Interview #30 Skip Lineberg: Unlocking Wisdom in a World of Too Much Information

Rick Barron (00:01)

Hi everyone, I'm Rick Baron, your host, and welcome to my podcast, That's Life, I Swear. 

My guest today is Skip Leinberg. 

We're surrounded by information every day, headlines, opinions, and constant noise. But wisdom? Well, that's something different. Wisdom is what helps us navigate setbacks, uncertainty, and the moments in life that test who we really are. 

Now, Skip has built his work around one powerful mission, that's helping people get better at life. 

Through deeply human conversations on his podcast, he's asked every guest a simple but profound question. What's the main thing you've learned in your lifetime so far? From that, stories emerge about perseverance, purpose, healing, courage, and the power of real conversation in a very divided world today. 

You can find out more on his podcast called The Main Thing. I have listened to quite a few of his episodes and they're very intriguing. I think you'll enjoy it. If you ever wondered about the difference between knowledge and wisdom and why you may need wisdom now more than ever, then this conversation is for you. 

Please join me as I have my conversation with Skip Leinberg.

Skip, welcome to the show, my friend.

Skip Lineberg (01:33)

Hi Rick, good to be with you.

Rick Barron (01:35)

Great to see you. So, for the benefit of our audience, perhaps you can provide a brief background of who you are and where you are today.

Skip Lineberg (01:47)

Absolutely, Rick, I'd be glad to do that. And thank you for the gracious invite to come join you today. I hop back and forth between left brain and right brain. A lot of our identity, we talk about what we've done for work. So, I'll give you a little bit of that. I studied engineering and graduated with a bachelor's in management systems engineering. So, I've worked in the technical side of business and I've always

found my strengths to be in communication, creativity, and design and build. So, I've spent equal parts in marketing and hopping back and forth between those two. Here in one of the final chapters of my career, I'm bringing both of those together in a role that has me working in the marketing department, but working with the IT team to get projects done. 

So, I serve a role of a visioner, imagineer, and translator between what the business folks want and what the IT folks can build and make to work. So, on the side, I'm a podcaster, and I know we're going to talk about that. That's one of my hobbies, and I think something that helps me fulfill my purpose in life, and just a bit more about that. 

Think as I reflect back on my life of nearly 60 years, Rick, turned 60 later this month, there's a lot to reflect back on. But I've found that my purpose in life and whatever role I'm in is to be a teacher. And the other side of that coin, you can't teach without being a learner. So, there's a curiosity that fuels and drives me and then a desire to help others, which is to take what I learn at the appropriate time when it's appropriate and when it's needed to share my learnings with others.

Rick Barron (03:50)

I like that. like that. Now getting to your podcast, again, as I explained, it's very intriguing, but your show centers on a very powerful distinction, and I think it's, I mean, we live in a world overflowing with knowledge, but we're starved for wisdom. Can you unpack that for us? I mean, that's a pretty powerful statement.

Skip Lineberg (04:16)

Yeah, I think that's very true. And, you know, let's space it in and we're in the information age and not in the early stages of it, but we are in a world where we have access to information constantly. It's never more than an arm's length away. 24 by seven, we can, we can find out what others are reporting in the way of news. can research and learn about anything that we desire. can entertain ourselves all the time. 

So all of those are inputs of wisdom and there's more than we could ever process. There's more than we could ever touch or engage with in a day or in our lifetime. And so, given this overabundance of information, wisdom becomes super important, where to focus, what information do we want to apply, what information do we trust?

What sources do we rely on? Where do we get our information? And what information should be applied given the situation, terrain, circumstances?

Rick Barron (05:26)

You know, it seems like over the years, way we receive information over time is it kind of started off as kind of a sprinkle of information and it started to be a little bit of a wave and all. It's almost like a tidal wave of information. So, you don't know, where do I begin? Who do I trust? And I think that kind of is, I can think the real hard part, I think, with people today that they maybe I've just given up and they'll just believe anything they hear rather than question it, which I find a little sad and disappointing in the world that we live today.

Skip Lineberg (06:05)

You took the word, you took the word right off my tongue. was getting ready to say, think how sad that is?

Rick Barron (06:12)

Yeah, it's, you know, I often wonder why people even today, I think from my viewpoint, I don't mean to sidetrack what we're talking about here, but they don't want to listen. It may be something where, you know, I don't agree with what you're saying, but I'll hear you out. Now hear me out and let's...

Skip Lineberg (06:29)

Yeah.

Rick Barron (06:38)

Let's see if we can maybe reach a middle ground here where, okay, I get your concept, why you're saying what you're saying, but let me hear, have you heard me, and then let me hear your thoughts. But today we can't even seem to do that. It's almost, people just start to shout at one another. I mean, that seems to be the vogue, just shout, don't talk.

Skip Lineberg (07:06)

Yeah. Yeah. You two, two insights that you just inspired that I'd like to share about that. Yep. One is, you talk about sitting down and listening to each other. And as I listened to you, if we differ or disagree, as I listen, I'm trying to seek to understand how you came to that, that opinion or that position? What, what did I miss?

Did you, did you see something that was convincing that it caused you to deepen your belief in something. Maybe I need to go take a look at that because maybe I don't even know about it and it could be pivotal. Could be pivotal. The other thing is just this kind of self-righteous culture. I'm right and you're wrong. I'm right about everything because I have all the information. I watch all the news. I listen to all the podcasts. I read all the message boards and I'm right.

And I think a lot of times that's a dangerous place to be and can be a false, a false sense of self-righteousness that can be, it can be, get you in trouble and can be limiting in how we grow. Rick, the last thing just that you touched on there, and I'm so glad you brought this up because this is something that's on my heart right now. 

And in America, in our culture today, especially in our media, you and I have both have a podcast, so we are in that media space, is this culture of outrage. And anything that I want to get clicks, or I want to get engagement with, whether it's a podcast or a newsletter or even a social media post, I have to fabricate outrage. There's a new Apple computer that came out last week called the Neo. It's their low-price entry level.

MacBook for people who probably would otherwise buy a Chromebook doesn't have all the bells and whistles So there's going to be a lot of people talking about that, but to get attention, I'm gonna fake outrage and say if you bought if you bought the the new Apple Neo You made a big mistake and here's why? 

Conversely, someone could say if you're sleeping on the Apple Neo, you're really missing some things, and you might be ready to make a big mistake, and so again, it's I'm right, you're wrong, and you're about to make a mistake. There's this, out, I'm not doing it justice in the level of outrage that the communicator would bring to this. And you've seen it, haven't you? And I just, why, why does it trouble me? 

Why is it on my heart? I just don't want to be that way. I don't want to have to fabricate outrage about a topic that is, helpful, gentle, kind, eternal, something that is not outrage. I don't want to bring that into it just for the sake of getting seen or being heard in this ever-crowded information space that we've been talking about.

Rick Barron (10:09)

And that seems to be the norm now that in order to be listened to, one has to shout, one has to be outrageous, which is, you know, it is a little bit sad when you see that. 

And I know I've seen an example where a news team took two separate groups, both, you know, polar opposites both had their different opinions. sat them at the table. And after they had the conversations, they came back into the room and they shared with the newscaster that, you know, at first it was a little bit tense, but as we each explained our opinions, our thoughts, our feelings, it became to the point, it got to the point where people realized, you know, I can have a conversation with you without having to shout into your problem, without having to be outrageous. So it can be done. I just think that people have been modified through all this rapid flow of information that regardless of stopping to trust and verify, we just take it at face value. And that to me is, think people just...

Skip Lineberg (11:26)

Yeah.

Rick Barron (11:30)

I hope one day we get to a point where we just realize we've got to slow down if we're going to survive.

Skip Lineberg (11:36)

Yeah. Yeah. And Rick, I would also add to that. You make great points that we've lost. We've our muscles of socializing and engaging in a civil fashion. Those muscles have atrophied due to a lack of repetition. And what's happened to us? We've been able to to communicate with friends through screens and devices rather than in person. What happened six years ago? We had a global pandemic that caused us to become isolated for a period of time. And so I believe that we've lost some of those skills. We've backslid in our ability to come together in a civil fashion and have measured reasonable conversations.

Rick Barron (12:17)

Absolutely, absolutely. Now on your podcast, you ask a question about what's the main thing you've learned in your lifetime so far. How did you come about with that question and what is some of the feedback that you get to that question?

Skip Lineberg (12:36)

Hmm. Yeah, I asked that question to every single guest. So, my podcast is repetitive. But I think it's, I think it's an important and revealing question in the intro to my podcast. call it a soul piercing question. What's the main thing you've learned in your lifetime so far? You know, how did, how did I arrive at that in the concept for my podcast? As I recall, I was doing some facilitation.

And I was studying how to ask great questions and how to ask open ended questions, which, you know, in a group setting, a good open ended question can expand and cause others to, join in on the conversation. And, through that, just came to me. I was thinking of what, what's, what's a great question that could get someone talking. 

They could help me to understand them that would, they would feel comfortable talking about and would cause them to wrestle with the question a bit because Rick as I am helping the guests to get ready to come on to my show I send them some prep materials just like you do and one of things I tell them is that You could give me five the five most important things you've learned in your lifetime so far but I want you to really wrestle and reckon and get in there and decide which of those is prime which one rises to the top and that's the one I want to hear about so that that wrestling, that reckoning, that getting in there and sorting things out and saying, which one is more important? 

Okay. Which one's the now, which one's the most important? So yeah, that's kind of the background of how that arose, and the responses that I get are all over the board, and I never, I never lead the guests to what they should say. And, in fact, I never know what their answer to that question will be ahead of time. I prefer; I much prefer to listen to it live with an element of surprise in the organic flow of the conversation.

Rick Barron (14:30)

Sure. Because I think that's where maybe sometimes the people, when they hear that question, kind of struggle. Like, okay, what was that? And I think for some people, it could be a moment that altered their life completely. Found out who they really are inside. I think to me that's a big one.

Skip Lineberg (14:41)

Yeah. Something that Rick, something that shaped it like I, as we're talking here and you know, as we get deeper into conversations, we were able to crawl further back in our memory and rekindle some, some of the things that are back there in the cobwebs of our mind. I think something like what you're talking about, I had a similar experience on the receiving end. I was a guest at Tom Peters, a business summit in 2005 at his, uh, in his hometown in Vermont. And one of the icebreaker exercises for our group of about 30 people.

We were lined up in a town meeting room in the library, which was the biggest available space in this quaint little Vermont town. It was a snow evening in March and he had us all in a circle around the periphery of the room and Tom opened to welcome us all. And he said, guys to break the ice, I'm going to ask you a question and we're going to go around the room. And he's like, I want you to keep it short. I want you to be ready. When it comes to you, we're going to go around counterclockwise. And so, the question is this, what did God put you on this earth to do?

Rick Barron (15:57)

Wow.

Skip Lineberg (15:59)

And Rick, I, man, I started spinning and like thinking my thoughts were going a hundred miles an hour. I'm like, gosh, skip, you really haven't thought much about this up to this point. And I was probably 28, 29 years old. And so, I think that's a similar quiz. Not the same question, but it's similar, and it's a soul-piercing question. What did God put you on this earth to do flip over to my, my format? What's the main thing you've learned in your lifetime? I think those are deep soul piercing reflective type questions and being being hit by that in that Tom Peters business summit that I had the good fortune of attending. I think that helped to shape and form what I'm doing today.

Rick Barron (16:43)

Absolutely. Mean, kind of drawing on a past experience I had, maybe to the point of what are some of the things I've learned in life, is not to be so judgmental about what you see. And what I'm getting at is, one time I had to go serve on a jury. And while we were sitting in the box, I looked over at the person that was being charged and just the physical appearance made me think that person's guilty without hearing all the evidence. Then said, anyways, we broke into the final proceedings to evaluate all the evidence and what each lawyer had to say. We discovered that this person was absolutely innocent.

They happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. But because of their physical characteristics, was arrested. And when we gave the final count that the person was not guilty, and I walked out of the jury room, getting to my car, I thought, this really taught me a very profound lesson that

Skip Lineberg (17:39)

Wow. Yeah.

Rick Barron (18:08)

You can't tell by the appearance of someone where they've been, how they arrived here, what path they had in their life that may have altered where they are today. Because sometimes, you know, life will throw you a deck of cards that you don't expect. It could be, you know, the ace of hearts or it could be the joker. And then you just have to realize, okay.

Skip Lineberg (18:33)

Yes.

Rick Barron (18:38)

And I think I heard a quote one day, I can't remember who said it, but it was very simple. It said, you are what you want to be. And I thought, yeah, very simple, but so profound.

Skip Lineberg (18:48)

That's a, that's a powerful idea right there. Yeah. So you're, that could be your main thing. You know, might be things aren't always as they appear or you can't judge a book by its cover or keep an open mind. 

Rick Barron (19:04)

You really do. Again, in today's world. Now, I know when we first had a chat, you shared with me some wisdom cards that you reference. And do you use those when you are speaking to people on your podcast? Or how does that work? How did it come into play?

Skip Lineberg (19:30)

Yeah, Rick, the wisdom cards are an output, a product extension from the podcast. goes back to the question, what kind of responses do you get? And I've, I've gotten a response to that question from 142 different guests. And over time, it occurred to me that you listen to the podcast and maybe it was a vital wisdom lesson that you got, but life goes on, and that moves to the back of your memory. tend to forget about it. 

And so, listening to my audience and getting feedback and talking to some of my crew, said, how could we make those wisdom lessons more lasting? How could we take someone's main thing, wisdom nugget, which is typically seven words or less, and put it on display so that it can stay top of mind for our audience, for our listeners?

And so, the idea became, what if we had a little set, and my wife has, on our dresser in our bedroom, she has a deck of cards that are our scripture, they're from the Bible. And there's probably 30 cards in there and there's a little holder and a clip to display on a nice wooden display board. And she can change those out based on what she wants to focus on for the week. And she does. Similarly, with our wisdom cards, which are not scripture, they're common secular street wisdom, important, but just to distinguish here, not biblical.

We decided, I decided to do something similar. So, we wanted to do one card per week. So, the set contains 52 cards. You can change it out once a week, and you can go to a different main thing, Wisdom Nugget on display for that week, and let that inspire. You can, you can change it out daily if you want to go at a faster pace. 

You can find one that's vital for you right now in this phase of your life, given what's going on and what, you know, what life stage you're in, you can keep that one up for as long as you need to see it to be mindful of that wisdom lesson. So that's how the wisdom cards came about. It comes with a set of 52 cards, an extra card that's kind of a title card and how to use this, how to use this set of cards, a beautiful walnut display base. 

And they're available on the website, but it's a product extension. There's also a newsletter that folks can get if they want more, if they want to go deeper into some of the thinking. And eventually, there will be a book that will be similar to the wisdom cards; it may have 52 chapters, but it'll have a couple of paragraphs about each one of those wisdom lessons, how they came to be, who spoke it, how it can be useful, or how it can be applied.

Rick Barron (22:11)

Now I think these, I think you said these cards are categorized by healing and courage. How did those categories come up? I mean, what was the process? What was your thinking?

Skip Lineberg (22:16)

Yes. Thank you.

Yeah, it's a great question. Goes so now we're, we're going to get into my engineering brain here. The management systems we took, uh, in our podcast hosting platform let you sort by most listens or downloads. We took the top 50 or 60 most-listened-to podcasts, wrote one or two adjectives beside each, and quickly learned that they fell into about 10 different buckets. 

And you've touched on those resilience and faith, healing, leadership, relationships, those sorts of things. And so we wanted to have approximately five in each of those 10 categories. That leads you to 50. And then we threw in a couple extra. So that's how that came to be. The cards are organized on a theme. Let's say cards one through 10 are resilience. And then 11 through 20, you're going to get relationships. 21 through 30, you're going to get a different theme.

Rick Barron (23:26)

Is there a category that resonates more with you than all of them or?

Skip Lineberg (23:36)

I think it's resilience, personally. Yeah. You know, life can throw some challenges your way and it's, it's important to understand and have some wisdom, truth to help you get through those challenges and to learn as you go. What is this teaching me? And how can I still have them? How can I still have a heart of gratitude? Even though it's really hard right now.

Rick Barron (23:38)

Why resilience?

Skip Lineberg (24:06)

And if I can hold the idea that this is just how it is today, it's not always going to be this way, that helps me be more resilient as well.

Rick Barron (24:15)

Yeah, that's great, guys. I know when I bought my house many years ago, and it was just me. And because I got tired of paying rent, I just figured I had to bite the bullet here and just get into a house. And I got into a house that I could afford with the income I was making at the time. And there was a moment when I was at the kitchen table.

I had a cup of coffee writing up my bills and I realized that after I made my mortgage payment I had maybe $30 left in my checkbook. And payday was about another week and a half away. So, I thought, hmm, so I went through the cupboard looking for food. That's the first thing that came to mind. And I felt like, okay, I guess I can stretch it.

Skip Lineberg (24:56)

Wow.

Rick Barron (25:12)

But the one thing that hit me right away was that I'm not going to my parents for help. This is one of those moments where let's see how far you can take this. Because even as soon as I said that, I said, “You know what, you're going to get through this”. This is a teaching moment. Because if you get to a position where, you know,

Yeah, sure, you want to seek help when it's perhaps desperate, but for a moment like that, I thought, I'm going to test myself. I got through it. I don't know how I did it, but I got through it. But, yeah, close to it. Oh my gosh. But it was a teaching moment for me. And I think to your point, there are those moments where you learn a lot about yourself, what you're capable of doing. And my father always...

Skip Lineberg (25:48)

Yeah. Beans and rice for 10 days.

Rick Barron (26:08.891)

…taught me that, you know, because he grew up during the depression, and you talk about hard times, you know, he told me so many stories I thought, wow, how did he get through it? But he did, you know, to your point, that's when people had to be tough. That was a tough generation, and they got through so much. Now, you know.

Skip Lineberg (26:29)

Absolutely. Rick, I love your story because I think it just quickly illustrates what we talked about earlier, the difference between information and wisdom. So, if we just take a couple notes from your story, information number one, mortgage was due. Information number two, bank account is low. Fact number three, I still need to eat. Wisdom comes in.

Rick Barron (26:45)

Mm-hmm.

Skip Lineberg (26:59)

Quoting you here, this is going to be tough, but I know I can get through it, and it won't always be this way. The first three things were information. They were facts and facts change, don't they? The mortgage isn't due every day or every week. Your bank account is not always low.

But what's eternally true, what didn't change, is I can get through this. I have resilience. Part B, it won't always be this way. So, you took wisdom and you applied it to help you navigate through the facts or information that was right in front of you at that time.

Rick Barron (27:37)

I like how you break that down. That's great. I never heard it that way. No, that's very good. I really like that.

Skip Lineberg (27:45)

I was thinking about this morning, just kind of, you know, as we do, anticipating what we might talk about and looking at some of our notes that we shared ahead of time, and, you know, helping our child have kids that are in their early twenties. They're in the part of life where they're figuring out on their own. They're both out of the house and it's hard to watch them struggle. You know, information might be that my daughter's bank account is low right now.

Fact number two, I love my daughter and I have this desire to help her, but wisdom comes in and goes, I can't come to her rescue all the time. Otherwise, she'll never learn and become self-sufficient. And so that's how wisdom guides me in this, in this moment, in that situation, despite some troubling facts or some troubling information.

Rick Barron (28:24)

That's right.

Rick Barron (28:34)

Wow. No, it's it is interesting to watch your kids grow. There's such a indicator of time as they're getting younger to older, the teenagers. It's, yeah, it's something. I want to go back, though, to what we, I think, said to one another in words to the effect about how people have lost the art of just sitting down to have a conversation. What are your thoughts on?

Skip Lineberg (28:45)

Yeah.

Rick Barron (29:09)

How do you think we've gotten there like we are today? You know, I see it on the news where people are just shouting, protesting. mean, nothing wrong with protesting, but to the end, people just want to clash. They don't even want to talk anymore. How do you think we've got to this point? What are your thoughts?

Skip Lineberg (29:37)

I think part of it is, and my wife, if she were here, she would knock this question out of the park because we thought this is something I think she has a keen observation and I'm going to, I'm going to try to do it justice. What we see in the media and I'm talking primarily about the news and the news that gets delivered to us. So, cable television news and their products are pushed through on social media. If you think of a spectrum, a horizontal line across the page of opinion on any issue, but it's a political issue.

In the middle is people that aren't strongly opposed to one position or the other. But at the end, the polar opposites, I believe this view 100%. I believe this view 100%. So, let's just take a simple nonsensical example. Ice cream flavor. Vanilla or chocolate. The vanilla people are over here, and they're willing to die for vanilla. Chocolate is evil. The chocolate people over here have demonized vanilla. And if you like vanilla, you're not even worth taking up space on this earth.

And we only hear the people that are at the 5% tips of those extremes. That's all we hear. And this goes back to the culture of outrage. This goes back to our media sensationalizing and using hyperbole to stir us up so we'll watch and engage. What we forget is that there's a vast middle people of moderate to reasonable opinion. Like, you know, I like chocolate, but I might have vanilla today. They're both good. 

Some people in that middle are going to say, I like one scoop of each and I don't even mind when they get mixed together. The flavors are both good. And so I think it's, we're conditioned to see, and we've been sort of manipulated to see only that outer 5 % of the spectrum, the people that are the polar opposites that strongly disagree about a topic. That and what we touched on earlier with isolation due to technology and, you know, still coming out of COVID where we were isolated for a better part of a year.

Skip Lineberg (31:41)

I think all those things have worked together to cause us to lose some of those social skills in the area of civility, sitting down with someone who is quite different from me, different racial, ethnic, economic background, different political background, and just having a beautiful conversation with that person. It is still possible, but we've gotten out of practice.

Rick Barron (32:08)

I totally agree. think that while technology is great, think from my perspective it's moved too fast and people are just being so overwhelmed with information. Sometimes you just don't know what to focus on, you don't know what to believe and it can be very, very tough at times.

Skip Lineberg (32:38)

Rick, also to your point, if we were together, I'd much rather be having this conversation across the dining room table or at a coffee shop in person with you. I'm glad that we have this connection. If we were together, my intuition and my human senses could pick up on your nonverbal cues, which I can't do quite as well on a two-dimensional flat screen, can I? I might see from your body language that this is something that you feel really strongly about.

Or I might also see that this is just something that you're trying on for size and you're not desperately attached to that opinion or that position. I can see from your body language where you're inviting me to come in with my opinion or you're inviting me to have a civil debate about a point that you just raised. And we can't do that quite as well when we're on a screen.

Rick Barron (33:31)

Yeah, I mean, to your point, I know during COVID when we couldn't be in the office, I really struggled with that because I love the idea of seeing people in the office face to face. And whenever we had meetings, for me, as you kind of called out the body language, I need to see the expression of someone when I ask a question that could then tell me, okay, maybe I didn't make my point here. Let me clarify. You can't get that just talking over the phone, so to speak, or even like on the screen. You might get that, but it's the same thing. You just can't feel that. It's very flat.

Skip Lineberg (34:22)

Great, great point. Yeah, great, great point.

Rick Barron (34:27)

But getting back to your podcast, the main thing, what was the epiphany that you had that one day, I'm going to start this podcast. What led you to this? I mean, you kind of alluded to it in our conversation, I think, but.

Skip Lineberg (34:43)

Yeah, it was a series of setbacks. And do a little foreshadowing here. As I'm going to tell you this quick story, I want you to think if you've ever heard of a Hollywood actor and comedian named Dennis Miller. Spiky, messy black hair, scruffy black and gray beard, black suit coat, white Oxford shirt.

Rick Barron (35:08)

Yeah, I remember him.

Skip Lineberg (35:11)

All right. Well, keep him in mind because he's going to be pivotal in this story. Prior to that, I was getting ready to start a new job in 2015 and my boss at the new company, Rich, called me one Friday before I started and he said, Hey, I just wanted to give you a little heads up on what your first major project is going to be when you start. And I was going to start in January of the coming year. This was a call on a Friday in December.

Rick Barron (35:15)

Alright.

Skip Lineberg (35:41)

And he said, " You're going to be. I want you to launch, host, and grow our B2B podcast for our company. And harkening back to my Tom Peters story earlier, I was taking a back off balance backpedaling because I didn't know the word podcast. That was new to me at the time. I hadn't heard of one. I'd heard of a blog and a vlog and I've heard of YouTube and vloggers.

I'd never heard of a podcast. so full transparency, I just bluffed my way through it. Like we do sometimes thinking that I'm going to have to get, I'm going to have to learn very rapidly and get up to speed on this podcast thing. Uh, so I nodded convincingly and I was up to the task. I'm a lot love throw a challenge at me. I'm happy as can be.

Uh, fortunately I had the support of a New York advertising agency to help me plan the podcast, to write scripts, to recruit guests, to put the technology,  the equipment together and to really coach and nurture me through launching and hosting a podcast. And I wasn't good at it at first. The first episode I ever did, I read every word from a script. I didn't think of a question. I didn't have a conversation with a guest. It was like a two person, one act play. were both reading from a script and it was not that good. 

So over time, like any of you and any of your listeners, we take pride in what we do and want to get better at it. So we worked, we're allowed to get better. So, through repetition and learning and experience, I got better and got to be a decent podcast host. Probably it took me a while but so be it. After three years and 65 episodes, a new leadership regime came in at that company, and the chief marketing officer said, " We're not going to be doing podcasts anymore. So, by that time.

Rick, I had invested three years, a lot of learning, a lot of time, and I had gotten decent. I had a level of proficiency as hosting a podcast, but my podcast was gone because it belonged to somebody else. So I said, what can I do? I don't want to stop. This is kind of fun now and I'm in, I'm into it. So I had a buddy who was a publisher with Random House, Harper Collins, and he was the executive vice president of their business book division.

So, I reached out to my buddy, Jeff, who was a social friend. And I said, Jeff, I'd like to pitch you on a podcast for Harper Collins business books. And I pitched him on the fact that I could interview an author six months before his book is going to be published. Could we tease the audience? Could they get them interested. We could learn about the author, why they wrote the book and what the reader will get out of that story. So after a few pitches and after about 90 days, Jeff said, you know what? I'm let's do this. I've got some money for it. 

That's what I did for a year. hosted the Harper Collins leadership podcast and I interviewed a lot of fascinating authors about their book, including John Maxwell, who I'm sure you know. and it was just a real fun gig and it paid pretty well. So now I was doing this on the side as a side hustle, getting paid for it.

And after a year, Jeff got promoted because he's a great, he's a great business leader, a great marketer. He got promoted, and again, a new regime came in, and the new regime said, " Skip, thanks for what you've done. This has been great. We can see where you've made some impact, but we're going to take this from an audio only podcast”. And I'm talking around 20, the year 2018, 2019 here where podcasts were primarily audio at the time. And she said, " We're going to do a video podcast, and thank you for everything you've done. You know, we'll take the passwords and the platforms, but we're going to bring in Dennis Miller to our new video podcast for Harper Collins”

. So I got, I got shown to the door and replaced by Dennis Miller. So I'm not, mean, I'm embarrassed, but I have to laugh at that. mean, who, you know, he, he's Dennis Miller. I'm a nobody. So Rick, that takes us, that takes us from the, the, the business podcast, the Harper Collins podcast.

Rick Barron (39:49)

Well, I wouldn't say you're a nobody. It's a good story.

Skip Lineberg (39:59)

And here I am again, the rugs pulled out for me. I've got even more experience. I've got more reps under my belt. I'm a little bit better at what I do. I've got more confidence. I've talked to different types of guests, and now I'm like, I'm not stopping. Uh, I've got, you know, I've got my own equipment. Um, I've got a level of proficiency. I'm comfortable with this. I want to keep going. And so now it was like, well, skip to your own podcast, do something that you care about. 

Um, don't let it belong to someone else. Don't depend on another company to fund it. Just do it on your own. And so that's how we came to be with The Main Thing Podcast. The idea came to me on a June morning in 2019, and things fell into place from there. This idea of a podcast that would help folks get better at life, focus on wisdom, and support our audience through teaching, coaching, and wisdom lessons from wiser people than me.

Rick Barron (40:56)

That's great, and the title itself, why The Main Thing? I like that, but how did you come up with that?

Skip Lineberg (41:03)

Yeah, it's quite simple, Rick. It is embedded in the question I ask every guest. What's the main thing you've learned in your lifetime so far? And then that here's my marketer coming into play. The branding of the question with the title of the podcast are intertwined. And so every time you see the name of the show, hopefully you're reminded of the question. Every time you hear the question asked and answered, you're reminded of the brand, the name of the show.

Rick Barron (41:30)

Now you've done about 140 plus episodes and growing. Over that time period, I'm sure as you said, you've met a lot of interesting people, lots of interesting conversations I can imagine, but is there one that really stands out with you that you just like, wow, I am so glad I came across this individual?

Skip Lineberg (41:54)

Almost every guest. There have been some responses, though, that caught me off guard or surprised me. I'll give you one example. Dr. Rob Carter is a neuroscientist and also an officer in the U.S. Army. He's a Ph.D. He's so smart. He's also an author. He's written books about the brain and the mind and how we think.

And he's also written books about sleep and waking up and Dr. Rob Carter is just a gem of a human being, incredibly wise a big thinker, a great leader, bold and courageous. His main thing that he revealed to me, and again, I never know what it's going to be in advance, so completely organic. Say, Dr. Rob Carter. What's the main thing you've learned in your lifetime so far and he says like this Skip the main thing I've learned in my lifetime so far is Don't allow yourself to be a football of others'

Rick Barron (42:59)

That's interesting.

Skip Lineberg (43:01)

Isn't that a clever phrase? So, let's just, I'd love to hear your reaction to what do you take from that?

Rick Barron (43:12)

Well, could you repeat that again? I'm sorry.

Skip Lineberg (43:14)

Don't allow yourself to be a football of others'. What happens to a football?

Rick Barron (43:22)

Right off the top of my head, being tossed around, deflated, and kicked, you know.

Skip Lineberg (43:26)

Kicked, deflated, tossed? Yeah. And others' opinions. So where might that come into play?

Rick Barron (43:37)

Well, not to be persuaded, you know, even though in your thought process, not again, not to say like, Hey, I know I'm right, but not to be pushed into making a decision that you're going to later regret. mean, I'm just thinking off my head very quickly here. Yeah.

Skip Lineberg (43:54)

Right. No, this is good. This is good. Also, people pleasing, perhaps if you're a people pleaser, you might need to hear that to say, you know, of course you want to you want to do right by people and you want to do your job and you want to deliver a product to a person that's going to to meet their expectations and maybe even bring an element of delight. But you can't be a prisoner to that. 

And so, here's the irony of this, Rick, and I didn't know Dr. Carter, and I knew each other a little bit, but not, he didn't know a lot about me, but you know, I think if I look back on my boyhood years, I was a, I was a football quarterback. I was a quarterback of my high school football team. And so that was a big part of my identity. He couldn't have known that there's no way that Dr. Carter could have known that for him to use that football analogy of all things. It blew my mind.

Part two, at that stage in my life, I think I was quite captive to people pleasing. And he wouldn't have known that either. And so I felt like that main thing was aimed squarely at me, more so than the audience. And that's the exception. That's a very extreme exception example that I give you. You know there's been 139 others that are maybe aimed at someone. 

We never know who it's for and it's never it's not for just one person obviously but there will be plenty that are going to have broad appeal and they're going to land with people who need to hear whatever their the wisdom lesson is in that moment like just keep going never give up. Let the sorrow do its work.

Forgiveness is the most powerful tool you can apply things like that. But the one that Dr. dropped on me back in episode 23 in year one was it just floored me.

Rick Barron (46:06)

Yeah, you just didn't see that one coming, you?

Skip Lineberg (46:10)

No way. 0.0%.

Rick Barron (46:14)

So, Skip, if someone is, you know, kind of down on their luck right now, they're struggling. know quite a few people who have lost their jobs, you more so because, you know, AI is coming into the picture now, and they're expendable, and they're facing so many challenges. What might they learn in terms of wisdom if they came to your show? What could you offer them so that, when you walk away, I hope you'll realize, "Here's something you can take with you." If it's just a little nugget that helps you give you a lift, what might that be?

Skip Lineberg (47:00)

Yeah, I think they could get inspiration. if you've lost your job and you're struggling right now to use your scenario, I'm probably lacking inspiration. might be a little deflated back to our football example. I might be a little depressed. I might be a little gloomy, a little downcast. I can get inspiration.

I listened to another episode and it's going to be about resilience, which is how to overcome, how to push through, how to keep going. So those are two that come to mind. But I think for that person, someone's ears perked up, and they went, " Hey, this is me”, Rick's talking about, I would encourage you to play a game that you can win. 

So, the game of applying through InDeed or Glassdoor or whatever the newest platform is for loading in your resume and putting it into the big machine and hoping the algorithms spits you in the right direction of someone's mailbox may not be a game that you can win. Maybe it can, but maybe that's not the game that you want to play like the other 95 % of job seekers right now. Maybe you should have a different strategy. 

And I just helped a friend who's roughly my age, helped and just provided encouragement, inspiration, friendly counsel to my friend who just found a new job and she's about to be I think 58 years old. The economy's not great right now. Maybe one could say not a lot of people want to hire a 58-year-old. But she succeeded and she played a game that she could win. The second thing I would say to encourage that person in the scenario you mentioned is to do the things they fear first.

So, there are steps that person knows they need to do. They hopefully have a list somewhere in their journal. And tomorrow I'm going to contact this company. I'm going to find the name of the HR director at such-and-such place. I'm going to get a new headshot photo for my, for my LinkedIn profile. I'm going to update my resume. All of those are a little daunting. All of those require some courage, some gumption and I think it's incredibly powerful if you start your day by doing something daunting or something, feared through feared things first, start your day off by doing those things. You build momentum, you build confidence. You get acceleration on that new path. If you do that. And I wasn't thinking about this ahead of time, but I have my Eleanor Roosevelt coffee mug here that says, one thing. Do one thing every day that scares you.

Rick Barron (49:58)

Yeah, it's a good quote.

Skip Lineberg (50:00)

That's a different way of saying, do feared things first.

Rick Barron (50:03)

Yeah, because I think you take on that habit, you then realize there really is nothing to fear. The only fear is in you because you're afraid of the outcome. Well, sometimes you're going to learn something from that outcome of failure. There are so many lessons one can learn in failing. Not that you want to make a habit of it, but you just have to accept the fact that everyday life is going to be full of joy, happiness, pitfalls, and failure. I mean, that's life. That's how it is. You can't just think it's always going to be fine and glorious. But I think for me, this conversation has opened my eyes to many things that I never really...

Skip Lineberg (50:42)

Some sadness. Yes.

Rick Barron (51:01)

…thought and that quote or the thought that the doctor gave to you about the football, that was the more I think about that, that's a really a very profound statement that he provided you, like I think that, especially when you weren't even expecting to hear that come from him

Skip Lineberg (51:26)

It blew my mind. It surprised me. It moved me to tears. Have you ever been so struck with something so profound and true that it just brings a special brand of tears to your eyes? Yeah.

Rick Barron (51:41)

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll share with you. Ironically, I was launching something on YouTube, and it's one of those gatherings where people are kind of like in the marketplace, and it was showing this little girl who went up to put a coin in this person's hat and they were next to a subway, and there was a guy playing a guitar and he his dog. But unbeknownst to him, the people who were gathering to come and give him coins started to give him bills. And all of a sudden, you saw $five, $10, $100 bills. 

And what it was was that the boss of these people always took the subway, he always saw this guy, and he saw how he went out of his way to entertain people, to put people in a good mood. So, he thought that, since it was the Christmas time period, he would give the money to his team and then, kind of casually, start walking in and then start putting the money in. And as the guy's playing the song, he's thought, okay, what's going on here? You know, he almost realized something's up. Anyway, after you finish the song, the person who was the boss of all these people went up, introduced himself, and thanked him for bringing joy to people who come and take the subway every day.

Rick Barron (53:29)

And ironically, I mean, there was a stash of money in that basket. He said that this is so wonderful because I'm now celebrating my daughter’s birthday, she's three months old today. And I thought they had no idea. No idea. And I'm not ashamed to admit it, Skip, but I started to cry.

Skip Lineberg (53:57)

Yeah.

Rick Barron (53:57)

I thought that was such a beautiful moment. And I cried more so because I thought, why can't we be this way? Mean, this is, you know, it can happen. It can happen. 

Skip Lineberg (54:05)

Yeah. Right. Yeah. You were just the phrase, awestruck beauty of humanity. It can move us to tears. It can move us to tears.

Rick Barron (54:14)

Yeah. That's a good way to put it. It's a good way to put it. And I was just flipping around. I wasn't even looking for anything. I'll watch this. And it just caught me off guard as to what the outcome of that video was going to be.

Skip Lineberg (54:31)

Yeah, yeah. Boy, if you can run across that Rick, I'd love to have a link if you could share that afterwards.

Rick Barron (54:36)

Okay, in fact, I did save it. I did. I'll send it to you. I'll make a note of that. So, Skip, this conversation has been really, I'm not gonna say it was interesting. It was extremely interesting. You shared a lot of concepts, thoughts. Thank you. No, it was a dialogue that I really enjoyed. 

Skip Lineberg (54:51)

Thank you. I feel that way too. Thank you.

Rick Barron (55:04)

I typically end the conversation with what I call speed round questions. There are five. And it's kind of something that's spontaneous. So, if you'll allow me.

Skip Lineberg (55:10)

Okay. let's, yeah, absolutely. It sounds fun and let's, let's lighten the mood with some, some whimsy maybe.

Rick Barron (55:17)

Okay, sure. What was the... Absolutely. I guess wipe the tears away. What was your best live concert you ever attended and why?

Skip Lineberg (55:34)

I saw in a small auditorium, I saw Harry Connick and his orchestra play here in Charleston and our municipal auditorium. It was crazy gangbusters good. He's an ultimate entertainer. As the band leader, he would call up the trombonist or a saxophonist, and he would, after the song ended, let me tell you about that person who was playing sax for you and tell you a little bit about their backstory. And he just had us eat now the palm of his hand.

Rick Barron (56:02)

That's great. I love that. Okay, what do you wish you had more time to do?

Skip Lineberg (56:10)

Travel.

Rick Barron (56:12)

You know, I have had several people say that to me. Why for you? Why travel?

Skip Lineberg (56:17)

I think travel presents new situations, new places, new people, new cultures, and it's a tremendous opportunity to learn and gain wisdom.

Rick Barron (56:31)

Yeah, I once heard someone tell me that when they went to different countries, they started to get a different perspective on the world and how people see one another, and it's so different from what you see on TV. So it was an eye-opener for them. 

What was your first paying job?

Skip Lineberg (56:41)

Fast food and I was so hungry for earnings that I got a what was called a Department of Labor work permit at age 15 so that I could work at a fried chicken shack in my hometown and I could I could clean and Bread with this the crusty stuffing stuff before it goes in the deep fryer and do that for eight and ten hours at a time.

Rick Barron (57:17)

My lord, you must have been tired at the end of the day.

Skip Lineberg (57:20)

Just so I could have a car, you know? Just so I could put gas in the car and occasionally ask a pretty young classmate out on a date.

Rick Barron (57:30)

Good for you. Good for you. Okay, here's one. If your wife wrote a book about you, what do you think the title would be and why?

Skip Lineberg (57:39)

Okay. It would be called Captain Quirky. So, my wife talks about, hopefully enjoys, and still admires me, drawn to my quirkiness. And I think she would tell you that, I have, I'm an observer at heart and I view the world differently. Partly just that's just who I am genetically, that happens, also partly because I try to think differently. And, a lot of times that comes across in a humorous way, it is delivered in a humorous form.

Rick Barron (58:17)

That's great. Okay, last question. Maybe this kind of sounds like one of yours. What would you attempt to do if you knew you couldn't fail?

Skip Lineberg (58:31)

Yeah, I think this is pretty obvious. This is not going to be a wildly creative answer, but I would do podcasting full-time. Would hire people to do a lot of the administrative work, the scheduling of guests, the social media posts that promote an episode, and maybe even some of the editing. But that's a big leap, and yeah, not ready to, not yet ready to hang up my cleats and step out of my day job yet.

Rick Barron (58:50)

Yeah, that's great. It is. It is. Not ready for Broadway,

Skip Lineberg (59:02)

I'm not ready to tussle with Dennis Miller yet.

Rick Barron (59:08)

Yeah, go back to him. Hey, remember me? Skip, this was a very enjoyable conversation. So, I really want to thank you very much again for taking the time. And again, I really do appreciate your insight into life, into wisdom. So yeah, I'm looking forward to hearing other episodes on your podcast, The Main Thing. 

I encourage everybody to go listen to him. Again, I think you're going to get a lot out of what Skip can share with you about life and wisdom and other things, because I think it's that he puts a lot of thought into his podcast, because I think that's part of podcasting. It's the art of how you tell a story to keep you captivated and to keep you informed, and again to get some pearls of wisdom if I might say that. Yeah, so I want to thank you, and to my audience, thank you again for joining us. We'll see you soon, and take care.