Power of Gratitude: How Walter Green Is Transforming Lives with 'Just Say It Now' | S2 Ep. 75

0:05Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Founder Story. Today, we have Walter Green, founder of Say It Now. Wow. The interesting part about you, Walter, that I find is you had a lot of success in life. You were successful in business. And for decades, you've been thinking about what to do next after you've reached that level of success, which is where you're at now and why you have Just Say It Now. So I'd love to understand from you, why did you start this Just Say It Now and what do you hope to achieve. Right. So I've found great satisfaction. I'm age 29, joined a startup company in the executive conference center field, brand new.

0:49It's been 30 years, was CEO, major shareholder, very fulfilling, sold the company at age 59. Then the question is, okay, now that I am blessed with the capacity to keep living, my dad actually died at 53. So I was well aware that life is short. And I thought, why don't I take some of the approaches and processes of business to a new arena? So I decided I would do no more business. I have dedicated the last, let's see, it's 25 years now to mentoring and to nonprofits and to this evolution of this movement, which, as you mentioned, had a start really early in my life. And I will tell you, I was 17 years old.

1:40I got to call University of Michigan from my home in Jacksonville that I needed to come home. And that's when I learned that my dad died. That was a real reminder. Life is short. You just can't count on it. And so from there, I had lived in 16 different cities. won't bore you with the detail of why, but I lived in a lot of different towns. The outcome was I really never had any friends until I was 30, no lifelong friends at all. And so when I finally got some stability in my 30s, by the time I was 50, I had five really good 15-year friends. And I was so grateful to them for my 50th birthday. I invited them to a weekend in New York, And publicly, I thank each one of them for their impact on my life.

2:32I actually still get chills. That was 35 years ago. And so I realized what a wonderful expression that was really for more than just the recipient. I actually love telling them what they had meant to me. And, you know, I know we all think we're kind of self-made. But if I could dispel that concept pretty well, I've been talking on this subject for years. I've yet to find anybody self-made. I've never found anybody who can't think about somebody who's had a significant impact on their life. So in any case, during the 50s, I became more conscious of the joy that I had. Then I was amazed at these funerals and celebrations of life.

3:13And the one that probably sticks out was Tim Russert, the wonderful moderator of Meet the Press. At his funeral, he had 1 ,500 people, presidents, past presidents, astronauts, celebrities. The tributes were unbelievable. And when I completed hearing that, I thought, wow, how special. And then I thought for a moment, I said, you know, Tim Restart never heard a word of that. It just doesn't make sense. So that began to percolate. And then for my 70th birthday, I asked my wife for a special gift. I didn't want to be in the process of a Tim Russert and people speaking to me or me speaking to friends after they're gone.

4:05So I asked for up to a year to travel around the United States. I went to Kenya, I went to Canada, Mexico to sit down with everybody who had been important in my life while they're alive. 44 people. Now I know some of your listeners are going to say, I don't have 44 people. Please don't be misled by that. If you have one, the principle still applies. Anyway, when I finished my year-long journey, Hay House heard the story, asked me to write a book, never written a book. And I wrote the book called This Is The Moment, and it prompted a lot of speaking engagements. It was a story of how did this idea come to pass?

4:46Who did I speak to? What did I say? And what should you, the reader, do if you want to take advantage of this opportunity? It was an amazing experience. And from then, of course, a few years later, we had the pandemic. And all of a sudden, there's no more personal contact. And I'm thinking, oh, is this ending this concept of mine? And actually, it was my son Jason who said, you know what? Zoom technology is just coming out. You could do it over Zoom. And so I started a whole say it now movement using Zoom. In other words, a group of people coming to pay tribute to an individual. Now, I know for my 30 years in the conference business, there is no more powerful expression than a group expressing it to one person.

5:33One-on-one is wonderful. A group to one is even more. So when I saw the kind of superpower that it had, I began to ask myself, I'm now, you know, at that time I was 83, and I said, you know what, maybe this is time for me to try and leave a legacy. So the idea of Say It Now is very simple. Most powerful ideas are simple. The idea is to inspire people to express gratitude to people who have had an impact on them while they're alive and well. Don't wait until they're gone. Don't wait until you have regrets for what I wish I would have said. If I had a nickel for everybody who told me about their regrets, I could be substantially wealthier than I am today.

6:24So that's the principle. That's how it got started. and the movement is now accelerated in the last 18 months. We can talk about more about that. Most of the people that we interview, they talk a lot about in their life, they thought happiness was money, was business success, exiting for huge amounts of money, whatever that is. But then when they get there, they realize they're not really more happy. And then they talk about legacy and fulfillment. So I'm glad that you're bringing this up. because we do think about like we want to know what people think of us after we're gone but we're already gone when it would be great to let people know or to even know how we impacted people while we're still alive i don't know why we normally don't think about that we're like the opposite thinkers but this is really important and i feel like in business this could be the most important thing because we are in the end of the day we're chasing happiness fulfillment and we think money gets us there, but many times it doesn't get us there.

7:29It only gets us maybe partially there. So I would love to understand, Walter, what's the next steps for Just Day Now? What do you see in 18 months? Do you want to impact a million plus people? How do you get there? Yeah. So let me first say that business was very satisfying. Being successful really allowed me to do things that I wouldn't have been able to, so I don't want to diminish that all. But it is a classic problem. When you're successful in something, typically people will stay there or proceed to do something else, presuming they're as smart as their success. I've learned long ago, we're not as smart as our success, nor are we as dumb as our failures.

8:11But the idea that started in my business career was always thinking in the really reverse since I was in my 30s. So when I sold the company, the question I asked is if I'm successful at this next stage of my life, however long it might be, how would I know it? What would be happening with my personal relationships, with my community service, with my mentoring, with my marriage, with my family, with all of the elements of things that are important. Once I got that clear picture, I had no idea I would ever do a Say It Now. No idea in the world, but I knew I was focusing on what would happen if I found something that was successful.

8:55And Say It Now, I am shocked at the newness and uniqueness of such an obvious idea, And I couldn't let it go. So in the last 18 months, having spoken to thousands of people of my contemporaries who all have stories about going to funerals and wishing they had said, I said to myself, what if we started earlier in a person's life? And so for the last 18 months, my focus is on teaching it the way it should be. So in the last 18 months, our program is now taught in 49 ,000 schools in 79 countries. And we've had over a million and a half expressions of gratitude from people who once they do it, they will continue to do it.

9:51But in addition, this remaining year, this coming year, I've got a viral campaign that I'm working on. I actually have completed a song for Say It Now. So I have a song. I have a book. It's going to come out first half of next year. And my hope is that in the next 12 to 18 months, I might be able to influence 6 million additional people. We actually have crossed already 2 million. And that to me would be moving the needle on our society and the global society to inspire people not to miss this opportunity. And interesting enough, as good as my concept was in the executive conference center field, because we are a unique niche in the hospitality field.

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11:52Indeed.com slash founders story. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need. I have never had such a good selling proposition to say it now. I have not heard one story. Somebody told me, I'm really sorry I did that. And I can tell you thousands of stories of people where it has life-changing effect on existing relationships. That's amazing. I think when you can impact other people and then they impact other people and then they impact other people, I mean, it can exponentially. You're looking at like a million, over a million. But can you imagine how many of those people told those people told those people you might already be at three, four, five, 10 million at this point?

12:39Who knows? So people, I think people many times they look to more wiser individuals like yourself and say, like, what's the secret to what's the keys to success? There's keys to happiness, secret to happiness. They look to someone like yourself and say, like, can you tell me what those are? But for you, what's been the driver of success in your life? And really even more so important, what has brought you the most happiness? Yeah, well, we'll need a whole nother podcast for that. So I don't want to shortchange anyone, but it sure helps to get the marital partner correct. I've just enjoyed my 61st anniversary.

13:24That is very foundational. Got a set of twin sons, daughter-in-law, grandkids. Those are very foundational. I would say for me, ultimately, the importance of relationships would be one very, very simple, not simple, one very significant element to leading a successful life. And I'm not just talking about, I know thousands of people, we all do over the course. I'm talking about how many people can we have an authentic conversation? How many people can you call at three o 'clock in the night if you really needed them? To me, you can't just have that when you're 50 and you say, oh, that's good. I think I'll have one.

14:07You got to start planting those relationships. I didn't get started to late in life in my 30s, but I tell you, I cherish those. And so once you plant them, you can ultimately grow. And then ultimately at my stage, I'm harvesting. So I would say relationships are significant. The other thing is each person should articulate what would it look like for you to be successful because we're all different. I mean, no one else is going to be doing what I'm doing. So ask yourself the question, how would I know it? And get some clarity about the outcomes. And then you keep alert to the possibilities of these things that just seem to happen.

14:51So, yeah, that would be my quick answer to your very thoughtful question. I appreciate that. We had Dr. Ivan Meisner from BNI on before, and he said, it's all about who you can call at 2 a.m. if you have a flat tire, and they'll come and help you. And that's relationships that you need to foster. So thank you for sharing that. But if people want to understand more about Just Say It Now, they want to know more about you, they want to get in touch, they want to also help other people, how can they do so? Yeah. So my website, justsayitnow.org, will give you some ideas about, you know, it doesn't really matter how you express your gratitude to people who are important, but it'll give you some ideas how to do it.

15:44There's also a TED Talk, an interview with Peter Attia, if you wanted more information on it. This is not complicated. it. I always tell people it's not about how, it's about doing it now. Really, I hope the people who hang up listening to this conversation today says that, you know what, I'm going to do that. I am going to pick up a phone and tell this person or I'm going to send them an email. They most likely have no idea of the impact that they've had on my life. And I don't want to take a chance that they may be gone and I'll have to live with regrets. Wow, Walter, it's, this is something that could be one of the most powerfully impacting things in our lives.

16:28Getting that call from somebody or making the call to somebody might be not only fulfilling, but like you said, you might only have that one chance because they might not even be around tomorrow. And then you live your rest of your life with regrets of not being able to do that. So I like acting now, But thank you for all that you shared. Congratulations on your lifelong marriage, like you were mentioning, and how much that's driven you and relationships being so important in your life. So this has been a great conversation. We got to have you back. Next time, we can dive into all of your past history.

17:07And you're going to be reaching 2, 3 million people, I can tell, already, maybe by the end of this year in 2024. But what you're doing is incredible. And thank you so much. We're honored to have you on Founder's Story with us today. It was my pleasure. Thank you so much.