Adam Torres and Phil Larson discuss The Good People Great Series.
Subscribe: iTunes / Spotify
Apply to be a guest on our podcast here
Show Notes:
New book series alert! In this episode, Adam Torres and Phil Larson, Executive Director at SOLUM Community Transformation Initiative, explore Phil’s new book series, The Good People Great Series.
About SOLUM Community
SOLUM is here to help individuals, families, adults, children and the community with right thinking, social skills, parenting skills, and anger management. SOLUM is a solution builder in the community. They are a faith based provider of evidence and research based workshops and coaching to come alongside and help you find the right next steps in your journey. SOLUM has online training with access to professional assistance in real time and onsite programs. Your mission – should you choose to accept it – let go of thinking, hurts, and patterns of behavior that get you into situations and relationships where you do not want to be and embrace positive and fresh thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors that promote a healthy and vibrant life forward. Connect. Learn. Growth. Choose life.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to explore being a guest in the show, just head on over to missionmatters. com and click on Be Our Guest to Apply. Alright, so today I have Phil Larson on the line, and he is The executive director over at Solem Community Transformation Initiative.
He’s also an author and not only a mission matters book, but he’s an author many times over and many books that he’s written himself. And then also today we’re going to be talking about the good people. Great series. One, one, Phil told me about this project and this. Four part book series that he put together.
I was like, Oh man, when that thing is ready, you got to come back on the show. So it’s obviously ready. So he’s back on the show. Phil, Hey, I just want to say welcome back, man. It’s good to have you back on. Well, I’m excited. You know, we get to talk every once in a while over zoom and WhatsApp and all those different.
I’m just glad to be here today. It’s yeah, so Phil the good people great series when you’re coming out with another book, or in this case, a series, I get excited. So I’m a fan of your work. What sparked this series? Well, it’s interesting. I’m gonna try and just a couple minutes to. To draft that back when I was working at healthcare, I left that and went into a retail and in both of those recovery situations, bringing things back to life.
And so I was over in the retail side, working in that company and somebody I left in charge as the manager back at healthcare while we want to go to lunch. And so it takes me lunch. Remember, this is 5 years after I’ve gone. And as we’re sitting there visiting, he goes, you know, we still use the power method.
And I said, the power method, what is that? well, everything you ever signed, processes, procedures that we use, you initial PAL, that’s my initial Phillip, Andrew Larson, and we call out the P method now, I, I kind of scratched my head. It’s a method. I never thought it was a method. I mean It was the first real big turnaround that I was involved in and so i’m in this retail company and we put together 10 sayings We’re coming out of chapter 11.
This company was was in bankruptcy We’re coming out chapter 11 and the executive team put these 10 Sayings up on the wall about winners live this way and losers live this way Hmm. And we can’t record time. 18 months completely overhauled the company. The, the point of sale systems, the, the accounting system, purpose system, everything we completely overhauled.
It was a, a monumental time. And I’m coming out of that and I go into a, a non-profit that I’m working on. Hmm. And, somebody from all the way back in healthcare comes and looks me up or meets a friend of mine that I’m working with. Hmm. And a gym. Now, this is 10 years later. And he goes, you know, the odd thing about Phil is he never preached to anybody, but anybody who’s been around him really changed.
moved forward a couple of years and I’m working in an insurance company, revitalizing department after department. And my team came to me after 10 years and handed me a flip book and in this flip book, every page was a different saying and they said, everybody who works for, you know, every 1 of these 31 to say, we all know more than this, but every 1 of us knows 31 and we’ve agreed that these are the 31 that make it great.
Mm. And you know, I’m kind of thinking back over history back into this point, the pound method, the influence, the, the great ideas. All of this is just regular folks, good people doing what they do and, and accomplishing great results. I mean, I’m, I remember picking up the state newspaper one day and my.
Faces plastered all over it because we’ve been working and fathering for 10 years And they put us on the front page talking about, you know, businessmen becomes fathering evangelist You know what? It’s interesting. How do you get on the front page of the state newspaper? broken families And the answer is influence.
So I went back over all of those years. He said those folks thought those 31 were great What about it? what is it in those 31 that they said was great? What is it in that how method that somebody identified and, and in those influence? And I began to put that together in, in written form to say, can we just talk to good people and each of them have a live great life.
We don’t have to be millionaires. We don’t have to start a business. It’s okay to be a good plumber, a good print operator, a good supervisor, a good manager, a good homemaker, a good anybody. And when you’re doing that, you’re being great.
So I sat that down and I broke it into into four different books focused on four different things that the good people. Great ideas is that 31 items that they brought to me. In fact, I actually took pictures of those 31 items and stuck them in the book and then put a lot of comment on it. And there’s just, they identified the item that they said, hey.
They are students sanity is real important and they’re right the 1st time and my face and my book and the parade of principle. Most of us know, for example, we presented effort document published train. The, the hope was greater than some of the points changed for different items like that, that they identified and said, this really helps us do great things while we’re doing good things.
And, and, and I found it, everybody has genius inside of them. And when they let that genius out, then people call it great. Steve, Abby called it. Our voice, you know, he wrote the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, then he wrote the 8th Habit, and the 8th Habit is about voice, just speaking, you know, Marissa Murgatory, who I love to listen to and watch, says you need to leave your message, and let that out.
Romans called it genius. Now, you go back, the word genius that we use is a Latin word. And it’s equivalent to the Greek word, daemon, or we can say it’s demon. Admit it, we have demons. That wasn’t their concept. The concept was that you had this spiritual force inside of you that became so strong that people saw it instead of seeing you.
I would disagree and say what becomes so strong They didn’t believe that people could actually be a genius. There must be something else.
I just look at it and study, people are geniuses. There’s a genius inside of every good person waiting to get out. And when we see that genius, we call it great. And all it takes is good people. Being who they are, especially if they do it in synergy with other people. That’s why I wrote, you know, give people great teams and I’ve identified 7 channels or simulators of a great team.
Things like, And inclusive vision, and expansive mission, and benchmarks, and energizing events, and powerful processes, and good change routines, and things that build the environment in which that genius comes out together and creates a great team. But great teams don’t need great players. You don’t need a Michael Jordan to have a great team.
You just need a bunch of good players who know how to work together. And I was taught that when I was a kid, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th grade. I played basketball in a little parochial school in a little town in Benton, Arkansas, and we didn’t have but 5 boys in the whole class. So that means you are all starters.
You’re all starters. You are all starters and you better not foul out.
Thank you. You are going to run the whole game full court press and in the 6th grade, we won the championship against teams that have 20 players and 30 players and against schools that were just so much bigger than we were. And we didn’t have any great players, but we knew we I mean, I knew where Ricky was going to be when I, when I moved left, I knew where he was going to be right.
And I knew how to feed him the ball. And I knew where Mark was and I knew where George was. And, you know, we knew each other’s move and we were just good players, but we knew how to play off of everybody else’s good. We went undefeated that season. And then in the eighth grade, we only lost one game.
And it was the championship. And I hadn’t won, so it was kind of hard to play. So they had to put a sub in who didn’t have that flow. He just, he did not go to the flow. To the other four players. But I learned that back then. I said, man, it just treats good people. Doing what they do. I don’t ever remember shooting the ball and hitting the basket because that wasn’t my part, was the feed.
My part was to keep that ball in motion and fake out the other team until they let our good shooter loose and then get the ball to the good shooter. That was my pace. I was the feed man. And I could shoot, Mm. And I saw that as a child and I’ve just, I’ve grown into that Phoenix.
If we could just unleash that. Good genius, good people who have great ideas. Give them some great ideas for good people in a great team environment. Get people who become. Great leaders, you know, that the great leaders book comes out as. 31 articles that I wrote for American printer magazine on management.
2 years ago, this magazine in the United States and all digital at that point. I was writing every. We are management, so we’re 104 articles in 2 years, and I put 40 of those together about how do you take care of yourself as a leader? How do you build your team as a leader and and how do you develop that team and put that together in that new people?
Great leader. And then people great influence goes back to that. With some 10 at the retail company that we turned around, which I’ve kept and keep going back to. But I took those and and wrote them out, you know, and 1 of the things says, you know, the winner says, there’s a better way. And we can say, that’s the way it’s always been done around here.
And I took those and I remember my friend who. 10 years later, came back and said, you know, who never preached it to anybody, but everybody who worked close to him. And really changed and people still notice it 10 years later. That’s influence. And John Maxwell says the greatest authority we will ever have, the greatest power we will ever have in the lives of others is influence.
It’s just we’ve reached that point at which people look and say, I’m going to be like that. And that’s more important than position. That’s more important than money. That’s more important than anything else that we, we offer into other people’s lives. We, we give. Give them confidence and greatness and ideas that they can live off of, and then we have an influence into that life, and they unleash that genius, that greatness that’s inside of them.
So, I put that one all by itself, good people, great influence, because those were so monumental in that turnaround, and have been so monumental. In my life, there’s nothing in here. There’s about one total. You can take all the books. There’s somewhere between 82 and 100 principles because I didn’t write on every principle.
Some of them I didn’t stick in there and it was a paragraph. It wasn’t a, it wasn’t a chapter. So there’s about 100 principles based in there that are rolling around that somebody invested in me sitting in a Zig Ziglar conference or whatever. Reading my Bible or studying John Maxwell or you know, gosh, I’m trying Nightingale.
Yeah, you got, you gotta be old to understand. I’m a no, I’m a big Earl Nightingale fan. What do you mean don’t even try it? what? A what? A voice. What a voice. Who said it’s still feeding generations. I remember just sitting and listening to Earl Nightingale and just letting those things sink down inside of me about service and, and finding a way to serve other people.
Somebody put those in me and then they became a part of me and now I’m trying to lift them into someone else. I find myself today working with folks on probation and parole, some of the most broken, busted. Situation you can ever imagine. Drugs, alcohol, violence, abuse, addiction, this messes. And you know what?
The influence, and that’s another 150 points that I’ll write the next seven books on. Seven elements that have to do with, okay, now that everything is totally crashed and I gotta crawl out of a hole. The normal, just good people stuff won’t get me there. Mm hmm. There’s other principles to reach down into that.
Yes, and come out so that you can start taking good people principles and go forward and live that better life forward. So, I’ve been working for 10 years in that environment. And, you know, I just had a friend a couple weeks ago that I’m a friend. I’ve been working with him for a year. Now, when I say I coach live coach, I coach really tough hard situations.
I don’t, I don’t coach CEOs and that’s cool. But you want to put a view to do that. That’s fine. But I’m absolutely. Always got 5 to 10 people that I’m working with just to tell, and sometimes it might be 20 or 30 last year. I had 60 at this time. God forbid, I ever have that many again. I’ve been working with him over a year, so we’ve worked on thinking skills, and then we’re working on parenting skills, and he’s a single dad, two teenage boys, coming out of alcoholism, on probation.
When I first hooked up, he just, get the bills paid, was monumental. A year later, just taking influence and working on different ideas and, you know, some of those great ideas. Coming out, his life is stable, his boys were commenting on, you know, how he’s changed as a dad and they really appreciate that and they see it, they see it in the way he physically stands and holds himself, you know, we talk about those things in parenting, you know, it’s your body language, so his boys are seeing that, and teenage boys are kind of rough, talking about somebody who’s left especially Remember what they grew up under?
They grew up under dad as an alcoholic, in and out of prison. So, he’s having to reverse a lot of influence and show them that they can have a better life forward this way. And, and he’s going to be studying with me, getting ready to go deep dive in what I call cartridger anger. Take back control of your life, which is a really deep dive into principles.
We cover about 300 different principles by the time we’re done. And he wants to do that just because he says, I want to build my resiliency against whatever is coming next. I’m doing good. My income’s good. Any good certifications in my job. It’s listening to me. Life’s working well, so I want to keep stepping because I want to build what I call bounce back or resiliency.
He wants to unleash his genius. And, you know, I love seeing that. Good people can come out of people. Hmm. And good people can attach to other good people and become great teams. And it’s okay to just be good people. I don’t have to be Billy Brinkman. don’t have to be some big politician. I don’t have to, you know, have a million dollars in the bank.
I can just be good people and enjoy that genius and great that comes out of having some, some good ideas that become great in me, having some good team that becomes great in me, having some influence that becomes great in me, that having some leadership principles that become great in me, And me just being a good person, and that’s where that all that’s where that is all going. And I went, you know, I can gift that to other people, then I’m just doing my good people part. they don’t need to be on the front page of the newspaper. They don’t need to pull a company out of chapter 11 and 18 months. They don’t need to reinvest digital print publishing industry.
They’ll need to do all those things. I’ve had fun doing a lot of stuff. Yeah, but just be good people. Mm hmm I’m 68. I just want to be a good a good papa play with my grandkids just spent a week at Galveston beach with four of my grandkids And they stretch me And you know i’m i’m dealing with some leg stuff here and everything did you do at 68?
And a three five year old a seven year old and a 13 year older We had some fun We had some fun and I just got to, you know, hold him on my lap or just be there, you know, sometimes just sit in the chair and say, you got to run all over the beach and not watch, know, the end of the water with a hot tub or something.
And just enjoy life, just be good people. Yeah, they’re influence now, 3 of those. Are adopted in all situations. They came. Born into, you know, born meth addicted, born alcohol addicted, born meth addicted. so now they’re older, and they’re learning how to navigate that, get their brains and build stuff, and just be good people.
Well, Phil, I see this and I see your heart and I know you love them by the way. And I’ve been, I’ve followed your work for a long time now. We’ve known each other now going on at least a couple of years. I feel like, I feel like I’ve known you for decades, but I know that’s not true. I know, I know you for a couple of years now, but and what I’ve seen in your work and also your heart, I mean, is always, is this, is, is a willingness to serve.
And wanting to do better at everything, even at what you’re doing at, at at Solemn, like I see it all and I recognize it. And that’s why I was happy to have you back on the show. But we’re about, we’re about out of time for today’s episode, but I do want to give you the opportunity to, if somebody wants to follow up, if they want to check out this book series or even any of your other books, I mean, where are they located?
How can people follow up? They’re all on Amazon. Hmm. One of all of my books there’s other books out there that are about leadership and personal development and congregational development business development, but they’re all on Amazon. So they can go to Amazon and say, good people. Yeah, great ideas, good people, great teams, good people, great influence, good people, great leaders.
Yeah, or they can find this at. Solem community dot net s o l u m c o m m u n i t y dot net That’s that’s where I live. Yeah, that’s that’s where people find us a lot is solem community. net Which is or linkedin you find me on linkedin you find me on facebook on solem community You find me on tiktok on solem stories We do something called solemn stories out on tiktok.
That’s that’s a different world. You are aware tiktok is a different world Great. About people whose lives have radically altered. and we’ll put, and we’ll, everybody grabbed. They grabbed an idea. They just grabbed an idea. And a good person with a great idea, Genius can come out and wow. . And and we’ll, for everybody listening, we’ll put all that information in the show notes so that you can just, you know, click on the links, head right on over, check out.
Those work and, and by the way, also like to see the, all the books, I get super simple. You put in Phil Larson books or anything like that on Amazon, they’re all going to pop up for you. Like he’s got, he’s got a whole catalog out there. So definitely recommend checking those out. And speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with mission matters.
Or in listening to an episode, then I highly recommend hitting that subscribe button, because we have many more mission based individuals coming up on the line. And we don’t want you to miss a thing. And if you’ve been listening to us for a long time and haven’t left a, review yet, we appreciate that to get that review in there.
And we ain’t, we’re not gonna be mad at that. And Phil, again, thank you so much for coming back on the show and wishing you much more continued success with the series. So thank you. Thank you. Have a great day.
