Tell me about your vision.
My vision?
Well, over the years, I've had different visions.
And some people think I see too many visions.
But in all seriousness, my vision
is I want to make a difference in the world, one person
at a time.
And I want to be able to see the magic and potential in people
and share it with them, hopefully to inspire them.
Tell me more about that.
I believe that everybody, and this
is why I focus on this with my company
when I look at businesses, I think everybody has a value.
They have magic in them.
They have talents.
Nobody is superior to another person.
Nobody is going to be great at 100 things, Harry.
But they might really be special in one or two areas.
And to me, the crime is if they ignore those one or two
areas in their lives.
So I always do my very best to not only identify
what I think is unique, but to let them know that I see it
and that I think it's fantastic.
That is very interesting.
I can see what you mean.
And correct me if I'm wrong here.
Is that similar to focusing on your strengths
and what you're good at instead of focusing on what
you are missing and can't do?
It is.
It's very related.
I think the other thing it's very related to
is what makes you excited.
What do you have passion about?
Well, it's probably something you're really good at.
And why not focus on that and do more and more of that
and worry far less about the things
you're just not that good at?
Stop beating yourself up.
Focus on what you do well.
And accept yourself for being that imperfect human being,
but that imperfect human being that
focuses on what they do well.
Wow.
That's a great vision.
What is your strengths in that case, Barry?
I think I kind of shared them a little bit, Harry.
I can see the potential in others.
And that doesn't always mean that the person that I share
that with or the company I share that with
wants to pursue that path, by the way.
They don't always go, oh, that's great.
Thank you.
Now sometimes they go, I know I'm good there,
but now I don't want to do it.
But I believe I can see that.
I see what people are capable of doing.
And I like to celebrate that.
So for the people who want to pursue it,
what's your next path?
I think what I normally will share is, I'll share,
you really do this well.
Tell me about it.
I let them talk about it.
I get to really feel their excitement
and understand what motivates them,
and what they do that is so exciting.
And to me, it's getting to know a person,
and it's connecting with them in a very deep way.
We are all different human beings,
and we have certain areas of really great, great strengths.
But sometimes we don't want to look at those strengths.
We either are drawn to the weaknesses,
or we don't want to pay attention to them
because we're too busy.
And we think if we look at our strengths,
that we're being boastful, and we're being arrogant.
And we're not.
We're just acknowledging that there's about 200 things
I'm not good at, and there are maybe three things
I'm really good at.
And that's not boasting.
It's like, OK.
So again, I look at it that way.
I look at it that way when I work with companies.
I look at what they do that is distinctive,
what they do that's unique.
Not what is superior, but it's unique.
It's different.
And to me, that's where life gets interesting.
So again, I'll use a business example.
I work with Harley-Davidson.
They're a great company, fantastic motorcycles.
But they're brilliant.
They do not say, we have the superior motorcycle
in every aspect.
They go, look, we have a beautiful motorcycle,
beautiful chrome, and the experience of being a Harley
owner is unbelievably great.
And that's what they say.
Now, BMW motorcycles are great motorcycles.
They're well-made.
They have their distinctiveness as well.
So it's not that one is great and one is bad.
But you have to honor what makes your brand or you
as an individual unique.
And the more you do that, the better you become.
And the more inspiring it is to live that out.
That's awesome.
Wow, thank you for sharing that with me.
Barry, where would you say this vision of you seeing
the strengths in someone, what they shine at,
and you coming in and helping?
Where did you get started and where did it all come from?
Great question.
My guess, because that's a very personal question
that I never thought about, my guess
is that I grew up expecting a lot out of myself
and mentally beating myself up that I wasn't good enough
or I wasn't achieving enough or wasn't
going to be able to succeed.
And it took me years and years to understand that I actually
did have talent and that I actually
could do things that were really special, unique, valuable.
And I think as I've learned that,
I've tried to spare other people from going through what
I've gone through in my life.
Because it's not fun to be in a position where you're not
satisfied with yourself.
So I think it comes from me empathizing with others
that, hey, I don't want them to go through what I went through
for many years as a younger person.
Wow, how long was the journey you
realizing that you had to go through all that
and you overcame it?
Well, great question.
My wife probably was the biggest influence
in helping me because she accepted me and loved me
for what I was and who I am and still does.
And I would say that I was in my mid-20s to late-20s
until I finally started to go, you're not that bad.
You don't have to beat yourself up over these things.
And how about accepting that you're doing pretty good?
And it took me that long.
And I would say now that I've become a very old person,
in fact, this is my birthday that we're doing this podcast.
I will not mention how old I am.
But as I've gotten older, I'd say
after I hit 45 years old, I started to realize, OK,
there's no purpose in beating yourself up.
So if I make a mistake, I forgive myself.
I certainly would apologize to another individual
if they felt the impact of my mistake.
But I just feel that all the years of not being satisfied
really did not help me.
And I didn't need another enemy in my life.
I didn't need that.
I didn't need myself to be an enemy.
So somewhere around, I'd say, my 40s,
I started to realize that, hey, you're OK.
And that's why I try to work with people,
including my kids and my grandkids,
to let them know that I love them for exactly who they are.
I do not compare them to somebody else.
And I don't.
And they've got these quirky, weird things they do.
And I love a lot of those things.
But I think they're great, even if they're not productive.
They're just who you are.
And again, that makes you unique.
Can you give me an example of those scenarios?
I would love to get context.
Well, sure, sure.
My older grandson is 10 years old.
And Grayson drives a lot of his family
crazy because he wants things to be figured out.
I want to know where we're going, what's going on,
why are we doing this?
OK, that could be called irritating.
I call it being a planner.
He wants to plan.
And I go, Grayson, I love you.
You are a planner.
And I go, by the way, your mom, dad, and brother
are not planners, so you're going to drive them nuts.
He goes, I know.
They get angry at me.
And I said, I know.
I love it.
He said, you do?
Yep.
Because I said, you want to make sure
that everybody knows what they're doing
and we're going to do it when we say we're going to do it.
And he says, that's right.
I said, I love it.
So to me, that's a power of his.
That's a strength.
And the worst thing that would happen
is that he goes, you know, that's really stupid of me.
I'm really dumb.
I'm an irritating guy because I want to know things.
I should just shut myself up.
He shouldn't.
He should keep asking those questions.
And I tell his mom and his brother and his dad
the same thing.
Hey, wait a minute.
This guy's the planner.
He's the guy that's got things in organized state over here.
We've got to be paying attention to this kid.
So something like that.
But that can be in business.
That can be somebody that you work with
that asks questions a lot.
And sometimes people say, stop asking questions.
And I'm going, you know, the smartest people on Earth
are curious.
They're inquisitive.
So ask questions.
And I love that you ask questions.
Keep doing that.
And I've talked with employees like that too.
So it's also kind of like our education system for us
growing up here in America.
And we're going through elementary school
into middle school and high school.
And they're trying to turn us into the same type of person
because it's educating everybody.
It's a mass amount of people.
And we're trying to get everybody through the system.
And what if you're just a little different?
You could get in trouble.
I got kicked out of second grade.
And the reason I got kicked out of second grade
was the teacher said, what is 2 plus 2?
And I said, well, it depends on what x is.
And she said, what do you mean, x?
Who's been teaching you algebra?
And I said, my dad.
And my dad had taught me algebra from the time
I was three or four years old because my dad was a genius.
So I learned algebra as a little kid.
And I got kicked out of school for it.
And I'm thinking, shouldn't that kid
have been patted on the back and say, wow, that's really neat.
That's neat that you like math.
That's really good.
But instead, that kid gets kicked out of school for the day
and is yelled at by the teacher.
And you think, you know, that's the exact opposite of what
we should do with children or with friends or employees
or clients.
Wow.
You know, I can relate to what you just
said, some of the stories and things you shared.
I had the opposite experience in school, Barry.
I grew up in India, born and raised.
And education system in India in a lot of ways
is worse comes to public schooling.
But most kids in cities go to private school.
And that's what I did.
I went to private school.
But it's not as better as you think it would be.
When it comes to being studious and a nerd kind of education,
right, like 2 plus 2 in algebra or whatever, I learned a lot.
And in those cases, teacher actually made fun of you
or they made you feel bad about yourself
for not being paying attention or not having the answers
that you should have, et cetera.
They did the opposite.
And I see both of them as bad as the first one.
None of them is good because none of them,
it's like whatever side of a person or a kid you speak to,
that's the side you see come out of.
And I see the other side of the situation.
So thank you for sharing that story.
I have one more question for you.
And I think you've shared what, if I can find the question,
first of all.
Yeah, right here.
What is a goal for being on the show today, Barry?
My goal is to bring some sort of valuable message
to one person or more.
And that's it.
It's not to sell anything.
It's not to impress.
It's to share something that maybe one person goes,
you know, I could use that.
That might help me.
That's it.
I wrote my book.
And my goal isn't to sell so many books.
My goal is to inspire a million people worldwide
with the message in the book.
And so for me, it's to inspire.
So today, hey, if I inspire one person, great.
If it's 10 people, hey, great.
Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions
as these episodes continue to move forward.
This is going to get more and more fun.
We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show.
And thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision
and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.