Today, we’re diving into the world of thriving with Dr. Lee Baucom, the man behind the Thrive 15 Strategies to Building a Thriving Life. With over three decades of experience helping folks break free from just surviving to genuinely thriving, he’s got the goods on building meaningful relationships and finding purpose. We’re talking real talk about what it means to create a life filled with resilience and fulfillment, not just a checklist of accomplishments. Dr. Lee shares some golden nuggets on how to cultivate that thriving mindset, emphasizing that it’s all about connection and intentional growth. If you’ve ever felt stuck in the grind, this episode is your ticket to a fresh perspective on life—so grab your favorite beverage and settle in for some enlightening banter!

Dr. Lee Baucom, who cheekily calls himself the world's first "thriveologist," gives us a no-nonsense, warm-hearted masterclass on what it actually means to thrive—versus the treadmill of chasing hollow success. You get straight talk about how happiness is often a byproduct, not the target: I push us to aim for meaning, connection, and clear principles instead of hunting the next dopamine hit. We hear the neat little reframes that stick—fear as an "importance indicator" instead of just an alarm, and forgiveness as the invisible anchor that either frees you or keeps you hostage. I even confess my own history (magician kid turned therapist—because yeah, that taught me way more about people than half my grad classes) and how those early lessons shaped my thinking. Beyond philosophy, Lee lays out practical scaffolding: be a team with your partner, nurture the connection, and treat thriving like a skillset you can learn. He explains Snyder's three-part hope formula (know where you’re headed, be willing to get there, and use a roadmap) and compares it to GPS—pick the beach, tell the device, and then actually drive. You’ll walk away with sharp phrases you can use immediately—"be a we," "curiosity beat empathy"—and an invitation to stop settling. If you want a blend of humor, humility, and real tools for life and relationships, I think you'll like this one.

Takeaways:

• Dr. Baucom emphasizes the importance of maintaining a team mindset in relationships, where both partners support each other like a well-oiled pickleball duo, ensuring they thrive together rather than letting their connection fester in discontent.
• The conversation highlights that thriving in life is not just about chasing happiness; it's about cultivating meaningful relationships and finding purpose, which ultimately leads to happiness naturally following.
• Forgiveness is a crucial principle for thriving, but many struggle with it because they see it as an obligation rather than an opportunity for personal liberation from past hurts.
• Dr. Baucom's unique take on thriving includes the idea that fear can be a valuable indicator of what matters to us, transforming it from a paralyzing force into a guiding light for personal growth.
• We learn that thriving requires clarity about our goals and a willingness to travel the road less taken, which often means embracing challenges rather than avoiding them for comfort.
• The episode serves as a reminder that our relationships mirror our individual journeys of growth; when we focus on our own thriving, we build stronger connections with those around us.

Links referenced in this episode:

• savethemarriage.com
• thriveology.com

Welcome.

Today, I'm your host, Dr. Keith Haney.

Today we're joined by a man who's dedicated more than three decades to helping people move beyond merely surviving and learn how to truly thrive.

Dr. Lee is a therapist, life coach, speaker, and author.

He is a creator of an internationally recognized Save the Marriage program and the.

World's first proclaimed Thriveologist.

Through his coaching, writing and speaking, he has helped thousands of individuals and couples build stronger relationships, overcome challenges, create lives filled with purpose, resilience, and fulfillment.

His latest book, the Thrive 15 Strategies to Building a Thriving Life, provides a practical roadmap for anyone ready to stop settling and start flourishing Doc.

Welcome to the podcast.

Hey, Keith, thanks for having me.

I'm so glad to have you on.

I love talking about this topic.

For those who are trying to figure life out, especially one of the most important relationships in our lives, I'm looking forward to adding to my list of hosts who've talked about marriage and giving our guests and our audience some tools to deal with.

So thank you for coming on.

I'm honored to be here.

So I'm going to ask you my favorite question to kind of get us warmed up.

Give me the best piece of advice you've ever received.

Oh, gosh, keep growing.

That's got to be it.

And that's something that I figured out in my childhood.

That curiosity took me places and my parents gave me lots of room to be curious.

And I've had teacher after teacher just tell me, keep on growing.

I love that.

Love that.

So you've spent more than 30 years helping people improve their lives and relationships.

What first led you to this very important work?

So there are two, two kind of pieces that intersect.

One is, as a child, my parents were happily married.

My grandparents were happily married, but I had an uncle and a couple of aunts that kind of set another stage and showed a worse way of working through difficulties so badly that they kind imploded, exploded their relationships.

And I remember watching that happen as a young child going, what?

What's the difference between what's going on with my family, with my parents and with my uncle and my aunts?

And so that's, that's a question that was left there.

So in college, I decided that I wanted to pursue a career as a therapist.

When I got into graduate school, which is what that means, it ended with two masters and a PhD all in that direction.

And originally I was doing individual therapy and I changed modalities and went with a systems approach to working with families and particularly with marriages.

And looking back Part of it was trying to figure out what does help couples who get into a crisis as opposed to what I watched in my family.

I love that.

I'm kind of curious as you're thinking about digging into that kind of work, what are some classes that you took?

I'm just thinking back that really kind of resonated with you to say, yeah, this is really, really helpful.

So I'm going to do a little pivot here and tell you that one of the things that taught me the most about psychology was in my childhood I was a magician.

And doing magician work, doing shows, doing lots of magic, taught me more about how people see things, how they perceive the world, and how they make sense of the world than any class I ever took.

Well, that just ruined all the college educated people out there.

I love that though.

So you've coined a phrase, Thrive Ologist.

What does that title mean to you?

First of all, explain that title to us and tell us what it means to you.

So years ago I was reading a book and the author made the statement that we have all these ologies out there and nobody is a thrive ology researcher, right?

That there is not this fake field of thriveology.

There kind of is here and there, but not all together in one place.

And so I went, that's a noble cause.

That's an important thing.

People need to know how to thrive.

So I started that podcast and started writing about, about that and thought, you know, if you're studying thriveology, then you are a thriveologist.

And so since I coined the term, I made myself the world's first thriveologist.

And what that means is that I'm interested both in the kind of the art and science of thriving.

I mean, there are some people we know around us that just have this knack for thriving in life.

For the rest of us though, it's useful to look at them and say, what are they doing differently?

And then what does the research tell us about how we can thrive in all areas of our lives?

So you mentioned my book Thrive principles.

Those are 13 different principles, different areas of life, but also different ways that we can move into that more of a thriving frame.

I love it.

Love it.

So do you.

Are you going to start like classes in thriveology, like a thriveology institute?

Is that next on the horizon for you?

I don't think I have room to do that.

I've got enough other things I do.

That focus is something I keep up.

I did 550 episodes on the Thriveology podcast.

I've now written four books about thriving and then several other books on.

On relationships.

But even when I'm looking at relationships, so we'll just kind of pivot there for a minute.

My thing was never just like, let's stop a divorce.

But how do you save and restore a marriage so that it is a thriving relationship?

I mean, it's hard for, for somebody to thrive in their life when they have broken down relationships in their life, when they are held back by different areas of their life.

And so that's an intentional place where there's an intersection.

It's not.

So the thrive principles would apply to someone who's just struggling in life.

Like, they're not where they want to be.

Life's not coming at them the way they want it to come at them.

They're not coping and dealing with life as they want to.

Well, that's the same thing that happens in a troubled marriage.

They're not dealing with things.

They're not finding ways of thriving as a couple.

And so those go kind of hand in hand in the process.

So let's dig in that a little bit more because I'm curious, over your course of your career and the people you've worked with, are there some characteristics or things, patterns you've noticed in people who thrive in their marriage versus those who struggle?

Yeah.

So there are a couple that are really important.

So we're going to stay with the marriage piece and leave a little of the individual work to the side because this is stuff that I think couples can.

Instead of getting wrapped up into the finger pointing that often happens when a marriage is in trouble of what's wrong with the spouse of mine.

But what can we do?

What's.

What's our capacity?

So there are two.

One is that the couples that thrive in their relationship have at their very core that they are a part of a team.

They are, as I call it, being a we, we, we are in this together.

Right.

That doesn't mean they lose themselves.

So let's go back to that team analogy.

If I'm on, I'm.

I'm bringing my best playing to that team.

Me and everybody else is playing pickleball.

So when I go play pickleball, you know, I was there this morning and I step on the court and I watch my partner.

And even if I've played with my partner multiple times, I'm going, how are they today?

Not how do they usually play, but how are they today?

Are they on point?

Are they struggling?

Because I'm asking the question, how can I help them play their best and how can I play my best in that process?

So that is my focus, right?

And I'm not going to get pulled into maybe them having a hard time supporting me because I'm there to play my best and support them, right?

So that's me having that time, that team mindset that we mindset.

So that's a big piece.

The second one is the couples who thrive make sure that they nurture their connection together.

Because there's nothing worse than being on a team with someone you don't like anymore, right?

And so that connection helps draw that out.

That connection helps to get somebody into the place where they truly experience the team piece of that, where they can see how they work together, bring their.

Their skills to that, but also see it as a process where they really thrive into that relationship.

So you mentioned it early on.

You worked with individuals.

When you're working with a couple that's struggling, do you find this very difficult when only one person comes in for counseling versus both?

Or does it.

I just kind of.

I have my assumptions.

I've done some pastoral counseling where one partner comes in and they seem really, really engaged.

And the other partner, if he does, if they do come in, they seem like they're not as connected.

So how do you help that kind of a couple?

This is the reason that I.

One of the reasons.

There were several, but this is one of the reasons that I shifted from being seeing myself as a therapist to seeing myself as a coach.

So as a marriage therapist, you can't do marital therapy unless both people are there.

It is rare that both people are equally there.

And if they are, that is a piece of cake.

I mean, that's what.

That's the fun work, right?

That's.

You're just going, okay, let's get.

Let's figure out where you both want to problem solve and let's deal with that.

But what often happens is that one person wants to be there.

And if they are dragging their spouse in, if they are coercing, pulling whatever their spouse in, they've got a problem because that spouse will prove their resistance to anybody in the room.

And that would be the spouse and the therapist.

Right.

And so when they are convincing the spouse and the therapist of why this isn't going to work, who else are they convincing themselves?

So now you have a resistant spouse who has become more resistant.

I can do marriage coaching with one person, though.

And so we can work together on how.

Remember when I was talking about being on the team, I'm worried about how I'm playing On the team, they can focus on how they're playing on the team, knowing that if they play differently, they will change the team.

Oh, I guess.

Good.

So let's get into your book.

One of the things I love about your book is that you don't try to solely focus on getting through a difficult time.

Instead, you focus on creating a life that's meaningful and intentional and thriving.

What inspired you to write the thrive principle?

I spent a lot of time watching all of the people who were saying, here's how to be happy, and the here's how to be happy didn't move the needle at all.

Because that's chasing after something rather than know it.

Noticing that happiness is a side effect of something else.

So when we chase after happiness, it stays just out of our reach if we focus on something else.

Of how do I build these thriving areas in my life?

How do I look for meaning and purpose?

How do I find a way of being truly connected to other people?

Then the happiness comes as a byproduct.

We.

We see that as the end goal.

And I'm like, that's the.

The byproduct, the side effect of everything else you're putting into it.

But if that's your ultimate goal, I'll be happy.

You're probably going to get there by trying to get something that will kind of make you happy.

And there's.

That fails every time.

So I see thriving as being a step back from that to something that's deeper, something that I actually can focus on.

Happiness is an emotion.

And we are all pretty clear that emotions.

Well, maybe we need to be more clear that emotions come and go depending on what's going on around us.

And they can shift in an instant because of how we are interpreting and understanding something.

So if I set that aside and I ask the question, what makes my life significant and meaningful, that changes what I'm going after.

Both of my parents have focused their careers on leaving the world a better place.

And I watched that as a lesson as a child that they weren't out to, you know, make millions.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that.

I'm just saying that was not their model.

And as a result of that, they found a lot of satisfaction in life.

They had a lot a higher level of meaning and purpose in what they were doing, and they stayed engaged with it.

So that in the end, circles back around to satisfaction, happiness, and all those other pieces.

I love that.

Let's dive into the word thrive.

As a coach, how do you help people Determine what it means to thrive for them.

And part of what I try to get people away from is looking for the.

If I only had this, I would be Right.

Right.

And so we're actually looking for what is the deeper engagement for you?

I think there are a couple of things that keep us stuck.

One is fear.

And we, in our culture, we use fear as a.

Let me avoid that.

That makes me fearful.

And so it's used as an avoidance indicator in our culture.

I think it would be better noted as an importance indicator.

If I'm feeling fear, that's an indicator that something is important there.

Right.

And that's true everywhere.

If I'm running down a trail and there's a squiggly something on the ground, I probably ought to have enough fear for me to pause and ask the question, is that a risk or is it just a stick?

And that means it's important.

If.

Let me give an example of a guy I worked with.

He was looking at two jobs, and he comes in and he tells me about these two options, and he said, you know, one of them.

I go to the interview and I felt like I just couldn't be myself.

I was trying to make my point, and I felt just all over the place.

And it was just.

I was just so nervous.

I'm not even sure I could do the job.

But I was just so nervous because it just felt like this big thing.

And so I've got this other job that I walked in, we laughed, we joked, we were, you know, it was easy.

And so I think I'm going to take that job.

And so I asked one extra question, because sometimes that we fit together, therefore it's a good match, is something to pay attention to.

But for this guy, I happen to know that he always ended up kind of settling because that was less scary.

And so I asked the question, let's go forward.

You get the job, and so you're doing the job where everything clicked and you're three years out, four years out, five years out.

How are you going to feel?

And he said, oh, gosh, I'd be bored because I could do that job in my sleep.

I'm like, is that what you want?

I mean, look, signing up for five years or 20 years of boredom, or do you want a challenge?

Because it sounds like that job had you nervous because it was a bigger deal.

And so he was using the fear the wrong way.

So we often use fear the wrong way.

That's a big thing.

So we end up staying away from the things that are Important to us.

The other piece is that we all have a need to feel like we matter, like we're doing something of significance.

And I think that is deeply rooted in our history where if you didn't matter, you aren't going to survive because you needed everybody around you, and we've internalized that.

And so when we don't matter, when we feel like we don't matter, I'm not saying you don't matter, but when you feel that way, then you start having a difficult time and you start spiraling down because nothing seems to matter.

If you don't feel like you matter, the relationships don't matter, the job doesn't matter, nothing around you matters.

And so then you start trying to fill it in with different things.

Maybe that car will make me feel like I matter.

Maybe that other person will make me feel like I matter.

And suddenly we're on this treadmill trying to meet and fill that hole that really is about the fact that we never found a place where we mattered.

And that's often because we avoided what would make us matter.

As I hear you talking about this thriving, it seems to me that it's very different than what we could view as success.

So how would you distinguish between thriving and being successful?

Many times when I talk with people and they're like, you know, I don't understand why I'm so unhappy I'm so successful.

Okay, tell me your definition of success.

And it's almost always about an accumulation.

Degrees, promotions, money, something like that.

That's what they use.

But here's the problem that marks these things that feel very hollow very quickly.

And so when we're using the success formula of get more, make more, get higher up, whatever, it's.

So how many times have you seen something, you're like, man, if I just had that.

I mean, a car or a watch or a phone or whatever, then that'd be fun.

That'd be great.

I'd be happy.

Right?

That's.

And so then you get it and you're like, oh, this is so cool for five minutes, five days, whatever.

And then all of a sudden, it is the phone, the watch, the car, the house, the whatever.

It just is, right?

It's not a thing you're chasing anymore.

Now you have it.

And since.

And the success is always built on the chase.

Thriving is not at all built on the chase.

It's about asking the question, what.

What would be significant for me to do?

And significance can vary so much when you're at a certain stage in life.

Significance Might be doing the best job raising your kid, not when in the world.

Significance for some people is how many people can I help?

Significance when it's seen as a how many zeros are in my bank account isn't gonna get you very far.

And that's how many people fall in the trap of success.

So I'm looking at your book, and I always know that writing a book is always a lot of fun, but sometimes you'll run across the fact that you discover that as you work with people on certain principles, that some people struggle with some more than others.

Of your principles.

Which one do you see that people you coach struggle with the most?

It's gotta be forgiveness.

And so let me just back up and say I write.

I have a love hate relationship with writing.

I've done a lot of writing, and I'm dyslexic.

So writing is a challenge, Reading is a challenge, but writing is a challenge.

And so I'm the most unlikely of authors.

And so I am not the author who's like, oh, I just love the process of writing.

I find that to be an important process, and it's a way of leaving that information to be used.

So, just to clarify, I don't love that process, but I do like being able to use that as a tool and for people to have that as a tool.

So to circle to your question, forgiveness is a challenge for all of us for a number of reasons.

I wrote a book on forgiving for that very reason, because I spent so much time as a therapist and as a coach realizing that what kept people back was they couldn't let go of something.

And so I'm using the idea of forgiving.

Most people have this sense, and I think it often comes the way it did for me, of you have to forgive.

And so I have an older brother, and he and I are close enough in age that we tussled a lot.

And I remember many times being held by the scruff of my neck by my father or my mother, facing my brother, and being told that we had to apologize and forgive.

Now, that is neither an apology nor forgiveness, but it makes it feel like you have to do that.

And then people get a lot of other you have to forgive messages from culture, from their faith, from other places.

Instead of seeing it as an opportunity, it becomes an obligation.

And that's one of the things that keeps people from truly doing it.

They feel like they're being forced to do it or they refuse to do it, because if they refuse to do it, then they don't let that other person off the hook.

So what they don't realize is that when we don't forgive, we're hooking ourselves.

We're the ones that are on the hook.

Many times the other person has no idea.

You know, we.

We as humans often are thinking back on something that somebody said to us or did to us.

And for our head, it's amplified.

You know, we replay the tape over and over, and they have no idea that it had any impact.

So it's not like me holding on to that is doing any damage or holding them hostage in any way, or getting my side of it back or anything.

There's no revenge to it.

It just is keeping me stuck.

And yet we get stuck on that.

And I think again, back to our biology.

I think there's a piece of that that at one point it would be really important to know everybody that might pose a threat to us.

But what we hold onto these days is not much of a threat many times, and yet it holds us hostage for years.

Now, that doesn't mean.

Let me just draw a distinction between forgiving and having to be back in connection with somebody.

I can forgive somebody and have nothing to do with them.

I could say you are a toxic person.

I'm not going to be around you, and I'm not going to be held by what you did to me.

Those are not opposite pieces.

And so that's another piece that people often think is if I forgive them, I have to let him back in my life.

You don't.

You forgive so that you're not held by it.

But so to answer your question more succinctly, the capacity of forgiving is a huge piece of thriving, and people struggle with that.

I love it.

I remember someone once told me forgiving is like holding onto not from resentment, is drinking poison, hoping the other person dies.

Yes.

Yeah.

So, yeah.

So that's a.

That's a huge piece of forgiveness is one that I always say it's outside of us because it's not part of our human nature.

It really is almost, I think, a spiritual gift that we get besides forgiveness.

Or is that the one.

If you said there was one principle that if we got that right, it causes you see the most breakthroughs for people when they get that principle.

So that's a big one because it allows people to be free of what's happened to them.

Without that, you're kind of held hostage by it.

But the other one that I often have conversations with people about is finding meaning.

So what is your deeper purpose here?

And when they get that, that gives them a direction.

If you don't have a sense of meaning, if you don't have a sense of purpose, you're probably chasing something that's an artificial kind of excitement or high.

And that usually doesn't get you where you want to.

So the focus on why am I here and what am I here to do?

Is a central question when I'm working with people.

What, what is it you want to leave behind?

When I watch people in a crisis, so many people talk about it, you know, the midlife crisis.

A midlife crisis is a mortality crisis compounded by a meaning crisis.

Like, I've only got so much time.

What am I doing here?

And how do people answer that?

I've only got so much time, so let me see what I can accumulate.

Let me see what I can, you know, climb or do.

Instead of what do I want to leave this world with?

What is it that I want to leave it better.

I truly believe that we are here to leave the world better.

And if we're not doing that, we're wasting what we have to give to the world.

So I'm going to ask you a question we always get with leadership.

Can thriving be learned, or is it something we're naturally wired for?

That's a yes and a yes because people come at that at different places, right?

Some people have a natural wiring, wherever that came from.

And I think some of it is natural propensity.

Some of it is what you were exposed to as a child and watching people who were thriving.

But if you don't have that, that doesn't mean you're out of luck.

It just means that you're now in the learning process.

And as I started off, you know, that is the thing of our life.

We are built as learners from birth to death.

We are learning creatures.

That is Ray Kroc.

One of my favorite quotes is, you're either green and growing or ripen, rotting.

And so I'm.

I keep trying to stay with the green and growing piece.

And.

And what that allows us to do as individuals is to ask the question, how can I thrive?

More like what?

What can I do here to be a better thriver?

And there's always more for all of us.

So even people who are naturally thriving in certain ways, they can learn other pieces.

So, yes, some people have a higher kind of an.

So do you ever watch a reality show Naked and Afraid?

Yeah, I've seen.

I've seen.

I never actually watched the show, but I've seen the.

Okay, you Know what I'm talking about?

So they give them a kind of a score of what they're starting this process with.

And that score is.

Is actually based on a lot of learning, but that gives them a score on what is their.

Their skill level, and then it rates them again at the end.

And so what I would say is that some of the stuff that we learn early on in childhood and also just our natural inclinations gives us a score, and then we can raise it by focusing on that.

So even if somebody says, gosh, I've got a pretty low thriving score, there are skills.

That's what I've been trying to lay out there.

There are skills and capacities of doing that.

So I'm going to.

I'm going to throw in a little hope piece here because I find this is a helpful piece for people.

Back in the late 80s, early 90s, Charles Snyder did a lot of research on what hope is.

And how do you.

How do you make that an actionable thing?

Which is great, because in my early career, I was a chaplain, and, you know, they would hand me somebody to talk to who had just gotten probably some of the worst news, and they're like, you know, go deal with them.

And I was there for the.

The second shift of the day.

So basically three to 11 doctors going home, nurses going home, family's gone home for dinner.

And here I am with this person who's just got this thing, and they would say, you got to give them some hope.

Like, what do you.

How do you want me to give him hope?

And so I'm researching this.

Like, how do you do that?

And that's where Charles Snyder's formula comes in.

There are three pieces to having hope.

The first one is you have to know where you're trying to get to.

Like, to be clear about what you're trying to get to.

In my marriage, work, what kind of marriage do you.

Not just, I don't want to get divorced, but what do you want that marriage to look like?

Like, loving, connected, warm, supportive.

What does that look like for you?

Okay, having a clear place you want to get to.

The second thing is, are you willing to do what it takes to get there?

Like, are you willing to go through the struggle?

Are you willing to figure it out?

Are you willing to keep pushing forward?

And the third piece is having a roadmap.

So I don't talk to people about thriving in life nor about how to save their marriage if they don't have the willingness to do something about that Many times, they're not clear about what it would look like so we can talk about that.

What would a thriving life look like that for you?

What would a thriving marriage look like that for you?

And now we have just set up.

This is where you're trying to get to.

Now the question is, what's the roadmap?

And so a lot of my work is giving people a roadmap to follow.

I can't make somebody want to do that.

Nobody can, other than ourselves.

We can choose to do that.

I can't even be clear about exactly what they want to build.

That's something I could help them explore, but I can give them a roadmap.

And so part of what Thriveology is about is saying, here is the roadmap.

There are roadmaps out there.

Part of my work with marriages is there is a roadmap.

There is a direction you can take.

You gotta be willing to do it, and you gotta be clear about what it is you're willing to do.

So my analogy is gps.

You know, I could sit here and go, you know what?

I'd really like to go to the beach.

Okay, so a beach.

Well, first of all, I've got to pick the beach.

Which beach am I going to go to?

It doesn't help for me to just, oh, just the beach.

Tell the gps.

You know, the GPS go to the beach.

It's.

It's just like I need more.

Like, I need to know where you want to get to.

Right.

So if I put in this is where I want to go, it can tell me step by step how to get there, but it doesn't do a thing.

If I sit here and go, yeah, that looks like good directions.

And absolutely I'd like to go to the beach, but I don't want to drive it or take the bus or take the train or whatever else to get there.

Nothing's going to happen unless I am willing to do the drive that the GPS is giving me, because I've given it direct instructions on where to go.

So that is what I try to do with all of my material, is what is the roadmap?

So you can see where you want to get to, and then here's how you get there.

That's good.

So this podcast focuses on building bridges.

How does thriving help us build stronger connection with other people?

When people are not focused on thriving in their own life, they're not likely to be able to connect too well with other people.

And that is just because we get focused on what's bothering us, what's hurting us, what's holding us back and what's unfair about life.

So coming to terms with some of that is what helps us to figure out how to build that bridge.

Right.

One of the first things I often encounter with people is going, well, life's not fair.

And I'm like, that's a true statement.

I mean, if you're waiting for that to turn around, it ain't going to happen.

So that's.

If that holds you back, you've got to have your own decisions on what does that look like.

So if life's not fair and our job is to be focused on maybe bringing more fairness where we can, there's the bridging, right?

How do I do that?

How do I make the difference?

How do I make the world better?

And bridges are almost always about trying to be more inclusive of who is here in this process, who's with me in this process.

I love it.

So now I'm gonna do some fun lightning round questions, some quick answer stuff.

Coffee or tea?

Coffee.

Ice or hot?

There you go.

I love it.

Mountains or ocean?

Oh, I'm gonna go oceans, but only by a slight edge.

Love it.

Scuba diving or paddleboarding?

Paddleboarding.

For the simple reason that it takes a whole lot less effort to go paddleboard than to go scuba diving.

But I love scuba diving, too.

Pickleball or trail running?

Pickleball, but barely.

But barely.

One book everybody should read.

Man's Search for Meaning.

Victor Frankel's Man Search for Meaning.

Heard of that?

Most underrated life skill.

Being able to be aware of the thoughts in your head and how they're pulling you without being caught up in that thought.

That's good.

Morning person or night owl?

Oh, morning person.

That's not even close.

That wasn't close.

Not at all.

One word that defines thriving growth.

Oh, I like that.

What's your favorite quote I gave you that earlier?

Ray Crocs.

I'm either green and growing or ripe and rotting.

Best relationship advice in one sentence.

Be a team, support each other and connect.

Biggest obstacle to personal growth, Hanging on.

To those old pains and letting that limit you.

Most important leadership trait.

Being able to empathize and be curious.

I've heard that a lot from leaders lately.

Empathy.

Yeah.

So if you don't mind that.

Breaking the lightning round and going into.

Because.

So years ago, I was teaching a graduate school class on being a therapist, being a family therapist.

And so I was like, so what questions y' all have into the class?

You know, we got.

Okay, I got five minutes.

So what do we want to talk About.

And somebody says, what do you think is the most important trait of a therapist?

And I said, what do you think I'm going to say?

And they named off all these things.

And I said, no, it's curiosity, because curiosity will lead me to everything.

You named.

Curiosity is the path to empathy.

When I'm working with a hurting couple and they're like, I just have no empathy for my spouse, I'm like, can you be curious?

Like, can be.

Just choose curiosity.

Because that is a choice for humans.

We can choose to be curious, and I can be curious about how my spouse sees something.

If I get curious about how my spouse sees something and I begin to notice how they see something, I'm going to be empathetic about that.

So curiosity is the root of that.

Curiosity is the root of growth.

Curiosity is the root of every great invention, of every well written book, of every learning process, every great teacher I've ever had has been able to convince me to be curious about the subject I'm learning about.

Otherwise, I can't learn it.

That's great.

What are you most grateful for today?

My health.

I had a health scare back in my mid-30s and the diagnosis was right.

The prognosis, not so much.

So I've considered since then to be bonus time.

So.

And, and that doesn't mean I have perfect health, by the way.

It just means that I am thankful to still be here and still be able to do things and spend my bonus time doing something that matters.

Awesome.

Awesome.

One word you want listeners to remember from this conversation.

Curious.

Curious.

Love it.

So looking back over your career, what accomplishment are you most proud of?

Oh, gosh, my.

I would say it's about being a good partner with my spouse and taking that into my practice.

That's great.

So I love to ask my guests this question.

What do you want your legacy to be?

So I'm not a big legacy person.

As much as I want to leave behind a roadmap, I don't need it to be attached to me.

Somebody asked me like, so what you're trying to be is famous?

I'm like, no.

I mean, it would be kind of fun, like if I'm on a plane to look over and go, oh, that's my book they're reading.

But not really.

I mean, my bigger thing is, can I leave behind people doing better at life?

And so even if they go, someone once said, I'm good with that.

If they're like, I read a book a long time ago that said this, I'm good with that.

And so legacy is more about can I leave a better path than the one that was there before I got here?

Awesome.

So we have something new on the podcast, a surprise question.

Pick a number between 1 and 10 for your surprise question.

Let's go with 3.

3.

If you could undo one moment in your life, what would it be?

So years ago I remember losing my temper and there's lots of circumstances but I lost my temper and I had no reason to do it.

And that it left.

It actually left an incident where this person was after me with their car and it was on me.

I had escalated a situation so I would happily go back and undo that.

Yeah.

Sounds a little frightening.

Yeah.

So Doc, where could people find you?

Connect with you?

Buy your book.

So Save the Marriage is where I do the work with marriages.

Savethemarriage.com is where you can find me there.

Savethemarriage.com if you're interested in Thriveology, Thriveology.com will put you in touch with my podcast.

I'm not actually in production now, but they're still available.

560 Some episodes.

So that's Thrive T H R I V E O l o g y.com thriveology.com but if it's a marriage issue, relationship work.

Save the marriage.com to spell your last.

Name for those who are listening and pronounce it for us.

Yeah, it's Balcom.

So if you look at a baby and you go aw, that would be the Balcom and it's B A U C O M and my first name is L E E. So Dr. Balcom,.

Thank you for joining us today and sharing your wisdom on what truly means to thrive.

Your insights remind us that thriving isn't something that happens by accident.

It's something we build through intentional choices, meaningful relationships, and consistent growth for our listeners.

Be sure to pick up a copy of the Thrive 15 strategies to building your thriving life.

If you're ready to move forward beyond simply getting by and start building a life filled with purpose, resilience, and fulfillment, this book is an excellent place to start.

You can learn more about Dr. Bauckham through his coaching, speaking engagements and his renowned Save the Marriage program.

If you enjoyed today's conversation, please subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with someone who could benefit from a life changing insights.

Remember, every bridge you build begins with a choice to connect, grow, and serve others.

Keep building bridges, keep pursuing purpose, and keep becoming the best version of yourself.