're in the basement of the White House at that dead end, make a right-hand turn. You'll see a steel door. That's the entrance to the secret tunnel below the White House.

it's a bomb shelter. That's where JFK went out. That's where Dick Cheney went on 9-11. That's where they take everybody. It's a bomb shelter. And I would tell you exactly where it leads out, but I would ruin the book that it's in, and I don't want to do that.

But where you see it go out is exactly where it goes out. And now you know, when I tell you that story, you're like, that sounds real. And it's real. And I need that to be real. Because when I make it real, you know it's real. And now my fiction, which is just a big lie trying to masquerade at the truth,

has that air, as you said, of authenticity that you're like, this is real, man. He spoke to somebody. And I always tell my secret service guys, anyone in FBI, whoever I speak to, I always say, I can fool 99% of the people out there. They'll never know what's true and not. The lightning rod, there's some high-end government stuff, these secret warehouses around the country that the government has. I didn't make them up. They're all real. And I say to them all the time, I say, I can fool 99% of the people. I want to fool your coworkers. I want them to go, oh my gosh, who did Brad talk to? I want them to go, I know this is real and I know he got it right. So I want to get it right for all of them.

And that's always the kind of like, I mean, I'll always change the security codes. I'll always change the security entry because I never want to sacrifice that. But otherwise, what you see in those books, you'll see, you know, those details, especially in the lighting rod, are just based on what I really got to go research and see. How have you developed such quality, relationships with these high-level sources. I mean, that I don't hear of this often, man, if ever, how have you done this? You know, if I called you tomorrow, Ryan, a stranger called you up tomorrow and said, hey, Ryan, I'm a writer and I'm just writing a guy who, you know, writes nonfiction books or who does podcasts, who does all the things you do. I just, can I get like 10 minutes

your time just to tell me what your job is like? Most 90% of people will say yes. 90% of people will just be like, you know what? That person is showing interest in me and what I do for living. you got it. Obviously, it gets trickier when you're dealing with the Secret Service. You know, the word secret is in the title in the Secret Service. They don't tend to do that. I got very lucky that my second book that I ever tried to, the third book, sorry, that I ever tried to research in the White House. The first one I ever did in the White House, I walked into this guy from the Secret Service. I didn't think it was going to help me at all, but he took the meeting. And I sat down and he said, you know, Brad, I read your first book and I liked it a lot. Let me help you. And he helped me that day.

And I'll never forget. He said, I'm going to tell you something you can't print. But I need to explain it to you so you understand this part, which you can print. Deal? And I was like, you got it. They've told me things over the past 15 years that I will never, ever tell anyone. I know for sure would put things national security at risk. But I will never say a word because I gave my word. And the reason why the Secret Service has helped me for well over, you know, almost two decades now is because I don't break my word. That is vital to me. And what they tell me don't print, I don't print, what they tell me I can print, I do print. And that trust is why I get to keep doing it. And then listen, having President Bush and Bill Clinton read the books and write to me and saying, hey, I like your book,

do you want to come to the White House? Like, that's helpful, right? That's just one you can't count on. And I got to go. And so that's, you know, that's just dumb luck at that point. Well, I mean, no, I think part of it is if you're willing to have the guts to put your stuff out there in public, right, whatever may be. And it's so good that it can't be a good. And it can't be a good. ignored, including by presidents, that then gives you the chance to create pretty cool opportunities for yourself if you're willing to put it out there and you do it. Obviously, you've done that. My curiosity is getting the best of me, though, Brad. The truths or truths that you know about, like, I don't know, are government and things going on? Are they more wild than even fiction?

Like, would I even believe them if I heard them? You don't have to get into it. you believe them all. You believe them all because they're all, they tend to be like some of the security loopholes. Some are just things that there are a couple that you're like, wow, we have that. And you're like, that's pretty good. You know, like if I said to you, I'll give you one that's actually that I used because it's just a cool one. But it's, it's a perfect example of one. But like, if I said to you that, let me think of a good one. Let me think of one that's in the new book. I'll give you one right out of context. I mean, the warehouse is the best one. So we have, this is a perfect one. We have across the country, we tried to figure out if the end of the world is coming, how do we prepare for it?

And remember back in the day, you know, they built Mount Weather, they built these places where the top government people go, where the president goes if there's a disaster. But they tried to figure out what happens to the rest of us. All of us who are not big shots or senators, like what happens to us in case a nuclear war? What do we do? And they studied it. They tried to figure it out. And the truth, you know, it had us hiding under desks. And, you know, our parents used to have those drills and all that nonsense. They realized, we're going to just die.

That's what's going to happen. You know, they have this whole plan where they're going to take mail trucks. And mail trucks are going to be used to transport bodies. That was the government's plan. There's only so many bodies, we're going to have to use mail trucks. There's no more mail. We're going to use that as versus. And then this one government worker basically said, you know what we should do?

There could be like a biological thing that happens. Forget about nuclear war. We're not worried about that anymore. What if there's a biological attack? We should have like a warehouse, like a Costco Walmart-sized warehouse that holds anthrax, that holds smallpox, that holds cobra venom, that holds everything that you can use. Gotham did something happens. And the government said, for once, got it right and said, that's a good idea. And to this day, the government has about a dozen secret warehouses secretly hidden around the country. in places you would never believe. Some is obvious right, like you're staring at, you don't even realize you're staring at it. And it houses the craziest stuff you've ever had.

It's where all the ventilators were right before COVID broke out. It's where COVID will be for the next 20 years in cases another one. And 9-11 happened. And when anthrax got loose, the reason why it wasn't a huge outbreak is because those storehouses, those stockpiles kicked in. And if I told you where they are, I know where a bunch of them are, you'd be like, oh, crap. And you know it sounds real, but you're like, that's cool. I'm glad we have that. And that to me, the moment I heard about that, I was like, that's a good idea for a book. So you'll see in the lightning rod, you'll see exactly what's in those warehouses. It will blow your mind some of the

things that are in there. That's so cool. One more, Brad. So I, there's, you know, get questions quite a bit. And I'm sure you do too. But let's let's take it to somebody who's like a fresh college grad. Maybe they're like early 20s and mid-20s and they just come to you and want some kind of general pieces of life slash career advice for the person who wants to do good, right? They want to be kind. They want to laugh more, right? They want to be of service to others. They want to do well. What are some general pieces of life slash career advice you give to them? Yeah, I mean, you know, it's funny. I just think I got 12. 24 rejection letters on my first book.

And I don't look back on that experience and say, well, I was right and they were wrong and ha-ha on them. I think life is subjective. And I think you have to let no one tell you no, right? You got to be able to keep going forward to what your goal is. But I think what's really more important is that when you do reach that pinnacle, whatever it is you don't forget where you came from. That's when you get miserable.

Don't free, like I got, so here, this is a perfect ending for us. So here's my secret. My 23rd and 24th rejection letter were supposed to be actually acceptance letters. I thought they were going to be bought. My agent at the time told me, listen, these two publishers love your book. 22 publishers hate it, but two love it. I went to New York. I interviewed with number 23 and 24.

She said to me, I had these great meetings. She said, I think they're going to both bid on it. We're going to have a bidding situation. You're going to make a lot of money. I was in all this debt from law school and debt from college at the time. and she said, sit by your phone, and I'm going to tell you what the offers are. So whatever time of the day, back when you sat by your phone because there were no cell phones, I sat by the phone.

I thought I was going to pick up the phone. She's going to tell me, you made it. You made money. You're finally out of debt. And I picked up the phone and she said to me, sorry, kiddo. And my heart sank. It was a disaster. 23 and 24 were both rejections, too.

No one wanted this book. And to this day, every day that I sit down. to write. I literally recreate that moment for myself. I recreate what kind of phone I was holding in my hand. It was one of those clear see-through phones that had wires you could see in it because that seemed high tech at the time. I picture the desk that was on my left, the from Micah crappy desk with the swivel lamp that every college kid had. On my right is the bed. There was just a box screen and a mattress, no headboard or anything fancy. I look out over this balcony on a concrete parking lot. There's a fire station with three doors. I count one, two, three. Sorry, kiddo. I say,

to myself. And for 25 years now, I start my day every single day because I never ever want to be thankless for what I have. I never want to think I made it because the moment I think I made it, I'm done. I never want to be ungrateful for what I've been blessed enough to have, 25 years running every day. I sit down to write, sorry, kiddo, sorry kiddo, sorry kiddo. That's my secret. And to me, it centers me, it brings me down. It, Like, don't worry about getting up. Like, you'll get there. You're listening to this because you want to move.

You'll move. You'll find that. But the key is just remembering who you are at your core and not let it affect you in some crap way that you become that adult you hate. That's what I'd say to myself at 20. Jeez, man. We don't control the event, but we do get to control how we choose to respond. And that is what will hopefully determine.

determine the outcome. And it's obvious, man, that this is what you've done ever since that moment. So for people who maybe are going through the rejection stage right now, however, you would define that in your own world, it's evident you've used it as fuel. And it's awesome. And it's inspiring. The latest books called The Lightning Rod. And I've dug into a number of different books that you've written. And I'm grateful that this came about, man, just because of the fact that I'm normally a nonfiction reader. And when this opportunity presented itself, I started digging in. And I'm really glad that I did because you probably talk to people like me who are like,

I don't really read fiction. And then they dig into it. And then it just opens up this whole new world. And that's what you've played a role doing that for me. So thank you so much for being here, man. No, thanks, brother, Ryan. I appreciate it. Really appreciate it.

I would certainly love to continue our dialogue as we both progress, man. Love it. I appreciate. And thanks for what you're doing. More important, thanks to. Every person out there, thanks for listening, it means more than you realize. Thank you, ma'am. It's safe to say I could sit here or stand here and listen to Brad Meltzer tell stories all day.

I absolutely loved that hour flew by. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did a few takeaways from my notes. The best story that we can tell is the one about ourselves, the one that is authentically us. Authenticity is most important. And he shared how he was initially terrified. to be honest. But then he saw that those stories, the honest ones, the authentic ones, are what resonated most. And I'd urge you to think about how you implement that into your life. And then leadership isn't about being in charge. It's about taking care of those in our charge.

And admittedly, leading up to this conversation, I had not studied a ton about George Washington. And because of this and all of Brad's work, I took a deep dive. And there is so much to learn about this amazing act of service and leadership, especially after he got into power, really good. And then his first book, it was rejected 24 times. The most important part of these stories is not necessarily what happens. It's how we choose to respond. That's going to have the greatest impact on the outcome.

and this is something he wakes up and thinks about every single day before he writes. And I think it's fueled him. And these moments in our lives can fuel us. How we choose to respond will determine the outcome. Once again, I'm going to say thank you so much for continuing to spread the message and telling a friend or two. Hey, you should listen to this episode of The Learning Leader Show with Brad Meltzer. He'll help you become a more effective storyteller and more effective leader. And because you do that, and because you continue to write reviews and rate the show, hopefully five stars on Apple Podcast, you continue to give me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis.

And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so, so much. Talk to you soon. Can't wait.