Welcome to the second episode of our new podcast, 3 Lessons from Breakthrough Leaders!
And in this episode, we are joined by Gary McCullough, whose leadership led transformative growth of some of the world’s leading companies. Gary has spent an illustrious career in the public company sector as a CEO, President, senior executive, and board member in market leading consumer and commercial businesses, including the Procter and Gamble Company, the William Wrigley Jr company, and Abbott Laboratories. You can find Gary’s LinkedIn profile here.
Listen to the S1 E2 ‘The Importance of Compassion in Leadership’ with Gary
In this episode, we will learn about these 3 lessons from Gary
- Never forget who you are
- How compassion marks a great leader
- The importance of always staying curious
If you enjoyed this episode, make sure you subscribe to this podcast and please do leave us a review and rating on your player of choice. We will be updating you on upcoming episodes on our social media so remember to follow us.
Transcript of the episode
Zannah Ryabchuk
Hello, and welcome to a brand new podcast: 3 Lessons from Breakthrough Leaders. I’m Zannah Ryabchuk, MD at Breakthrough Global.
Bart Sayle
And I’m Dr. Bart Sayle, CEO and founder at Breakthrough Global, where we’ve spent the past 30 years developing the Breakthrough methodology to help transform companies looking to reach the highest level.
Zannah Ryabchuk
And in this podcast, we’ll meet the world’s foremost leaders and creative talents, distilling their knowledge and experience into three lessons, which we guarantee will help you and your companies to unleash your potential. And Bart and I will take a moment to analyse the key takeaways and the opportunity for Breakthrough thinking that arises from each one.
Bart Sayle
And in today’s episode, we’ve got a real treat for you, Gary McCullough, who’s led transformative growth of some of the world’s leading companies. Now I’ve known Gary for 20 years. And I’m very grateful that he’s joining today, Gary has spent an illustrious career in the public company sector as a CEO, President, senior executive, and board member in market leading consumer and commercial businesses, including the Procter and Gamble Company, the William Wrigley Jr company, and Abbott Laboratories.
Zannah Ryabchuk
And today, we’ll hear these three lessons from Gary: “never forget who you are”:
Gary McCullough
…”You know, find that thing that you can emulate, right? That that you do want to be better at. So find that thing and tuck it away for something you know, you can use later on. And then conversely, those things that you didn’t want to do, tuck those away, and say, I’m never going to do those”…..
Zannah Ryabchuk
“How compassion marks a great leader”:
Gary McCullough
…”My dad, you know, so he was smart enough to tell me, and this is a pretty common saying that you get more with honey than you do with vinegar”….
Zannah Ryabchuk
And “the importance of always staying curious”:
Gary McCullough
….”Let’s go back to you know, when I was at the Wrigley Company, you know, most people who are old enough will think about those sticks of gum, they were wed to sticks of gum. But gum was being sold at other forms, and there was a reluctance to change”….
Bart Sayle
So let’s get started. Lesson one: No one left behind.
Gary McCullough
I’ll start off, when I’m introducing myself to a group, or in a conversation like this, I usually start off by telling people that I’m an Army brat. I’m very proud of that, my father spent over 30 years in the Army. And I grew up, you know, in the US and places overseas. He was from Dayton, Ohio, my mother’s from Montreal, Canada.
But the reason I say that is because having gone to 15 schools before I graduated from high school, that does one of two things for you – either it makes you an introvert or it makes you an extrovert, you either crave it or you don’t. And I’ve got three sisters who became introverts. And I was the person who became to some degree an extrovert, but it formed a foundation for, you know, how I view the world. I think I’m outward looking, I seek out things to do. But I start there, because it is foundational.
Zannah Ryabchuk
You know, it’s given me an insight into – you had so many different leadership roles. But I’d like to kind of cast our mind back to the army. What are some of the key learnings that you had about leadership there that have stood you in good stead for all of your future leadership roles in your incredible career?
Gary McCullough
Sure. I think one of the things that people believe about the army or the military in general is that because you have a hierarchy, a fairly well defined hierarchy, is that you can simply order people around, and you can, because people do adhere to the chain of command. But you don’t get very far that way. And so, you know, ultimately, there’s still a need to, to be rational in your thinking to make people understand what it is that’s expected of them, and to bring them along. So they can go, you know, so they can do things in a lucid manner.
When you’re asking people to potentially put their lives on the line. They need to understand what it’s for. So, you know, I learned I think fundamentally about leadership. And I think one of the most inspiring leaders that I ever had, in fact the most inspiring leader that I ever had – I’ll tell you the story that, you know, first made me become an admirer of his.
We were doing an exercise. And I remember very clearly it was February, we were in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and it was cold. It was cold, and it was sleeting. And we had been out for, you know, I think 10 or 12 days at that point in time. We hadn’t had very many hot meals. And it was just awful. General Galvin came around and inspected my platoon. And as he was going around, he went to one of my Privates and he asked, he said, Private what do you think of this exercise? And that particular Private was probably the most outspoken one in my unit, he said, Sir, this sucks. And I thought, wow, there goes my little career. And, what he said was, you know, Sir, we’ve got people who are walking around saying that, you know, this is great infantry weather this cold and sleeting and he says for me great infantry weather is 75 degrees in partly cloudy, not 35 degrees in sleeting.
General Galvin looked at him and said, so Well, you know, what can I do to make it better for you? And he said, Well, I sure could use a Snickers bar. And Galvin, you know, pulled out his his notebook and wrote a note and put it in his breast pocket and off you went in about three days later, a big box through the mail to us, you know, it was it was delivered to us out there. So it was still you know, 35 degrees in sleeting. And that box contained 38 Snickers bars. And a note, from general Galvin to that Private. And the note said, Private Nix, I can’t do anything about the weather. But hopefully, this will make your day better. Please share these with the other soldiers in your unit – and we have 38 soldiers in my platoon at the time.
And at that moment, that small note, the time that he took to write that small note was was the most inspiring thing in the world, we would have followed him into hell that day. Because he made our day better and, and so I think about that over the course of the years, I’ve thought about the small things that really make a difference in organisations and individuals. And I began the same practice of writing notes to people in my businesses where if they did a good job, I would just shoot him a note. And I would go around, and I would see on people’s cubicles, you know, the notes that I had written to them maybe a year or two before and I and I think that, you know, to this day, I bet Private Nix is an old man and how probably has that note somewhere in a stack of things that he found valuable.
So, you know, I, I’ve always remembered that John Galvin, who went on to become the NATO commander was very empathetic. He was very charismatic. He was a very caring, very caring person. And I think that’s what people you know, want to see in their leaders, you know, as well as in basic competence, but you don’t become a general or high ranking, you know, leader in organisations, if you don’t have some level of competence.
Bart Sayle
One of the things that it brought up for me is to have the most incredible military leaders, Caesar and Napoleon. They had that quality with them. Caesar’s legionaries would follow him anywhere, right. And he would remember the names of particular Centurions who, you know, are the equivalent of young officers and Napoleon was the same.
Gary McCullough
It’s really interesting you say that because I remember and this is another lesson, I remember when I was a brand new second lieutenant, my father who had been, you know, Sergeant Major in the army, I, I had a captain who was my company commander, who I didn’t think real highly of at the time. So my dad asked me about him, I said that, you know, I really don’t admire these qualities in him. And he says, Well, what does he do? Well, and I said, you know, what, the one thing I really admire is, that we had 160 soldiers in our company. And he knew, every soldier in that company.
He knew their name, he knew if they were married or not, he knew if they had kids, that they had kids, he knew their kids names, he knew how old they were, and he was genuinely interested. But you know, that ability, both to care and to know people is really important. And so I’m pretty happy as a leader, because just saying some of these names, if they’re deeper in the organisation, you know, it goes, it goes on miles, like, he knows who I am, she knows who I am, you know. And so I think that goes a mile for somebody, particularly if they’re relatively young to the organisation. And so I always admired that. And I tried to be, you know, that somebody who could do that as well.
When I was at P&G, John Pepper, who was the CEO at one point in time, I was a brand new, new hire, I think I’ve been in the company for four or five months, when I met him on an elevator, you know, he introduced himself and two years later, he saw me again and called me by my name. And so, you know,
Zannah Ryabchuk
And you’ve ended that for the rest of your life thats how powerful it is.
Gary McCullough
There it is. Because there was no reason for him to remember my name. And so that ability goes a long way. If you, if you have it, it’s a tough thing to do, but you can work at it. So the lesson I learned was, you know, find that thing that that you can emulate right that you do want to be better at. So find that thing and tuck it away for something you know, you use later on. And then conversely, those things that you didn’t want to do tuck those away and say I’m never going to do those.
Zannah Ryabchuk
So that was fantastic and fantastic storytelling from Gary.
Bart Sayle
Yeah, that’s the first time I’ve heard that story about the Snickers. And I can see now that, Gary has used that in creating his own approach to leadership. One thing about Gary is he’s always been hands on. So no matter how much he has been involved in leadership and strategy, and so on with the company, he’s also a very hands on leader. And that’s one of the things I’ve always admired him for.
Zannah Ryabchuk
Absolutely, the idea of leading from the front, I mean, the way he told that story, then I have to admit, it actually brought tears to my eyes. And I remember the way that it should always be an aspiration for developing leaders, the thought of leaving a legacy behind not just doing something for those short term quick wins, and the you know, the quarterly statistics, it’s got to be the legacy that makes you into a fantastic leader.
Bart Sayle
And that’s just the start from Gary, there’s more to come. Lesson two: “more honey less vinegar”.
Gary McCullough
My dad, you know, he was a pretty simple guy, he graduated from high school, he went into the military largely to avoid going to jail, you know, at the end of World War Two, and, and he always looked at me, and I think when you’re a black man in America, and you’re in business, there are just certain things that you got to avoid. And so he was smart enough to tell me, and this is a pretty common saying, that you get more with honey than you do with vinegar, you got to bring people along. And and so, he would always tell me that, but it also tells me that, that doesn’t mean you have to be pliable, or easy. You know, because you’re not, you know, you don’t make progress if you have those characteristics, but you need not be disagreeable when you disagree, okay. And so, that was an important one, I learned that kind of early in life.
Theres two more that I wrote down about that were good. I had my first platoon sergeant in the army, I also get a brand new second lieutenant. I thought I knew everything. But he was invaluable in just teaching me things that, that you don’t learn in books, you know, that you only learn in situations. And there was a point in time, when I had to, I had to admonish, one of the sergeants that we had, I mean, I really had to, you know, go at him, and when that was over, a sergeant Leonard came behind me and, you know, privately, he said, Well, that was a cold, prickly, okay.
And it’s like, you know, what are you talking about – he goes yeah thats a cold prickly, he goes, Sir in this life, you got cold pricklies and you got warm fuzzies. And he said, You need to remember, as a leader, you got to give three warm fuzzies for every cold prickly, you know, and so I thought about that, whether, you know, I’m coaching somebody, if you give somebody a you know, difficult, you know, that people go through a down period, you’ve got to come back behind that cold prickly, and build them up again, you know, and make sure they know that, you know, you have confidence in them, or whatever the case might be. So that three to one ratio of three warm fuzzies for every cold prickly, it never fails.
And the last one, I think that I come back to or that I learned from, there was a point in my career at P&G, where I was passed over for promotion, I was like, you know, when you came into the organisation, you came in with a class and it was an upper outer organisation, you know, you as a, as a marketer, you either got promoted, or you were asked to leave the organisation. And, you know, the big promotion, the first big promotion was the promotion to brand manager. And everybody in my class had had been promoted. And I had not and I had been told by, you know, a couple layers of management that I should never expect to be a brand manager at Procter and Gamble, and that I, I should find someplace something else to do and someplace else to do it.
And, you know, ultimately, I didn’t accept that as as the answer, I persevered and eventually did all the things I was asked to do, I still wasn’t promoted, and I got moved over to a new organisation to get into a fresh start with a new boss. But my boss when I moved over, said to me that, you know, it was, it was a mistake for me to put my head down and do the work, you know, and actually deliver results. And believe that, you know, in a vacuum, the organisation would simply reward me for that, okay? That, there’s things that we have to do as individuals, we have to reach out, you know, form relationships, do some things and he said to me, he’s like: Gary, no one can micromanage your career better than you, you know, and, and I became, I guess, a steward of my own career, and I made moves that I thought were in my best interest while still delivering to the organisation. Okay, and so, so I think it’s really important you know, if people are just sitting down thinking they can work, work work and, and that all great things are gonna happen to them. Everybody’s doing that and other people are actually playing a different game. And so I implore people to, you know, think about managing their own careers.
Zannah Ryabchuk
It brings me to thinking much more about another topic. And that’s resilience. And it must have taken a huge amount of resilience to persevere and to persist. What would be some of your advice, maybe to somebody who’s maybe in a similar position to that because, you know, as you well know, over the last year, and what’s been going on, it’s a very, very, very real challenge for many, many people today starting out a career, what would be your advice to them?
Gary McCullough
Well, I think the first thing I would say is that everybody is going to face some challenge, right, some are gonna fail in some way. Or, you know, it may not be solely you, and maybe other things that are going on, but it’s gonna happen. I don’t know, anybody who’s risen to a relatively senior, you know, role in any organisation that hasn’t, that has a straight meteoric rise. I mean, I’m sure they’re out there. I don’t know any of them.
So it’s important to remain confident in yourself and to begin to have a plan. When it happened to me when I was told that, that I was not going to make it, I remember Post-it Notes, and this is going to date me to some degree, but Post-it Notes had just been invented. Right. And so I got a Post-it Note, and I wrote, you are not as dumb as they say. And I put the Post-it Note in two places, what one on the mirror, you know, in my bathroom at home, so that when I would shave in the morning, I would see it and then one of my cubicle wall. And I went in and did the work.
But I think the key thing is, you’re going to get knocked down – sometimes it’s you sometimes it’s, you know, the organisation, sometimes it’s exactly what we’ve gone through with, with COVID and the pandemic, you know, it changes things, but it need not be the end. One of the things I will say about myself is that I’m also an optimist. So you know, it’s helpful when you have leaders who are optimistic, because no one wants to see somebody who is down. You ever see Winnie the Pooh? You know, Winnie the Pooh, the cartoon, so there’s the you know, the two characters in there. You have Eeyore you know, Eeyore the guy that goes “Oh, no”.
Zannah Ryabchuk
Thats funny because Bart and I call people Eeyores sometimes.
Gary McCullough
Yeah, and you have you have and you have Tiggers. Yeah. And I would much prefer to have, you know, yeah, I’d much prefer to have Tiggers on my team. Now, you know, periodically, you need an Eeyore, right, because Eeyore sometimes grounds you. But as a leader, I, you know, I think you can be much more effective as a Tigger than as an Eeyore, just because the organisation takes on the personality, you know, of the leaders. And so, anyway, it’s easier to be resilient if you’re, if you got more of a Tigger, you know, type of mentality than of an Eeyore.
Zannah Ryabchuk
So for me, this lesson is all about compassionate leadership, showing empathy when you give people feedback.
Bart Sayle
Well, what comes to me is over Gary’s career in business and my career for that matter. Things have changed and the world of business is changing. And people in business today, they want feedback, they need feedback, and they understand that feedback is going to help them to get better. In the old days, feedback, mainly was criticism. That’s how it came across. And people are not trained in giving feedback to a great extent. So one of the things we do in our programme is we have a very powerful but simple tool that allows people to give that balanced feedback, which is going to help people.
Zannah Ryabchuk
Yeah, absolutely. We call it the Feedback Framework. And it simply gets you to answer four questions. And you can do this about an individual’s performance. You can do this about relationship, you can do this about a project. And in fact, we do this as a diagnostic for an entire company. And first you look at what’s working now, what are the things that are really going well, the warm fuzzies? Yes, all the things that are fantastic and working at the moment, then we ask what’s not working yet? And the presupposition yet there is really critical, because we’re assuming it’s going to be working. So now that we’ve identified it, we’re going to do something about it, then we look for what’s missing, what’s missing that we should already have in place, and that will really make a difference. And then finally, we look to the future and identify what’s possible. This is the kind of aspiration and the idea of everything that could be possible. Once we’ve got the things that are maybe not working yet and missing, put into place.
Bart Sayle
Absolutely. And on to Lesson Three: Sticks of gum may break your business.
I want to use some of your experience and your wisdom which you’re imparting brilliantly here. What is some of the self imposed barriers to growth that businesses keep falling into or what you’ve seen in your in your career,
Gary McCullough
I think a lot of businesses that I have gone into believe that they owned a market or markets, and so they could keep doing, what they were doing, the way they were doing it. And then they would wake up and say, Oh, my goodness, you know, these people are doing something different. Let’s go back to you know, when I was at the Wrigley company, you know, when I first met you, you know, most people who are old enough will think about those sticks of gum.
And I remember going into that company, where they were wed to sticks of gum, but gum was being sold and other forms, but they had, they had these machines that made sticks of gum, on the machines were fully paid for, and they were fully advertised, and there was a reluctance to change, and the market share was going down. And it was it was costing more to sell those sticks of gum, so profitability was going down. And that happened over years, okay, because they didn’t see the change, if they saw the change, they didn’t want to react to the change.
And so I think it’s, it’s, it’s the failure to be nimble, the failure to be outward looking, the being self satisfied with your, with your place in life, as it were, your place in the business. And so I think it’s easy to become complacent and organisations and individuals have to guard against complacency. And I think in doing that, and continuing to be forward looking, you can improve the chances that you’ll be relevant.
But obviously, there’s no guarantees, because somebody you know, I remember being in a planning meeting at one point in time and, you know, a guy that I work with said to me, you know, there’s somebody else and some other conference room that’s planning to take our market share, just like we’re planning to take their market share, right. And so, um, so you always have to remember that there’s somebody out there, particularly if you’re successful, that is, looking at ways to disrupt your success, and in being complacent and not being outward looking, is death.
Bart Sayle
Yeah. And I think, you know, years ago, you could survive longer by being complacent, sure, without realising you complacent. But these days, that time horizon has just come very, very close.
Gary McCullough
Yeah, in from information travels so quickly, right now, trends change so quickly there, you know, it, it’s wonderful. I think it’s terrific. But if you don’t build an organisation and a nimbleness that matches, you know, how fast that information is travelling, how fast consumers change, because consumers, they will change on a dime, you know, and so if you if you don’t change, if you as an individual, don’t remain current, you know. I see it and, and people who have been in the business world, as long as me, you know, when I, when I see folks who are my age who aren’t computer literate, well, then you’re no longer relevant. So, I think it’s important for both individuals and organisations to remain nimble to remain curious.
Zannah Ryabchuk
I’m interested to dig a bit deeper into that because many of our listeners are CEOs or certainly presidents of huge companies. What would your advice be to them to help them to stay current and stay curious and enable their businesses to be nimble and agile and adaptable to all of the disruptors that are behind the scenes waiting to pounce?
Gary McCullough
Yeah, well, I think first of all, you’re either curious, or you’re not and most of the people who I know, who have gotten to, you know, reasonable levels and organisations, they are curious, they are outward looking. They’re, they’re seeking to consume information, right. But I can tell you, I ran a business with a partner, where I remember going in, and we had our CFO, who kind of put a damper on a lot of things. In fact, I called him a CF No. And I remember, we had blockers in the organisation who really weren’t delivering very much, who were not enabling the organisation to grow.
And we had, you know, younger folks in the organisation who were pushing hard, and you know, and if they weren’t getting what they needed, they would leave the organisation, right. So it was a bad cycle that was going on. But I remember having a conversation, in particular about promoting one of the young ladies we had an organisation and paying her commensurate with that, and, and that particular CFO who didn’t last much longer than this conversation – that particular guy said that, that we you know, we can’t do that. She’s only 27, you know, you know, and she’s not married. Look, of course, that’s, you know, that’s anachronistic. I mean, that’s like, it’s a throwback to the 50s. You know, and, you know, I thought we needed to find a way to take her and other people like her and give them more to do you know, that’s what they expect that you want to make sure that you can bring them along and coach them and train them and all that kind of stuff.
But the way to stay current is to be having conversations with those people, okay to mentor those people, because you know, mentoring relationships are two way relationships. You know, it’s not just imparting knowledge down, it’s also imparting knowledge up, you know, so I’m lucky, you know, I been able to do that. And I’ve gotten, I’ve got kids who kind of demanded of me, they’ll say something, I was like, what are you talking about, you know, those conversations are really important. And this is not about age, this is about surrounding yourself with people who have that knowledge, okay, who, who are thirsty for those things, who are outward looking, and bring that closer to you as a leader, so that you can learn from them, and you can learn from those things that are going on.
So I’ve tried to do that as often as I can. It’s been it’s been terrific. But there are people who build walls. And and don’t let those folks close to them. The higher you get, you know, I mean, it’s really interesting, because I think the higher you get in organisations, this is gonna sound terrible, but the less work you actually do. Okay. You know, I don’t remember the last time I did a spreadsheet, right, you know, but I got it, you know, but there was a time that I did that. And so I so I think that the further you get away from it, the more the tendency can be, to not be in it in a way that can, that you can learn from things right. And so, so I think just bringing people in, that are forward looking to learn about setting up, you know, as a, as a leader of particular, you know, bringing in speakers and having conversations, you know, that that can put you in a situation where you’re uncomfortable. That forces you to learn.
Bart Sayle
One of the things I’m thinking is that you and I spent many years around business, and what is some of the, what are some of the key changes that you see from when you started early on? And what you see now? And I know you’ve got three grown children actually, yeah. In the business world at the moment.
Gary McCullough
Yeah, I’m thinking about them. And the the careers that, you know, they’re into at this point, I think people don’t spend the career like they did. You know, it’s unusual, it’s my generation, that spending 30 and 40 years, like our parents, you know, but I think what you’re saying, and what concerns me about it, is that there’s less patience, okay, there’s less ability to build some level of expertise in something, right. And I don’t want to put things into, you know, the the old boxes that we have, but given the day, there are functions that have to happen, you know, and so I, I’m concerned that with some of the leaping, that people are not as individuals getting the fundamental training that will serve them better later.
But at the same time, as an organisation as leaders, you know, people quit leaders. So I think that it’s incumbent upon leaders and organisations to have give people reasons to stay, you know, and develop those things. And so, so I think there’s a delicate balance, because folks will leave in a heartbeat to go for the, you know, the next paycheck or the next role or where the case might be. But I think I think younger folks need to think about what they’re gonna becoming expert at, because there needs to be things that you can be expert at, at some point in time.
Zannah Ryabchuk
And it can’t happen overnight. I think like the microwave generation, where we just think thing that now we can do it. Yeah, well, we’ve watched a YouTube video now we know how to do it. And in some ways, I think it’s very true, that does work for a lot of stuff, right? But in so many ways, you’re absolutely right, we’re not developing this discipline of mastery. Right. And I think you’re onto something there, Gary, that there’s the shiny new thing that you don’t get the opportunity to really learn more about your own competence and capabilities, and how you can build on that and build that discipline. It’s interesting.
Gary McCullough
Yeah, I, you know, I’m glad, I’m glad you’re glad you said it that way. Because I remember sitting down, you know, with groups as a CEO of a company, you know, and you know, as a speaker in various places, and people, you know, young people in particular, and again, I don’t want that to be pejorative, because I see so many brilliant, you know, folks that are out there, but um, but young people will look at me and say, Well, how long will it take me, you know, as a summer intern, you know, how long it will take me to get your job? And it’s like, well, took me 30 years. I’m slow. I’m sure you’re smarter than me, but it’s gonna take some time. Right. So, so So that’s one.
The other thing is that I see, I see a lot of entrepreneurs who see the headlines about, you know, the company that went public or, you know, something that that became an overnight success, and somebody became a billionaire. And so, you know, and people think it’s common, you know, it’s not common, but those things happen. Some of those people who have created those companies, they hit on brilliant ideas, you know, and they executed exceedingly well. And for all those brilliant folks that are out there, there’s lots of, you know, dust by the wayside with other people who didn’t make it and so anybody who, who’s starting something because they want to make money, it’s the wrong motivation. You know that these other folks were solving problems or creating new markets? That was sometimes we didn’t even know we want them to say, right? And that’s rare. So hopefully they understand.
Zannah Ryabchuk
So this lesson from Gary stands out to me as the Breakthrough Mindset that we develop in our clients. The Breakthrough Mindset is embodied by magical thinking. That’s possibility thinking. And it’s coupled with heroic action, the “I can” attitude. And you need this for growth.
Bart Sayle
And for me, it brings to mind this state of curiosity, we start out life as children, being curious. And being curious, allows us to learn and learning allows us to grow. And if you think about it, if children come into a new place, like a new room, what they do is they notice things, they’re curious. But as adults, what we do when we come into a new environment, is we start judging. We’ve lost that means to be curious.
Zannah Ryabchuk
Now onto our “hot seat”. This is the part of the show at the end of each episode, where we ask our guests quick fire questions to learn more about their views on life, what’s important to them, and to learn about their habits for high performance. So Gary, are you ready?
Gary McCullough
I believe so.
Zannah Ryabchuk
We’ll find out. Okay. So first of all, what brings you energy and motivation in your everyday life?
Gary McCullough
That’s, that’s an interesting one. I, I’ve always been motivated and energetic. You know, I’m a morning person, I get up that way. But there’s a quote that I remember. This was what a quote that’s attributed, I think, to Marcus Aurelius. And he said, and I remembered this, he said “when you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is, to be alive, to breathe, to think, to enjoy and to love”. And so when you think about that, you know, it’s kind of how I think about things, you know, it is, it’s a privilege to be alive.
And the older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve realised that I could not be here, I suffered the death of a really close friend of mine a little over a year ago, or at the beginning of the COVID thing, but he wasn’t COVID. But he, I’ve got some people that I am for being close friends with from high school. And there are, there were six of us. And we resolved probably 12 or 15 years ago that we were going to get together every other year, at least. And so we started off, I brought them in Chicago, and we did a bunch of Chicago things, we went to a baseball game, we ate steaks and you know, did Chicago stuff. And then we went to one guy’s house in Pittsburgh and so on and so forth.
Well, we gotten together in New Orleans in the fall of 2019. And, and Robert, in February of 2020 sent us a text saying hey guys, I’ve been diagnosed with kidney cancer. And he was told he had six to nine months. And we had planned one more get together you know, kind of off cycle as it were just a good one more time be together all of us and, and he died a month later. So, so I just think about now where I am, it’s been you know, it’s been a good career and I and I continue to be very, very active. But you know, nothing’s, you can’t take it for granted and things can happen and things can turn on a dime and the older I get the more I realised that so you know again I’m I’m a morning person when I go back to that Marcus really as quote that says, you know what a privilege it is to be alive and so I don’t need to be motivated in some, you know, artificial way I feel very lucky to be here right now.
Zannah Ryabchuk
So sorry to hear that about your friend as well Gary.
Gary McCullough
It is a it’s a cycle of life as they say right. But it is for the first time for me, it hit that closely to home with my friend group. And that – that’s a wake up call.
Zannah Ryabchuk
Carpe Diem.
Gary McCullough
Yep, absolutely. Carpe Diem.
Zannah Ryabchuk
All right, the next question is finish this sentence: Success is…
Gary McCullough
That’s an easy one. Paulo Coelho said, it’s “being able to go to bed each night with your soul at peace”. I read that and it stuck with me. Because you know, when you’re younger, you think success is I’m gonna make a lot of money. I want to achieve a certain, you know, and that’s all good. I mean, listen, we all want to do those things. Right? I, I’ve gotten to the point that I’m that I’ve you know, I’ve made a fair amount of money and I’ve raised my children and the good news is I still like them. And they seem to like me, which is which is wonderful. Yeah, I’ve been married for a long time.
So all those things are good. But the end of the day, the older you get, the more you realise they’re not enough, you know, and so, you know, so I think positively impacting people, making sure you’ve done your best because you know, going back to that kind of morbid story I told you about my friend Robert, you know, it’s not it’s not guaranteed that when you close your eyes at night, you’re gonna wake up in the morning right and so if I can at every day say, you know what? It’s okay. Your life is good. And I’ve given it a good run. And I and I’ve done right by people, then, you know, the rest is the rest is okay.
Zannah Ryabchuk
All right, final question is: What inspires you in life?
Gary McCullough
This is this is one, I think that probably has changed over time, right? Because we all go through life cycles. As I said, I’ve got three kids, I’ve got two grandkids, I thought when you were, I thought when you were, you know, a grandfather, you’d be old and you couldn’t walk and you’re kind of, you know, ready to go. Well, I’m not that. And, so they are really cool. And, the more I hang around with them and see them grow, and I’ve got a granddaughter who’s three, almost four, and a grandson is almost two, it makes me want to be young, it makes me want to be around for a lot longer, you know, and so I’ve got no intention of going anywhere. But it also it also, you know, points out that life is precious, right? And so, but it makes me why it makes me get up and want to be around. So that that really inspires me, just, you know, and I wouldn’t have said that, you know, 20 years ago, you know, but things change. And so that that’s really for me inspiring at this point.
Bart Sayle
That’s beautiful.
Zannah Ryabchuk
And finally, if our listeners want to find out more about you, or maybe they want to ask you a question, is there a way that they can reach out to you either through maybe LinkedIn or social media or via us, what would be the best way for them to do that to.
Gary McCullough
I’ve got a LinkedIn profile. You know, I think I’m Gary McCullough. And so you know, happy to respond to anybody on LinkedIn.
Zannah Ryabchuk
Amazing. Thank you so much. All right. That brings us to the end of the podcast. Thank you, Gary.
Gary McCullough
Thank you guys. I enjoy talking with you. You know, you made me think a little bit. I need that day to day.
Zannah Ryabchuk
Thank you for joining us for today’s three lessons. And of course, a huge thank you to Gary McCullough! Do make sure you hit the subscribe button and join us each month for another 3 Lessons from Breakthrough Leaders. And you can reach out to us at Breakthrough Global on LinkedIn or Facebook, or via Twitter at Radiant Clarity or an Instagram at Global Breakthrough.
Bart Sayle
And we’d love to hear from you, your feedback and your own leadership stories. We’d also love for you to share this episode on your own social media and review and rate this podcast on your player of choice as we want to spread these transformative lessons as widely as possible.
Zannah Ryabchuk
And finally a huge thanks to our production team Julia Soltysova over at Breakthrough Global and Robin Leeburn at Fairly Media, and of course, thank you for listening. See you next time.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
