Sarah Feely 0:37

Laurel Donnellan 10:07
and easy peasy. We'll get it all done. So welcome Rick Milenthal to the podcast. I'm so happy to have you today in a quiet setting, because we met at South by Southwest in Austin, in a noisy bar, and we can and we connected, I think, through our eyes and heart, because we couldn't really hear each other talking. So welcome to the podcast.

Rick Milenthal 10:34
Well, we met in a bar, we should be clear, we didn't pick each other up in a bar. It was a planned, a planned professional meeting. It was I had my son, I think you had your nephew,

Speaker 3 10:48
just

Rick Milenthal 10:50
so it's out there in the world. I don't want anything different.

Laurel Donnellan 10:56
I was interviewing you for Forbes, and we were unaware that we thought we were finding a quiet restaurant. We found the noisiest, but it was very Austin. It was pretty great.

Rick Milenthal 11:10
It was wonderful. It was great meeting you, and just thrilled to talk to you again today.

Laurel Donnellan 11:16
So Rick, we have a model that we work with called the Donnellan method. It's my method for leadership, and one of the principles is balance, and the leadership practice is encouraging sustainability. And I am framing our talk around that because of the work that you are doing around mental health in your organization. We're going to get to that in a minute. But why don't we start with the shipyard? What is the shipyard and what do you do every day?

Rick Milenthal 11:56
The shipyard is a marketing services agency, works in advertising, public relations, digital work, and it's one of the leading, what you call independent agencies. So like many businesses, there's large global corporations, but these are this business is owned by our leadership. Together, it's about 500 folks, and we handled really some of the greatest brands across the country. We have a theme engineering brand love.

Laurel Donnellan 12:31
I love that theme, and I am very impressed. I don't know a lot about your company yet, but I'm very impressed. One of the ways I got familiar with your company is one of your colleagues presented at South by Southwest, yeah. And I went to see her,

Rick Milenthal 12:46
Oh, I didn't even know you did that,

Laurel Donnellan 12:48
yeah. And I was fascinated by her presentation, which is around I may get this wrong, it was like branding avatars or something like that.

Rick Milenthal 13:00
Archetypes,

Laurel Donnellan 13:01
archetypes.

Rick Milenthal 13:02
Archetypes is bringing the personal here. I'm going to say this for your editor. Am I making too much noise with this headphone? Maybe

Laurel Donnellan 13:11
I can't hear it at all.

Rick Milenthal 13:13
Okay,

Laurel Donnellan 13:16
you're good.

Rick Milenthal 13:17
Archetypes. Archetypes is is a what if you had a personality or a character attached to your brand? And what Lillian Marsh did, who's my colleague is, she took that concept, which has been around for a while, and divided it even to 60 or 70 different archetypes, and she uses that strategy to build brand strategy. And so she presented South by Southwest. It was one of the bigger rooms. I was pretty, pretty impressed by it, and I'm glad you were there. There was a

Laurel Donnellan 13:54
I was there, I was there, and it was amazing. And I went to nine out of 10 days of South by Southwest. So we haven't talked really since then. I'm curious what you got out of the experience

Rick Milenthal 14:11
that young people are interested in our business and passionate about our business and excited about it. Laurel, like every other business, we've been affected, AI and technology, economic uncertainty, many of the larger global companies in our business have consolidated, and 10s of 1000s of people lost their jobs just within the last year. Actually, that's what happens when it's a business in transition, and so there's a lot of stress and anxiety. It's and it's not misplaced. It's existential. Hey, what about my job? And when that happens, you often have young, smart people say, I'm out, you know, I'm not going there. Look what's going on. And it was just full of wonderful 20 somethings that we're excited about. The future, interested in the future, interested in the business, interested in creativity, interested in what's going to happen and leaning in. And I'm sure they all had fun there, but I saw them in every session, and very diligent about what they're doing, and had a lot of conversations with them. And that was what struck me the most about South by Southwest. It

Laurel Donnellan 15:42
was definitely motivating, inspiring and a bit overwhelming, because I went to so many sessions, maybe next year. Probably went to too many.

Rick Milenthal 15:54
Well, yeah, you need to breathe.

Laurel Donnellan 15:56
You need to breathe. So one of the reasons we got connected for Forbes is the work that you're doing around mental health. So could you tell me the story of why you and the shipyard?

Rick Milenthal 16:16
Yeah,

Laurel Donnellan 16:16
shine a light on something so important.

Rick Milenthal 16:19
Yeah. I mean, we spend most of our lives marketing food services or insurance and travel and tourism and businesses and industrial that's what fuels our income. But we had a couple things happen inside the company. I have a very close business partner who lost his son at 17 years old to suicide. But it wasn't a false it was a unspeakable shock. But he and his wife were not in denial. They had been working with their young son for two, three years, you know, as he had thoughts, a smart, athletic, good looking kid, everything going for him, yet, you know, had these challenges, and they knew it, and they loved him for it, and they put every resource to save him, and they couldn't save and so what happened was a few things. One, we knew the mental health space was in real flux, very challenged. We knew that one of the issues is and it's not the same now. This was 2016 you know, when this began on our journey 17, somewhere around there, which for me, doesn't seem that long ago, but these days are even back then and still now, but not as much. There was a lot of stigma and talking about it. I didn't tell his story. It's his story. I didn't tell the story how my wife's father, my father in law, in our first year of marriage, committed suicide. You know, you don't, you feel like you're burning people, right? It's, it's, it's, it's our issue. Six months after that happened, he came to me and said, you know, we said to each other, we got to do something about this. And they were so brave. They wanted to talk about it. And we realized that in our what we do if we were to get involved in a cause philanthropic. We start our company, 2013 even though I've been in the business for 40 years, but have led a number of agencies. But this agency was young at the time, and so we hadn't matured yet to do a lot outside of our business, getting business. And we felt this is an area where what we do, which is create things, which is words, which is telling stories mattered in mental health. Words can unite, words can divide, words can inspire, words can demoralize. And so we wouldn't just be working for a cause. What we do actually cures. And so we lean every resource in our company behind helping in mental health. We help start up a music festival that had wonderful artists in Columbus that 10s of 1000s of people came to but the message was around mental health, and my business partner David and I would, would, you know, speak on it. And then, as we got more engaged, at The Ohio State University, they have a wonderful chairman of the department and a good friend of mine who does their strategy. Her name's Holly caston and and she even helped recruit a chairman of their Department of Psychiatry who had an idea, and the idea is that we can change the trajectory of mental health. And what he noticed is that in cardiac care. There's something called the Framingham study. Was in Framingham, Massachusetts, where you study generations started in the late 40s and early 50s, and followed families and learn what's genetic and what's situational, what is from chemistry, what everything we know, cholesterol, stress, smoking, exercise, much of what we know came from the Framingham study. He said, we're going to have a Framingham study like thing for mental health, because mental health is a brain challenge, a brain disease. And so we said, Fine, we're going to lean into the entire communication to this. And it's called soar, which came from state of Ohio, adversity and resilience, but really it's soar and mission soar, and we are now the communications partner on the seminal study in the world, frankly, which is happening in Ohio, on following 1000s of families on on on these issues for mental health, and that will change mental health for the future, because the reason the space is challenged is, and you know, insurance companies don't insure a lot that can happen. You're you this young man, they would bring him to outpatient in three days and or inpatient three days and he's out. They give it back to the parent. They're like, what am I supposed I'm not the professional, because it's not sure. The only way heart got insured, the only way cancer got insured is there was research so you understood. You know, outcomes, better outcomes, right? Yeah, it's not because they're bad. You know, we can vilify anything. We can vilify insurance companies. We can vilify government. We can feel but everybody's doing what they need to do in their space. They need outcomes. They need to know if we do this, this will result. I can save this person. And then if you don't have that, they can't ensure it. And so that's what we're doing. Most of it, honestly, Laurel will not affect while we're alive. I mean, it takes generations. It's

Laurel Donnellan 22:31
a longitudinal study and longitude, but they're getting they're getting started, which is very exciting.

Rick Milenthal 22:37
So we built everything around it. We the theme, you know, to bring the greatest minds together to solve the mind's greatest problems.

Laurel Donnellan 22:48
Yeah, that's pretty exciting. What a

Rick Milenthal 22:50
great long answer. I hope

Laurel Donnellan 22:53
it's a good answer. It's a good story. And I know from our discussions in the past, you've also brought some things into your leadership and into the culture of your company related to mental health. Can you talk about that?

Rick Milenthal 23:09
Yeah, I got, we got involved in it as because of its cause. Then we began to change our entire structure, what we did for employees as far as getting help when they need it, we created a culture, hopefully, that people can talk about, how do you talk with your boss about the fact you may have these challenges you're not going to do that. It feels like a weakness. I wonder if he or she's going to question me for the future, is it going to affect my career? So I'm going to keep it inside. Well, if you keep it inside, in something you spend so many hours with, and your colleagues and such, obviously it'll be even more challenging. And then when there's a situation, because you're responding to that and you don't, nobody has an understanding of it, that's actually more challenging. So we, we fostered, you know, talking about it. And if you talked with our folks, they would tell you, this is a safe place to deal with my mental health, and sometimes they take breaks, and you all have to deal with business realities on these but they know that. They know that. And so it has turned out to be our highest retention reason, you know, non financial retention reason, our dedication to mental health, and it's, it's really kind of, it's defined us. But when you're in an industry that's creative, frankly, there's more of proclivity to issues in mental health, because you're in a business in which you're creating something, and then you you share that thing, and most times nine out of 10 someone says, I don't like it. You gotta

Laurel Donnellan 25:06
go. It's hard to take not take it personally, especially after working through the weekend and giving your all to something, right?

Rick Milenthal 25:13
Well, it's my output, creative. It is personal

Speaker 4 25:18
to

Rick Milenthal 25:18
say, don't take it personally. It's like,

Speaker 4 25:22
yeah,

Rick Milenthal 25:22
just to give them context is good, but you know, it's, it's a silly thing sometimes to say, don't take it personally. I'm a person,

Laurel Donnellan 25:30
yeah? Well, I appreciate, I appreciate. Culturally, we're getting to these conversations, it's, it's more acceptable at, for example, in sports to talk take breaks and talk about mental health. It's still pretty rare in business. So what are the other I mean, I guess I know you kind of started this from an ethical standpoint. But other than retention, what are the other business benefits to having a safe place for these conversations.

Rick Milenthal 26:07
I will tell you it comes both with age and this experience that once as a leader, leader, hundreds of people if you're a leader, 10s of 1000s of people, if you're a political leader, if you're a business leader, once you're a leader, that can be more vulnerable about yourself is because you you can't ask people to be more vulnerable if you aren't about yourself. You know, once I did that more which I came to later in life. I was not prophetic about this, and I was very hard driving person in my 30s and 40s, you know. And I'm now, I don't mind saying 66 years old, and I got a lot done, did business, but I it was Damn the torpedoes full speed ahead. I didn't really have an understanding of what was happening around me. I will tell you that doing this, which I thought, Okay, I'm going to move some attention from our business, if the business doesn't grow as much, and put more attention into this. I'm going to try to lead this way. Our business grew exponentially. My personal success grew many, many, many multiples. My relationship at home, my wife, you know, children got better. I didn't know that, but that would be the biggest advice I'd give to business leaders. You will think it's weakness. You will think that it means less success. You will think that this focus divert you from meeting your business goals, and you may have shareholders to take that or board members to think that, because they want him or her to why, you know, just focus on the business. Just focus on customer acquisition. But the fact is, once you can get your head around this with people, your business will grow, your customers or clients, or whoever it is, they feel it. Your employees feel it, and people are amazing. What they'll do if they, you know, feel safe. And so I wasn't prophetic about any of that Laurel. It wasn't any sort of strategy or anything, but it's the biggest learning for me, and it's the biggest learning I'd love to share with anyone listening to this, that's, you know, looking at how they expand their business. There's so much information about all the things in strategy and, you know, in business, but I don't hear this a lot, and it really, really will not only matter to you as a human being, it'll matter to you as a business leader, absolutely.

Laurel Donnellan 29:06
So one of the many things that intrigues me about you and your business is you told me that, and you just stated that this isn't always the way you operated. You know, you were hard driving. You were focused on the bottom line, all those things that we're taught to be, what changed that? What part of your story changed you into the compassionate leader you are now?

Rick Milenthal 29:33
Well, I can hardly call myself the compassion leader. I'm glad you are. First of all, all, all of us, every day, we're more compassionate than some days, anytime you're in business challenges, I think that's another message. There's, you know, there's no mountain top that you reach as far as this is so, but I used to travel about maybe over 100 days a week and and that was not helpful for my family and my relationship. So the first thing was that when you start to realize what's important to you, and honestly, if you could get right with whoever your partner is in life, my case is a life of 43 years, it's amazing what happens. So I think it started at home, not in business. Does that make any sense. I mean, we, you're young, it's like,

Laurel Donnellan 30:45
yeah,

Speaker 2 30:46
I'm doing it for the family, achieving this

Rick Milenthal 30:49
and such, yeah, well, you're not present. You're not, I think it's

Laurel Donnellan 30:56
society is, you know, it's kind of like workaholism is the one addiction that we still say is okay in many ways, and it's not it. There's so many costs. Yeah, and I will say, even though my company's called compassionate leader circle there, there are days when I am not a compassionate leader. And I have to, you know, find humor in that and pick myself up and apologize for my behavior and go on and try to be better the next day. I think, I think it's good for all of us to just know that we can be compassionate leaders, and we're learning how to be a better leader every day, as long as we're learning. I heard a great quote the other day, Nelson Mandela said, I never lose. I win or learn.

Rick Milenthal 31:47
Yeah, that's really excellent. If you ever Whenever someone asks me that question, who would you like to meet? You know that passed away. It's Nelson Mandela and but, you know, I like to say, and it's not my quote, don't compare your inside with someone else's outside,

Speaker 5 32:09
right?

Rick Milenthal 32:10
So one message here, wonderful to get a recognition like this. And so you know that's a perfect moment. But you're not a perfect person. You're far from it,

Speaker 4 32:24
yeah, and

Rick Milenthal 32:24
so do not, do not carry, you know, too much challenge personally as you you do this journey, Journey days. You know, every day is different, and it's that way in social services, look at all the I mean, I'm a business person, but you know, even if you're dedicated to a charity or social service, which you'd think, Oh, that's a compassionate leader, well, you're dealing with funding, you're dealing with issues, you're probably dealing with Government policy. You often your people, you serve. Sometimes, many times it feels futile. You know, it's, it's, you know. And so if you feel, oh my gosh, I'm leading the social service, but I'm not having a very compassionate day, just take a breath. You know, people see your intentions. So don't compare your inside with everyone's perfect outside. It's really in social media where everybody is presented as having the greatest life and the most compassion, and they're so thoughtful, because that's what I write. And you know, your marriage is perfect. Your children are perfect. Everything's perfect.

Laurel Donnellan 33:39
There's a lot of documents. The hell is wrong with

Rick Milenthal 33:41
me? I'm completely screwed up.

Laurel Donnellan 33:48
I appreciate that we're all learning to be better. And I'm very interested in, you know, in an industry that's shrinking in many ways, that you're growing right as a company, and I'm interested in your engineering brand love. What does that mean?

Rick Milenthal 34:08
Well, I'll answer that in the context, the industry is not shrinking. The industry is actually growing. If you think about all these AI, what we call L and M language platforms, all of them will be fueled by advertising, unfortunately. So if you do chat GBT or Claude and all, the reason they're worth all this money is advertising. So actually, the industry is growing. What's happening is many people are getting displaced through consolidation and such, but the industry itself and are being displaced. You know, we like to say you're not going to be replaced by AI. You're replaced by if you're a person that doesn't know how to use AI. So that does go to engineering brand love engineering is the technology that is only growing in our industry, but you're building a Feely brand. Love, I love, you know, my connection. And what happens is in our industry that so many are so interested in the technology and what's happening with AI and what's happening in targeting and all these things, they kind of forget or they diminish feelings. We're all fueled by feelings. And we're all fueled by levels of love. Frankly, you know, and so engineering meaning, utilize technology to its fullest extent to build brand love, to build love, we like to say building unshakable brands that are designed with feelings, are fueled with feelings, but design now perform.

Laurel Donnellan 35:46
So I like that correction you made. So let's go back to that. So advertising as a sector, is growing.

Rick Milenthal 35:55
Yeah, it's going, it's going to grow even more. That's the reason all these businesses are valuable. It's it's advertising, just like what's called Search. You when You see Google and such, it used to be there are no ads on it. Now it's frankly a terrible experience, because there's all ads on social media was supposed to have no ads on it. Well, of course, it's completely filled by advertising. So these, these AI platforms, they're all created to make a connection that then commerce or advertising will be its way of making money. So it's

Laurel Donnellan 36:33
so even with the technology, are the jobs growing too in the sector? Are there more jobs in advertising, or is that kind of going to balance out, or to be determined?

Rick Milenthal 36:45
Currently, we're going through a stage of less jobs in advertising, but that happened in each of one of these phases. Long term, it will not be the case. It's a large amount. And then what is advertising? If I'm doing the technology and I'm building these things. It's tangential advertising, but we're currently going through a big change, and so people are getting displaced. Laurel, people are getting displaced, but we are are generally growing and generally more stable. I don't want to, I don't know that. I want to declare, but, you know, we're nimble. We're not one of these large, large public companies that you know have to always look at those short term financial decisions and so we can sustain ourselves. That's really the biggest reason.

Laurel Donnellan 37:35
So what are you looking forward to in your business and with your with your brands. What are you looking forward to as you look into the future?

Rick Milenthal 37:48
So we have these three areas in marketing. I hope I don't get too technical, paid, earned and known. So paid is when someone does advertising their digital and pay to reach you. Earned is when it's an influencer or public relations. It's called earned because of the stories you tell. Is the reason someone paid attention, not I paid to reach you, and owned is when you have your own website. You own those assets inside our industry is generally separated. There's been great companies and paid and great and earned and great and owned. The Future. Future, what we built in our company is the consumer. She doesn't know the customer. She doesn't know whether she got something paid, earned her own. And so it's sort of inside baseball. So even as I explain this, lot of people listening says, What is he talking about? Because you don't experience it that way. You experience it as messaging and as stories that come to you. And so the future is in our industry. Instead of separating those is bringing those together as one, one, what we'll call campaign, or one platform. That's where we built our company. We acquired a bunch of companies, pay the best, that earned the best, you know, and put it into one. But the industry is is moving that way, and that means that it's just storytelling, you know, throughout all of these different platforms. And so what I look forward to is that creativity is actually going to expand. We happen to be at as little time when technology is expanding. Well, technology is going to keep expanding, but people are people, and they need to be moved. And they're not going to just be moved by something AI created. In the end, humans connect with humans. And so what I look forward to is, as we make it through this sort of technology, bursting and expansion, we will actually be the beginning of a high level of creativity. It'll just be creativity that's informed by, well, all the information we have. So instead, it will be a foundation that will fuel us. I think it's going to happen in everything. It's happened in medicine. So some medical professionals will be displaced because they're doing tactical things that AI can do. But the great people in medicine will say, Oh my gosh, look at this information I have. I can test I can go through clinical trials, I can do everything in in medicine, it'll happen in social services, which the number of people that you meet are, how can I reach more people? How can I touch more people? But right now, it's a stressful time for a lot of people, lot of people,

Laurel Donnellan 40:50
yeah, we work with a lot of people who are career changers or leaders in businesses where there is a lot of displacement. But I went to South by Southwest, pretty anti AI, and I left more pro AI. I think no matter what your age, there's a lot to learn and bringing, I love this conversation, Rick, because you're bringing a lot of optimism to the conversation, and I do, we already see statistics. You know, advertisements, stories, websites created by AI are not going to touch people without a human element. So

Rick Milenthal 41:34
well needed. Yeah, humans are named, but think about what you do so you do it both at Forbes, and you do it both separately and such, you know? And you do it as CLC, right? Don't you touch more people because of technology will changes.

Laurel Donnellan 41:53
Oh, yeah, for sure,

Rick Milenthal 41:54
don't you? For

Laurel Donnellan 41:54
sure.

Rick Milenthal 41:55
I joined a meeting your award ceremony. We're all from all over the world.

Laurel Donnellan 42:03
Yeah.

Rick Milenthal 42:03
How could that have happened? 20

Laurel Donnellan 42:05
No, I let Yes,

Rick Milenthal 42:07
we all would have had to fly somewhere to Washington, most of us, and and you would have had to plan it two years in advance. And then, who would be in the audience? Are they going to come? Are they not?

Laurel Donnellan 42:21
We're very blessed to be connected. And, you know, I grew up with a technologist. My dad was an IBM er and helped develop, he helped develop the computers for the Apollo program. So he passed away a few years ago, but I know he was smiling down on the new moon exploration, and one of my prized possessions is a little medallion that was created with some of the parts of one of the lunar modules. So my dad got so I, I was brought up by a technologist, and I love technology, and I think, I think we, just as humans, have to remember we're in charge, like we get to decide. We get to decide how we use technology. And, you know, I also think there should be more government guardrails for back to mental health. The discussion of mental health, I'm very concerned about young people and guardrails around social media and things like that. I know there's really good progress being made worldwide, so I'm looking forward to ethical government guardrails,

Rick Milenthal 43:37
yeah, well, I think there will be. But listen, you and I grew up when television was supposed to burn our brains. Radio was that crazy music listening to so, you know, I mean, you know, it will affect people negatively with guardrails. But I just okay that example you gave, let's think so I was, I think I don't want to age you, but I think we're both about 10 years or

Laurel Donnellan 44:04
we're the same age. I don't mind. I'm my 66

Rick Milenthal 44:08
Yeah, I was a complete nerd for the Apollo. I got the model and, you know, where you put together for the landing, the landing. So I didn't know that about your dad as wonderful. My dad was a school teacher, but at that time, he couldn't afford to be a school teacher, and he worked for North American Rockwell, which also produced and created things for Apollo's. I was so and I was completely enthralled with all of it. I was a complete nerd, so, and I remember the day, you know, they landed and watched it and involved. So let's think about that. Does it matter, from a science standpoint, that human beings just went up in that shit? I think the answer is no, but it mattered to all of us, right?

Speaker 4 44:57
Yeah,

Rick Milenthal 44:58
it mattered to all of us. And were you riveted? I won't put you on the spot, watching the capsule in the ocean and waiting for them to the people to come out of that door. Sat there and watch it for an hour. Just I wanted to see real time the people come out,

Speaker 4 45:17
yeah, and

Rick Milenthal 45:18
then they wait, and then they and they went this, that's what we,

Laurel Donnellan 45:23
you know,

Rick Milenthal 45:24
inspired. But

Laurel Donnellan 45:25
probably

Rick Milenthal 45:26
anybody need people to do that research, most of it, you know, but, but people you know.

Laurel Donnellan 45:32
I Neil deGrasse Tyson and others have said this. And a lot of technology that we have, medical technology, sports technology, came from the science related to that,

Rick Milenthal 45:47
the

Laurel Donnellan 45:47
Apollo program, right? So I'm pro science. It's kind of funny though I wasn't, because it was part of my every day. And my father was working on the Apollo program every day, and I was hearing about it every day. It probably wasn't as exciting to me when I was nine as it is now. Like, I'm I'm a nerd. I came to being a nerd late in life, because I think I resisted. It's like, oh, to me, it was very kind of like, you know, we my father kept us up all night, and we had to watch it. And I probably didn't appreciate it when I was nine, but I do appreciate it now.

Rick Milenthal 46:24
I just had an epiphany about it as you were talking what was going on in 69 and 70. You know, we think we live in an age that, oh, we've never had challenges like that. 69 and 70, the country was pretty split up. Yeah, everyone unified around us and everyone in the world unified to watch these astronauts. Even when it

Laurel Donnellan 46:45
was a, it was a technology, human connection, right? Like we were all doing the same thing at the same time it was a, it was really kind of a religious experience for the world. In a way,

Rick Milenthal 46:58
it was, I think it was a religious experience.

Laurel Donnellan 47:01
We we need more of that, I think,

Rick Milenthal 47:04
yeah,

Laurel Donnellan 47:05
but yeah, I remember I was eight years old, and both of my grandmothers died. I was very close to them, and Robert Kennedy was assassinated. Martin Luther King was assassinated. Eight years old, and I was telling my mom, this is the worst year of my life.

Rick Milenthal 47:21
I thought everybody got assassinated,

Speaker 4 47:24
yeah,

Rick Milenthal 47:25
I thought everybody got killed. JFK, when we were kids, babies, you know? JFK, RFK, MLK, just figured everybody got assassinated, you know, you, you became a leader, and then you got shot, you know?

Laurel Donnellan 47:39
Yeah,

Rick Milenthal 47:39
it was, it really was depressing,

Laurel Donnellan 47:43
and we had other chapters, and we're in a difficult chapter now, but I have a lot of hope. Another thing that South by Southwest exposed me to is just a lot of young people that are doing amazing things to improve the world. You know whether some of the people you met at the awards ceremony, and I just was astounded by how much energy and intellect there is on these world problems that sometimes see seem insurmountable, insurmountable, but people are working on them. Really smart people are working on them. So as we wind down this wonderful conversation, I'm so happy I got to spend time with you. What is one life lesson and leadership lesson you want to leave with?

Rick Milenthal 48:41
Tell the truth. I don't think many people are liars, actually, when I say that, so I'm not saying the world's a liar, but we spin and we evade and we don't want to. Maybe it's I don't want to hurt their feelings, but I don't want to, you know, just tell the truth. Just tell it like you see it. But also, and when you tell the truth, people don't wonder, you know, they don't wonder. Well, they probably still always wonder if you're the boss, you know. But in life with your mate, with your children, with your friends, it's you know, don't worry about telling the truth. The truth will set you free, as they say,

Laurel Donnellan 49:31
and any additional wisdom around leadership or anything else you want to share with us,

Rick Milenthal 49:36
tell the truth.

Laurel Donnellan 49:38
It works for everything

Rick Milenthal 49:41
in it. What's the inside of telling the truth? But we spend a lot of time worried about worried. That's the thing on the mental health piece. And you know, it's for good reason. You know, you worry about what will happen if I tell how I'm feeling now, or if I'm telling the truth about a situation or a challenging situation, let's not share that. That's going to stress everyone out. Or let's not you know that's we're going to look bad. And whether it's your, you know, it's in Listen, in relationships, takes a while to learn that you just just tell the truth. And you know, because you know, if you're worried that someone isn't going to love you as much, or someone isn't going to, you know, be your friend, or they won't lead you, well, they might as well love the truth about you. They might as well be a friend of the truth, you know, and so and we fear sharing the truth. Men, especially, you know, it's we're not taught that when we're boys, you get your butt kicked telling the truth, you know, you just do and so, and I can't speak for girls, might be the same, but as a young boy, it's like, I'm going to keep that to myself. I don't want to look like a wuss. I don't want to look like you know. And so you learn year after year after year to not do that, you know, and that's what I worry about young men today, you know, because leaders are learning that the you know better, to always profess your perfection, profess you know your greatness. That's the way you lead and for a short period of time that it does work, but in the 1000s of years of humanity, it's never worked long term. So it doesn't work in life. Doesn't work in business. Just tell the truth.

Laurel Donnellan 52:01
Yeah, I think it's a great motto, great advice. I think that leaders, no matter what, if you're a new leader, emerging leader, or someone more seasoned, like Rick and I, even if you don't tell the truth, people will know that something's a miss, like if you're if you're not being transparent, you're holding back information. They'll feel it like, even if you don't think they will, they will rumors,

Rick Milenthal 52:29
the rumors are much worse.

Laurel Donnellan 52:30
Rumors are just the feeling like something's up. I don't know what it is, but something's up, right? So

Rick Milenthal 52:36
I do have

Laurel Donnellan 52:37
another yeah

Rick Milenthal 52:38
on this whole issue of compassion leadership. Think don't worry about changing the world. Another saying that I've heard, you know, from a rabbi that I listened to, he said, tend the garden you can reach.

Laurel Donnellan 52:55
I love that. Tend the garden you can reach.

Rick Milenthal 52:58
And so that's literally, we have a few 100 employees, and they have families, and I'm not a political leader that can talk to millions, you know, and you might think you can't affect change, whether it's your family of four or five people, a party you're at, you're at home, a meeting, or you happen to lead a business, or you're in a business, just focus on tending the garden you can reach.

Laurel Donnellan 53:25
I love that. I've never heard that. It's beautiful. Rick, how can people learn more about the source study, or you or the shipyard? What? What would you like to? How would you like people to connect with what you're up to?

Rick Milenthal 53:41
We're at shipyard.com. The shipyard.com. Whoops, the

Laurel Donnellan 53:45
shipyard,

Speaker 3 53:46
shipyard.com.

Rick Milenthal 53:47
Appears the shipyard. Calm,

Laurel Donnellan 53:51
R,

Rick Milenthal 53:51
N, H, E, S, H, I, p, y, A, R d.com, in the Ohio State University Medical Center is, is, has a lot of information. The program is called soar, s, O, A, R, and and so, but you find it on their site.

Laurel Donnellan 54:10
It's been wonderful spending time with you in a quiet place. Thank you so much for being here.

Rick Milenthal 54:16
Glad to meet you at a bar, though, still,

Laurel Donnellan 54:19
it was still fun, and it was fun meeting your son and my nephew. They got along that was fun. Have a lovely day.

Rick Milenthal 54:27
Thank you. Wonderful experience.

Laurel Donnellan 54:31
There we go. So this will turn into a podcast and a Forbes post, and it'll be part of a book, and we will share all of that with you, and we'll probably do a couple of clips as well. And

Rick Milenthal 54:50
whatever you that's just overwhelmed, you know that you would find a little what I do, and not the biggest company in the world, and probably not the biggest thing. So it's very special. Thank you.

Laurel Donnellan 55:04
Oh, it's Well, like I am not that interested in the size of a company, or, you know, it's more about the heart of the company. So thank you for sharing your heart and having a company that is engineering brand love I love that. So we'll talk more. Rick, this

Rick Milenthal 55:26
is more and your colleague, and I love what you're doing, so I'd love to hear, yeah,

Laurel Donnellan 55:33
we'd love to, we'd love to tell you more about it, and help you and help us. And we'll do more of that.

Rick Milenthal 55:40
Well, I happen to begun an engineering brand love podcast myself, so I believe I'd like you on, you know, to guest as well. So we'll

Laurel Donnellan 55:50
I would love that,

Rick Milenthal 55:51
probably not as well as you, but

Laurel Donnellan 55:55
I don't know about that, but I would love to be on your podcast. Be an honor. Yeah, let's do that. Okay, we'll be in touch.

Rick Milenthal 56:02
Thanks so much.

Laurel Donnellan 56:03
I'll be in touch with you and Jeff, or whoever your new assistant is,

Rick Milenthal 56:07
Jeff will be fine. Okay,

Laurel Donnellan 56:09
be well. Bye, bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai