Eileen:

Hello, and welcome to Soul of a Leader podcast, where we ignite soulful conversations with leaders. On today’s episode, Dr. Alicia and Dr. Eileen sit with Brett Penager to discuss believing in your magnificence. 

 

Narrator:

This episode is brought to you by Chiro One, the expertise you can trust, individualized care just for you. Please visit www.chiroone.com for more details.

 

Alicia:

Welcome to Soul of a Leader podcast. In today’s episode, we have Brett Penager. He is an author, a businessman, and an entrepreneur. Brett Penager has over 40 years of extraordinary success. He is a founding partner and owner of Chiro One Wellness Centers. He is also a four-time, top-10 Crain’s Business Week’s Fast 50 recipient, and a three times Inc. 500 award recipient, including the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year award winner in healthcare.

 

Alicia:

Chiro One Wellness Centers is the largest chiropractic healthcare organizations in the world. And I must say, he is a proud father of a beautiful young lady. He has a gorgeous daughter and he is the best dad that I know. So he’s on that list of the best dads guys that I know; my friend, Brett Penager. Welcome.

 

Eileen:

Welcome.

 

Brett Penager:

Thank you, thank you, thank you, and thank you again.

 

Eileen:

So Brett, did we miss anything in their bio that you want us to add? Anything that you’d like to add for our listeners, for us?

 

Alicia:

That was the short version, too.

 

Brett Penager:

Short version, yes. No, you didn’t miss anything. I’m incredibly honored, big time, to have the opportunity to share today. And there’s nothing to add in terms of accomplishments or accolades or anything like that because the most important thing that I am is a father, a husband, a brother, an uncle, and a man of God. So it’s really that simple. Everything else is just what follows, but those are the things that are nearest and dearest to my heart.

 

Eileen:

Well, thank you so much for sharing that. We have you as a participant, a guest on our show. I looked at your blog and I saw this quote: “To live an extraordinary life, simply believe.” And you have the blog out there with many, many different articles. Can you tell me a little bit about that quote and how it came to you?

 

Brett Penager:

My background, starting with my parents, has a tremendous amount of opportunities that were born out of adversity that was presented to me. And my mother would always tell me that God is no respecter of persons, and so whatever he puts inside you, you’re capable of doing. And I struggled with that for a long time because I didn’t believe in myself or believe that I was capable of accomplishing things that other people said that I could, or that I wanted and desired. And so once I started going through a process of really learning the power of belief and that true success is all between the six inches between your ears, then that can be learned and it can be developed and it can be grasped on to so that you can then live into your full potential, but it starts with believing. And that’s one of the longest roads any of us are on, and I’m still on it.

 

Alicia:

We talk all the time, and so I’m smiling and some people can’t see that. But behind me, I have a pillow that says, “Believe.” And so every day I walk in my office, I look at that to remind myself that all I have to do is just believe, and I’m halfway to achieving what I want to do. So I agree with you. But what I want to ask is how do you incorporate your faith? Because you’re a great father, a great businessman, and you’re a great man of faith, and your mom has instilled a lot of great qualities, and believing is great to have. How do you incorporate both believing and faith in your day-to-day operations?

 

Brett Penager:

Well, actually, it’s being present. I couldn’t stress it anymore. I’ve gone through a fantastic journey in my spirituality and my faith, as it’s such a critical component. Belief has to have a function of faith, meaning the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. And how does that really work? So my spirituality and the faith that I have has expanded exponentially as I’ve had the opportunity to learn from people, religions that I had no concept of before. And as Socrates says, “The beginning of all knowledge is realizing that you know nothing.” And so I’ve been able to learn and expand and grow and appreciate all of the religions in the world that all have a central philosophy of love.

 

Brett Penager:

I mean, if you just synthesize all of it, it’s love. And from that side, for me, being present is honoring my faith because I’m able to love the moments that we have here, and laugh. And I’m able to love the time that I get to watch my daughter do some crazy stuff. And I’m able to love the challenges that are presented to us, that you’re like, “Man, I don’t know how I’m going to get through this,” but God does. This is just on the way, not in the way. So I just incorporate it every day by being grateful, present, and look for the opportunities that I can express my full potential.

 

Eileen:

Now, how do those align with your values? Because by being present, being grateful, are there other words that align to what you would call your core values? Because we talk about values a lot here at Soul of a Leader and how they form a leader or form, someone, to a higher consciousness or form somebody to really act. So are there any specific words you’d like to add to that?

 

Brett Penager:

Well, I would say there’s a lot of them. Love is really at the top of the list. And the biggest challenge that any of us have with love is loving ourselves. That’s where it breaks down. And I love myself and I know I have so much more to learn and so much more to grow. And there’s no arrival point. I think if I started to expand it, I really look at gratitude as probably being the most powerful key that can unlock the secrets of the universe because when you’re grateful, then all of a sudden you start seeing the beauty in it. It’s like most of us, we grow up at some point and we think, “Well, it’s good to be grateful when things are good. Oh, I’m so grateful for the present, or I’m so grateful for what you provided me, or I’m so grateful for this relationship.”

 

Brett Penager:

And then the minute it gets hard, where a relationship goes awry, or we get hit with a financial crisis, or we have the pandemic, all of a sudden, it’s like, “God, why? Why? Why are you doing this?” But that’s where to be grateful because that’s where we all learn. That’s where all of us learn. We learn on the edge of the challenge that forces us to gain an awareness that we otherwise weren’t aware of previously, that then takes us to another level, that we can then take that newfound awareness of gratitude, called, “Oh my gosh, this is one of the greatest things that’s ever happened to me.”

 

Brett Penager:

All of us have this. We all have experiences in our life where you go backward. And at the time that it happened, we’re like, “Oh my gosh, this is the worst thing that’s ever happened.” I don’t care if it’s a failed relationship, you got an F in a course, you didn’t get into a school that you wanted, you didn’t make the money, you didn’t get the job. All of us have that. And then fast-forward a month, three months, six months, a year, sometimes a decade. You look back at that same instance and you’re like, “Oh my gosh, if that hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have what I have today,” that they can recognize through perspective. So I think the most powerful words that I do my best to live by every day are love and gratitude. That would be it.

 

Alicia:

And I have to agree with you on that part, about being in a moment of gratefulness, no matter what the storm looks like. We often find ourselves, just like you said, when something is not going right, we go right to the negative part of it and put the focus there, instead of saying, “You know what, God? I know you’re here and you have not left us. And just because the storm is here, doesn’t mean that you’re not present.” And you’re so correct, we have to still be at a place of being thankful and allowing the presence of learning. So I always tell people, “You should always be in a learning mode, no matter what.”

 

Alicia:

Just recently, the other day on Monday, someone called and they went real negative. And I took a pause, and normally … I have grown to this. We have to be authentic on this show. I took a pause and I stepped away and I said, “What are my learning curves here? What can I learn from this?” And I could tell that was the best thing I did for myself because I didn’t go negative with the person. I came back to something positive. I said, “Thank you for recognizing that. Here’s my learning moment.” They didn’t really get it. They wanted to go negative. And I was like, “But I learned something.”

 

Alicia:

And so my question to you is, how do you find your learning curves or your learning moments, specifically when you’re in the leadership role and you own a big business with partners, and you’re on boards? What do you do to identify something? Because just like you said, everything is not going to be peachy, peachy every day. And so when those rough times or moments come, what do you do for your learning curves?

 

Brett Penager:

I read a book called Think and Grow Rich, years ago, by Napoleon Hill. I would say, anybody who’s ever wanted to be successful, which is the whole purpose of why the book was written, has probably read it or heard of it. And one of the things that he found, and studying at that time the wealthiest and most powerful people on the planet over a 20-year time period, is he wanted to find the distinctions of all of them to then be able to put it into a book that could then have people understand how to be successful. It was Andrew Carnegie’s greatest gift to humanity.

 

Brett Penager:

One of the things that he had in there was … He has what he calls a board of directors, like a bunch of people; some are alive, some are no longer alive. But he could go into a room and have a conversation with them on learning from different strengths that they have or different perspectives that might come. And I do that whenever I’m faced with a lot of adversity. And it’s not always the same people, but sometimes it’s my mother, sometimes it’s my father, who both have been dead now for, oh my gosh, 25 years; from some great mentors and coaches and teachers that I have. And one of the greatest teachers I have is my daughter. I mean, man, I learned so much from her, I could just pack up, right?

 

Brett Penager:

So when I’m going through that, I just pause. And again, that’s where presence becomes so important. I just pause and I start asking all of these people who have differing opinions than I do, many of them have different outlooks and perspectives. And I just talk to them, literally. I’m like, “So what is it that I’m supposed to learn here?” And I can hear a lot of them just start talking back to me, like, “Oh my gosh. Well.”

 

Brett Penager:

I have a great mentor of mine named [Van Kerrigan 00:00:13:44], who recently passed. And he would always say, “Brett, things are the way they are. And thinking they should be different is not going to help you get what you’d like.”

 

Brett Penager:

And I’m like, “Okay, yes. Okay. Things are the way they are. This really sucks. My tire just blew out. I don’t know how I’m going to get home; whatever.” But you’re like, “This too shall pass, and it will be okay.” So I have a board of people in my mind that I talk to. Sometimes it’s physical. I have to hit the phone, speed dial. I just learned to do that more and more because there’s just so much to learn, so much to learn.

 

Eileen:

And when I hear you say that, I hear a message that keeps coming back to me over and over, is that those who lead, always learn, are continually learning.

 

Alicia:

Yes.

 

Eileen:

They never cease to learn, if you’re a leader. And as Alicia said, you’re leading businesses. You’re leading your family. You’re being a role model for your daughter. You’re on boards. And you kept saying, “I listen, I lead.” How do you coach people or people that come to you for advice about leading or learning?

 

Brett Penager:

Well, I only coach people that are willing to be coached. And I learned that from a great mentor of mine, Van, who I just talked about. A lot of … What would I say? It’s paradoxical, meaning that if you try to tell somebody what you think they should know because you’re so wise and great or whatever, they’re not going to hear you because you’re not over there. And so coaching is something that is only really done effectively when somebody wants to be coached. So if that opportunity shows up and maybe I know something at a level that they don’t, I’ll ask them if they want to. I don’t just offer it. I don’t just go, “Let me tell you what I think you should do.” It’s like, “So, would you like to consider some solutions to that?”

 

Brett Penager:

And then we do it together because I’m not the only one that has the answer. I have an answer maybe, and I could have multitudes of answers, but we all have the answers within us. All we have to do is have somebody sometimes help peel it back so that we can see them for ourselves. And sometimes we have to go through the challenge in order to learn the answer for ourselves. But either way, in coaching people to be a leader, I look for those who want to learn. And then I look for those that I can learn from because part of being a leader is you have to be a follower.

 

Brett Penager:

And it’s, again, that paradox that most people think, “Oh, now I’m a leader. I’m the big cheese. And I’m the one who everybody needs to do what I said. And this is how it works.” Leadership is the inverse of a triangle, where people look at leadership as being the one on top of the triangle, at the top with all of these people or responsibilities or the company or money or whatever underneath them. And it’s the biggest crock of crap, at the true essence of leadership you could ever imagine.

 

Brett Penager:

It’s the exact opposite because, as a leader, you have the triangle tip on your head, while all of the other people and the responsibilities and everything else is on your shoulders, your weight, your heart, your spirit. So as soon as you understand that, you give up that, “I know everything and I’m the one who” … You have to keep learning because there’s more to learn than you know. So I coach those who are willing to be coached and want to; otherwise, I shut up.

 

Eileen:

Thank you. Thank you for that wonderful answer.

 

Alicia:

And I was listening to you say that, so I pictured a triangle. And you’re so right. People want to rush to be … “I want to be the leader. I want to do that.”

 

Alicia:

And I’m like, “It’s more to just having the title, the big office, or just saying, ‘I want to lead.'” It’s so much weight on you when you’re a leader to the person, or the people behind you don’t understand the impact of you leading. And so with that, when you’re leading, how do you challenge your team to be their best?

 

Brett Penager:

I see in them what great mentors and coaches saw in me. Every human being is magnificent; every human being. So all you have to do is you have to look to see where their magnificent lies. And the only reason you would look is that you cared. And for me, my purpose, my purpose on life and on this earth, while I’m here, is to, one, continually learn the secrets of the universe and then apply them so that I can lead myself, and then give them away freely, because that’s one person’s way of doing their best to make a magnificent difference in this world in a positive way.

 

Brett Penager:

When I was a kid, I had three goals; long story short of how I came up, and all of that. But I saw this video. It was actually a recording called The Strangest Secret, by Earl Nightingale in 1977. And in that, Earl Nightingale was talking about how people become who they become and all this stuff. And I remember from that, he goes, “You become what you think about most of the time.”

 

Brett Penager:

I remember going, “Okay, so I want to own my own business. I want to make a ridiculous amount of money.” I didn’t know what that was at the time, but I knew it was a lot. And I wanted to touch the lives of millions of people in a positive way, which I knew would then support owning my own business and making a ridiculous amount of money. It all starts with serving. So anyway, yeah, it’s really simple, to me.

 

Eileen:

I just love the references you’re giving, of movies and books that helped you guide you along with people. So yeah, thank you so much. I’m going to have to check that out. I’m going to find it somewhere, YouTube, wherever.

 

Alicia:

Yeah, I was writing it down, too.

 

Eileen:

I’m writing all this down.

 

Brett Penager:

[crosstalk 00:20:56] Just type in The Strangest Secret, Earl Nightingale. It’s right there.

 

Eileen:

I’m going to write it down. And thank you so much for sharing that. And as we close this episode, we always, always ask our guests … The time goes by so fast. I can’t believe it’s already 30 minutes. What words of wisdom would you leave for our listeners and for Dr. Alicia and myself?

 

Brett Penager:

Well, I laugh because we’ve already been talking about it all along the way.

 

Eileen:

Yeah, I love it. There are so many.

 

Alicia:

I know, right?

 

Eileen:

I don’t know. I want you to pick your favorites [crosstalk 00:21:39] because we’ve got a library. We’ve got movies. We’ve got everything.

 

Brett Penager:

Anyway, it’s just to believe, to believe in your magnificence. On planet Earth, as we know, by the best guesstimates and everything else, there’s been approximately 120 billion human beings that have graced this Earth, of which none are duplicates. The chance out of the millions of sperm that had to fight to create the egg that then all of a sudden you have this child born from, the chances of you being here, regardless of how you arrive, are so astronomical. And all of a sudden, you start seeing the magnificence of every human being. And from there, all you have to do is then start learning to believe in you’re here for a purpose. You’re here to make a difference. This whole world, we really are all one. And we’re so interconnected in a way that just gives you goosebumps in thinking about it.

 

Brett Penager:

And so, know that you can do whatever you set your heart and your mind to. And that’s going to be a function of the work ethic that you have. It’s going to be a function of the coaching and the mentors that really support you so that you can start to believe when you don’t know. But at the end of the day, once you break that chasm and you break that glass ceiling called, “I am okay, I am lovable. I’m beautiful. I’m powerful,” all of these things, all of a sudden, you get the paradox of it all. And you realize there’s nothing there other than giving it all back because there were a whole lot of people who had to lift you up to be in that position. And you just have gratitude, want to drop to your knees on wanting to give it back. So believe, believe in your magnificence.

 

Alicia:

Listen, I have to give you a hand clap. I’m like, “I am so glad he’s been my friend over 10 years.”

 

Eileen:

I’m giving you a hand clap because I took notes.

 

Alicia:

Oh, yes. Believe in your magnificence.

 

Eileen:

You are. I mean, there is so much wonderful. We’re grateful.

 

Alicia:

Yes.

 

Eileen:

We’re so grateful that you shared all these wonderful attributes of being human and understanding we’re connected, and there’s love, and we’re all-

 

Alicia:

It’s faith.

 

Eileen:

… special, but we’re connected. It’s just amazing. Really, thank you. Thank you for being here.

 

Alicia:

It’s so awesome. It’s the truth. It’s just so awesome in it. And to watch you do that and have known you … And literally, I’m smiling, guys, because I’m like, “Yeah, this is him.”

 

Brett Penager:

Hey, well-

 

Alicia:

So, we certainly appreciate you. And I must say before we close, Chiro One is a proud sponsor of this podcast, as well. And so, we must let the listeners know that.

 

Brett Penager:

Oh, yeah. That, too. That’s awesome, right?

 

Alicia:

Yes. You’re right. 

 

Eileen:

Thank you so much. Thank you so much for your words of wisdom, your stories, your references. And yeah, I’m just so grateful. I’m just in awe right now, just breathing and trying to be at peace. And Brett, we feel blessed. We’re so blessed to have you on the show, so thank you.

 

Alicia:

Yes, to have you. Yes.

 

Brett Penager:

I feel it over here, and I feel even more blessed to have this opportunity, big time, I’m telling you. It’s a mirror, so thank you.

 

Eileen:

Thank you for joining us on the Soul of a Leader podcast. We are igniting a new way of leading with your soul, and interviewing ordinary people with extraordinary impact. Thank you for listening to the stories of our leaders who will help and guide you on your leadership journey. For more information on our podcast, please visit our website at www.soulofaleader.com. Thank you for listening.