Episode 21

full
Published on:

28th Feb 2023

Ed Norwood | Be A Giant Killer - Overcoming Your Everyday Goliaths

In this episode of the podcast, we have a special guest, Ed Norwood, President of ERN/The National Council of Reimbursement Advocacy and AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR of "Be A Giant Killer, Overcoming Your Everyday Goliaths." Ed shares with us his personal journey of overcoming challenges and the lessons he learned along the way. He reflects on the mistakes he made in his youth, the difficult season he had to go through, and the importance of unlearning and relearning things to move forward.

As the president of ERN/The National Council of Reimbursement Advocacy, Ed and his team teach their people to serve their way into the hearts of their provider members by retelling the story they are living, editing, and rewriting it for the next generation. He believes in unexpected generosity as a way to build trust and permission to do remarkable work.

Tune in to this episode to learn from Ed's inspiring journey and his insights on overcoming challenges in life.

Purchase Book "Be A Giant Killer": https://a.co/d/hfvvEOX

Connect or Follow Ed on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ernorwood/

Mentioned in this episode:

1on1 App Information

https://www.thinkmovethrive.com/1on1-app/

Transcript
Dallas Burnett:

Hey, everybody.

Dallas Burnett:

We're talking to Ed Norwood today.

Dallas Burnett:

What an amazing guy.

Dallas Burnett:

He's a husband, a father, a thought leader, speaker, author, and president,

Dallas Burnett:

and founder of E R n has some incredible stories about life and business.

Dallas Burnett:

He's a great new friend of mine.

Dallas Burnett:

You don't want to miss this incredible conversation.

Dallas Burnett:

Welcome, welcome, welcome.

Dallas Burnett:

I am Dallas Burnett, sitting in my 1905 Koch Brothers

Dallas Burnett:

barber chair in Thrive Studios.

Dallas Burnett:

But more importantly, I have a great guest today who's got one of

Dallas Burnett:

my favorite titles of a book called Be a Giant Killer, Ed Norwood.

Dallas Burnett:

Welcome to the show, ed.

Ed Norwood:

Hey Dallas.

Ed Norwood:

Thank you, man.

Ed Norwood:

here in Southern California, it's sunny, but it's cold.

Ed Norwood:

It's about 50 degrees.

Ed Norwood:

It's a blizzard, but we're making it

Dallas Burnett:

You're hanging in there I I love Southern California.

Dallas Burnett:

It's so beautiful.

Dallas Burnett:

And, I'd love to hear, just tell our listeners what is e r n where

Dallas Burnett:

your, what are you doing now?

Dallas Burnett:

You've got books out.

Dallas Burnett:

you speak.

Dallas Burnett:

Just tell us.

Dallas Burnett:

tell us what Ed Norwood's into these days.

Ed Norwood:

Hey, thank you.

Ed Norwood:

just once.

Ed Norwood:

I want to just share with you just excited and humbled to really

Ed Norwood:

share this platform with you.

Ed Norwood:

Thank you for making it available to me this morning.

Ed Norwood:

earned Enterprises, we've been in business for about 23 years

Ed Norwood:

and it is my second business.

Ed Norwood:

My first company I started at the age of 19, made a lot of money, made a lot

Ed Norwood:

of mistakes, lost that business and.

Ed Norwood:

in the season of loss, learned a lot of things.

Ed Norwood:

when I was 18 years old, before I started that company, I worked for

Ed Norwood:

a millionaire named Jay Abraham, and he, was a marketing consultant.

Ed Norwood:

Dallas.

Ed Norwood:

This guy had, seminars that he charged $30,000 per person.

Ed Norwood:

This was back then, I'm not gonna tell you how long ago that

Ed Norwood:

was probably over 30 years ago.

Ed Norwood:

And I just told you over 30 years ago, and he had 300 people in this event.

Ed Norwood:

And I was just this guy Friday, took his car down the street to wash his

Ed Norwood:

Lexus, him and his gm, Bill Clark.

Ed Norwood:

And he taught his, attendees how to create a USP, a unique selling proposition.

Ed Norwood:

And, I don't know if you've heard of Unique Selling Proposition before.

Ed Norwood:

Have you heard of that

Ed Norwood:

before?

Ed Norwood:

so I built my entire company around this unique selling proposition.

Ed Norwood:

for dominoes it was 30 minutes, or it's

Dallas Burnett:

Yep.

Dallas Burnett:

Yeah.

Ed Norwood:

for Nordstrom, for the most part, it's, you can

Ed Norwood:

buy it, spray it for seven days.

Ed Norwood:

As long as you have , that barcode, the very bottom, you can bring it back.

Ed Norwood:

That was their usp, right?

Dallas Burnett:

Yeah.

Ed Norwood:

And I used that strategy build My first business,

Ed Norwood:

created a USP it triple in dollars.

Ed Norwood:

And the amount of money I saw just wasn't ready for it.

Dallas Burnett:

Oh,

Dallas Burnett:

wow.

Ed Norwood:

learned a lot in the transition of working for people.

Ed Norwood:

Again, before I started this organization, we're now 23 years strong and had

Ed Norwood:

the ability to really pour into a lot of great healthcare providers.

Ed Norwood:

We advocate for medically appropriate healthcare, so we challenge HMOs that make

Ed Norwood:

negligent medical necessity decisions.

Dallas Burnett:

Oh wow.

Dallas Burnett:

That's amazing.

Dallas Burnett:

Now we gotta jump back a little bit there, cuz you, you skipped a lot.

Dallas Burnett:

I love how you transitioned and thank you for kind of opening up and sharing

Dallas Burnett:

where you've kind of, where you started 19 years old, that's, that is really

Dallas Burnett:

young to be starting a business.

Dallas Burnett:

Did working with, Jay Abraham, did he inspire you in some way to want to

Dallas Burnett:

go out and do something on your own?

Dallas Burnett:

Or were you just, you always kind of had this burning itch of

Dallas Burnett:

entrepreneurship and leadership.

Dallas Burnett:

what was it like early on as a young entrepreneur?

Ed Norwood:

really the first inspiration I would have to say is probably my mom.

Ed Norwood:

She was in ministry for herself and, very independent.

Ed Norwood:

I grew up kind of with the mindset, if you want something done, do it yourself.

Ed Norwood:

Wasn't.

Ed Norwood:

Mindset for marriage.

Ed Norwood:

But anyway, different story.

Dallas Burnett:

we get trained out of that.

Dallas Burnett:

If you've been married for a long time, you get trained out of that

Ed Norwood:

yes, but yet watching her really inspired me to be an entrepreneur.

Ed Norwood:

And I just really learned, I've learned this, that everything has compensation.

Ed Norwood:

And so in the seasons of my life where, wasn't sure the direction I was going,

Ed Norwood:

wasn't sure if I was accumulating what I wanted at that stage of my

Ed Norwood:

career, man, I was becoming something.

Ed Norwood:

And even in the mistakes, the losses,

Dallas Burnett:

hmm.

Ed Norwood:

I really feel that I matured quite a bit to the man I am now.

Ed Norwood:

But it was quite challenging.

Ed Norwood:

You I had absolutely no idea what I was doing at 19.

Ed Norwood:

and, I'm grateful that.

Ed Norwood:

, the grace of God kind of just covered me in those seasons where, I made a

Ed Norwood:

ton of mistakes that affected people.

Dallas Burnett:

so how long were you in that original

Dallas Burnett:

business that you started at?

Dallas Burnett:

19.

Ed Norwood:

about seven years, and it's ironic that I was, well, let's

Ed Norwood:

see, 19, yeah, about seven years.

Ed Norwood:

I lost the business two weeks after I was married.

Dallas Burnett:

Oh,

Ed Norwood:

And, so the business that I promised my in-laws would take

Ed Norwood:

care of, their daughter was gone.

Ed Norwood:

and really God was just dealing with the, some prideful areas in my

Ed Norwood:

life, where I had to go through a season that I call the wilderness.

Ed Norwood:

a season of temporary confusion where nothing is working, where you're

Ed Norwood:

planting, reaping nothing, it seems, and, learning in that moment, That you have

Ed Norwood:

to unlearn and relearn some things to get yourself to the next chapter of life.

Ed Norwood:

And so I kind of went through that.

Ed Norwood:

but again, just grateful.

Ed Norwood:

I'm not where I want to be, but certainly not where I used to be.

Ed Norwood:

I'm grateful for the process

Dallas Burnett:

That's awesome.

Ed Norwood:

to this stage,

Dallas Burnett:

I love that.

Dallas Burnett:

And I think that's so true.

Dallas Burnett:

I think that if you are leading people or you're leading yourself

Dallas Burnett:

that life is never, even though we want it to be even, we want our

Dallas Burnett:

lives to be that up and to the right.

Dallas Burnett:

just that straight line trajectory.

Dallas Burnett:

It never is.

Dallas Burnett:

It's.

Dallas Burnett:

Side turns and circles and you just never know where, so you, even though you're

Dallas Burnett:

trying to just have this consistency, sometimes you get curve balls that you

Dallas Burnett:

can't control and some that you can.

Dallas Burnett:

I'd love to talk to you about the wilderness and your wilderness experience

Dallas Burnett:

and as you go, as you kind of transitioned out of that original business, in, was

Dallas Burnett:

that, how did you manage that transition?

Dallas Burnett:

How did you manage that with your family, your new family?

Dallas Burnett:

How did you manage that?

Dallas Burnett:

What was that like?

Dallas Burnett:

When you say you had to earn, unlearn some things, what did that look like for you?

Ed Norwood:

Well, I got my first credit card at 18 Dallas and it was $500.

Ed Norwood:

And I remember I was working for a company, hadn't gone into business

Ed Norwood:

yet, and I told the coworkers, Hey, I'm gonna take you out to lunch.

Ed Norwood:

Got my first credit card.

Ed Norwood:

There was an older lady named Paula Strode who pulled me to the

Ed Norwood:

side and said, don't you do that.

Ed Norwood:

I see you crazy.

Ed Norwood:

Be crazy.

Ed Norwood:

I'm fine.

Ed Norwood:

I'm taking everyone out to lunch.

Ed Norwood:

we're gonna have a good time.

Ed Norwood:

And little did I know that decision would lead me in a

Ed Norwood:

down hood of bad decisions of.

Ed Norwood:

making poor financial decisions.

Ed Norwood:

And my, credit got to a place where it was at a 500.

Ed Norwood:

And I've learned over the course of time, that you can't pray a bad credit score up

Dallas Burnett:

That's awesome.

Ed Norwood:

listen, I, I had to make some different decisions.

Ed Norwood:

I had to pay some things off.

Dallas Burnett:

Yeah.

Ed Norwood:

There were some things I had to dispute that were labeling

Ed Norwood:

me, that were incorrect, and I had to change my payment history.

Ed Norwood:

And by changing those patterns of history, I was able to change my destiny.

Ed Norwood:

So my credit score's now 7 50, 7 60, maybe on a good day.

Ed Norwood:

And people can't even see that it used to be 500 unless they watch.

Ed Norwood:

The last 10%

Dallas Burnett:

there.

Dallas Burnett:

That's right.

Dallas Burnett:

Exactly.

Dallas Burnett:

Exactly.

Dallas Burnett:

Well, and that's

Ed Norwood:

they, they won't even, they won't even know that because, man, we

Ed Norwood:

can make redemptive decisions in our life so that regardless of what our

Ed Norwood:

history is, we leave a different legacy.

Ed Norwood:

So I went through wilderness.

Ed Norwood:

I was on welfare, I was in couches, grabbing change, going

Ed Norwood:

to the Green Coin Star machine.

Ed Norwood:

And, went through an embarrassing time where I couldn't take care of my family.

Ed Norwood:

I couldn't, buy Christmas presents for my children.

Ed Norwood:

And, again, just in that season where I became nothing, sometimes

Ed Norwood:

you don't realize all you need is God until all you have is God.

Ed Norwood:

and I was in that place of my life and, just man grew up.

Ed Norwood:

I grew up from this little boy that threw tantrums and.

Ed Norwood:

tried to act as if he was invincible and bulletproof, into a man that God

Ed Norwood:

could use, and my wife would probably attest that I'm still becoming that man.

Ed Norwood:

I'm still in the altar.

Ed Norwood:

I'm still getting there, but, I'm grateful for that wilderness

Ed Norwood:

season that matured me,

Dallas Burnett:

I love that.

Dallas Burnett:

And I love how you talked about, you just took ownership of so much of your

Dallas Burnett:

routines and like how those routines.

Dallas Burnett:

Contributed to, essentially the loss of the business and just the financial ruling

Dallas Burnett:

of your credit and so many other things.

Dallas Burnett:

And then you just kind of, kind of got to this kind of sounds like a rock

Dallas Burnett:

bottom place and started a trajectory that was in a different direction.

Dallas Burnett:

Can you talk

Ed Norwood:

I thought it could, I could, I thought it could never affect.

Ed Norwood:

I thought that my decisions would never catch up with me,

Dallas Burnett:

oh really, that was so going into that

Dallas Burnett:

you were like, I can do this.

Dallas Burnett:

Kind of like you said, invincible.

Dallas Burnett:

I'm good.

Dallas Burnett:

I'll figure it out.

Ed Norwood:

yeah, this kid on the on, on the Buffalo Bills, DeMar Hamlin who died

Ed Norwood:

twice and they brought him back to life.

Ed Norwood:

I was watching Ryan Clark, espn, and he said something

Ed Norwood:

that I really resonated with.

Ed Norwood:

He said, when I was 24, I didn't even know I could die And so

Dallas Burnett:

though.

Dallas Burnett:

So true.

Ed Norwood:

yeah, I mean as men, it's intrinsic in our masculinity,

Ed Norwood:

to think that we're bulletproof.

Ed Norwood:

To think that we're invincible and can do things without consequence and overcome

Ed Norwood:

things in our own strength or willpower.

Ed Norwood:

we don't often admit the things that are stronger than us, that we are

Ed Norwood:

imprisoned, that we're addicted, that we're traumatized or misunderstood,

Ed Norwood:

and too often we minimize the effect of family dysfunction or

Ed Norwood:

the effect of trauma, the effect of mistakes that we've made, for years.

Ed Norwood:

but we can't outdo the trauma and the mistakes and fill the

Ed Norwood:

gaps of our life with things that distract our in your date.

Ed Norwood:

Us.

Ed Norwood:

we can't outwork what happened to us in a gym

Dallas Burnett:

That's so

Ed Norwood:

or outwork what happened to us at a office or drown it

Ed Norwood:

with alcohol or sex or addiction.

Ed Norwood:

We can't build a business over the pain.

Ed Norwood:

and really that's why I wrote the book Be a Giant Killer, to identify

Ed Norwood:

the hurts and the triggers that kept rearing its head in our lives that

Ed Norwood:

were sabotaging our dreams to show people that regardless of what has been

Ed Norwood:

written in history and what people have labeled them by, we can edit chapters.

Ed Norwood:

We can, we, we can change the.

Ed Norwood:

labels are the narratives that people have placed upon us because God is a

Ed Norwood:

master screenwriter and no matter what segment of our life that we're in, he

Ed Norwood:

can write a sequel that was better.

Ed Norwood:

Watch this.

Ed Norwood:

He can write a franchise like Fast In Furious, that continues into the next

Ed Norwood:

generation and keeps getting better.

Ed Norwood:

And really that was the inspiration, of taking my life story and showing

Ed Norwood:

people how they can transform theirs.

Dallas Burnett:

Wow.

Dallas Burnett:

That's awesome.

Dallas Burnett:

so to be a giant killer is a life story, is your life story.

Dallas Burnett:

That's what the, that's what the book is about.

Dallas Burnett:

and just kind of walking through that's a, that's awesome.

Dallas Burnett:

And I I love how you frame that up.

Dallas Burnett:

I love how you talk about editing segments, and rewriting scripts.

Dallas Burnett:

And I think that sometimes that people get trapped, like you said, in a

Dallas Burnett:

pattern of thinking that l that keeps them existing in the past, it's like,

Dallas Burnett:

it's like Groundhog Day over and over again because they've made a mistake.

Dallas Burnett:

They've gone somewhere.

Dallas Burnett:

They've done something that was a blunder.

Dallas Burnett:

It was just a miss.

Dallas Burnett:

And then whether it's shame, guilt, fear, anxiety, whatever it is,

Dallas Burnett:

It's like that view of the past is so great that they lose sight of

Dallas Burnett:

a different, more hopeful future.

Dallas Burnett:

And I think it keeps them there.

Dallas Burnett:

And I think that's one of the things about, anyone that's leading people

Dallas Burnett:

in an organization, one of the things that you're, as a leader, you're

Dallas Burnett:

trying to do is not only inspire people to, the mission, the vision,

Dallas Burnett:

values of the organization, whether it's a business or a nonprofit or

Dallas Burnett:

a ministry or anything like that.

Dallas Burnett:

You're also inspiring people to hope, you're inspiring people to believe

Dallas Burnett:

that they can be better to improve that their situation is improving,

Dallas Burnett:

that they're moving forward.

Dallas Burnett:

And so I love how you framed that up and how you kind of, kind of

Dallas Burnett:

looked at that and said, we can edit scripts and we can change the ending.

Dallas Burnett:

and that God is that script writer.

Dallas Burnett:

And if we do our part like you said, and you couldn't pray your way out of

Dallas Burnett:

the 500, but if you put in that and you change those behaviors, it's amazing.

Dallas Burnett:

It's amazing what transpires, you

Ed Norwood:

We, we really under, I can't agree with you.

Ed Norwood:

more, we really underestimate how family history impacts everything that we do.

Ed Norwood:

the work, the book Be a Giant Killer is a dive into how the Israelite

Ed Norwood:

nation had to conquer seven giants to get to their promised land, and each

Ed Norwood:

of the giants were related to them.

Ed Norwood:

it really is a book on diving into some of the things that are related to our family

Ed Norwood:

history that's impeding us from reaching or accomplishing our wildest dreams.

Ed Norwood:

we have a tendency to carry shame for what others have done to us, things beyond

Ed Norwood:

our, circumstance or beyond our control.

Ed Norwood:

Rather, that happened to us when we were children or watch this.

Ed Norwood:

We have a tendency of giving people what others have given to us.

Ed Norwood:

Experts say that 80 to 90% of how we observe things occurs

Ed Norwood:

by the age of five or six.

Ed Norwood:

Just imagine that for a moment.

Ed Norwood:

How we love and how we forgive, how we process pain and conflict.

Ed Norwood:

We started that trajectory or downhill motion of how we did that.

Ed Norwood:

From the age of five or six, our kids have been watching us and we have been

Ed Norwood:

watching our caregivers for years.

Ed Norwood:

And so our history shapes our relationships, how we respond

Ed Norwood:

to people, places, and things.

Ed Norwood:

Our histories, our hurts, and our insecurities can often

Ed Norwood:

produce lifelong triggers.

Ed Norwood:

Sometimes when we are responding to a person in our present, we are

Ed Norwood:

really speaking to someone in our pasts who hurt us, who abandoned

Ed Norwood:

us, who didn't validate us.

Ed Norwood:

And when there is unresolved trauma, it's intrinsic rather than our

Ed Norwood:

human nature, to preemptively react.

Ed Norwood:

So history doesn't repeat itself.

Ed Norwood:

I'm a recovering helicopter parent.

Ed Norwood:

And, man, I was a great encourager when I was younger with my kids

Ed Norwood:

Dallas, but I wasn't a great comforter.

Ed Norwood:

and for the most part, when I was growing up in high school,

Ed Norwood:

my mom traveled for ministry.

Ed Norwood:

So if I was sick, I had to make myself chicken soup.

Dallas Burnett:

Right, right,

Ed Norwood:

didn't feel like going to school, I had to tell myself,

Ed Norwood:

get up, it's time to go to school.

Ed Norwood:

If I was watching television and I had homework, I had to tell

Ed Norwood:

myself, Hey, turn the TV off.

Ed Norwood:

It's time to work on your studies.

Ed Norwood:

I had to wheel myself because I didn't have a comforter in the home, per se.

Ed Norwood:

I had to encourage myself that despite not having a parent in the home with me,

Ed Norwood:

that I could accomplish incredible things.

Ed Norwood:

I think by the age of 16 I had a, an advice column called Dear

Ed Norwood:

Ed instead of Dear Abby, happy

Dallas Burnett:

I love it.

Ed Norwood:

and here I was Dallas, trying to encourage 16 and 17 year

Ed Norwood:

olds with the courage I needed to show up every single day.

Ed Norwood:

So I raised my kids, if they were going through something and

Ed Norwood:

they were, and they were sick.

Ed Norwood:

I was the one saying them.

Ed Norwood:

Hey, you could, you're more than a conqueror.

Ed Norwood:

You can do exceedingly and abundantly and far above what you asked.

Ed Norwood:

Dream, think, hope, or imagine if they had a sickness and they were gonna miss

Ed Norwood:

a big test or a big game the next day.

Ed Norwood:

I was pushing them and.

Ed Norwood:

Praying over them and telling them that you'll be fine.

Ed Norwood:

You have to push through it.

Ed Norwood:

and but rarely did I sit on the edge of their bed and say to them, Hey, I know

Ed Norwood:

you've studied really hard for tomorrow and prepared really hard for tomorrow.

Ed Norwood:

It must be crushing you that you may not make it, that you can't make it.

Ed Norwood:

How are you doing with that?

Dallas Burnett:

Hmm.

Ed Norwood:

and that's where in this season of my life, I've begun

Ed Norwood:

to excavate unresolved hurts that I feel my kids might, may have carried

Ed Norwood:

from childhood into adulthood.

Ed Norwood:

And I'm going back and I'm having conversations saying, Hey, son, when

Ed Norwood:

you were 14 and Dad made you do this in front of the entire team and in front

Ed Norwood:

of your coach, I was wrong for that.

Ed Norwood:

I was angry, I was prideful.

Ed Norwood:

Should have never happened.

Ed Norwood:

Will you ever forgive me for that?

Ed Norwood:

Because we transmit.

Ed Norwood:

The traumas and the fears.

Ed Norwood:

We don't heal to the next generation

Dallas Burnett:

that is so powerful and I think it's so challenging to

Dallas Burnett:

any parent that's listening to the last 10% because I love how you

Dallas Burnett:

approach the challenge that you've kind of put out in front of yourself.

Dallas Burnett:

You've recognized something and you've laid out a really difficult,

Dallas Burnett:

scenario where you were growing up.

Dallas Burnett:

And having to kind of will yourself to win and pull yourself up by

Dallas Burnett:

your bootstraps and go and do it.

Dallas Burnett:

And it's, and your experience came with its own challenges

Dallas Burnett:

and you didn't have that person.

Dallas Burnett:

But then I love how you took that and said, okay, that's not good enough.

Dallas Burnett:

Cuz a lot of people stop, and I think this is important to our

Dallas Burnett:

listeners, self-awareness is huge.

Dallas Burnett:

you were just talking about a lot about self-awareness is like, how

Dallas Burnett:

do, how well do you know yourself?

Dallas Burnett:

And you're looking backwards, you're looking inside, you're looking

Dallas Burnett:

outside, you're talking to people.

Dallas Burnett:

and then once you discovered, hey, look, I've got this wound from my past

Dallas Burnett:

that has caused me to make certain decisions that I was unaware of, right?

Dallas Burnett:

Most people would say, yes, I see it.

Dallas Burnett:

Oh man, I hate that.

Dallas Burnett:

And then they would stop there and they would either feel sorry for themselves

Dallas Burnett:

or be like, well it's not my fault.

Dallas Burnett:

Or they'd make excuses.

Dallas Burnett:

So they've got that self-awareness piece.

Dallas Burnett:

But I love how you went the next step and said, So what am I gonna do about it?

Dallas Burnett:

I'm gonna go and I'm gonna go and I'm gonna go and get him, and

Dallas Burnett:

I'm gonna get my son and we're gonna have some conversations.

Dallas Burnett:

We're gonna fix this.

Dallas Burnett:

We're gonna work on this.

Ed Norwood:

and they're really hard conversations because I came

Ed Norwood:

from a generation where children were to be, seen and not heard.

Dallas Burnett:

right.

Ed Norwood:

and oftentimes in our generation will hear people say

Ed Norwood:

things like, well, I did the best.

Ed Norwood:

That I could.

Dallas Burnett:

Hmm.

Ed Norwood:

and that's not good enough.

Dallas Burnett:

Yeah.

Dallas Burnett:

Yeah.

Ed Norwood:

Or will say things like, well, it is what it is.

Dallas Burnett:

It is what it is, right,

Ed Norwood:

it is what we, our people have made

Dallas Burnett:

That's right.

Dallas Burnett:

That's right.

Dallas Burnett:

That's

Ed Norwood:

And so I, I've learned over the course of years, in this season

Ed Norwood:

of my life that it's important to have hard conversations, speak the loving

Ed Norwood:

truth, but have hard conversations.

Ed Norwood:

I was on a show one time and someone said, one of the most difficult conversations

Ed Norwood:

you can have is with yourself.

Ed Norwood:

And I said to them, I'm not sure if I agree, but if I were gonna

Ed Norwood:

agree, I think the second most difficult conversation to have if

Ed Norwood:

they're living is with your parents.

Ed Norwood:

having the ability to say, I wasn't raised with a dad

Ed Norwood:

Dallas, so I had a conversation.

Ed Norwood:

I must have the courage to have a conversation with my dad and said

Ed Norwood:

to him, Hey, dad, why weren't you in my life when I was growing up?

Ed Norwood:

I, I really needed a father.

Ed Norwood:

When I went through this at 16 and this at 17.

Ed Norwood:

Why didn't you and mom make it?

Ed Norwood:

I just wanted to know what my family history was and God kind

Ed Norwood:

of warned me before I did this.

Ed Norwood:

You may not get the answer that you want, but he responded and said, son,

Ed Norwood:

I'm not even sure if I'm your father.

Dallas Burnett:

Good gracious.

Ed Norwood:

And I was angry at first Dallas.

Ed Norwood:

And then I tried to counsel his bad family history or his family history

Ed Norwood:

and wonder, how his dad was with him.

Ed Norwood:

But after a while, I begin to realize that I can't heal the

Ed Norwood:

family history of other people.

Ed Norwood:

I'm responsible.

Ed Norwood:

For the next generation,

Dallas Burnett:

Yes.

Ed Norwood:

what I do in my life affects them.

Ed Norwood:

And having those hard conversations may not, cuz you'll talk yourself out of it.

Ed Norwood:

you'll say things like, it doesn't matter.

Ed Norwood:

They're never going to change.

Ed Norwood:

Shut up.

Ed Norwood:

Don't say anything.

Ed Norwood:

Just ignore them.

Dallas Burnett:

Yeah.

Ed Norwood:

But here's the thing, having those hard conversations may never

Ed Norwood:

change them or change the circumstance, but it allows your voice to be heard.

Dallas Burnett:

Yeah.

Ed Norwood:

when you allow your voice to be heard, the little boy and

Ed Norwood:

little girl in you matures faster, heals faster tantrums, decrease.

Ed Norwood:

No longer silent, no longer violent.

Dallas Burnett:

Right.

Dallas Burnett:

Ah, that's true.

Dallas Burnett:

That's great.

Dallas Burnett:

I love that.

Dallas Burnett:

And I think that's such good wisdom for leading your family.

Dallas Burnett:

Or leading a team in an organization because those really difficult

Dallas Burnett:

conversations, we may try to avoid them.

Dallas Burnett:

We may try to dismiss them, we may try to justify why we don't need to have

Dallas Burnett:

'em, why it's the other person's fault.

Dallas Burnett:

and we might say, and it might be justifiable in the sense that they

Dallas Burnett:

may, we could say, w if we're gonna sit down and talk to this team

Dallas Burnett:

member, we're gonna talk to our kid.

Dallas Burnett:

They're not gonna change.

Dallas Burnett:

I'm gonna tell 'em this and I'm just wasting my time.

Dallas Burnett:

But it's not a waste of time, like you just said.

Dallas Burnett:

It's not a waste of time because when we say it, we hear ourselves saying it

Dallas Burnett:

and we know we're speaking the truth.

Dallas Burnett:

We know we're trying to develop someone, we're trying to heal a relationship,

Dallas Burnett:

repair, repair some damage that's been done, whether it's our fault or

Dallas Burnett:

theirs, we're coming to the table.

Dallas Burnett:

And I think if we are changed, then it definitely changes the

Dallas Burnett:

dynamic because it changes us.

Dallas Burnett:

So even if the person doesn't change, it's worth the exercise cuz it changes you.

Dallas Burnett:

I think that's, I think that's fantastic advice.

Ed Norwood:

and you really think about it.

Ed Norwood:

by having that conversation with him, it changes you, it affects

Ed Norwood:

every relationship connected to you because you don't grow up.

Ed Norwood:

I heard someone say this some years ago that the heart knows no time.

Dallas Burnett:

Hmm.

Ed Norwood:

That's why something that happened to you 20 years ago can feel

Ed Norwood:

like it just took place yesterday

Dallas Burnett:

Oh, that's, that's good.

Ed Norwood:

because we have to rewire our hearts.

Ed Norwood:

that's why a 50 year old man can throw a five year old tantrum,

Dallas Burnett:

right,

Ed Norwood:

or a 40 year old woman who was abused as a child

Ed Norwood:

has trusting issues as an adult.

Ed Norwood:

And so our hearts are like black boxes.

Ed Norwood:

When you think of a black box, you think of that indestructible piece

Ed Norwood:

of metal underneath a pilot seat.

Ed Norwood:

And Dallas, this black box is profound because it can

Ed Norwood:

withstand catastrophic disaster.

Ed Norwood:

And still remember...

Dallas Burnett:

that's awesome.

Ed Norwood:

remembers the good welcome to United.

Ed Norwood:

We'll have a six hour flight to South Carolina movie in the cabin, a movies in

Ed Norwood:

the cabin food, in the food in the cabin.

Ed Norwood:

Put your feet up.

Ed Norwood:

Enjoy the flight.

Ed Norwood:

It remembers the bad mayday mayday fire in the cockpit.

Ed Norwood:

Prepare for a crash landing.

Ed Norwood:

And even if this plane plunges, God forbid, into the ocean and breaks

Ed Norwood:

up in pieces and hundreds of people die, the government will send divers.

Ed Norwood:

Pass the debris and the chaos to find this little black box

Ed Norwood:

to find out what happened.

Ed Norwood:

Because it remembers,

Dallas Burnett:

Hmm,

Ed Norwood:

and that's our heart.

Dallas Burnett:

Hmm.

Ed Norwood:

It remembers the good.

Ed Norwood:

Every celebration, every achievement.

Ed Norwood:

It remembers the bad, every betrayal, every abandonment, every rejection.

Ed Norwood:

And if we don't spend time to rewire that heart

Dallas Burnett:

Mm

Ed Norwood:

and to give that heart expression, the little boy and

Ed Norwood:

little girl in us never grows up.

Dallas Burnett:

mm I think that's so powerful.

Dallas Burnett:

I've never heard that analogy before, but I love it.

Dallas Burnett:

I love that idea.

Dallas Burnett:

The black box and the heart doesn't really recognize time.

Dallas Burnett:

It just is.

Dallas Burnett:

And I think that is fascinating.

Dallas Burnett:

I really do.

Dallas Burnett:

I think that's so true.

Dallas Burnett:

And I think that it's interesting because that is what we're spending

Dallas Burnett:

time with when you're working.

Dallas Burnett:

either yourself or you're working on a relationship with someone else,

Dallas Burnett:

or you're working on a team, you're having to unpack a lot of stuff and

Dallas Burnett:

you talk about unpacking a lot of, if you're going to therapy or you're

Dallas Burnett:

seeing a coach, or you're just talking to a friend or a pastor or whatever,

Dallas Burnett:

you're unpacking a lot of stuff.

Dallas Burnett:

And the reason is that you wanna move forward and you wanna keep going.

Dallas Burnett:

And yet you've got this recorder inside of you that if you don't get

Dallas Burnett:

rewired, it just, it makes it much more difficult to move forward.

Dallas Burnett:

I think that's really interesting.

Dallas Burnett:

I love that.

Dallas Burnett:

I love that analogy, huh.

Dallas Burnett:

Thank you for sharing that with our listeners today.

Dallas Burnett:

So let's talk about this, cuz you've, we were talking a little bit with before

Dallas Burnett:

the show, speaking of family history, you have an amazing story about your

Dallas Burnett:

family and kind of a tragedy that, that you had a lot of people, a part of.

Dallas Burnett:

What would you mind sharing that with us?

Ed Norwood:

Yeah, I lost, 27 relatives in the Jonestown dying, a tragedy

Ed Norwood:

behind Jim Jones back in 1978.

Dallas Burnett:

And tell everybody what that is because some people

Dallas Burnett:

may not even know, what that is,

Ed Norwood:

Yeah.

Ed Norwood:

In 1978, cult leader Jim Jones, led about 900 people to a

Ed Norwood:

remote South African jungle.

Ed Norwood:

He promised to create a paradise on earth, and, really in

Ed Norwood:

the process, Dallas, he had.

Ed Norwood:

Gained the trust of thousands of people.

Ed Norwood:

he had politicians in his pulpit, the president of the United States,

Ed Norwood:

the first lady was in his pulpit.

Ed Norwood:

Mayors were in his pulpit.

Ed Norwood:

he had positions over housing, units in, in San Francisco.

Ed Norwood:

And as a result, he convinced 900 people to migrate from America to

Ed Norwood:

south, America, to promise them a land free of hate, of racism, of prejudice.

Ed Norwood:

When they arrived, it was a concentration camp.

Ed Norwood:

He had them in the fields picking, cotton in many areas.

Ed Norwood:

He didn't feed them, he malnourished them.

Ed Norwood:

And when they all arrived, they confiscated their passport

Ed Norwood:

so they couldn't leave.

Dallas Burnett:

Good

Ed Norwood:

So a congressman named Leo Ryan visited the jungle, right

Ed Norwood:

on November 17th to see if people were held beyond their will.

Ed Norwood:

And, reluctantly some people came forward and agreed to leave the day of.

Ed Norwood:

They were terrified.

Ed Norwood:

Some of the survivors stated they were terrified to say they wanted

Ed Norwood:

to leave the day before fearing they wouldn't last the night.

Ed Norwood:

So the morning of a few of them said, we'll go, we wanna leave.

Ed Norwood:

And Jim Jones ordered the assassination of Congressman Ryan killed several

Ed Norwood:

people on the airstrip, and then ordered the deaths of 900 people by saying to

Ed Norwood:

them they were going to drink, cyanide laced flavor aid, to their deaths.

Ed Norwood:

And the autopsy report showed that 90% of the people who died were actually

Ed Norwood:

killed by injection of cyanide.

Ed Norwood:

Bullets are crossbows to the back or the chest, cuz they wouldn't take it.

Dallas Burnett:

That is so tragic.

Ed Norwood:

That's where the phrase Dallas comes, don't drink the Kool-aid for years.

Ed Norwood:

I've hated the phrase because it's really, the front page and not

Ed Norwood:

the backstory of what take place.

Ed Norwood:

Jonestown was the single loss of us civilian lives before nine 11.

Dallas Burnett:

Oh my goodness.

Dallas Burnett:

I did not

Dallas Burnett:

realize that man.

Ed Norwood:

yeah.

Ed Norwood:

it, it was.

Ed Norwood:

and the backstory is this though.

Ed Norwood:

How did almost a thousand people get to Jonestown?

Ed Norwood:

Families following families,

Dallas Burnett:

Right.

Ed Norwood:

mothers following grandmothers, children following parents.

Ed Norwood:

Into the jungles.

Ed Norwood:

And that's where the premise and the synopsis of the book comes in terms

Ed Norwood:

of trying to be aware of how fatal family history can be the children.

Ed Norwood:

About a third of the victims of Jonestown were children,

Dallas Burnett:

Oh my

Ed Norwood:

and these children were radiant jewels, for us

Ed Norwood:

to showcase to the world.

Ed Norwood:

And on that day, almost 45 years ago this year, purpose and legacy and

Ed Norwood:

doctors and attorneys and presidents and scientists and history makers, future

Ed Norwood:

moms and dads died in that jungle.

Ed Norwood:

And although I use biblical and personal stories of giants we face and be a

Ed Norwood:

giant killer, it's not a religious read.

Ed Norwood:

It's a radical read.

Ed Norwood:

It reminds us not to stay into relationships with anyone where our

Ed Norwood:

Fifth Amendment rights are violated.

Ed Norwood:

the people of Jonestowns, they built this infrastructure into this jungle on soil

Ed Norwood:

that would later become their graveyards.

Dallas Burnett:

Ugh, that's awful.

Dallas Burnett:

That is so awful.

Dallas Burnett:

And so you said 27 members of your family was in that and

Dallas Burnett:

tragically lost their life.

Ed Norwood:

Absolutely.

Ed Norwood:

Seven of them close cousins.

Ed Norwood:

I had a grandma who I loved to, I saw her the night before she left for

Ed Norwood:

Jonestown packing, and I was grabbing hold to her waist, asking her not

Ed Norwood:

to leave, and never saw her again.

Ed Norwood:

Never saw her again.

Dallas Burnett:

That is a tragedy.

Dallas Burnett:

did your mom think about, potentially going with, the grandmother?

Dallas Burnett:

Or is that, was she just Nope, I'm not, this is not my deal.

Ed Norwood:

This is a powerful story.

Ed Norwood:

My mom's gift saved my life.

Ed Norwood:

She began to have prophetic dreams that Jim Jones was going

Ed Norwood:

to kill our family in a jungle.

Ed Norwood:

telling our family members this dream.

Ed Norwood:

And eventually Jim Jones put a hit out on me and her and said that

Ed Norwood:

he would kill her if she didn't stop saying what she was saying.

Ed Norwood:

And she actually came off the road, hid me in a suburb called Daley City because she

Ed Norwood:

had a also a vision that, there would be a kidnapping plot for some of the children.

Ed Norwood:

And sure enough, my seven cousins, my uncle came home from work, he was a

Ed Norwood:

butcher at Petron's in San Francisco.

Ed Norwood:

He came home, his house was ransacked, his wife was gone, his

Ed Norwood:

kids were gone, never saw them again.

Ed Norwood:

And so her gift literally spared my life.

Ed Norwood:

I should have been one of the kids kidnapped into Johnstown.

Dallas Burnett:

Oh my gosh.

Dallas Burnett:

And this all happened in the US though.

Dallas Burnett:

These, the, they, these were kidnappings that were made in the US

Dallas Burnett:

and then taken, that's, that is mine.

Dallas Burnett:

And he put, and he actually did put out a threat to.

Dallas Burnett:

to, hurt or kill you and your mom.

Dallas Burnett:

he actually did that.

Dallas Burnett:

Oh

Ed Norwood:

yes.

Dallas Burnett:

That's

Ed Norwood:

and it was, he, he really paralyzed people with fear.

Ed Norwood:

I remember, as a young kid going into the people's temple and there was

Ed Norwood:

an eerie dark feeling in the air.

Ed Norwood:

And a young boy couldn't be more than five or six, had, broken a

Ed Norwood:

young girl's leg while roughhousing.

Ed Norwood:

And his punishment was three rounds with an eight or nine year old boy

Ed Norwood:

who pounded him into unconsciousness.

Dallas Burnett:

gracious day.

Ed Norwood:

And, in between rounds, the eight or nine year old boy would

Ed Norwood:

go and get a drink from Jim Jones.

Ed Norwood:

While this little five year old boy sat slumped over into another corner.

Ed Norwood:

And I remember watching that and reflecting back on how he used the fear

Ed Norwood:

of that to intimidate people, to tell them that no matter who you are and

Ed Norwood:

what you do, if you misbehave, what happened to him will happen to you.

Dallas Burnett:

Oh

Ed Norwood:

And that's what family history tends to do.

Ed Norwood:

It tends to intimidate us with things that have happened prior to that,

Ed Norwood:

so that if you lost a father to a massive heart attack at the age of

Ed Norwood:

50, around 50, you become frightened

Ed Norwood:

that perhaps the same thing will happen to you.

Dallas Burnett:

Yeah.

Ed Norwood:

Jones, stole families and dreamers who wanted a, better life than.

Ed Norwood:

the racism and the segregation and the dysfunction of their family and

Ed Norwood:

communities and through their, through his false dream for their lives.

Ed Norwood:

He told them that it was better to run away from problems than face them.

Ed Norwood:

But I share with people that they ask me all the time, How did you

Ed Norwood:

stay in the church after losing people in a religious cult?

Ed Norwood:

Well, number one, Jim Jones was not a part of the church of Jesus Christ.

Ed Norwood:

He was a cult.

Ed Norwood:

He was a socialist.

Ed Norwood:

He stomped on the Bible.

Ed Norwood:

He told people that he was their Messiah.

Ed Norwood:

And secondly, what happened in Jonestown happens in America every single day.

Ed Norwood:

We run from problems.

Ed Norwood:

We fail.

Ed Norwood:

We make mistakes.

Ed Norwood:

We stay in comfort zones.

Ed Norwood:

We ignore red flags.

Ed Norwood:

We stay in abusive relationships.

Ed Norwood:

We fight bouts of depression.

Ed Norwood:

We die prematurely taking our dreams to the grave.

Ed Norwood:

But we have an opportunity to rewrite.

Ed Norwood:

As we talked earlier, the chapters in our life.

Ed Norwood:

We may not be able to change our family history, but we can restore it.

Ed Norwood:

And when God restores something, he never repeats.

Ed Norwood:

The old, he makes it better than new.

Dallas Burnett:

Better than new.

Dallas Burnett:

Ah, I love that.

Dallas Burnett:

I love that man.

Dallas Burnett:

That is so powerful.

Dallas Burnett:

I am still just processing everything that you just said.

Dallas Burnett:

when you talked about your family history and you said, know, I grew up without

Dallas Burnett:

a dad and you confronted your dad.

Dallas Burnett:

I was like, oh man, that was intense.

Dallas Burnett:

this was before you just said that story where you're watching as a boy,

Dallas Burnett:

you're watching this cult operate from the inside and you've gone

Dallas Burnett:

through all this cult experience.

Dallas Burnett:

Your mother's had these visions.

Dallas Burnett:

She's kind of saved both of you from this Jim Jones character who is crazy.

Dallas Burnett:

and then you're growing up without a dad.

Dallas Burnett:

you had a lot of different choices to make at that time.

Dallas Burnett:

You saw this violence and fear and threats and intimidation.

Dallas Burnett:

And I think you could have easily gone that way.

Dallas Burnett:

you were, you didn't have a dad.

Dallas Burnett:

You could have easily gone a different way, but what kind of pushed you

Dallas Burnett:

into moving into a healthy direction that really allowed you to grow

Dallas Burnett:

and thrive and that's coming out of a very difficult childhood.

Ed Norwood:

you know, when it first happened, I remember like yesterday

Ed Norwood:

again, the heart and nose, no time.

Ed Norwood:

Right?

Ed Norwood:

And how we observe things occurs by five or six.

Ed Norwood:

I was eight years old when it happened, and I remember going into.

Ed Norwood:

the living room at night watching.

Ed Norwood:

when you see Star Wars, you see the wording from Star

Ed Norwood:

Wars kind of go up the screen.

Ed Norwood:

I remember watching the names of family members, the names of my cousins pass

Ed Norwood:

on that spring, and I remember at a very young age saying to them that I

Ed Norwood:

wanted to live the life that was stolen from them, that they never had to live.

Ed Norwood:

I wanted to find a way to fulfill the dreams all in one if I could, that

Ed Norwood:

they would never be able to pursue.

Ed Norwood:

And so as a young age, I think that drove me.

Ed Norwood:

That's why, at 16 I was a, I was, an advice columnist.

Ed Norwood:

I'm not sure how the advice was.

Ed Norwood:

If you're listening, you got it.

Ed Norwood:

it.

Ed Norwood:

didn't work, I apologize, but But I remember having that desire to help

Ed Norwood:

young people at a very young age after seeing my young cousins lose their life.

Ed Norwood:

I got involved in youth ministry early because of that.

Ed Norwood:

Again, still making my own mistakes in life, going to church on a

Ed Norwood:

Sunday, but in the club on Saturday, still struggling with identity and

Ed Norwood:

who I was going to be as a man.

Ed Norwood:

And I remember, growing up and all this with my mom there, and she tried

Ed Norwood:

to, God bless her heart to do the best that she could without a father.

Ed Norwood:

And when I got married, my, my wife would say things like, man,

Ed Norwood:

it must have been really tough not having a mother and father.

Ed Norwood:

I said, no, I was fine.

Ed Norwood:

I had my mother, she was my mother and my father.

Ed Norwood:

And, she took care of it all.

Ed Norwood:

And I was in this sort of denial, so to speak.

Ed Norwood:

I remember Dallas being in a men's conference years down the road, and

Ed Norwood:

my pastor stops by and he kisses me on the cheek and he says, I'm kissing

Ed Norwood:

you on the cheek because you've never experienced the kiss of a father.

Ed Norwood:

You never experienced a father telling you that he loves you.

Ed Norwood:

And I want you to know I love you.

Ed Norwood:

And I just started crying uncontrollably.

Ed Norwood:

And I grabbed tissue and I would wipe, and the tears would continue to flow.

Ed Norwood:

And it was in that season I realized that I had diminished or minimized some

Ed Norwood:

things that had taken place in my life.

Ed Norwood:

I'd minimize the impact of an absent father in my life.

Ed Norwood:

And too often we minimize the effects of tragedy and trauma.

Ed Norwood:

that's impacted us.

Ed Norwood:

And we say things like, well, that was then, this is now.

Ed Norwood:

Or as I mentioned earlier, well it is what it is.

Dallas Burnett:

Hmm.

Ed Norwood:

We say things like, well, whatever doesn't

Ed Norwood:

kill you makes you stronger.

Ed Norwood:

I don't wanna talk about that anymore.

Ed Norwood:

But then why does it hurt?

Dallas Burnett:

Yeah.

Ed Norwood:

Why do we still get angry or triggered or reminded

Ed Norwood:

of some of those things?

Ed Norwood:

And I've learned over the course of time that unless we confront the giants

Ed Norwood:

in our past, generational giants pass down to us, we will tolerate toxic

Ed Norwood:

behavior in relationships today and teach our kids to do the same thing.

Ed Norwood:

And so it really took a while, just really growing up.

Ed Norwood:

Out of that, the season I'm in now, I can honestly tell you I just came into

Ed Norwood:

this season probably four years ago.

Dallas Burnett:

That's amazing.

Dallas Burnett:

So I would say what you're, what you've said is very impactful because

Dallas Burnett:

one of the things when you're talking about, it's almost like people.

Dallas Burnett:

Would choose to just want to be done with whatever the issue was.

Dallas Burnett:

Like if they had a crummy childhood or if they've gone through a

Dallas Burnett:

messy divorce or a death of a loved one or a loss of something.

Dallas Burnett:

It's the tragedy.

Dallas Burnett:

Just a tragedy.

Dallas Burnett:

It's some people may respond instead of, trying to kill that giant and

Dallas Burnett:

just, and be okay with saying, I'm gonna deal with this now.

Dallas Burnett:

I'm going to, I'm gonna open up, I'm gonna open up the box and deal with it.

Dallas Burnett:

They would just rather say, I want it to be over cuz it's hard enough

Dallas Burnett:

to have gone through it and I'm just gonna push that down and I'm

Dallas Burnett:

not gonna deal with that right now.

Dallas Burnett:

And then it just starts coming out and leaking out in all these

Dallas Burnett:

other areas and it takes, I think a

Ed Norwood:

It's a coping

Dallas Burnett:

Yeah, it's a coping mechanism.

Dallas Burnett:

But the problem is that it's just coping.

Dallas Burnett:

It's not actually dealing with it.

Dallas Burnett:

I, there's Willie Nelson had this song I heard, I guess a couple years ago

Dallas Burnett:

and it was one of his newer songs.

Dallas Burnett:

I, didn't even know he was still writing songs, but it said it was a title.

Dallas Burnett:

It said, it's not something you get over, it's something you get through.

Dallas Burnett:

And I was like, oh, that is good stuff.

Dallas Burnett:

And so it's like when you, when you're talking about that, I, you

Dallas Burnett:

know, it, that resonated with me.

Dallas Burnett:

Cuz you have to get through stuff sometimes.

Dallas Burnett:

It's not just something you just push away you, and then I think it takes a

Dallas Burnett:

lot of courage to say, I'm gonna face this giant and I'm gonna open it up

Dallas Burnett:

and it's gonna be ugly and messy and I'm gonna get through it versus that

Dallas Burnett:

I'm gonna suppress it, put it down.

Dallas Burnett:

And I think especially, I think men would struggle, I think sometimes

Dallas Burnett:

struggle with that more because there's this identity that they have

Dallas Burnett:

to be like, Rambo or whatever the latest action figure is, that, that

Dallas Burnett:

they have to be that image , Mr.

Dallas Burnett:

Tuff, they can't, express some things that they just dealt

Dallas Burnett:

with that was crummy, you know?

Dallas Burnett:

So.

Ed Norwood:

Yes.

Ed Norwood:

And, and, and in Jonestown there was a sign that hung over Jim Jones's

Ed Norwood:

chair and the bodies that were had died that, that day before when they

Ed Norwood:

arrived, they saw this sign that said, those who do not remember the

Ed Norwood:

pass are condemned to repeat it.

Ed Norwood:

And so I've learned in my own life that time doesn't heal, but God heals.

Ed Norwood:

And what was broken by men are by your perpetrator.

Ed Norwood:

or by the person who rejected you, because we can pass

Ed Norwood:

rejection to the next generation.

Ed Norwood:

We can pass abandonment that we've experienced to the next generation.

Ed Norwood:

But everything broken by people can be restored by Jesus.

Ed Norwood:

And, I just get encouraged when I talk about that because, man, regardless

Ed Norwood:

of the past, our family history today is still being written by us.

Dallas Burnett:

That's great.

Ed Norwood:

Just think of that credit story I shared with you earlier.

Ed Norwood:

Regardless of that credit score, I was still writing my credit.

Ed Norwood:

Yes.

Ed Norwood:

And our family history is still being written by us.

Ed Norwood:

history is the study of change over time.

Ed Norwood:

Change is something different than what occurred in the past,

Ed Norwood:

and it comes suddenly when opposites push against each other.

Ed Norwood:

And when we push against our history to be the best in our

Ed Norwood:

generation, we become history makers.

Ed Norwood:

We have the ability to change the things that have transpired and have been passed

Ed Norwood:

down and passed down for generations.

Ed Norwood:

A friend of mine was estranged from his adult children and he was

Ed Norwood:

really angry at the estrangement.

Ed Norwood:

And I shared with him, his wife had shared with me.

Ed Norwood:

My husband doesn't know how to apologize.

Ed Norwood:

He has a British background and he never heard his father telling me, loved him

Ed Norwood:

or say, I'm sorry, a day in his life.

Ed Norwood:

And I looked at her in clear with clear, transparent eyes, with tears in my eyes,

Ed Norwood:

and I said to her, isn't it awesome that we get to change that in our generation?

Dallas Burnett:

That's very encouraging.

Ed Norwood:

And that's why I wrote the book, be a John Killer to

Ed Norwood:

Defy the family history that keeps repeating itself in generations.

Dallas Burnett:

I love that.

Dallas Burnett:

I love that.

Dallas Burnett:

And I love your thoughts on you.

Dallas Burnett:

You made a, a quote before we got on the show about not depriving your kids of the

Dallas Burnett:

blueprint for accomplishing their dreams.

Dallas Burnett:

and it was like, I'm gonna be the parent that's going to be engaged,

Dallas Burnett:

that's going to show them the way.

Dallas Burnett:

And I just thought that was awesome.

Dallas Burnett:

I thought that was an awesome idea.

Dallas Burnett:

And it goes with what you're saying now.

Dallas Burnett:

It's like we're creating our future.

Dallas Burnett:

we're creating new histories.

Dallas Burnett:

and, I just think that's super encouraging.

Ed Norwood:

and I think that, it's, our duty, it's our responsibility.

Ed Norwood:

One of my favorite quotes is Mitch Alba, who says, love is how we

Ed Norwood:

stay alive even after we're gone.

Dallas Burnett:

I like that.

Ed Norwood:

So our kids have been observing how to process things

Ed Norwood:

in life since age five or six.

Ed Norwood:

I wrote Be a Giant Killer because I realized that my kids were carrying.

Ed Norwood:

some things from their childhood into adulthood.

Ed Norwood:

How did I know that?

Ed Norwood:

Because there were some things that I carried

Dallas Burnett:

Right?

Ed Norwood:

that I needed to hear from parents and caregivers that I had not

Ed Norwood:

heard in my childhood, and as a 45 year old man struggled with it today.

Ed Norwood:

And so my wife and I have just determined that we're gonna leave

Ed Norwood:

a legacy of love no matter what.

Ed Norwood:

No matter how far our kids may run, no matter, what they might do.

Ed Norwood:

We want, we never want them to question how extravagant and present

Dallas Burnett:

Hmm.

Ed Norwood:

love is for them.

Ed Norwood:

When they put me in the ground, Dallas, I never want them to question how much

Ed Norwood:

they reprised, cherished, chased and loved because watch this fathers chase.

Ed Norwood:

They're sons and daughters

Dallas Burnett:

I love that.

Dallas Burnett:

I love that.

Dallas Burnett:

That's awesome.

Dallas Burnett:

that's a good word.

Dallas Burnett:

Very good word.

Dallas Burnett:

And I would say too, if you are leading a team, if you're leading an organization,

Dallas Burnett:

if you have people that are under your care, no matter if it's a for-profit

Dallas Burnett:

business, if it's a Fortune 500 company or if it's a nonprofit or ministry, you have

Dallas Burnett:

the opportunity to engage with people.

Dallas Burnett:

we're not saying you need to be a counselor to everyone

Dallas Burnett:

and a trained therapist.

Dallas Burnett:

That's not what we're saying.

Dallas Burnett:

But I am saying this, that you have no idea many times what a pat on the

Dallas Burnett:

back or a compliment, or reward or some type of just recognition would

Dallas Burnett:

do for other people, because they may have not heard that or been a

Dallas Burnett:

part of that, or may be wounded by that somewhere in their whole life.

Dallas Burnett:

And that someone stepping in the gap, even if it's not their parent, to believe

Dallas Burnett:

in them, to see their potential, to see where they could go and what they

Dallas Burnett:

could do, could make all the difference.

Dallas Burnett:

And it's not that you have to go back and solve their past, but it

Dallas Burnett:

is something that you can do to help them, write a new and better future.

Dallas Burnett:

And I think that's a challenge for every leader and every

Dallas Burnett:

coach of, and every parent.

Dallas Burnett:

I think your words will resonate with a lot of people on that.

Dallas Burnett:

And thank you for sharing that.

Ed Norwood:

I so appreciate you just for saying that because I was thinking to

Ed Norwood:

myself now as you were talking, man of our impact and influence in the workplace.

Ed Norwood:

I was at a men's conference some years ago and they challenged us to

Ed Norwood:

write our life story and tell it to our wives, and they said, you get

Ed Norwood:

to determine how transparent you be.

Ed Norwood:

And they ended by saying, tell your wife your story, because

Ed Norwood:

your story is her story.

Ed Norwood:

She's been living it.

Ed Norwood:

and if I can leave something for the business leaders today, it's this.

Ed Norwood:

People relive the stories we don't tell.

Ed Norwood:

And so as you make a decision to tell your story, you give permission people

Ed Norwood:

permission to share their story.

Ed Norwood:

Because whatever we want to do in this industry, we need three things.

Ed Norwood:

We need influence, we need authority, and we need permission.

Ed Norwood:

And what we do with our influence, what people know about us, what we do with

Ed Norwood:

our authority, what people demand from us determines the permission that we get.

Ed Norwood:

How do we earn influence?

Ed Norwood:

We earn influence in our industry by helping people being a resource.

Ed Norwood:

Being selfless, we learn our gaining influence by building

Ed Norwood:

trust and giving ourselves away, expecting nothing in return.

Ed Norwood:

I started this entire organization just by doing free talks, giving free advice

Ed Norwood:

out, becoming an expert by giving myself away, expecting nothing in return.

Ed Norwood:

My, my honorarium that I charge now is, anywhere between three

Ed Norwood:

to $5,000 for a keynote, but it started free 20 something years ago.

Dallas Burnett:

Wow.

Ed Norwood:

And even today, there's certain sessions I'll do absolutely free

Ed Norwood:

to give myself away to individuals that may not have the budget to bring me in,

Ed Norwood:

because I understand that unexpected generosity catches people off guard.

Ed Norwood:

And when people trust you, , they will give you permission to do your

Ed Norwood:

finest work, to do awesome work so that an industry can stand in all of

Ed Norwood:

you to be so remarkable that people remark about you to other individuals.

Ed Norwood:

And so at our company, we teach our people to serve their way into the

Ed Norwood:

hearts of our provider members, to take upon that mantle and that duty

Ed Norwood:

to constantly retell the story that they're living, that they're editing

Ed Norwood:

and rewriting for the next generation.

Dallas Burnett:

Oh, that's so good.

Dallas Burnett:

That is so good.

Dallas Burnett:

If you are listening today and you missed what he just said, the unexpected g

Dallas Burnett:

generosity is such a powerful concept and I think I would love to challenge

Dallas Burnett:

our listeners to ask themselves, when is the last time that you just

Dallas Burnett:

gave yourself away for something?

Dallas Burnett:

Just gave yourself away.

Dallas Burnett:

It's just, it's a free gift, a free act of generosity.

Dallas Burnett:

I love how you say that.

Dallas Burnett:

you charge for the value you provide in sharing your story and all this and

Dallas Burnett:

speaking and I know that your calendar stays booked up because you do such

Dallas Burnett:

a good job and you're so well spoken.

Dallas Burnett:

But I also love how you say, but there's sometimes that I just need to give

Dallas Burnett:

myself away and I'll do it at no cost.

Dallas Burnett:

And I think that's so important, not just.

Dallas Burnett:

For how we help others.

Dallas Burnett:

And I think that is a, I think whenever something is unexpected,

Dallas Burnett:

I think there's so much power.

Dallas Burnett:

There's so much power in that because it isn't expected.

Dallas Burnett:

And so the, it's not like one plus one equals two.

Dallas Burnett:

It's one plus one equals a hundred.

Dallas Burnett:

It's just amazing the impact that has on people.

Dallas Burnett:

And they're that much more appreciative in there.

Dallas Burnett:

They're much more to pass it on and, and do that as well.

Dallas Burnett:

But I think too, it's the value that it gives to you and the

Dallas Burnett:

value that it gives to you inside.

Dallas Burnett:

And as you're writing and rewriting and adding your story, how powerful

Dallas Burnett:

that is to us individually.

Dallas Burnett:

When we do give that away, there's that peace and there's

Dallas Burnett:

that joy that comes from that.

Dallas Burnett:

We just can't buy, there's not amount of money that you can ascribe to

Dallas Burnett:

that same feeling of peace and joy that you get when you're able to

Dallas Burnett:

give some unexpected generosity.

Dallas Burnett:

So if you haven.

Dallas Burnett:

ThinkMoveThrive.

Dallas Burnett:

and last 10% listeners, please go out there and do something.

Dallas Burnett:

make it a point this next week or this next month to do

Dallas Burnett:

something unexpected for somebody.

Dallas Burnett:

Do something unexpected.

Dallas Burnett:

If you do that, reach out to me and ping me on LinkedIn.

Dallas Burnett:

Let us know.

Dallas Burnett:

Let us know how that goes.

Dallas Burnett:

We'd love to hear about it.

Dallas Burnett:

All right, so Ed, we've talked about your book.

Dallas Burnett:

We've talked about your amazing history.

Dallas Burnett:

We've just talked about everything that you're, you've gone through and how you

Dallas Burnett:

have come and triumphed in terms of rewriting that story and that new history.

Dallas Burnett:

I just love, I love how you've worded that, put that together today, and

Dallas Burnett:

how you engage so intentionally with your kids and your family,

Dallas Burnett:

with your work, your team at work.

Dallas Burnett:

I just, all that is fantastic.

Dallas Burnett:

tell people how they can, get a, and get in touch with you, how they can touch

Dallas Burnett:

base with you and what you're doing today.

Ed Norwood:

love, love to connect with your listeners on LinkedIn.

Ed Norwood:

That's, a great place business for us, that we have the ability to

Ed Norwood:

impact people who have been in our training sessions or people that

Ed Norwood:

we've, touched through podcasts.

Ed Norwood:

I'm on all social media channels though.

Ed Norwood:

You can look up Ed Norwood on LinkedIn, on Instagram as Champions unleashed.

Ed Norwood:

Facebook is Ed Norwood, but.

Ed Norwood:

LinkedIn is where we primarily connect with business leaders.

Ed Norwood:

don't just follow me there, connect with me.

Ed Norwood:

I'd love to grow with you, and you'll see some, a link there where you can actually,

Ed Norwood:

access the book, be a giant killer, how to overcome your everyday Goliath as well.

Dallas Burnett:

I love that.

Dallas Burnett:

We'll put that in the, show notes as well, a link to your LinkedIn.

Dallas Burnett:

And, one last question.

Dallas Burnett:

We always ask this to every person, every guest on the last 10%, who is someone that

Dallas Burnett:

you would like to hear on the last 10%.

Ed Norwood:

definitely, author and pastor Tory Roberts.

Ed Norwood:

He's an author of businessman.

Ed Norwood:

he also, pastors of church as well, but he has a tremendous gift in

Ed Norwood:

impacting the lives of business men and women of how to transform their

Ed Norwood:

organization through influence.

Ed Norwood:

I've learned.

Ed Norwood:

Through his leadership principles.

Ed Norwood:

just I heard him once and I just learned so much about how imperative

Ed Norwood:

it is that we be legacy builders.

Ed Norwood:

And so I'd love to see, Tory come, I'm gonna connect you guys through

Ed Norwood:

a text message or you guys can talk, but I'd love to see him on this show.

Ed Norwood:

I think he'd be a huge benefit to your listeners.

Dallas Burnett:

Awesome.

Dallas Burnett:

Well, thank you.

Dallas Burnett:

Thank you for that.

Dallas Burnett:

We will definitely reach out and, get Mr.

Dallas Burnett:

Tory Roberts in that sounds like an awesome epic episode, So thank you

Dallas Burnett:

again, ed, for being on the last 10%.

Dallas Burnett:

We just appreciate your spirit.

Dallas Burnett:

We appreciate your service.

Dallas Burnett:

Thank you for sharing and giving unexpected generosity to those around you.

Dallas Burnett:

And just a great deal of wisdom to all of us at the last 10%.

Dallas Burnett:

So thank you for being on the show today.

Ed Norwood:

Thank you.

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About the Podcast

The Last 10%
Inspiring People, Coaching Teams, and Improving Cultures
Join The Last 10% for incredible conversations that help uncover the secrets of what it takes to finish well and finish strong. Our guests share their journeys, hardships, and valuable advice. We release new episodes every other Tuesday. If you are a leader, a coach, a business owner, or someone looking to level up, you are in the right place!

You can give 90% effort and make it a long way. But it’s the finding out how to unlock the last 10% that makes all the difference in your life, your relationships, and your work.

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Dallas Burnett