Why the Best Leaders Make People Feel Safe

You hit them with a feeling, so when you leave them, whenever they hear your name, they feel a light color. They just feel some weight. There he is. I was somebody who I was safe, because that's all we really want. My safe, my safe to be me, my safe to be heard of my safe, to express myself.

And my safe to matter, and when you give someone that feeling, when you are in need,

they feel a third world need, like hunger, food, pressure, these types of things.

You're going to have someone that's going to show up for you. Boyd Nelson is a discipline, resilient, and service-driven military leader, and former professional boxing champion. Drawing from his unique experiences in the military and the boxing ring, he helps entrepreneurs, veterans, and high-performance leaders, build emotional resilience and adaptability, empowering them to turn adversity into strategic momentum, and building a foundation of true mental toughness, inclusive leadership, and lifelong service.

My stuff comes to me when I go from my runs. Whenever I need to communicate with the source, I go for a jog. Something happens, at a certain point of that run, when I'm no longer thinking about left-right, left-right, that my mind starts to go place it, I don't, it doesn't go when I'm not exercising.

“And that's what I feel is like prayer for me, information comes.”

And I remember one time, information came and it said. [music] It spans the globe. Like a super-highest coal, enter their pelvis. [music]

Today Apple is going to reinvent football. It's not over, I'm telling how we're... The living your legacy podcast, for those who live to leave a legacy. [music] [music]

[music] Welcome back to another episode of the Living Your Legacy podcast. I'm your host for today, Jason Tyler. And I am joined by Boyd, Nelson. Boyd, welcome to the show, pleasure to have you.

I'm so happy to be here. I'm happy to have you. Thank you, brother. It is always a pleasure. It is always a pleasure.

Now, Boyd, we just got finished recording your episode for Legacy Makers, which guys if you... If I ever recommend for you to watch an episode of Legacy Makers, it's going to be Boyd's episode. But now on the other side of filming,

“what would you say is like the number one thing you want people to be able to take away from your experience?”

It goes back to what you said and it's one of the tracks on my spoken word album. And it's about giving, I have a track called "Give a Feeling".

And I talk about in the track that we're always told as better to give them to receive.

And we hear this throughout our childhood and we try to live it. And what I've learned, or my understanding at least, is that people think of things tangible always about giving. And then what they do is they look at what they have and based off the amount of items they have, they create a value system for other people's words,

based off what they have and decide what they think they can afford to give. And maybe not always be so altruistic male, so be because they want something in return. And then we also live knowing that we try to do that. And we don't always get something back. And we're like, I thought, why am I always giving tape?

I thought that was an exchange. Why was I told as better to give and receive it? I'm not receiving anything when I'm given. Well, my track is, and this is what I'd like people to know. The number one thing you can give to every single person you meet is a feeling. You give them with a feeling.

So when you leave them whenever they hear your name, they feel a light color. They just feel some weight. There he is. I was somebody who I was safe because that's all we really want. My safe and my safe to be me and my safe to be heard of my safe to express myself.

And my safe to matter. And when you give someone that feeling, when you are in need,

my real third world need like hunger, food, pressure, these types of things.

You're going to have someone that's going to show up for you because of how you made them feel. And for any of my clients that I've interviewed that might be watching this episode, you guys will know exactly the quote that he's referencing. People forget what you said. People forget what you did.

“But people will never forget the way that you made them feel.”

Got it? That's my favorite quote. And I live by that too because it's not just,

I try to create that environment of safety.

“And when it goes to your story, I feel like with your story,”

you have your background, you know, Louisiana Creole Dad, military for 35 years, Jewish immigrant mom, your background is that of like, there might have been growing up in Brooklyn, a feeling of like a lack of safety. And yet you provide so much of it for everybody else.

Talk to me a little bit just about like what that experience is like for you.

It's interesting because I always was cognizant that I kind of never had a group.

I would watch my friends all having their click. And I see lots of clicks. What I learned is I was always, almost always welcomed into their click, but I was never a part of the click. And I would bounce from click to click to click.

I did the same thing. I used to do the same thing. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm growing up half white, half black in Miami. It's always been kind of just like, oh, I was going to bounce over here. But I can hang out with them. But you never feel like a unique sense of home in a particular group of people.

That's been my experience. It's been mine. And you know, we have Androgynous DNA.

“And I think it creates you with genetic compassion.”

That you're not even aware of. It's the epigenetic factor of everything that went into us. And then being exposed to the world and how it influences certain things inside of us that we weren't even aware of. I believe why I'm so big on accuracy because I lived being judged off of behaviors or looks. And then lived watching it happen.

I lived where people didn't understand what I'm mixed with, so I hear them say some nasty things about something. I'm mixed with it that they don't know that I am. They don't have the actual context for what they're doing. Yeah, so hearing that and it's like I get to be, I am an undercover brother. Absolutely.

I'm the brother that when I was a West point, all the brothers used to love ragging on me. We still got our group because of how light I am. And our group had some light skin brothers too, but typical light skin light. Yeah, more mic.

And when they would rag on me, I would always, I'm like, what are you laughing at?

You're so lucky. I'm here, so they're not riding you. Yes, so lucky. I know you. So if you want me always around so that he can take it off of you. Yeah, but you're like pulling a little bit of that attention towards you and he gets to dodge it by just by association.

Yeah, yeah. That's so funny. There was a thing, there was a thing that we had talked about just right after we wrapped. And I wanted, I want to touch on that because I want to during your boxing career. I want to tell that story that you were telling me of the guy that you went to touch gloves with.

And you were like, oh, that was Kate Therman. Be safe out there. That threw me, that would throw me for such a loop. And like, you know, the audience, the viewers that are watching this, they're not going to have the context for your boxing story. But obviously, guys, if you're watching this podcast episode, make sure that you check out Boyd's episode of Legacy Makers,

which will be coming out shortly after this episode. But give me a little bit of context leading into that fight because that story killed me. Well, it wasn't just Keith. I would do this to everybody. And I big, I lost to Keith at the Olympic Trust, Therman, and I had a victory against him in the year before. And so my, I mean, I didn't grow up boxing, and I'm also in my early 20s.

I'm older than everybody, and I'm an officer, and I, and I undergraduate, and I finished my MBA during that time too. I'm trained to lead men. That's where, and women. That's where I went to school to do that. And so I see them as their children. You know, they punched me in the mouth.

There's 17 and 18. I'm 23, but I'm in a very different space. I've been trained to lead people in combat environment. So I care about them differently. And for me, this is a part of my life for them who is their whole life. This being a part of my life, I know it's going to end.

And this being their whole life, I want them to still be able to be incredible in this.

We're just competing against each other. I need you to be healthy after, so you can live a successful life. And that's what I would think.

“And I would want them to know this, because that's what I felt.”

And when I went to touch at the Olympic trials, I was in Houston, in '07, in fighting Keith. And people started to learn that this is how I am. I would hang out at weigh-ins. I would talk to my opponents when they're getting off the scale. Like, how's it really meaning it?

Because it's not, I know we're fighting. We're going to box, but you don't hate. We don't have no feelings towards each other.

Yes, we don't even know anything about.

And so I remember when we go in the center of the ring. I mean, I touch Keith and I resist everybody. I said, "Oh, be safe out there." Well, and I said, "Be safe." And as soon as I said,

“"You have to just head back and just walk,”

be lying straight to this quarter. Didn't want to hear any of it." And then one of my old teammates used to say, "It's because you do those mind games, voodoo on people. You befriended people.

You're in the ring to a Jedi mind tricks." Yeah, but I'm not befriended them to then, like, what I'm going to kill you when we've, it's the same. Even more competing. The energy is going to be exactly the same.

Regardless of the context of whether we're in a fight or before the fight.

Your energy towards somebody is the same.

It's that of someone that cares. Yeah. And you brought up leadership, which you had a great quote towards the end of your episode, where you said that leadership means that you care about something enough.

Leadership is a phenomenon that happens when you care about something enough. Mm. So what the phenomenon is, it's somebody doing it, having their behaviors in a line with what's in their head. Mm.

To go out and get something that they want. And often I can involve moving pieces. You have to interact with other people. And then there's the leadership component leading yourself, the avatar we're in, and interacting with other people.

And they're avatars. And at a minimum, it's yourself. Every time you feel compelled to do something, anything.

I want to take a second here, because at the end of your episode,

I remember when we were going through this segment, and I was like, all right, there's this business, and this business, and this venture, and you have your hands in so many things. And it goes to your core principle, which is caring. Do the things that you care about with your main overarching mission of

carrying the world of spinal cord injuries. So I want to take a second to just kind of talk about the different things that you've been a part of, and continuing to be a part of. And what's going on in a boy's world today? It's going on in my world today.

I have to go out to USC for my second on campus weekend. As part of this doctoral program, and we are, we have the first draft of chapter one, the introduction of my doctorate due June 7th. So have that. We are filming our documentary on scene warriors.

Hopefully we'll have all the filming done by the end of August. And when we have the glorified sparring match, Donnie and me, and Donnie again is a double leg amputee, and a lower lumbar spinal cord injury. And I'm going to be in a wheelchair across from him. Sean Porter, two-time world champs going to fly in to be worked on his corner

Dimitrius Andrade who is a two-time world champ is going to work my corner Dimitrius is who I lost to in the finals of the U.S. And you remember ships? I remember hearing his name and being like that. Yeah, booboo, and then booboo was brother three years ago.

“He became a paraplegic, and that's why I always talk about,”

and we come into this world in bundles. It reminds me, and I told booboo, "Do you know how crazy it is?" So it's only 300,000 Americans at any given time. And you're a brother, with your closeness to me, is now sparing a paraplegia. Do you know how the odds of that are?

But then I'd say maybe the odds were 100% because we made these decisions, and that's why we're in each other's lives. And Sean and booboo were my two closest friends from my amateur days. My wife's nickname for me is booboo. And so sometimes when she says, "I love you booboo."

Here, I miss you so much. I screenshot it and I text that to booboo. And I say, "My wife just text me this." I just want to say, "FU." Because my clothes like that's like how this cracks up.

Yeah. Oh, man. It's great having that relationship and being able to just crack that joke. So it's so niche and specific.

“But it goes back to what we were talking about, right?”

I think that the language of the universe is statistical improbability. The universe is talking to you when the things that are statistically improbable happened to you. That's where the universe is trying to tell you to move. Yeah. So when something happens, you're like, "What the heck are the odds?"

That's the universe telling you, "Hey, message, you look, you look at the outline of the bulk of the outline of the Avers happening." Yeah. There's let you know this is maybe something you're paying attention to. Yeah, my attention is being diverted because it's so unlikely to happen.

That's like, "I got a pay attention here." Because clearly, it's certainly someone trying to send me a message. So check this out. You remember from cool running, the actor who was the lead of the bunch. Yeah.

And he's above the rim, right? Yeah. Three years ago, I go to a barclay's game. He's sitting directly in front of me.

That was a game of brunch and he had a three with two seconds after

“against the Pacers to win and he's there.”

And then two weeks after that, I am flying and he's right behind me to get on the airplane. The same celebrity actor, three times. And that's how my turn around. I said, "Hey, man, I just saw you at Alan Houston's watch party."

He kind of paid attention. I was like, "One member of Brunsett, three of her. Here's something happening. I forget his name." I'm supposed to be doing something with him in this world.

That doesn't make sense, right? It's an outlier. Yep. That's the only time and out of all places, he's right behind me to get on the airplane. It's the lead.

First of all, tens of thousands of people walk through that airport at any given time. Again, it goes back to what I was saying. It's statistical improbability.

“That's so unlikely that you have to look at him and be like, "Sorry."”

What am I supposed to be doing? Wait. What do you want me to do? All right. Let me do something.

Yeah. Because that's the universe prodding you to move in a direction. Because I feel like if you don't speak that, it's a language. And if you don't speak that language, that's what can breed stagnant. Like you can stagnate without the impetus to want to move forward in any direction.

A lot of people, like your central nervous system is constantly trying to tell you to be safe, stagnant, and hey, this right here that we got going on is safe. We have to stay right if it was up to my nervous system. I'd be in bed, damn near all day. But because life is the way that life is,

I have drivers that move me in different directions. And so like, that's a big thing for me is statistical improbability. Yeah, I tell you, if my girl ever watches this show, probably. I got this. I got to read this poem to you.

Then since you're talking about statistics, I just had it here. And I read this to Miss Angelina and I had a fan. And I knew that if I kept her attention, it was good. So remember the p-value? Mm-hmm.

So p-value, to be statistically significant, it's got to be 0.05 or less, which means 95% of the time you can expect the thing to repeat. You try to get it to 0.01, which means 99% of the times this will repeat.

But it can never be zero because there's always a chance something could happen.

There's always, there will always be a finite chance. So there has to be a p-value. It has to exist because it's impossible for not to. Like, if I've tried something a billion times, we got a billion in first, maybe giving you a different result.

So that's why I always exist. So this is a poem I put at the end of my book. Learned their BCBs. And that again is using statistics principles to apply to create a framework for when you're dating. It's really a relationship building.

But I built it around dating in the book. And then I read this poem at the end about the p-value reminder for anybody who has really been through it emotionally at the romance. And you just don't believe that there's somebody out there. So this is the poem you're ready.

All right, let's do it. Let's go to the p-value reminder. I am a p-value. I am necessary. I produce value.

I'm the constant that proves nothing is absolute. I'm the realization that it is possible. Only my absence is truly impossible.

I am the never ending quest that searches for your imperfection.

I remind you that if you search long enough, you will eventually prove my existence. Hmm. I am the inevitable evidence that humans are not perfect. I always account for your flaws. And even though I always find at least one, that is what makes you most unique.

I am the possibility that what you believe may not be true and what you don't believe may be true. I hope you learn through loss. I am your reason to get back up. I'm invisible until you try one more time.

“I am the reason you should never give up because no matter my value,”

regardless of my size, there is always hope. I am the p-value reminder. Hmm. The end. You are full.

You guys don't have context for this, but I've just sat with Boyd for about what three hours. And during the course of which I had to both myself and Jay, we had to take notes about five or seven different times,

because you are so full of amazing quotables.

We could write your whole episodes going to be quotable. I want to take a second here because as we kind of wind down the podcast, I ask this of all of my guests on the show, but for the viewer out there, our audience, they are very entrepreneurial, they are very business-minded.

Who is stuck, who is feeling like they don't know what direction to go in. What is Boyd's number one tip for success? One of the things I focus on, you have noise and you have signal.

That's what always is and stats.

Noise over signal over signal over noise, I'm sorry, rather. You're trying to get it so that what you are doing cancels your signal, the noise out and everything is attributed to the signal. This is happening because of this. So, our themes we have because we're the only person that's lived every moment of our lives.

We're the only person that's ever lived every moment or whatever. Or we'll ever. Or we'll ever. You're right. And we never miss a day.

We've been here for the whole ride. There are things that, if you live, when you start living long enough, you look back and you start to see what were the things that served as your signal.

“How was it received and how did you experience it when you achieved it and when it was received?”

And then you have the stuff that served as noise. You may have got enjoyment out of, but it didn't really, it didn't really relate to any thing else that you can't. It didn't really contribute. Yeah, I didn't. I'll side of me be an immediate joy, but that's not a joke of emotion.

I tell when you're not happy, the frame I use is channel your signal.

Interrespect, it's always inwards.

And start remembering what brought you joy and what relationships brought you joy. And the best place to start is when you figure out who, what has brought you joy, reach out to that person and start talking out loud about what you care about. And the other thing, you're lonely, go volunteer somewhere. You'll meet people that are in their best space, their best version of themselves. Volunteering, especially when it's to help others who don't have as much.

You're lonely, go volunteer. You'll meet incredible people in their best space. And that's when you get to talk about what you care about. If you're lonely, go volunteer.

“I love the concept of that because when I think about, I actually just had a conversation about this with another guest to the show.”

And we were talking about, the way they framed their answer to the same question was, if you're passionate about something, go either start a club or be a part of a club. But I like the way that you framed it, which is go volunteer because you're meeting people where they are at their best selves. I think that's phenomenal advice. And for guys, if you're out there watching, and if you're, you're probably watching this episode and you're like, man, why does Boyd have so many great quotes?

If you're watching this, and you've made it to this point in the podcast, first of all, I want to make sure that you guys check out Boyd's episode of Legacy Makers coming out shortly after this podcast. Airs, Boyd, you have a plethora of different business endeavors, different ventures, different nonprofits charities. What, where can people find you most on the internet so they can keep in touch with everything that you've got to learn? Facebook and Instagram, one of them on the most, and LinkedIn, and it's Boyd to be a YD.

Nelson, and it's in Mary, E. L. S. O. N. And I've lived a pretty interesting life that crosses over cross-different themes and touches lives of celebrities sometimes in the military and all that.

“And I have a lot of friends, they ask me, how come you don't have million followers? I have a 2600 followers, maybe?”

I don't know what it takes to get a million followers or do anything like that.

Oh, I just, I love connecting with human beings. So, I'm available. You know, when I was on the breakfast club, I gave up my personal email because I said, "If you're back, you have a spinal cord injury. Please reach out to me." I had like 30 something people over the course of a month who was listening and reached out. I'm serious. I gave the email, I was happy they took me up on it. I also said, "Professor, if you don't have a serious thing, please don't be an A-hole" and just... Wait, so all fairity of them? They were spot, they were spot on cord injury.

They go statistically and probability because out of 300,000, 30 of them were... So, they've been exaggerating on the number 30. Maybe it's closer to 20 then. And not everybody was the person paralyzed, they knew somebody paralyzed. Oh, yeah, 60 years of separation. Yeah. Well, you want a stamp on a ship. So, it's funny when you see it get this quote,

"My stuff comes to me when I go for my runs. And whenever I need to communicate with the source, I go for a jog. Something happens. I have a certain point of that run.

that my mind starts to go place it. I don't... it doesn't go when I'm not exercising.

Especially towards the very end when I always pick it up and exhaust myself.

And then those first few steps of cooling down after I really push it out at the end, the information comes.

“And that's what I feel is like prayer for me. Information comes.”

And I remember one time, information came and it said, "People who are quick to judge have not... have things they have yet to forgive themselves about." Hmm. And I thought about that. I thought about. You know, that person that used to be overweight, and now they don't have any time for anybody overweight.

Hmm. Fat, lazy. It's a fun event. They have to forgive themselves.

They never forgive them, because anybody could be anybody.

You happen to be in this one. It could be anybody. So, when they see what they could be, and they despise that. It's because they didn't forgive themselves. And I can kind of not forgive themselves for being overweight,

but forgive themselves probably for the way that they thought about themselves while I were overweight. I bet it's a bit of a... Yeah, it's a bit of a... Yeah. Yeah.

I agree. It kind of falls out to what Carl Young used to talk about with shadow casting, and which you see when you... How you behave towards somebody's something you don't like about yourself or nobody yourself. So I just used to forgiveness for giving about themselves. And then that still goes into the bigger message I read when I hear Yeshua talking.

“And that is that you need to forgive yourself,”

because you're going to do things now, that sets it still going to be you. And the same body is going to bring you pain in the future. Hmm. So forgive yourself. You didn't know what you were doing.

Man, I could sit here and do this podcast all day.

Oh, boy, it has been an incredible pleasure having you here in the studio, brother.

You and I have more things to catch up on. I'm sure, but guys, for y'all out there watching this episode again,

“I'm going to reiterate this is the third time I'm probably saying that you have to go check out boys episode.”

But this has been another episode of the Living Your Legacy Podcast guys. I will catch y'all in the next one. [Music]