In episode 45 of Everything is Up, Tammera Hollerich welcomes Talmage Boston as he shares his insights on leadership and problem-solving, drawing from his experience as a commercial litigator. He also shares his extensive legal background and involvement in various bar activities.
Tune in for an engaging conversation about success and applying history to the present.
TIMESTAMPS
[00:02:39] Writing History and Book Reviewing.
[00:06:43] Leadership and History Combined.
[00:11:07] The Business of Problem Solving.
[00:15:15] Long-Lasting Marriages.
[00:32:15] Disconnect in Younger Generations.
[00:40:43] Spiritual Warfare.
In this episode, Tammera Hollerich and Talmage Boston discuss how the importance of building and maintaining relationships is emphasized for both personal and professional success. They also address the concern for younger generations' lack of understanding and experience in building meaningful connections.
Overall, Tammera and Talmage highlight the significance of building and maintaining relationships for personal and professional success. It emphasizes the value of in-person connections, frequent communication, and cultivating relationships with individuals who possess qualities such as integrity and humility.
QUOTES
SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS
Tammera Hollerich
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TammeraHollerich
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tammerahollerich/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thollerich/
Talmage Boston
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/talmageboston/
WEBSITES
Everything Is Up: https://everything-is-up.simplecast.com/
Tammera Hollerich: https://tammerahollerich.com/
Talmage Boston: https://talmageboston.com/
Welcome to everything is up a podcast about the real life stories of people who have created extraordinary levels of success These are conversations with people who are constantly striving to take things to the next level And now here's your host
Welcome everyone to this episode of Everything Is Up With Tamara. Joining me today is Tomaj Boston, an attorney here in Fort Worth, Texas, my sweet hometown.
So I'm very- I'm in Dallas.
Oh, you're in Dallas. Yeah. Okay, so I have you, all my research shows you is Fort Worth, but Dallas, okay, well, we'll claim you if that's okay.
My wife and both kids went to TCU and my best friends in Fort Worth. My mother grew up in Fort Worth, so I have very fond memories of everything about Fort Worth and TCU.
Well, that's, you know, well, then you are by default in Fort Worth. So welcome to the podcast with me today. Tell me, if you don't mind, could you give our listeners a little background about you?
Well, I'm 70 years old. I've been a practicing lawyer for over 45 years, the entire time in Dallas as a commercial litigator, business trial and appellate expertise, double board certified trial and appellate by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. Very active in bar activities, past chairman of the State Bar Litigation Section, State Bar Council of Chairs, Dallas Bar Foundation. I'm a member of the Texas Bar Foundation. I'm a member of the Board of Editors of the Texas Bar Journal, the monthly publication of the State Bar of Texas. It goes out to all 110,000 lawyers. I'm a partner in the Dallas office of the Shackelford Law Firm, where I've been for over six years. That's my vocation and everything associated with my vocation. My avocation is writing history. My fifth book is about to come out, but I also am a frequent contributor to the Dallas Morning News as a contributing columnist. And I'm a book reviewer for the Washington Independent Review of Books on history books. And so that kind of covers the waterfront as to what I do when I'm wearing my lawyer hat. what I do when I'm wearing my historian hat.
So one of the things, Talmadge, that I loved about you before I even met you, just in my research, is One of your big passions is history and baseball. I understand you're a big baseball fan as well. You and my husband Ivan would get along so well. I come home to him watching the History Channel. And pretty much most anything on any kind of war there is out there in any president, which you've actually this new book that you've written is on leadership and past presidents, correct?
Yeah, it's on best practices and presidential leadership. The title is How the Best Did It. Leadership lessons from our top presidents, eight chapters on eight presidents, Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, both Roosevelt's Eisenhower, Kennedy and Reagan. And what I do is, as each of those eight presidents try to identify the three or four most important leadership traits that he had that caused him to be successful, and explain how he used those traits to be successful. At the end of every chapter, I have what's called a mini workbook, whereby I have a series of questions for the reader to ask him or herself about he or she is doing regarding these traits you just read about. How are you doing in being patient? We ought to be patient. When playing hardball, when it's time to play hardball, when it's time to build consensus, when it's time to unify. The book covers a total of 24 leadership traits over the eight presidents. And John Avalon, who's a wonderful presidential historian, but he's also the lead political strategist on CNN, wrote my foreword. And on the dust jacket, I've got John Meacham, Doris Kern Goodwins, and Annette Gordon-Reed, three Pulitzer Prize winning presidential historians who've endorsed it, along with Doug Brinkley, Mark Uptegrove, David Stewart, William Bowden, and Evan Thomas. And so I'm excited about it. It comes out April 2nd. I'll be speaking all over the country. I'll be in Fort Worth. As a matter of fact, on Maryland, you can come. I would love to come. I will be speaking at the Fort Worth Club on Tuesday, February 9th during the noon hour, a program sponsored by the World Affairs Council of Dallas-Fort Worth.
Wow. One, I don't even know what to say. That's so impressive that it's such an honor. I was very excited. Leadership, you know, you had kind of alluded to it in a comment that I read that you had made that one of the things that our country needs more of is strong leadership. Um, and to me, I feel that, um, you know, leaders are made some, some are born with some of those traits. Some have some of those qualities, but I think a lot of it takes a lot of work, um, to become a really good leader and everything about Telmage screams. I. I know integrity is one of the things that you're also very passionate about when it comes to leadership. But you don't just talk the talk, you walk that walk as well. And I love that you took your passion of history and of presidents and this one thing that we need so dearly, which is leadership, and put it together. But I did not know that you had put it together in almost like a workbook format so that as you're reading it, you can self-reflect. That's amazing.
Yeah, I mean, it's mainly a history book and a leadership book. But like I said, these questions at the end of every chapter just allow the reader, now that you've just read this chapter on what Thomas Jefferson's most important leadership traits were, how am I doing? And so it is a chance for the reader to, and I mean, that's the whole purpose of the book. I say the target audience is anybody who is or aspires to be a leader in any organization. business, law firms, health care, nonprofit, media, whatever it is, the same leadership traits work for leaders in all human endeavors. And so it's not just limited to people who aspire to be president, but to people who aspire to be president of any organization or chairman or whatever it may be. But the reason that John Avalon to write my forward is because he is, in my opinion, really the master of what I call applied history, which is, it's wonderful to know history and the facts and all that stuff, but it becomes relevant when you're actually able to apply history to what you're doing today. And that's what he did with his Washington and his Lincoln books, and that's what I'm trying to do with this book.
Well, this is very exciting. So this is your fifth book, correct? Yes. So let's talk about the previous four. So first, you come out of college and you become an attorney in a society where I feel that our society doesn't value attorneys until they need one, of course, right? I think that's a fair statement. Right. I mean, I just don't think that we place a great amount of value in attorneys until, of course, we need one. What motivated you to go into being an attorney to begin with?
Well, I had a very impressionable childhood, and when I was reading my childhood biographies of famous Americans, I was reading a biography of Thomas Jefferson and there was a sentence in it that changed my life where it said, when he was a young boy, Thomas Jefferson liked to argue and therefore he became a lawyer. And I said to myself, well, I like to argue. I guess that's what I'm supposed to be. And then I was fortunate. My father's brother, Charles Boston, was one of the top lawyers in Texas at the time. He was a huge mentor. And another family friend, Austin McLeod, became a leading appellate justice in Texas. And during my 45-year career, I had wonderful opportunities to learn under some spectacular lawyer mentors. But in terms of at the beginning, I always knew I liked public speaking. I always knew I liked getting to the truth. I always knew I liked writing lawyers. Quote, trial lawyers do lots of writing because we file lots of motions and briefs in support of motions and things like that. And I like cross-examination process where you're trying to get somebody to tell the truth, sometimes against his or her will, but it's a fun process. So everything about the process of doing what I've been doing now for 45 years was a calling from the time I was a boy. I was in high school. I was a big debater. I was the state champion debater in the state of Connecticut where I went to high school. I did college politics to be speaking in front of groups. I did moot court and mock trial in law school. I knew I never wanted to be a transactional lawyer. I wanted to be a courtroom lawyer because I thought that's where the fun was. So it's really been a lifelong calling.
Nice. Yeah, you can see it when you speak about it that there is that you did 45 years later, you still are very passionate about being an attorney. I made the comment to my assistant when we were prepping for the podcast today. I said, well, I know who I'm calling if I ever need a trial attorney.
So well, I feel like ultimately to do what I do, I'm in the business of problem solving. And so when people come to me and they're in a dispute, and sometimes they come after the lawsuit's been filed, sometimes they come when it's about to be filed, but they got a problem that obviously they cannot solve for themselves. It's gonna go into a proceeding, they're gonna need a lawyer. If the case fortunately lands in the court where there's a smart, fair-minded, high-integrity judge, then life is good. But unfortunately, at least in our state courts, too often that is not the case because we have partisan political election of judges, which causes unqualified and inexperienced people to get elected judge. So One of the great developments in the law since I've been practicing started in the late 80s after I'd been a lawyer about 10 years is this essentially compulsory mediation. A mediation is a settlement conference presided over by a neutral where he tries to, he doesn't say who's right, who's wrong, who's going to win, who's going to lose. He doesn't do any of that or she, a lot of wonderful women mediators, but tries to get the sides to start negotiating and starts explaining the risk of proceeding if they don't settle. And the settlement success rate in mediations has always been over 80%. That's good to hear. And truth of the matter is, if somebody sued you today in a civil lawsuit, the likelihood that you would actually go to trial is less than 1%. In the old days before mediation, cases would often settle on the courthouse steps when people would finally get serious about their cases before they had to face a jury or a trial judge. But mediation has caused people to get a lot more serious about recognizing the risk, the costs, the uncertainty, the incredible time commitment that litigation brings upon the parties and the prudent business people, they want their cases settled as quickly as possible. They want to be in business to make money, not be in business to give depositions and produce documents and go to the courthouse. That's not what a prudent business person wants to do.
No, not at all. No, not at all. One of the other things that I love about you, in a society where 50% of marriages end in divorce, you have been married to your lovely bride for 45 plus years.
I know, almost 40 years. We'll have our 40th anniversary in April. We married April 7th, 1984. I struck gold with my wife. She's everything I could ever want. Wife, mother of our two wonderful children. very smart, very capable, puts up with me, which is quite a challenge much of the time. And just I am very fortunate in terms of my wife, Claire, and everything she's done to help our marriage over the last 40 years.
Well, that's, you know, I just hit 25 in December and thank you. Silver. Yes. I'm very excited about hitting that. My goal is to have a 50th wedding anniversary before I die. So, I mean, we're halfway there, but you are much closer than I am. And so what is one of the, I'm sure millions of things that you love about Claire?
Well, ultimately, she's a very cheerful person. I think one of the keys to successful living is to be optimistic. I think pessimists never accomplish anything. And obviously, every marriage has its share of ups and downs. But to persevere through all that and remain cheerful and energized about the family and marriage and you know, what everybody's doing is a gift for any spouse. And so Claire has certainly brought that to our marriage and certainly to her critical role and the way she's reared our children.
Yeah, that's such, it is very refreshing. I didn't expect anything less to come out of your mouth, other than just because I know that you can tell by the way you talk about her, you adore her. And being married for 40 years to the same person takes effort on both parties, right? I say all the time, Ivan and I did not make... You frequently hear the expression,
One person is the better half of the other. And Ken Burns is a friend and the documentary filmmaker who knows me and Claire well says, Claire is my better three quarters.
That are three quarters. That's really cute. That's cute. Yeah. You know, I, I think, you know, it is a give and take no matter how you slice and dice any marriage. I think it's more give than it is anything. And everybody's, you know, constantly got to be focused on, you know, the end game. And that is divorce is not an option. I know too often, and you, you litigate, so, you know, when emotions are high, people do things and say things that, you know, unfortunately you can't take back, but it is my hope. And the more often I get, um, high achieving individuals that get to be on the podcast more often than not, they have been able to maintain their marriages long-term. It's the most impressive thing, and congratulations to both you and Claire that it's heartwarming.
Well, people who are a lot smarter than I am have said the most important decision a person ever makes is the decision on who to marry, because that will have the biggest impact on your life, for better or for worse. In my case, certainly for the much better.
Mine, too. Mine, too. Ivan is the most amazing man I could have. God could have ever placed in my path. Let's just put it that way. So you also have two grandchildren. Is that correct?
I have two grandsons. No granddaughters, but two grandsons. One will be three next month. His name is Nolan, and the other one is five months old. His name is Miles. And they are more fun than a barrel of monkeys. And they live five minutes from my office and 10 minutes from our home. And so I see them often. I get to babysit pretty often. And it's just amazing how being around them is so energizing and uplifting just to see these little brains grow with each passing day and just to see the high energy and the joy that the children bring. And, you know, so fortunate that we have those two. Our son's not married yet. Hopefully one day will be. But I think the greatest gift that a parent can give a child is a sibling. uh you know a playmate and to see these two little boys enjoy each other's company already and hug on each other and and just recognize that this is going to be a great long-term relationship is it's just fun to watch yeah yeah i can imagine so um nolan
happen to be any hope that Grandpa thinks Nolan is going to be a baseball player?
Well, that would be fine, particularly given what baseball players get paid these days. And I hope Nolan enjoys baseball. But Nolan's dad, my son-in-law, is a very good golfer. And his dad is a passionate Nolan's grandfather, my son-in-law's father, is a very enthusiastic golfer. I don't play golf at all. I wish I had started as a child, because that's how you get to be good at golf, is if you start playing when you're a child. But anyway, I'm sure Nolan is going to be out on the golf course at the first possible opportunity, and with his wonderful father, my son-in-law, and grandfather, and playing a lot of golf. if I was going to predict, that would be his main sport. But I hope he plays baseball. I hope he plays basketball. I hope he plays football until it gets to the point where there's a high risk of injury.
Danger.
Yeah. Our son in the eighth grade was a ninety seven pound quarterback for his. Private school and got hit by a 200 pound defensive end that snapped his femur and he never played football again. So it can be obviously a very dangerous sport, particularly in the eighth grade when some kids have hit puberty and some haven't. So it's but I mean, it's a great game. I love to watch football even after his injury. Our son loves football and it's just. And I enjoy, you know. so many sports. I enjoy golf on television even though I don't play it. Just the drama of seeing these outstanding golfers go head-to-head and deal with the pressures and the unexpected things that happen. It's really fun to watch on television. It's actually much better on television than it is in person because you can follow every stroke and get these expert commentators telling you about it. The older I've gotten, the more I've enjoyed sports on television, to be able to enjoy the commentary because it teaches you so much that I otherwise wouldn't know.
Yeah, no, that is exactly, especially with golf, because you typically, unless you're walking with a particular golfer, you're seeing, you know, just what's happening at that particular hole or at that fairway or, you know. what whatever so golf is one of those because it is you know 18 holes across you know what my two three miles whatever it is yeah it is much it is much more fun to watch on tv that particularly so did i read somewhere that you actually spoke um at cooperstown i did read that yeah my first two books were baseball history books and at that stage
which started in the 90s. That was my real passion was baseball history. And after I finished my second book, I realized that I had basically written about the baseball subjects that most intrigued me. And so I moved on. And my next book was on legal history. And then the last two books have been on presidential history, which I've also been a fan of my whole life. But yeah, baseball, I still follow the Rangers closely. I still have many good friends in baseball. My love for baseball has opened so many doors to getting to know really interesting, accomplished people like U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sam Alito, who's a passionate baseball fan, David Brooks, PBS NewsHour, passionate baseball fan, John Grisham, now this passionate baseball fan, Dick Thornburg, former Attorney General of the United States under Reagan and Bush. And these are people who I've gotten to be good friends with only because of our love for baseball. If it wasn't for that, we never would have connected.
Right. There would have been no connection.
So it's a door opener.
Nice. That's very exciting. I was shocked. My husband and I, I'm a baseball fan as well. We took a trip and we just thought, well, let's just, we were in New York and it was, let's just drive to Cooperstown. The hotel we were staying in was horrible. And we were like, we've got to get out of this hotel. Let's just, and I was like, well, let's just go to Cooperstown. I was genuinely surprised at how small Cooperstown actually is. Population 2,400. It is so small, but amazing.
Amazing. It's remote. I mean, it is not on the way to anywhere. It is a destination. But once you get there, it is Norman Rockwell.
Beautiful, beautiful. Like that, just all the little baseball card shops, just flowers hanging off the light posts. I mean, I was, I was so charming.
Every home is beautiful. For years, they had an ordinance that prohibited billboards. So it is not commercialized. It averages 80 inches of snow a year, so you don't want to be there in the wintertime. But if you're there in the other times of the year, it's fabulous. And there's so much history, not just of baseball, but Cooperstown was named for James Fenimore Cooper's father. And James Fenimore Cooper wrote The Last of the Mohicans, and his books set there. The glimmer glass in his novels was Lake Otsego, which is the lake at Cooperstown. And so if somebody, whether you like baseball or not, it is a beautiful, charming place, well worth going out of your way to get there because you will fall in love with the place.
I was, we ended up just picking up the phone while we were driving from New York City and found a bed and breakfast. probably one of my all-time favorite trips that Ivan and I ever took. It was just, charming is the word that just keeps coming to mind because everything about it was charming. And I just blown away at how small it was. That was the thing that blew me away.
Well, I'll tell you a really interesting story, and that is one of my closest friends is Dale Petrosky. Dale is now the president and CEO of the Greater Dallas Regional Chamber and has been for the last nine years. But before that, he was president of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. And that's how he and I first became acquainted and what allowed me to be able to speak at the Baseball Hall of Fame. But, you know, Dale and I obviously connected through baseball. Nice. Then we, you know, our friendship grew. And nine years ago, when the Dallas Chamber was diligently trying to find a new president, CEO. And I knew Dale was looking for something new. He had moved on from the Hall of Fame. He was living out in California at the time. I said, Dale, get me a resume. This is the perfect job. And he will tell you, it's the best job he's ever. And he was President Reagan's assistant press secretary. He was a top executive with the National Geographic. He was the president of the Baseball Hall of Fame. But he said, Being the head of the Greater Dallas Regional Chamber, that's the best job I've ever had. So, you know, you got this obscure Cooperstown and now you've got this blowing and going North Texas. And one guy, my good friend Dale, has thrived in both places.
That's awesome. That, you know, and it is so, you know, relationships. Let's talk relationships for a minute because you have, you've said it more than once. How important, as a leader, you know, you are now considered the expert on, you know, leaders, presidents, you know, how important do you think, because this is some value I want our listeners to have coming out of our discussion today, how much value do you think a leader should place on their relationships?
Well, it's in the top three. And one would be integrity. One is horsepower. But top three is relationship building and keeping. Nobody rises to the top by him or herself. Everybody stands on the shoulders of others. It's others who open doors. One of the greatest blessings in my life, besides my family, is we had this incredible law school class at the University of Texas who graduated in the spring of 78. And there's 20 of us who are still joined at the hip. We get together three or four times a year. We email constantly. We text constantly. When we watch Dallas Cowboys, Texas Rangers, University of Texas, we're providing color commentary nonstop on a text exchange. It's that kind of friendship that keeps people going. And obviously, I have many other wonderful friendships above and beyond my law school buddies, but we have a tie that really is amazing and just keeps growing even after we graduated from law school 45 years ago.
Yeah, that's it. And I think the older we get, I think we understand, you know, I try to explain to some of these younger up and coming leaders, CEOs, COOs that are, you know, trying to break into that next, the relationships that you have, carefully pick them. I had one of my mentors say, you are the sum of the five people you associate with the most. Be careful about who they are, right? Because if they lack integrity or if they lack humility, he said, do you want to be known that way? Like, what is it? And then find those people that have those same qualities and cultivate those relationships. I was able to learn that fairly early. And I think connecting people and who do I know that knows who, who needs this person? Like I find great joy in connecting people that I know can help each other. And I think that, I mean, that's just one of those things that's important to me, but without my network, without my relationships, there's no way to do that.
Right. Like I said, as John Dunn said, no man is an island. And the more we integrate and befriend and connect with others, the richer our lives are going to be. And in this era where too many people are working from home and there's not the chemistry and the social flow that goes on in a business office is a real loss. And of course, the more that communication, higher percentages, text, emails, less phone conversations, in-person conversations, you know, there's just this, you can't have, the same level of closeness if you don't have that close, in-person, frequent connection to somebody. And I'm concerned that our younger generations really don't grasp it because they've never experienced. They're not like you and me who spent our lives growing up. It was all about in-person.
Oh, yeah. I mean, out when the lights came on and back when the lights went out, you know, and always with friends and constantly connecting. That disconnect, I agree with you, I have a very deep concern for the disconnect in how our younger generations do not know how to connect. There's a lot of, they look past you, they don't look at you, there's a lot of text messages, And of course, you know, you can read so much into that.
And David Brooks is one of my favorite writers and thinkers. And in his newest book, which is called How to Know Others Better or something like that. Anyway, he talks about how this generation of young people, the boys don't know how to flirt. Oh, interesting. Because, you know, they don't know how to talk. They don't they don't know, you know, what goes in a interpersonal chemistry. They just don't get it. It's because they don't have any experience and they didn't have people who were who they were observing who were, you know, involved in that historical man-woman process. And so, you know, the times they are changing and some of the changes are wonderful and some of them give us great concern.
Yeah, I was gonna say, Lord, help us, right? Help us all. You know, this past week, I have a client that her son, she found her son, he had hung himself 28 years old. And, you know, when I think about the disconnect, right, and the not knowing how to, you know, connect and communicate and while Personally, there is nothing in this world that is so bad that that is the answer. When you are disconnected and you don't have connections of other human, we are human, right? So we are supposed to be connecting.
But I think another thing that we haven't talked about yet, along with, you know, the social decline, the disconnect is the faith decline. And so many of these people who make these bad decisions to in their lives, typically they don't have faith that they don't have a grasp of a higher power. They think it's all on them and there's nowhere to turn. And that certainly is another disturbing element that is going on in today's society, that we no longer have that like we did throughout my life and your life. And there's consequences when those kinds of changes take place. And in many cases, there's people out there in media who are kind of demonizing traditional religion and making it seem unattractive to many. And certainly there are people involved with churches who are doing harmful things to the church and so forth, which is obviously unfortunate. But we're all flawed sinners and fall short, and that includes people who work in churches. But I do think, to your point about what's going on today with young people, with the digital disconnect, artificial intelligence, lack of church attendance, lack of spiritual mentors, never read anything that's uplifting, that's faith-based, and very little that's uplifting, period. Right. Because there's not that much stuff. No, there's not. It's books that's uplifting outside of what you find in books that are driven by people with faith. So anyway, it's a problem. Unless there's some kind of spiritual revival that causes people to reorient themselves, which I don't think is likely, who knows where it's going to go. I'm 70 years old.
Yeah, I'm not far behind you, but I will tell you, I was sitting in church and Father was I grew up Catholic, and so, of course, after my mom passed, my dad's request was that somebody go to church with him every week. So my sister and I, of course, we tag team, or we just go together. My husband and I and my sister, we go to church. And yet, every week, my dad makes the comment, where are the grandkids? where are the grandkids? Like there's always that comment, where are the grandkids? And then of course, you know, the response is, well, this isn't their thing. And my dad goes, I don't care. My, you know, and it was interesting because the priest was literally talking that 70% of practicing Catholics do not attend church anymore. 70%. I went, what is happening here? I'm like, we need some divine intervention.
Well, I think that's a parenting failure. Unfortunately, I grew up, I grew up in a house in a home and it sounds like you did, too, as a Catholic. I grew up originally Presbyterian, then went over to Methodist in high school. But I grew up in a home where going to church and Sunday school on Sunday was not negotiable, but non-negotiable, not an option to not go. Yeah, there wasn't any excuses or reasons that would keep us from being in church every single Sunday. And that's not the case anymore. There aren't many young parents who look at it as the way things ought to be, the way our parents did.
No, they don't. And you know, I know you're pretty rooted in faith. I'm pretty rooted in faith. My mom's comment was, when you make decisions, God can't bless. Blah, blah, blah, like whatever followed. I mean, that was the standard. And I remember saying it. Ivan and I didn't have children of our own. We raised a niece. And who has gone on to say, I don't believe in God. And I was like, well, that's not optional here, right? So consequently, it's like, these are the rules in this house. Well, then I'm not gonna live here anymore. And I'm like, you're old enough to go and you can do what you wish. I will be here when you need me.
Well, that was certainly big on your part to have that kind of attitude. And hopefully she will return with a different outlook on that, because any time spent away from faith typically is not going to be a successful time in somebody's life, and many times will lead to it becoming a highly unsuccessful time in people's lives.
Well, and you know, I pray. that she will be back. And when she comes back, hopefully it won't be at a place that's so far down that path. Like, you know, with what happened to my client, that'd be any parent's worst nightmare. I can only imagine. And our hearts go out to her, but you know, I made my fair share of mistakes and, you know, I lost my way for a little bit and ended up coming back. And I know you did too. I read somewhere where you had lost your way and you came back.
I lost my way in college. You know, I was at University of Texas. I'd been in high school in Connecticut. I didn't start out with very many friends and my suite mate was a very persuasive atheist. And because I had a shortage of people who I could have conversations with, he essentially taught me out of my faith. But I got to law school and felt the pressures. I knew I needed to look to a higher power to be able to withstand the pressures of law school. And so I regained it. So it was not something that lasted but three years. And it certainly, I felt reborn, re-energized, calmer once I had regained my faith, such that there's never been a time since then where anything happened that made me want to leave the faith again. It's only gotten deeper over the years.
Yeah, you know this, I had a conversation with a physician this morning, actually, where we actually had with a physician, if you can imagine this conversation, we had a conversation on spiritual warfare. and how the devil is way too present in today's society. And I was a little, it took me a minute, I had to kind of do a double take there for a second. I was like, okay, we're gonna have this conversation with a physician. Okay, like, but it was refreshing. It was refreshing to have a physician go, choices, all choices being influenced. There's a spiritual warfare. I was literally just taken back for a minute, but I was, the conversation ended up being a really great one. Um, and it was how we really need to be trusting in our Lord a lot more, which I thought was pretty amazing coming from a physician, actually. Yeah. Cause they're so science-based, you know, I was really, pleasantly surprised. Let's put it that way.
That's a good story to hear.
Yeah. Isn't that amazing? I was really kind of taken back this morning, but it was really pretty good. Well, tell me, I let's give everybody, I know the drop date on the book is April 2nd. Did you say April 2nd? Um, Amazon, I'm guessing it'll drop on Amazon first.
No, it's already up on Amazon for pre-order and, uh, As of now, on the evening of April 2nd, I'm scheduled to be interviewed by Brett Baer on his national Fox TV show.
Oh, that's exciting.
Hopefully the next day I'll be on CNN. John Avalon, who wrote my forwards at CNN, and he's already got somebody interested in doing that. We don't have it locked down and scheduled yet, but we're getting there.
OK, so pre-orders can be done on Amazon.
Yeah, that's how the best did it. And Are most of your listeners in North Texas, do you think?
I've got them around the country, and I've got a couple out of the country right now, but for the most part, nationally.
OK, well, anyway, I do have a website, TalmadgeBoston.com, that will have the full speaking schedule because I'll be speaking all over the country, particularly in the seven week window between April 2nd when it comes out and Memorial Day, because after Memorial Day, everybody scatters for the summer. But my hope is that because this is a presidential election year, that once the fall comes back and more and more focus on the election, that I'll have a full speaking schedule in September and October leading up to the election. But this is obviously a very big year. Yeah, for America, as we look at where we are and where we're going and who we want to be our leader going forward.
So it'll be interesting. No doubt. All right, guys, Telmage Boston. Telmageboston.com, correct, is your website. You're on LinkedIn as well. So our listeners can reach out to you on LinkedIn. I will email and I will publish the speaking schedule as soon as I see it from Telmage as well. So as many of you guys can see him speak as possible. I'm excited. I'm going to see you when you're in Fort Worth. I'm going to hit Fort Worth because that's exciting.
Well, the speech I'm going to give, which ties into this idea of applied history, it's how is any leader successful? Obviously, he or she's got to be a great communicator. And so the speech explains how each of these eight top presidents were effective as communicators slash persuaders with the idea that these people, greatest leaders in the history of our country, that how they went about persuading might be something for all of us to think about. Yeah. Businesses or lives as we're trying to persuade others.
Well, that's I'm excited. I can't wait to hear you speak. I know our listeners are going to be excited to hear you speak. Congratulations on book number five. This is very exciting. I'm going to go ahead and jump on and order my copy today. I'm very excited. Again, thank you so much. Very nice to get to know you just personally, as well as your professional, you know, your background is beyond impressive. And I'm very, very, very humbled to have you as a guest on the podcast today. I thank you so much for taking the time to visit with us today.
Well, my pleasure. I certainly enjoyed getting to know you.
Well, thank you so much. All right, everybody. This is Everything is Up with Tamara and Talmadge Boston. Make sure you guys like, share, subscribe, and share, share, share. And please make sure you watch out for Talmadge's speaking schedule. Hope you guys get a chance to hear him. Thank you again, Talmadge. I appreciate you.
My pleasure.
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