The Breakfast Club Guest: Kevin Hancock

In this radio podcast, Kevin Hancock speaks with The Breakfast Club host Mark about his career, his newest book, 48 Whispers, and his mission to empower and strengthen the voices of those around him. During Kevin’s life journey, he has adapted Hancock Lumber to create balance for the employees and ensure that their voices are heard in the company. Kevin also shares how he became involved with the Lakota at Pine Ridge and how this led to his idea of shared leadership.

Click here to listen to the full podcast.

Here are a few highlights from the podcast (click here for the full transcription):

  • You’ve always got to live in the present and really perform in the present moment. And certainly our company has become very focused on the employee experience, the people who work at the company, making sure that work is a meaningful for them. So that’s really kind of what brought us down that best places to work path. (01:13-01:39)
  • This book is really about coming into your own voice. It’s a photojournalism book that takes a bunch of my favorite pictures from over a decade of traveling out to the reservation in South Dakota. And then pairs that with 48 short meditations. And if I had to summarize what all those meditations have in common, it’s really about coming into your own voice, self-awareness, really turning inward to find your strength, your purpose, your path. Where we’re all living in a world where there’s so much external noise, 24/7, internet wired world, that what can get lost in that I think is our sense of self. And this book is really about the idea that you’ve got to build your future from within. You’ve got to really look within yourself, connect with the essence of who you are, and then build an external life that’s true to that. (12:58-14:05)
  • Simply put, the people who work in a company know how to make it better. They know what holds it back. And all leaders really have to do is to create a safe environment where the right questions get asked, and the people that work there feel good about just actually saying what they honestly think and know. (19:59-20:21)

Click here to download a PDF of the transcription.