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Podcast

What You Need to Consider When Choosing Your Preferred Airlines

Most business travelers have one thing in common: airplanes.

Some travel internationally, most just domestically. Ironically, not every business traveler takes the air. Some are literal road warriors in every sense of the word. They’re on the road their entire trip.

And many are a combination. They fly into one city then drive to another city. Let’s say flying into Dallas then drive to Austin then to San Antonio then fly home to Chicago. Hypothetically speaking, of course.

As a result, there’s an unspoken process many business travelers go through in choosing an airline.

But do you know who doesn’t know this process?

The new guy or the new girl. That new business traveler who’s never been taught our secret handshakes. They choose an airline without much thought if it’s the best choice for them in the long run.

When I first started traveling for work, I was trained inside-and-out on the product. Sound familiar?

And the only information I was given on the travel part was: “keep it as cheap as possible.”

That was helpful. (Insert sarcasm here)

Everything revolved around price from the flight to the hotel to the food. And it was always what was best for the company, definitely not for me but I didn’t know that at the time. I was naive and thrilled to be “on the road” and “on my own.”

What I’ve learned later, is that the company wanted what can be summed up in two words:

CHEAP RESULTS

I’m on a mission to help companies realize that cost-focused business travel yields not only cheap results but short-term results because of one major rarely talked about subject: business travel burnout.

And hence learning the most effective ways to travel that yield consistent results. Did you catch that? Consistent results.

Since most business travelers fly for a living, we need to make sure we’re choosing an airline that enhances becoming an Elite Road Warrior.

So, if you’re about to begin business travel, have aspirations for business travel, or are already into the groove, there will be something in this article to help you in this area.

Before we dive into the five ways to choose your preferred airline, let me give you a word of caution right out of the gate:

Be hesitant to choose a budget-only focused airline such as Spirit Airlines or others in that similar category. Why? Because the “nickel-and-dime you” approach will be un-necessary travel friction. They charge you for a carry-on, for luggage, choosing certain seats, snacks, even to go to the bathroom. Okay, not the last one at least yet, but you get the point. They have ways of making up that low fare at your cost, not the company’s and it’s exhausting.

(Now that I got that rant out of my system…)

Five Ways to Choose Your Preferred Airlines

Consideration One: Hometown major airlines

You have an airport within striking distance to your house as a road warrior and if it’s a larger or even medium-sized city, it’s going to have a primary airline or what I call your hometown airline.

They’re going to offer you the most flights which means more times and more options.

For example, I live in one of the best cities to be a business traveler. I have two airports around 30 minutes from my house (O’Hare and Midway).

Chicago is home to three major airlines:

  • United (hence the United Center – home of the Chicago Bulls and Blackhawks)
  • American Airlines (major hub)
  • Southwest Airlines (in fact over 90% of Midway Airport is Southwest and one their largest hubs)

I realize this ideal situation is rare and I’m thankful for it. But you may be in a city where Delta or American Airlines is “the” airline of choice and by default, becomes your best option.

This is a major consideration and often an easy decision due to the presence of this one primary airline and the best selection of flight options.

Key Action: Know your primary hometown airline options around you and find out if you have more than one choice

Just remember, this is a strong consideration but definitely should not be the ONLY consideration.

Consideration Two: Willingness to fly connection flights

This 2nd consideration is on the heels of consideration one of hometown major airlines.

For some, the choice is driving hours and hours to a large airport when others prefer taking their regional airport and connecting to the larger airport. Often times, trying both once or twice will make your decision very obvious, very quickly.

Other times, it depends on the cities you need to frequent and how many flight options your preferred airline provides.

I know road warriors who will drive 2+ hours to a major airport so they can take a direct flight and other road warriors who drive 30 minutes to their regional airport and connect to a major hub. They both have their reasons.

The longer I’ve traveled, the more I limit connection flights. That dude, Murphy (you know, from Murphy’s law) always seems to take my connection flight with me and of course, something goes wrong. Murphy seems to get a real kick out of thrusting me into the busyness vortex of hurry, worry, and scurry. #NotAFan

If a connection is my option, then I plan for the worst by giving myself contingency plans to limit my travel friction and stress (Aka: more margin for error) because the delay is almost always on the 1st leg of the flight which affects my connection flight. For me, it’s unwanted and unneeded stress.

One connection I don’t mind if I don’t have a choice is a direct flight which means you have a stop but you don’t have to leave the plane. You’re just dropping passengers off and picking more up. This is the lesser evils for a connection flight.

Key Action: You need to determine if a connecting flight is optional or mandatory and know if you’re a connection-type of road warrior

 

Consideration Three: Reward programs

Every airline has a reward program available. And if they don’t you shouldn’t be getting on their plane!

And there are key questions to ask about the reward program:

  • How long does it take to actually reap the benefits of your travels?
  • How far do your miles take you? (This is usually the catch in the program)
  • How difficult is it to actually use them?
  • Do they expire?

For example, when I first started, I signed up for every reward program which I suggest as well. But I also flew every airline because of CHEAP RESULTS expected from my company. I would fly sometimes 3 or 4 different airlines on just one week of travel. Craziness.

This also means I never earned enough on any airlines to benefit from my travels. I was in Points Purgatory which is not a fun place for a business traveler. I had a ton of miles but spread out amongst all the airlines.

Then I stuck with one specific airline for a while, but it just took me forever to use any of the miles.

I finally chose Southwest Airlines for the following reasons:

  • No cancelation charges and easy to change flights
  • A-List Preferred gets early boarding /free WiFi /drink coupons
  • Incredible customer service – I was talking to a real human being in 30 seconds who was actually enjoyable to talk to (is that even possible when dealing with airlines?)
  • But most importantly: Companion Pass = my wife can fly anywhere I fly for free

You may not choose your preferred airlines solely based on the Rewards Program but I’m here to tell you it definitely matters and should be considered.

I could easily have better status overall with United or American with living in Chicago with certain other perks I’ve had in the past such as 1st class seating, lounge access, etc. But at this point in my life, my family coming on multiple trips a year with me or a few vacations where my wife flies for free just matters more to me right now.

I chose to give up the personal perks for the greater benefit for my family during this season of business travel.

You need to determine how much the Rewards Program matters to you and where it falls in choosing your preferred airlines.

Key Action: Do your research on your airline options rewards programs

Consideration Four: Do you like their experience?

This is a bigger deal than you realize upfront. I may have a convenient airline and it may have a good reward program. But… if the service is bad, flight attendants are rude or developed their personality in a car crash, it makes a huge difference in your overall experience especially if you fly often.

If you’ve only flown a couple of airlines, you may not have much to compare your experiences to, so if you’re early on and shopping around for an airline, pay attention to the experience.

For example, I flew American Airline more at the beginning, but between us girls, I didn’t like the service. The flight attendants had the same social skills as my local DMV.

Service comes in two major forms:

  • Flight Service – what food/snack/drink options are available to you? How’s the WiFi?                               1. Are they friendly and smile or dread their job and you’re an obvious inconvenience?
    2. Is it any good?
    3. Are they generous? (Like an extra pack of snacks is going to throw their budget completely out of whack)
  • Customer Service – when (not if) something goes wrong, is the process painful or easy?

A few years ago I had to take an airline I had never flown. I was traveling with a co-worker and about an hour before the flight, we both got an automated call that the flight was canceled. No reason and no next steps. I didn’t know who to call or what to do next.

We finally talked to someone and the next flight was 24 hours later which means we would miss all of our meetings. It was an absolute mess and to be honest, made me thankful for Southwest customer service along with how personal, casual, generous, and humorous the flight attendants are on any given flight.

The longer I fly and the older I get, the more important my experience on a flight is to me and I really notice it when my family comes with me on more and more trips.

Key Action: Notice with a high level of critique how your overall experience with your potential preferred airline is.

Consideration Five: Have a strong secondary option

Sometimes, your preferred airlines may just have a high price that is going to flag the system or not get approved or you get some heat that’s just not worth it.

Or the date/time just doesn’t work for you especially if it’s a last-minute change.

Another reason is your airline is more domestic than international.

Back to my example, when I switched to Southwest Airlines as my primary, there are locations domestically they just don’t focus on and I need a second option. They also don’t fly north to Oh Canada, east to Europe, or west to Asia, Australia, etc.

So, Delta is my strong secondary option. When I flew to Madrid or Sydney, Delta was my obvious and preferred choice unless the price or dates/times just couldn’t work.

Having a strong secondary option also means you’re signed up with their Rewards Program along with having your TSA Pre-Check number (if you have one and you should) already in their system.

I shopped around with United and American Airlines as my secondary options and use them every once and a while, but I’ve had a good experience with Delta each time and it’s become my secondary option.

Key Action: All of the above considerations should be used on choosing your preferred secondary airline

If you’re about to start traveling for work or you’re in the honeymoon phase of business travel and still trying to figure everything out, then really work through these five considerations.

And if you lead a business travel team, check in with each road warrior and see where they are in this process of choosing a preferred airline. Limit the CHEAP RESULTS strategy and take care of your road warriors!

I feel for some of you road warriors where your choices are limited or you feel stuck. Living in Sheboygan, WI wasn’t the optimal choice when you became a business traveler.

Take choosing your preferred airlines seriously. You do have choices. So, wherever you are on the road, do something, anything, just not nothing to master the business travel life. Leverage your airline to help you become and remain an Elite Road Warrior today to eliminate burnout and exceed results.

You Got This!

Written by Bryan Buckley · Categorized: Embrace Better, Podcast, Productivity · Tagged: ERW Podcast, podcast

088 – Leadership and Disney with Dan Cockerell

Transcription

Bryan Paul Buckley 0:00
Episode 88 of the Elite Road Warrior podcast. Welcome to the Elite Road Warrior podcast where we believe you can leverage the road to transform your work, health, and home life while on business travel to ultimately master the business travel life. If you’re a road warrior, and a great chance you’re on the road right now than this podcast is for you.

Welcome to the Elite Road Warrior podcast. I’m your host Bryan Paul Buckley, fellow Road Warrior, husband of one, father of five yeah five and on a mission to help business travelers eliminate burnout and exceed those elusive results. I’m also committed, each and every business trip to becoming and remaining an Elite Road Warrior. And man I’d love nothing more than for you to join this master evil plan and worthwhile road trip.

Now I’m naturally drawn to books on personal Professional Development. And I came across a book covering both levels of development, which actually is energy of number five develop. And I found this book through the reads only podcast with Jeff Brown. And I was instantly drawn to reach out to this guy. And Wow, did we click just in a conversation and I couldn’t wait to have an interview with somebody who not only with such vast experience but could also speak specifically to the leaders of business travelers. So let’s meet our subject matter expert. Dan cockerel is the former vice president of the Magic Kingdom, Walt Disney World Florida. Upon graduation from Boston University in 1991. Dan moved to Florida and worked, get this, as a parking attendant at Disney’s Epcot Center. Subsequently, he joined the Disneyland Paris management trainee program as part of the opening team and move to Viva La France in 1992. After spending five years in France, Dan relocated to Florida have held a variety of executive roles at the Walt Disney World Resort, both in the theme parks and resort hotels.

His last nine years with the company he was successful as a vice president of Epcot vice president Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and eventually vice president of the Magic Kingdom, where he led ready for this 12,000 cast members and entertained over 20 million guests annually. After a fulfilling and exciting 26-year career with the Walt Disney Company, Dan and his wife Valerie made the decision to set on a new venture and start their own consulting and speaking business. Dan provides customized authentic presentations, insightful workshops, and one on one coaching, focusing on leadership and management practices, drawing upon his extensive Disney career with relevant examples and inspiring storytelling, and he’s going to do exactly that in this episode, specifically for business travel leaders. And in a moment, I’ll be asking The following questions. What is the difference between a training program and a development program? And why do both even matter? What is the 30/60/90 day retention plan? Why are personal relationships so important for you and your team members? And why should it matter to a business travel leader? How and why did you implement consistent recognition with your teams at Disney? And how did you do it very uniquely to that individual? And in no additional charge, so much more.

It’s go time

I’m live right now with Dan Cockerel. Where are you and how are you my friend?

Dan Cockerell 4:04
Okay, I’m doing well. I’m in Orlando, Florida. I’m exhausted. We’ve been cleaning. We’re moving. So I’ve been moving all my stuff to a storage facility. And my wife is directing and won’t give me a break here. So I’m really glad we’re doing this podcast.

Bryan Paul Buckley 4:19
We can go for hours and hours, right?

Dan Cockerell 4:21
Yeah, I’m just gonna keep you here talking whether you’re on or not.

Bryan Paul Buckley 4:24
You know what end? I’ve got enough time we’ll make that happen on there. And it will maybe it’s maybe we’ll do three episodes of this here. Three different takes. Take one take. Two, take three, and that that’s all I do. Yeah, we also have a few common connections, a guy named Jody Mayberry, who is the host of your own podcast, and a longtime friend of myself as well. And then some guy named Lee, with the same common last name is yours. what’s that about?

Dan Cockerell 4:50
Yeah, well, um, you know, my dad, and he. He’s been a great mentor. You know, he retired from Disney at 63 had a whole second career, writing books and speaking and he’s got all kinds of stuff going on. So when I decided to leave Disney, he was a big part of my encouragement to have the courage to leave and go start something. So I’m really a, you know, my parents have done. They’ve been with me the whole way at 51 years old, and they’ve been married for over 50 years. So were they’ve done a good job.

Bryan Paul Buckley 5:23
Well, and I couldn’t speak more highly of your father, actually, God introduced myself to your dad, and on a former podcast that I had called the energy edge podcast. And I just so appreciate your dad’s honesty. Just how hard he went and how his health and crashed and I was able to rebuild that back and strengthened his marriage and helped him with his second career on there. So just nothing but the highest respect for your dad. And when you just well, man I’m excited, though, to talk about you. And I’m excited to talk about your book. So would you give us kind of that backstory of why you wrote the book, which is entitled

“How’s the Culture in Your Kingdom? Lessons from a Disney Leadership Journey” and a 30,000-foot view kind of is what I’m looking for right now of the book you could give us that Dan.

Dan Cockerell 6:11
Sure. Well, you know, when you

know, for a lot of people writing a book is it gives you some authority. You know, someone pointed out to me that the word author isn’t the word authority. So it gives you some credibility. And when I left Disney, I really sat down one night after a couple of months, and I said, Okay, what do I know? You know, what do I actually know that people want to hear about because when you work in the same company for 26 years, everything you do is sort of second nature. And you just think everything’s done this way. And the good thing is Disney does a lot of things really well. So I learned in a very, very positive environment of how to do run a business and lead.

Bryan Paul Buckley 6:53
You had how many positions while you’re at Disney?

Dan Cockerell 6:55
Yeah, 19 different jobs over 12 years. So I was always looking for that. Next learning moment I was I was an on the novice into my jobs. Most of my career I was in a learning mode most of the time, which kept me very on my toes and energized. So, one night I just wrote down, you know, okay, let’s, let’s go with the basics. What do I know how to do? Alright, communicate? Yep. I’ve learned how to communicate it does. What does that mean? I learned how to collaborate. What does that mean? I’ve learned how to build a strategy. What does that mean? And I came up with this big laundry list of things. And then I sent it off to a buddy of mine who’s a professor at the Cromer graduate school in Winter Park here in Florida. And I said, Keenan, I don’t know what I have here. I got a bunch of stuff. And within 24 hours, he sent me back he said, Dan, I’ve arranged everything you wrote and these little subtexts into three, three different areas. Leading self, leading team, leading organization, he saw it, it was clear to him and I was just like, so grateful to him to have seen there’s a there was a theme there. And that’s what my websites built my keynote speeches.

My book is set up that way, with those themes, and I, we added a fourth section towards the end of the writing the book called leading change, because that’s just, it’s seemed like a lot what I’d written could fit in that category. And that’s such a big issue these days, obviously, with the acceleration, of everything that’s going on. And actually, there’s something that really influenced me a book called, thank you for being late by Thomas Friedman. And he has he talks about the fact that between climate change and globalization and technology, technology is now actually accelerating and evolving faster than humans can adapt, and it’s causing a lot of stress. It’s causing a lot of confusion, ambiguity, and complexity. And so we talked about leading change. So I just started writing. And, you know, I wasn’t very organized. I’d never written a book. I’ve never really written anything. And so it’s just sort of stream of consciousness. So the editing process took a while because it was kind of a mess. But we hired an editor to help us out. And when I got a little burnt out on it, my wife took over. And she wrote about half the book. So when my daughter read it, she was Oh, I know which parts you wrote. I know which parts mom wrote.

Bryan Paul Buckley 9:11
And not just because she’s French, she wasn’t like she wrote in French. Is that obvious, right?

Dan Cockerell 9:15
No, no, no. But she, you know, she and she is a real creative writer. So we’re figuring how to be a really great team now. And so I’m super proud of it. Because you know, it took a couple of years to get done, and it’s just getting it done. It just seems like it’s never gonna end you get up every morning and the first year I wrote 10,000 words. And then this in the second year, in six weeks, I wrote the rest of the book 45,000 words. It was one of those moments where I just sort of had a panic attack and said, Dan, you’re failing you better get on this and I got up every morning for six weeks and finished it.

Bryan Paul Buckley 9:51
A get it done moment.

Dan Cockerell 9:53
Exactly. It was and so now it’s great. It’s a great way to introduce myself to people. It forced me to put my Thoughts down, it forced me to go back and remember lots of stories I had forgotten about. And the biggest thing about the book, from my perspective, well, first of all, the editor said, Dan, I don’t want to rain on your parade. But I just want to remind you, you’re not the first person to write a book on leadership and management. So you better be interesting, you better have some great stories. And that was important because people learn through storytelling. And the other piece of this book that I really, I like about it is at the end of every chapter, I share something called Fast Track results. Because I’m a big believer in a lot of these management, leadership books. They don’t give you anything at the end, like what should I go do tomorrow, you understand the concepts but you don’t know the behaviors. And so I really honed in on the behaviors if you want to become a better collaborator, a better communicator, better at giving feedback, better recognition. You know, here are 5678 things you can do, starting tomorrow to become that leader. And I’ve gotten a lot of really good feedback on that because people want tactics and I wanted to get in there with that.

Bryan Paul Buckley 11:00
great use of lingo calm the fast track there for those that know the Disney World on there. Well, it’s a great read, I just want to touch on one observation that I had on it, which is very unique. And we can unpack this at another time, because you actually talked about with Jeff Brown on the read elite podcast and we’re gonna want up, Jeff, good morning to both of ours. But nonetheless, you chose to lead with leading self at the beginning of the book, which probably cause a little bit of pushback. And I heard that in your interview, but actually loved it. Because if you can’t lead yourself, it’s hard to lead teams lead an organization and lead change any quick thoughts on that?

Dan Cockerell 11:36
Yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s the editor we talked and he said, You know, people are expecting a management leadership book and it feels like a self help book. And so are you sure you want to have that the beginning might turn people off? And I said, Well, look, it’s common sense. Everyone knows it, but there are so few people that do it right. Eat right, get enough sleep, do stress. I have the right price. be organized. And it’s That’s why every couple years that a new magical diet comes out because no one wants to… They want a magical solution. They don’t want to do the hard work. And it’s like, you know what, if you burn more calories than you put in, you’ll lose weight period. And whether that’s a protein or whatever you want to say, and there’s no magical way to do it. So I wanted to, and Valerie, my wife, and I talked about it. She said, Well, Dan, if you really do think that’s the most important thing, if you don’t put it into the book, you’re telling people it’s not important. And I said, Yeah, we gotta make a stand. So we left it up front. And a few people said, it’s tough to read because you have to look in the mirror and go, am I really taking care of myself the way I should be? And as I get older, I find I get more discipline, and I find that I don’t take my health for granted like young people do. Does, you know we all used to be indestructible. You get older, it’s not about you know, it’s I mean, in my mind, it’s not necessarily about just trying to live a really super long life, which would be nice, but to enjoy it. You know, there’s today science will keep you alive for a long time. But are you actually enjoying it? Can you physically go do what you want to do? Can you mentally do what you want to do? And I think it’s important to just make sure you incorporate that into your habits as a person.

Bryan Paul Buckley 13:12
Well, as your editor said, there are a lot of leadership books that are out there. But there’s also a lot of exhausted overweight leaders out there as well. And to your point, you know, leading with that, and really putting that as a priority is a huge wake up call. And the focus of the remainder of the questions will kind of be on that leader of a business travel team. And Dan, you know, I don’t want to pull any punches or rugby hits in your sports past, you know, being a former rugby guy here. But, man, you have four primary areas of leadership that I’d love for you to focus in on translating what you’ve learned from your experience at Disney and as your life on the road warrior that you had sprinkled throughout your four main headings of the book. So we’re gonna talk about training, talking about development, talk about relationships, and talk about recognition. So you had a quote, Dan that I loved. And it was this. And people kind of would push back on this, you said too often we see training as a cost and not as an investment. So would you unpack that book?

Dan Cockerell 14:13
Yeah, it’s, I’ve seen that happen in a lot of companies and Disney, we’ve done that before, where we spend all this money to hire people to get them in, put ads out, get them to the interview process, bring him in, give them orientation. And then we start, we go into training. And once we get them in the door, a lot of times we sort of just say, okay, you know, good luck, you’re here now, and we’re going to give you someone to show you the ropes. And we don’t think about it in a way like, this is a really, really great way to get started off on the right foot with people and really set the tone of what the company is about and what the job’s going to be about. And we kind of just say, Okay, well how long is the training going to be? We need this person to be online and contributing. And I think if you really do it right, and take the time up front, you may have missed a little bit of time and productivity. But if you can get that, right, you set people up then they’re going to deliver so much more afterward. And we actually tested that out of Disney, we had a program called emerging leaders. And it took a few years to get this, but what would happen was a leader would leave the company or get promoted or transferred to another area Then we would post the job, we would interview for the job, we’d hire for the job, would bring the person in and take you know, four to six weeks maybe to train them. And during that whole time, their team is running short. And so we finally said to finance, “hey look, why don’t we start training people before the positions open up and give ourselves the gift of time?” We know there’s going to be turnover This is not going to be money that’s wasted. And so we started doing that, we actually would take leaders, interview them for let’s say, a job in food/ beverage, and then we’d have them do a little six-week training program.

But they’d be trained in food and beverage, they spend time in a location they’d have a mentor. They take classes On Time management, how to deal with the union, food sanitation. And at the end of that six weeks, they’d be sent back to their location to go back to their regular job. So when a job came open, we had now a pool of people who are qualified. The person you thought was the right person, you’d plug him in, you’d give him the local training, which took a few days just for the nuances of that location, and they’d be up and running. And what we found was this Emerging Leaders Program, they actually had more skills and knowledge than the managers who had been in the roles for like 15 or 20 years, because they just you know, if you don’t learn something you never learn it.

And you just keep working the way you work and you don’t know there’s a better way. And we realized we had to put all these other managers who had all this experience, put them back through training. So they learned all the things that had changed since then. So it’s just something that to your point, we just look at as a cost. And it’s like what could we do, the minimum, so people can execute upon the job rather than how do we set people up to be wildly successful and training is a huge part of that. And I’ve been in moments before, why didn’t get trained well, and took a hit on my confidence, my performance. It’s really not fair to put people in jobs and not give them the full breadth of everything they need to know to be successful.

Bryan Paul Buckley 17:13
But I love your spin on on Zig Ziglar quote, where you said, why do we spend all this money and time on training them, and they leave? But the response was, but even worse, what if you don’t train them well, and they stay? Right? And I thought that was great, because that’s what happens.

Dan Cockerell 17:29
Absolutely, they stay and every guest comes in, has a, you know, maybe a bad experience, or, you know, 2 out of 10 have a bad experience. And now they tell others now our intent to return goes down or intend to recommend goes down. And it’s, it’s part of a big, you know, it’s part of the plan. You’ve got to get… make sure you’re delivering a great level of experience for your guests all the time. And that’s done through many things, including training, which is a big piece of that.

Bryan Paul Buckley 17:55
And it leads into the other question of under training that you had an (I was very intrigued by this) 30/60 and 90-day retention plan for your new hires. So tell us about that. And why is that so important?

Dan Cockerell 18:08
Yeah, well, you know, it’s funny, Disney’s a pretty sophisticated place. And we came up with these, these ideas based on problems we needed to solve. And so you know, someone had done some data analysis and said, you know, what, most of the people, the highest percentage of people that actually leave Disney, leave in the first 90 days, Once you get people past 90 days, their retention rate goes way up. Because they’ve gotten used to the commute. They’ve got they’ve made friends or maybe they realize they can do the job. There’s but at the first 90 days, it’s really easy to kind of say, maybe this isn’t the right job for me, you’re not emotionally attached or connected yet.

You’re still the new person. You’re learning every day. So it’s stressful. You’re still learning how to where’s the cafeteria? And you know, there’s just a lot going on. And so what we realized was okay, well if we’re going to spend all this money to hire People, let’s spend more money to retain them. So they don’t leave, get them over that 90-day mark. And so we set up a program and we just said, leaders after one week, after 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, we want you to sit down with every new hire. And here’s a list of 10 or 15 questions you can ask them. How are you feeling about the job? Is there anything you want to be retrained in? Are you feeling comfortable with it? How’s it going in your personal life? Is there anything we can do for you, and just have that moment because you know, this is a big place and it moves fast. And it’s easy to be a number and people don’t know who you are, forget you’re there.

And so we wanted to make sure we had a process in place. And we and there was an impact. When people had great check-ins the leader was able to find out well, know I don’t feel as comfortable on the register. Maybe I could do like another day of training, or the commute is not like what I thought it was going to be. Can I get it take a couple of weeks off and get moved? And then we work with them on that. So when you take a personal interest in people and you really try to solve problems for them, you get repaid with people hanging around, because they know that you’re you put your hand out, you’re there to help them, you care about them, and they’re more willing to stay with you. And once you get over that 90 days, then you have a much better chance people still leave, but you’re at least protecting your investment.

Bryan Paul Buckley 20:16
And to the world of business travel, the quote is, if you invest in me personally, I’ll invest into you more professionally. So when I was reading this, Dan, I was thinking through my goodness, how many missed opportunities of companies that I’ve worked for that if they would have done that, for me going from non-travel to all of a sudden travel, and especially in a more of an intense clip, what that could have been like for me 30/60 and 90 days. So as you’re talking right now to be a leader of a business traveler, how do we take the application, the fast track results to this, you know, hiring and what did they say if I don’t train them well into this 30/60/90 days of being personal more than just, you know, let’s go after your Q1 MBO’s and KPIs and what are your results in those First 30/60/90 days, how do we take that personal side of your experience for that business travel leader to implement that in their world?

Dan Cockerell 21:08
Sure. But I mean, if you’re leading someone who, most of their job is travel, you really should make an investment to make them really good at that. And so, you know, hiring if you don’t, you know, everyone, there’s people out there who are have become experts in everything. And there are people like yourself who have become experts in travel. And I don’t know if you remember the movie, I’m sure you’ve seen up in the air with George Clooney. Right? And he talks about, here’s how you handle this. Here’s what you do with this and it because everyone has their…

Bryan Paul Buckley 21:40
30 seconds here, wasting a minute here.

Dan Cockerell 21:42
Yeah, they have their hacks, they have their you know, how do you get the right seat? How do you make sure and everyone has so you know like we do it at businesses with best practices. Why wouldn’t you take a leader who’s going to start traveling more aside and say, Look, I’m either going to find someone internally in the company who’s you know, a master at this. Or we’ll hire someone, or I’m going to send you to a class or here, here’s some materials or a podcast and YouTube channel. And here’s a list of all the things you really should have when you’re traveling, go ahead and expense them and have them available to you. And, you know, people learn it over time, but why not accelerate that learning process and find out and then when people get back, you debrief them, you know, how did the trip go? Anything that we should be working on had the travel agency do with your planning? And so what you’re doing here is a few things a, it’s continuous improvement, right? So you’re… because you know how I mean when it… when travel doesn’t go well. It’s like taking care of yourself. Other things don’t go well, you’re not as focused in the meeting. You’re maybe a little short-tempered. I mean, there’s a lot of stuff that goes along with that. So one is how do you continually make it better. And secondly, when you’re as a leader when you’re asking people how they did and that’s showing empathy, you care, you’re putting yourself in their shoes, to empathize with them. And when you start to show people you care about them, that you’re treating them as individuals, that’s what retains people that’s what guests of Disney World want. They want us to treat, make them feel special, treat them as individuals and our employees want the same. And so, you know, treat it like you would anything else, you know, when we, when you hire someone, you train them on a new software program or you train them how to operate a piece of equipment, why wouldn’t you train them how to travel efficiently? And with the right, all the right tips and tricks to really enjoy themselves and be able to take advantage of all the learnings maybe you had over time? And same with 30/60/90. You check in with them? Make sure how’s your family doing? I mean, we all know what the pressures are right?

Bryan Paul Buckley 23:40
Wait, wait. You mean, you talk about family? We’re talking about results here on the road and a quarter what why would a business leader ask about how’s your family doing and how tired you are? Why… Why would, Why does that matter, Dan?

Dan Cockerell 23:53
Yeah, well it comes back once again leading self you have to know that people will perform If everything in their life is in balance, and we all know for a fact that travel creates a lot of really tough situations for families, you know, if I know that you have a new baby at home, or I know that you’re a coach, or I know that maybe your son or daughter plays a varsity sport, I know that there is an interest there to be involved, probably. And if I can start talking about that, it doesn’t mean I’m going to just take say, Well, you know what, for the next five years, you don’t have to travel anymore. Don’t worry about it. But at least we can start working together and we can start negotiating, we can start having a conversation about it. Because most people say, Well, why would I bring that up?

I agreed to travel when I took this job. How can I go back now and say that I want to come home a day early? So I want to see my kids, it’s a great question and they can play and that should be in play that that conversation should be had because there’s lots of creative ways to do that. And once again, the more you help people reach their personal goals, like you said, they will be more likely to want to do more for you and find ways to give you more discretionary effort. And it’s a and you can help them a lot with that. And, you know, you and I talked when we met a couple of weeks ago, and we talked about that book, soccer-nomics, which was a sort of a lot like Moneyball it talked about which football soccer clubs in the world were really successful or not successful based on their spend. And it turns out that the town my wife’s from Leo, in the south of France, that team when you look at how much they spend, versus their results are one of the most efficient soccer teams in the world. They get the most results with the least amount of investment. And when they dug into it, they realized that one of the things they do, they have a great onboarding program and a great concierge program for all their players. Because a lot of these players you know, they travel from Brazil, Spain, Italy, UK, these countries, so they’re bringing their families with them.

They don’t speak the language they have to afford schools and Leo realizes You know what if we can take care of these families and help the spouse out and make sure the kids are being taken care of and get them in the right house, the right apartment and make sure they have the right transportation set up, they’re learning the language. Now the player can focus on playing, when he goes home at night, there’s not this sort of, I don’t want to be here. And he’s not on the field worrying about his family he knows are being taken care of. So it’s, it’s the whole package. It’s, you know, you want to take care of people. And if you put them in that, that situation, they’ll perform at a much higher level. But we seem to put those in silos and say, Well, your family is not our that’s not our thing where we pay you, we don’t pay your family, and people just don’t take a broader look at people’s lives.

Bryan Paul Buckley 26:42
And I love the example Dan, in fact, when we were kind of unpacking that conversation, I mean, even my first 90 days when I really really really started traveling hard in North America, and I’m gone most weeks, I didn’t know at the time that it was gonna be as much stress on my wife nor did she as a school teacher. And at that point, having really young kids didn’t know the stress that was going to be But the ability of, if I’d had a manager that I could talk to about that a leader kind of process, that of what that looked like and whether that meant I traveled less or whether that meant there is some assistance, you know, heading home. Like for example, you know, what if at that fourth day that the company paid for my wife to go out to eat on her own and pay for a babysitter. I mean, what’s a minimal cost for a company that’s going to be… but what would that say to my wife or I did you know, overseas and I came back for three or four weeks in a row and gone for like six weeks straight, international and all over the country. Well, the house is a wreck. What if there’s a few dollars and somebody came in to clean the house, what a difference that would have made so I absolutely love this stance. I really appreciate your taking that punch in a good way of why this is should be important to a business leader for business travelers. We’ll be back for the remainder of this interview. after this short break.

Overseeing a business travel Team is a challenge, especially when you just want consistent results. Is that too much to ask? There is a grind of business travel that has two levels of costs, if you consider the first is obviously the business traveler, and secondly is the company. When your business travelers only a short flight away from burnout due to the stress of the road, they’re costing you money and results the entire way. According to the Kingston study, 45% of the 200 frequent business travelers surveyed reported higher stress levels than normal while on work trips, and 31% said they’ve experienced emotional exhaustion, which is one of the major risk factors of burnout and this is on a weekly basis. Another study showed 80% of those who have experienced mental health problems, aka stress on the road, have never told her employer and you need to know you may not even realize burnout could cost you up to 200% of their salary. And this doesn’t even factor in the loss of productivity of that person going from busy to beat down to burn out. These stats are staggering. Get most companies continue to do business as usual or in this case, business travel as usual. Why? Too many companies who have business travelers and especially those that lead the road where your teams are just simply unaware of any signs of burnout, and as a result, elite road group has done the heavy lifting for you. We’ve created a resource called seven early warning signs for companies to avoid business travel burnout. You can find this absolutely free PDF resource at elite Road Warrior calm. Get your copy of the seven early warning signs for companies to avoid business travel burnout at eliteroadwarrior.com.

So I’m going to segue to we talked about training sometimes people just end With training, whether they only train for the product and services, or the extension of training, how to do business travel, how do you master the business travel life, but then it could stop there as well. You did a great job on packing in the book. There’s training, but then there’s also development, right? What’s the difference between the two? And why should both matter?

Dan Cockerell 30:22
Yeah, this started out. Interestingly, this concept. I have a cousin who went into West Point, and he flew helicopters army in Afghanistan. And he shared with us one time we were talking to him and his time had come up and he was trying to decide whether he was going to reenlist or leave the army and go work in the private sector. And he said he wanted to stay. But at the time, he said, You know what, the Army’s training me but they’re not developing me. And I said, Well, tell me more about that. He goes, Well, I know how to fly the helicopters. And they’re always investing me getting better at what I do, but they’re not helpful. Think about my future, they’re not looking at focusing on how I can better, have better relationships with people. And so training is sort of, I want to give you the skills so you can get better at your jobs, the company will do better.

And development is I want to give you training and skills is going to make you get better as a person that’s going to help you from a career long term. And a lot of companies just say, look, let’s get them trained. So they can execute X, Y, and Z. But that’s not enough. Because people want development, they want to feel like they’re growing. And some people, you know, they either say, well, you’re not getting promoted, so you can’t grow anymore. And I don’t think that’s true. I think you should continue to grow no matter what you’re doing. And there’s people at Disney and people I knew that they were fantastic at their jobs. And the worst thing we could do would be promote them because that they were in a perfect job. But we had to make sure they felt like they had a future. It’s not like I think what we end up doing is someone stays the same level too long. We start devaluing, saying, Well, I guess you hit your maximum, you hit your your potential. That’s fine, make those people feel great about what they’re doing. And they can deliver a ton of value for you. And a big piece of that is development, you can pay them more, you can do a lot of stuff. But a lot is development. And I think sometimes we only send the people who are moving up the ladder, and we look at sending them to do things we kind of take are solid people who did a really good job for granted. And I think making those investments in them is pretty powerful.

Bryan Paul Buckley 32:26
Especially if you want to keep them long term. And as a person grows and develops, you realize maybe I would like to do something different. So I love the focus of that in the book. And so let’s kind of turn it into relationships, though. So we obviously we dealt with the training and development side on here. But you personally, obviously are big on relationships. So is Disney because of obviously the four major values of that. So why is relationships so important to you and with your team members?

Dan Cockerell 32:54
Yeah. Well, it’s a couple things. I think, first of all, that’s sort of how I’m wired. I’ve always gotten things done through relationships. I always connected with people, I’ve always been pretty open minded. We traveled a lot when I was growing up. So I saw a lot of parts of the world, my parents were very raised me in a way and you respect everybody and we’re open and, you know, then in my career to be able to move to France, it really tested me to Okay, now you got to make relationships with people who don’t speak English. And how do you do that? And how do you connect with them? And so I do it naturally. But I’ve also come to realize if you make if you invest some time in doing that, it’s a great business strategy. It’s not, it’s not just like, well be a good person and be nice to people because that’s how you should be. When you have a relationship with someone, it gets rid of all kinds of friction. It gets rid of these small moments where you don’t trust somebody when you have a relationship. You just assume it’s a misunderstanding. Or the person or when you make a mistake, and you have a great relationship with someone. You can apologize and move on.

Rather than that becoming a point of breaking with the relationship. When you have a good relationship with people, when you want to give them feedback on something on performance, you don’t have to worry about how you’re going to set it up. You just tell them because you have a great relationship with them. And they’re more likely to listen to you because they know that you’ve spent the time to get to know them. And once again, it’s like if I want to, if I want to get the most out of people from a performance perspective, I have to get down to know them individually. I’ve heard people before say, Well, you know, in my department, there’s favoritism, everyone’s treated differently. I say, Well, good. Now, you know, I don’t I do I favor people who perform better. That’s true. And, so I said, I will treat people differently when I had a one on one with people. Some people we talked for a long time about their kids, that that’s what their thing was, and other people we talked for a while about their dogs, and other people we get right to business and just talk about business because they really didn’t I want to talk to me about their personal life that wasn’t their personality. And so I didn’t try to treat everyone the same. I tried to figure out how they’re individually different and connect with them there. And I once again it was up to me to get them the most comfortable that it could be to perform the role. And if I could get that relationship it just like you said, it greases the wheels and it made everything easier.

Bryan Paul Buckley 35:19
And you gave a great example that in the book, which surprised me, it wasn’t that difficult Dan, where you would take a new individual a new hire, it was on your team out to lunch, but it wasn’t to talk about anything of their job unless it came up. It was specifically to get to know them the personal side And to your point right here, whether they wanted to talk only business there or was really shy about their family or to find out for the example like you gave earlier, “well I got a newborn back home,” or “I’ve got two kids about ready to go to college” or “I have a special needs child” or whatever is going on in their life, that you could leverage that in a good way to serve them. Well, back to the quote, if you invest in me personally, I’ll invest more in You professionally. Right? You also gave, like a questionnaire to them. So can you talk just for a moment of why you did that? And what were the benefits of just taking a little bit of time, and handing out a questionnaire?

Dan Cockerell 36:11
Yeah, I just give a questionnaire and just say, Look, I don’t have a photographic memory. And if you can fill out as much as you feel comfortable filling out, but who’s your spouse, your partner? What is their name? And what are your kids names and ages? And when’s your birthday? You know, HR is like “we can’t ask them what year” I’m like, I’m not, I just want to know on their birthday to say happy birthday. That’s my goal. I want to talk to them about what’s your favorite snack? What’s your favorite restaurant? What’s your favorite song? What’s your favorite alcoholic, non-alcoholic beverage, your favorite snack? So then when we had a Christmas party, or I was looking to send them a basket to thank them for something or we were having a team outing, my assistant not only me, but my assistant could look at that list and call them and say look, I know you’re vegetarian. In the restaurant we’re going to these are the options they have. And now I’m treating them as individuals just role modeling how I want them to treat their people. And it was it wasn’t sort of this subtle thing. I just asked them straight out and said, Look, I’m not gonna pretend I remember all this stuff. But sure enough on the way to a Christmas party or reception somewhere, my wife and I would be driving and I’d say, okay, tonight, we’re going to see all the general managers here are their names, this is their spouse’s names, and she remembered a lot of them. And it made a big deal when she walked up and introduced and knew their names. And once again, it wasn’t like, I know a lot of people seemed it seemed a little calculated, but um, you know, we all have these computers in our pockets now called iPhones or androids and you can put a lot of data in there, so why not? Why not have this stuff, remember it? And, and then you can find these little ways to treat people special during the really busy times. You know, put a pack of Snickers bars in your office, like maybe you can forgot you’re like, wow, Dan, What a lucky guy. He didn’t know that was my favorite. Well, yeah, I did. He told me two years ago.

Bryan Paul Buckley 37:59
Exactly. You made it easy. Yeah, I know that we still need a long pitch, man, just because you got the questionnaire doesn’t mean you’re going to use the questionnaire. Right? You know, and what I would add for a business travel leader is what is your anniversary? And that wouldn’t be for the business traveler. It’s how can I make sure the business traveler is not gone on his anniversary or his wife’s birthday? And I failed at both those too many years. And it is a constant reminder, that boy, if I have a chance that I’d have to take that trip on a Thursday to make my wife’s birthday or make my wife’s for our anniversary would have made a huge, huge difference.

Dan Cockerell 38:33
And anticipating it’s so powerful. It really is.

Bryan Paul Buckley 38:37
So how and Why did you implement consistent recognition with your team? You got to know them. But then you constantly did recognition and you did it in some really unique and creative ways. Why is it important? And can you give me some examples?

Dan Cockerell 38:53
Yeah, once again, I think a lot of people think Well, yeah, recognizing people it’s a nice thing to do, builds morale and makes people feel better. Once again, it is a great business strategy. Because recognition, the side benefits of it are making people feel better building morale. Yes. But the purpose of recognition is to reinforce behaviors. When you do something that

Bryan Paul Buckley 39:16
Why did you do it again, because this is important instead of just because it’s the employee of the month. Nobody cares about, or knows it’s fixed anyway, or you get picked because you weren’t the last 11.

Dan Cockerell 39:25
So why do you do it? You’re reinforcing specific behavior. Exactly. So if I read a guest letter, and I read that, you know, as a cast member, someone said, You know, I was at the Emporium shopping at Magic Kingdom, it was my little girl’s birthday. And they went in the back and they brought out this balloon for her and they all sang happy birthday, and I want to thank John for making that happen. Well, now I can take that letter. I can let everyone know write John a letter and I can put his you know, picture on board and say, John, thank you so much for creating this magical moment for this family. Thank you for getting that balloon, and you know free balloon-like free balloon at Disney. I mean, those things are like 15 bucks. So a free balloon is a big deal. And now not only does john know Wow, I didn’t know that was such a big deal, but I’m going to do that again. Because apparently that’s a big deal here. Then you have all the other cast members looking at John going well, shoot, I can do that, you know, let me do that too. And now you’re building more of these moments. So people you’re just communicating to people about the things they’re doing are valued. And that can be things big and small. But it has to be about something specific. You know, a lot of people have the boss. Hey, man, I just want to say we really glad having you here. Well, that makes me feel good. The second time we like you on the team. Third time you’re like, Okay, why? What is it I do that you like me being here? It has to be specific.

So I know how to continue to do whatever it is you like that I do. And for a lot of people, something for most people I’ve found it’s peace of mind. It’s just going home, be able to tell your wife, hey, my boss said I was doing a great job today. So this week, we’re good because I know there’s a lot of mistrust out there and people are just They never know what’s going on and into someone for someone to tell you for now, but you’re doing a great job. And it’s like, all right, I don’t care what level of an organization you are, they love hearing that. And some people, it’s they’ll tell you, it’s not a big deal, but it is writing them a little note sending them a text message. You know, after the Christmas season, we work really hard, send him a couple of meal coupons for them and their spouse and maybe a bottle of champagne and saying, thank you so much for you know, being here, 14 days straight, great season, I really appreciate your commitment, in fact, throughout the park every day with your people, and it just you just keep reinforcing that. And it just… people will, well, at a minimum say, well, you appreciated it and a maximum they’re going to do more of it, because you’ve been very clear about what you value.

Bryan Paul Buckley 41:45
And, Dan, you mean, you mentioned that in the book as well. I mean, it’s this attitude of being personal but being specific, it’s the nuance of, well, what’s expected but just because it’s expected doesn’t mean it’s appreciated. And I even like how you touched on it, making sure you know about person’s, well, do they want praise or recognition publicly? Or are they prefer privately? Do they want it written? Or would they rather have it oral? Or would they like it monetary? Or would they like it to be, you know, an object or something like that. So I just really don’t want to make sure we fly by that all pun intended here. We’re talking about business travel, because of business travelers who out there doing it and sacrificing so much. There are so many ways as a business leader that we could come back and really, really serve them by recognizing, so I’m gonna hit you with some lightning round right here. Okay, here, Dan.

Preferred airlines.

Dan Cockerell 42:44
Southwest.

Bryan Paul Buckley 42:45
All right.

Dan Cockerell 42:48
And Virgin,

Bryan Paul Buckley                                                                                                                                                                I was just gonna say who’s your secondary, especially with you flying International. Yeah. window or aisle.

Dan Cockerell                                                                                                                                                                              I go between both just depending on the length of the flight and

Bryan Paul Buckley 43:05
does that mean you’re a middle seat guy if you’d like to go between the two of them and just you in the row

Dan Cockerell 43:09
no one wants a middle seat.

Bryan Paul Buckley 43:11
Good point. Good point. One thing you always do on a flight?

Dan Cockerell                                                                                                                                                                            I sleep. I’d love to be productive but man I can just close my eyes and out and I’m asleep and I can sleep through anything and that’s what I do on the plane.

Bryan Paul Buckley                                                                                                                                                                    If we’re on the same flight and in the same row. I want you in the window, not the aisle, because I gotta go to the bathroom because I’m a chronic urinator on a plane. I drink too much water

Dan Cockerell 43:33
there you go those longer ones, then you don’t want me in a window seat.

Bryan Paul Buckley 43:36
Nice, nice, preferred hotel chain?

Dan Cockerell 43:40
Um, yeah, Marriott is we’ve had some great experience with Marriott. And you know obviously we don’t get to go there a lot but when you go to you know, four seasons is awesome. Although I’m always whenever I go there, I have a client for that one.

Bryan Paul Buckley 43:56
Well done. Well done and your dad was big Marriot guy for obvious reasons. rental car or rideshare

Dan Cockerell 44:05
rideshare I used to you know, get a car once a while but now I mean to me Lyft and Uber and all the scooters you can get and all that stuff I actually I was in San Antonio, I was at a hotel and I had a flight like four hours later and I got one of those little lime scooters with my suitcase and I scootered to a brewery about a mile or two away and then took a cab from there or an Uber from there so there’s all kinds of creative ways to travel But yeah, I love the rideshare very efficient

Bryan Paul Buckley 44:34
That’s awesome. Least favorite airports in the world.

Dan Cockerell 44:40
Gosh, um I don’t know if I have a least favorite although I do know that every time we buy off we’ll fly through Amsterdam and its gigantic airport I don’t know if it’s the way it’s designed, but it seems like we’re always about to have a heart attack by the time we get to the next gate. So, but generally, we’ve had some pretty good experiences the past couple of years since we’ve been traveling more with airports and stuff and we’re pretty organized but…

Bryan Paul Buckley 45:12
That helps. Yeah. favorite city to frequent?

Dan Cockerell 45:19
New Orleans. We used to do our tradition Actually, we I never had a T-shirt made but after December, in two weeks of December Christmas at Disney is two business weeks of the year. And I’d work every day many hours a day. And then the weekend after New Years, we would go to New Orleans and I called it the main street to Bourbon Street tour. You know, the kind of cleanest place in the world to the roughest places or exactly in a manner of speaking. Love going down there and having oysters and listen to music and *unintelligible*

Bryan Paul Buckley 45:52
last one biggest road trip pet peeve?

Dan Cockerell 45:56
yeah I don’t have a lot of pet peeves but there is something I always whenever I’m in a hotel I’ll write a note to the gym of I see this. You get up in the morning, and you get in the hallway and the plates from room service are still there from the night before. It’s just, it’s just not right. That’s an odd checklist. It’s just it just makes you feel like nothing is going good.

Bryan Paul Buckley 46:20
especially coming from your history with Disney and obviously how clean those rooms are and just how organized things I can only imagine what that is for you. So any closing thoughts for us as business travelers and especially business travel leaders?

Dan Cockerell 46:40
Yeah, I just want to re I want to come back to that idea that you know, when you’re under the when you’re under pressure to perform whether you’re traveling or not keeping yourself when I find I get under stress. I’m like, let me go take a run. I just feel better or go take a walk You know, and I know you drink a lot of water, there’s just a lot of these little habits that people just don’t realize are so important and are gonna make a big difference. They’re right in front of you. And you just got to take advantage of them. And I had just back in February, I won’t tell the whole story. But you know, my wife and I are pretty fit, we work out, we eat pretty healthy. And back in February, took a run, I had some chest pain, I ignored it.

Two weeks later, I swam, and it came back and we went to the clinic, then the cardiologists, and within 72 hours I had a heart catheterization, and my Widowmaker artery was 95% clogged. And so, you know, rushing around, we’re running our business, we’re busy doing everything. And I was literally, I don’t know, weeks away from dropping dead, and none of it would have mattered. And so I just think you just got to pay attention, pay attention to things. Go to the doctor. There’s great technology now. I mean, I did a heart catheterization, I was out running four miles, 48 hours. Later, I mean technology that is all there. There’s no reason you shouldn’t know if you’re not to your best health. And once you get that done, then go off and work do stuff with your family and figure out how to be a great business person and how to travel well and do all that other stuff but just don’t take the health part for granted because it’ll catch up with you.

Bryan Paul Buckley 48:19
I appreciate you saying that. And that’s the reason you started the book with leading self and to the title of your book. How’s the culture in your kingdom can obviously be you know, a double, double, or triple entendre you know with obviously Disney but it could also mean within our team, but also obviously means our self here. So if you are a business traveler or specifically a business travel leader, pick up the book how’s it culturing your kingdom? lessons from a Disney leadership journey. Dan, how can we find out more about you follow you hire you learn more about you and what you have to offer?

Dan Cockerell 48:51
Yeah, sure. You can go to Cockerellconsulting.com. My wife built the website and it’s fantastic. It’s got videos of us. It’s got links to everything we do. Do an article the week I started sending those out like 23 years ago when I first got email that would go outside of Disney. And every week I’d send an article to my managers and I’d send it to people and I built up a mailing list over the years and now that I left Disney I’m continuing to do it it’s I just collect articles I think are really good. It’s food for thought. And those come out every Friday morning. You can sign up on Cockerellconsulting.com, my podcast “Come rain or shine comes out every Thursday morning. We’re at like 105 episodes now with Jodi, and my cell phone number’s on there, my email’s on there and we do customized workshops. I do executive coaching, we do business consulting, we kind of we don’t say no to anything. If you’re looking to help with leadership or management things. We’ve Valerie and I’ve done it, so there you go.

Bryan Paul Buckley 49:49
That’s awesome. I’ll make sure all the links are in the show notes. Dan, what a pleasure, man. I mean, for the moment we had a conversation, to even actually even before that listening to the interview with our friends and ally Jeff Brown three delete podcast seems like a lot of shameless promotion for that guy recently, but earned, because of what he does brought us together, Jody, and I just love how things kind of come together. But most importantly, I want to thank you for being willing to take your experiences and put them into the world of the business traveler and the business travel leaders. So I greatly greatly appreciate that Dan.

Dan Cockerell 50:22
Thanks, Brian. I like I love your energy. I was excited to do this because you’re, you’re on all the time. It was good. I hope everyone enjoyed and thanks for doing what you’re doing.

Bryan Paul Buckley 50:31
I appreciate. Thanks, Dan. I’d like to thank Dan Cockerell for his time. Man, his challenges as a leader specifically going to us as business travel leaders of how we can maximize recognition, training, and development relationships so we can improve our business travel team and keep consistent talent and draw top talent. You can find the transcript and everything reference in this interview in the show notes at eliteroadwarrior.com/088 along with the free resource seven early warning signs for companies to avoid business travel burnout. I personally love to hear from you and you can connect with me on my primary social media pages. LinkedIn Bryan Paul Buckley. Also at the company page elite road warrior and on Instagram @eliteroadwarrior

but as I always say it is so critically important. Wherever you are on the road, do something anything, just not nothing to master the business travel life, leverage this interview with Dan cockerel to help you become and remain an elite roadwarrior today to eliminate burnout and exceed results. You got this! Man, I think that so much of Dan.

Written by Bryan Buckley · Categorized: PERFORM, Podcast, REST · Tagged: ERW Podcast, podcast

Five Downward Spiral Choices Into the Dark Side Of Business Travel

I’m going to go dark in this article so I’m warning you upfront – reader beware!

No harsh-rated language but going to hit on some very personal topics we’ve never really done a deep dive in especially for this topic so I wanted to be very clear where we’re headed.

The reason I want to cover this dark topic is that it’s so real and nobody really talks about it especially in the context of business travel. But we are right now.

I met Charles about a decade ago when my business travel days were really intensifying and I was going at an unsustainable pace.

Let me paint a picture of exactly where we were for this unexpected heart-to-heart conversation. Charles and I were sitting at a bar at a high-end restaurant attached to this incredible hotel. We were eating a steak dinner and watching the game.

Like most conversations, you jostle for conversational position until you find common ground and everything gets easier from that point on (and that’s exactly happened between the two of us).

The conversation moved from sports to work to where we lived and we hit it off. It wasn’t forced conversation and we had a lot in common which is rare for two guys especially on the road.

We also were drinking. A lot and for hours. You know, the kind of place where you open up more due to the secret sauce. And that’s exactly what it became for Charles.

Secret sauce meaning he shared secrets that were dark.

Now, when I say dark I don’t mean evil or criminal, at least in his case, I mean, nobody else knew and you can tell he was relieved to get these secrets out.

So, do you wanna know Charles’ secrets? We’ll get to that soon enough but I wanted to set the stage for where we’re headed.

I meet far more Charles’s through the decades of travel than you could possibly imagine.

I’ve learned the reason many open up to me is for the following reasons:

  1. I ask questions
  2. I listen to their answers
  3. I’m honest
  4. I try not to rush them
  5. I don’t judge
  6. I try to give hope

That’s it – simple but not easy communication and emotional intelligence skills.

As a result, I’ve found a common theme within these conversations through the years about the dark side of business travel.

Now, this is important: not a single road warrior I’ve met had any intention of ever going to the dark side of business travel. In fact, many will admit early on, they judged big time “the sins of the sinner” if you will when hearing of others bad road choices.

They told me they swore to themselves they would “never go there”…

But eventually, they became “that guy” or “that girl” which is the way it almost always works.

And I’m not here to judge because I’ve personally experienced the dark side of business travel.

The caution here is listening and learning not dismissing and judging.

Did you catch that last line?

The caution here is listening and learning not dismissing and judging.

Every person’s situation is different on the road. Some travel in teams, others travel to a location, and are with reps almost the entire trip. Then there are those who are solo artists, completely by themselves except during their meetings, presentations, etc.

As a result, the dark side can appear differently in different situations and choices.

These choices create the opportunity for a downward spiral, meaning that once you start, it’s easy to get sucked into the spiral and keep going down and down which can tend to get darker and darker.

My hope in discussing this is that by being willing to talk about some tough subjects, we can identify potential choices we’re making right now and can make some changes before it’s too late and there are serious consequences.

So, let’s discuss the five downward spiral choices into the dark side of business travel.

Let’s go back to Charles’ story. He was a sharp, good looking, athletic, and influential VP who had everything you could want: huge home, fancy cars, gorgeous wife, cute kids, and you can continue the ongoing list of wants…

Including secrets.

The more Charles talked and knew I was listening, understood, and actually cared, the more he shared.

And the reality is nobody would ever guess he would be dealing with these secrets.

It was like I become his priest that night at the hotel bar. So much pain, so much guilt and regret he was carrying inside of him on every single business trip like a half-ton carry-on suitcase.

What I learned from Charles now that I reflect years later and meeting so many other Charles’s and even Cheryls, is a common theme, thread if you will, from where they started to where they are right now.

Each of these downward spiral choices can stand alone but many are tied together in some way which you’ll see.

Five Downward Spiral Choices Into the Dark Side of Business Travel

ONE – The Choice to Become the Road Grinch

This is for the seasoned road warrior and time on the road just takes your heart three sizes down like the original grinch.

It starts for those of us who look up at the flight board or wake up in the morning in a hotel and forget what city you’re going to or in at the moment.

All the food begins to taste the same.

You just go through the motions and everything begins to annoy you.

You’ve met this guy. I seem to find him often at the airport when I’m ready to board or at the airport or hotel bar.

Everything is negative. Every aspect of the road:

  • Airport / Airline / Flight
  • Rental car or Rideshare
  • Hotel
  • The food
  • Customers

There are two specific characteristics of the Road Grinch:

  • You Become Callous

You’ve lost all capacity to care. You have little to no understanding or compassion for anything or anyone.

People are no longer human to you, only annoyances.

And research shows, dehumanizing people is a sign of business travel burnout. You’ll know this is you when you start to become numb and your feelings are a thing of the past.

  • You Become Cynical

You’re cynical of other people and seemingly all people who don’t share your view of business travel.

You’re cynical of the world. Nothing is good. Nothing is right.

Warning! It’s easy to get sucked into Cynical Sam or Cynical Samantha. This is true for me especially when I’m frustrated, tired, or hungry. And I’m easy prey for Cynical Sam or Cynical Samantha if I’m all three!

Here’s the Caution: you become poison for all those around you and you don’t even know it and/or don’t even care. All the more proof you’re now the callous and cynical Road Grinch! You’re also more likely to continue the downward spiral because you just don’t care anymore.

TWO – The Choice to Experiment

This choice can be a hazard, especially for a new business traveler.

It’s amazing the opportunities to try about anything on the road depending on what city you’re in, who you’re with, and if you’re looking for a stress release.

It’s like we’re back in high school easily giving in to peer pressure or we’re invincible once again. Remember those days of old?

But now, after all, we are Road WARRIORS, right?!

This one is a challenge because the company card can definitely become an encourager or an enabler. After all, it’s not YOUR money! Or someone offers to treat you. Can’t offend them now.

  • You’re with co-workers or a client who smokes and you try it or pick smoking back up when you gave it up years ago
  • You’re in Vegas for work and you try gambling
  • You try this beer, then this type of wine, then this liquor

Warning! This is where you easily become “that guy” or “that girl” who got drunk at the corporate event or customer dinner. Or pushed it too far and now you become the story you regret and can never seem to live down. I’ve seen too many a rookie road warrior learn the hard way when choosing to experiment.

Here’s the Caution: Experimenting in and of itself isn’t wrong. It’s good to try new things depending on what the new things are of course and the potential consequences. Just realize where this could lead.

THREE – The Choice to Develop Bad Habits

Now we’re taking the opportunity to experiment and making it darker.

What used to be a simple experiment has now become part of your road routine:

  • The occasional DRINK becomes I gotta have my drink
  • The occasional SMOKE becomes I’m now taking regular smoke breaks every day, multiple times a day
  • The occasional GAMBLE just because it was in front of me now becomes gambling on anything and everything
  • The occasional curiosity with PORN becomes your new road thing every night before bed

I’ve found that many a road warrior who is a closet drinker, smoker, gambler, and porn viewer has a much bigger problem on their hands and they’re officially deep into the dark side of business travel.

The challenge is we don’t personally see when our experiment becomes our vice. Others do but we don’t. And if they have the courage to bring it up, what’s the proof that it’s an issue and habit? We get defensive and downplay our bad habits.

Warning! Bad habits are enabled on the road due to the availability, temptation, and seclusion.

Caution: Learning to ask if our habits are bringing us energy or simply a stress release. This is a hard question and requires honesty on our motives but separates existing road warriors from elite road warriors.

FOUR – The Choice to Feed Addictions

The downward spiral continues from the experiment (or just picking up again what you tried or did years ago) to a road habit to a full-blown addiction.

You’ve fed this tiny little experimental puppy and now it’s a trained killer dog who will defend himself to the death and do anything to get what he wants.

  • I HAVE to find cigarettes.
  • I GOTTA have a drink and now.
  • I’m VIEWING porn all the time.

And the road is a perfect place for two things:

  • Developing and feeding that addiction
  • Hiding that addiction

I’m not an addiction specialist by any means, but I notice others are walking a fine line between a bad habit that is close to or full-on addiction.

It alters their entire business trip. They “have to have it” and need to “stop now to get it” no matter how it affects you or your business results.

I have literally witnessed guys viewing porn on their phones at the airport gate.

I’ve cleaned up messes from others whose addiction reared its ugly head on business trips.

Of course, they have absolutely no clue how much control this “said addiction” has on them and their full-time job has become the role of a defense attorney.

Not a fan of newly-developed Denny Defense.

Warning! This is a scary place to be and often, a road warrior never wants or can leave the road because the road enables their addiction although they rarely admit it.

Here’s the Caution: Steer clear of the addict on the road unless it’s you and then get help before it has serious consequences for you.

FIVE – The Choice to Make Bad Moral Decisions

This one can be subjective depending upon your values. I hear often how road warriors will justify their moral decisions. Basically put, their convincing themselves what they want and are planning to do is okay so they can move forward with their actions.

I hear all too often from many a road warrior, “I only do this (insert dark side behavior) on the road.” And that somehow makes it right?!

Again, I’m not the judge but you can often and quickly tell when someone is telling this story if they’re trying to convince you while they’re still trying to convince themselves.

The biggest dark side of business travel moral decision I hear is:

  • Cheating on a spouse or significant other

This could be with a co-worker, road mistress, one-night stand.

This may be a one-time action or the start of a relationship.

  • This could be strip clubs when it’s against your morals or would dishonor a spouse or significant other
  • This could be massage parlors (full body if you know what I mean)
  • This could be prostitutes
  • Risky behavior that can have serious relational and even criminal consequences

But it doesn’t stop just there. Another choice could be driving under the influence. We would seemingly never do it at home but on the road, we seem to justify this decision.

And I get it, in the past, I’ve put myself in that same foolish decision before assuming I could do a risk analysis after two double vodka tonics and a bottle of wine.

The point here is not the debate of what is a moral decision or not, although I personally believe if you’re a Christian and follower of Christ, those answers are crystal clear. The point is we all have a moral compass that can get tested and we know if we should cross it or if we’re coming close to crossing it.

Again, they’re easy to justify at the moment:

  • I was okay to drive and nothing happened.
  • I didn’t touch.
  • It was only a kiss.
  • Clothes were still on.
  • We didn’t go ALL the way.
  • It was a one-night stand and it will never happen again.
  • My wife would be fine with it (although she doesn’t exactly know)

Let’s circle back to Charles’ story… he became so successful, so empowered, and so isolated, nobody dared question him or his expense reports. He knew how to play the game and justify anything. “It was for the customer, the client really wanted to try this or do this…” (of course it was almost always Charles’ idea).

Charles started his downward spiral with experimenting, which led to habits, which led to addiction, which led to bad moral decisions. He became callous, cynical, and eventually reckless yet you would never know it on the outside.

Charles had all five downward spiral choices into the dark side of business travel.

But here’s the irony: what you saw on the outside was only half of the story. Charles was also on his 2nd marriage, unhappy, and addicted to porn. He was estranged from his kids and had so many regrets.

He claimed he was up working late but couldn’t stop scrolling porn sites which led to other risky behavior such as massages and prostitutes.

But all we saw on the outside if Charles was the essence of success. Or so we thought…

Warning! The power of freedom and the power of choice on the road is a fast track to the five downward spiral choices into the dark side of business travel and Charles is living proof.

We all want to become like him in his success but no clue of the cost of his success and his hidden dark side of failures.

Here’s the Caution: Bad moral decisions are absolutely devastating to the road warrior. There is increased opportunity for regret due to isolation as a road warrior and we must understand the environment of the road.

Let me leave you with one question and one word:

One Word: Integrity

Our integrity matters no matter where we are but especially on the road.

The road has so many great opportunities and gifts but with the good lies the opportunity for bad and we need to be aware of the downward spirals that can lead us into the dark side of business travel and this is when your integrity matters the most.

One Question: Someone may never know of your choices but what does a secret do to our heart/soul?

It absolutely haunted Charles and I will never forget that night as he poured out his heart and soul with the secrets of his lack of integrity.

It is possible to live a life of integrity on the road and I challenge you to do it.

  • Know when you’re becoming a Road Grinch who is callous and cynical.
  • Know when an experiment should end.
  • Know when you’re developing bad habits.
  • Know when your bad habit owns you and you’re addicted.
  • Know when you’re facing a bad moral decision.

And choose integrity on the road. Protect your heart and soul to become an elite road warrior.

This was challenging due to the darkness the road can create in the life of a road warrior. My hope is the content was both enlightening and challenging. This just may be one of those articles you remember when you’re in the midst of one of the five downward spiral choices into the dark side of business travel and you respond in a positive way in that moment.

The three focus areas of Elite Road Warrior Group come into play once again:

  • Work – we leverage business travel for these downward spiral choices
  • Health – we could compromise our own health for these downward spiral choices
  • Home Life – we could damage and devastate those we love back home with these downward spiral choices whether they ever find out or not

Action Items:

  1. Be honest with yourself and own up to your dark side
  2. Find someone to tell (close friend/counselor)
  3. Know Thyself – put boundaries in place on the road and have someone hold you accountable.

I don’t want to leave you hanging, so tune into my next podcast, where I will be interviewing with psychologist Dr. Nick Howard. Make sure you catch that episode to hear from a professional and subject matter expert on what to do if you’re heading into or already in the dark side of business travel.

You Got This!

Written by Bryan Buckley · Categorized: DEVELOP, Embrace Better, ERW Podcast, PERFORM, Podcast · Tagged: ERW Podcast, podcast

How One Creative Idea Connected Me With My Kids Back Home

You may have heard a little bit about my story and my family. The Buckley Kiddos (there are 5 of them) never chose to have their father as a business traveler, but it’s the hand they’ve been dealt with at least right now.

Early on, I didn’t put much thought into my contact with my family when I was on the road. Compared to everyone else, some business trips I did better than other trips and justified my contact because it was more than the average business traveler.

But when did I ever care about comparing myself to THAT GUY?! I came to a point where I felt the lack of engagement with my family especially with my kids because I was traveling so much.

I was uncovering my “WHY” I wanted to connect more back home.

The WHY gets me to do things when I don’t always feel like it, especially when I’ve had a busy and long day on the road.

I created the Flat Kiddos Concept. It’s a way for me to connect with my kids when I’m not at home. Take a look at them at the Elite Road Warrior website here.

 

One of my biggest challenges as a father on the road is staying connected with my kids in very intentional, thoughtful, and creative ways in general let alone on a consistent basis. I would take pictures of my locations, but it was more about “Dad’s cool hotel or rental car” and how they weren’t a part of my trip.

But then I asked myself, “what if I could theoretically take my kids with me in a creative way? You can now with Flat Kiddos. These are 9×6 inch characters that are on thick poster board for durability.
I had my kids color their own Flat Kiddo and now they can’t wait to see their picture on my next trip. This gives the opportunity for the Flat Kiddos to be seen in Dad’s World and how the kids are now involved.

Why I Use the Flat Kiddos Concept

The “why” is critically important and far more important than the “how”.

For far too long on the road, I was what I called a Check-In Guy. This guy “checked in” when it was convenient for me only.

I had a gift of calling at all the wrong times:

  • Dinner time
  • Bedtime
  • Kids at practice

I sent the occasional check-in update text.

I did FaceTime but was usually distracted. Sadly, one of my kids would call me out and say “Dad, you’re not paying attention.” Pathetic. I have just a few minutes to really connect with my family and I’m on email?

After a “come to Jesus” moment with my wife on how disconnected I was at home while on the road, I started looking for ways to leverage the road and what it can do for me instead of making excuses of the limits of the road and what I can’t do.

Remember, if you want to do something, you’ll find a way. If you don’t, you’ll find an excuse.

When I first started out I took pictures of the locations in my trip thinking my kids would want to see where Dad literally was in the world or my awesome meal or upgraded rental car.

At best I would get a COOL or LUCKY YOU response.

Often it was silence. Painful non-response.

Deserved.

I had that coming.

It came across in two ways:

  1. Dad’s bragging
  2. We’re not with him

But that wasn’t my motive and definitely not my heart.

I had an industry connection I had interviewed on another podcast called “The Energy Edge” Podcast, and listening to David Vasquez, had this little character called Peg Daddy that he traveled with and it hit me.

I revisited this concept with David Vasquez on episode 046 of the Elite Road Warrior.

But after that initial interview and the Flat Stanley story, I thought, what if I created Flat Stanley of my age-appropriate kids that traveled with me on the road?

For those of you who’ve not heard of the Flat Stanley story or concept, let me give you the 411:

Back Story – Stanley gets squashed flat by a falling bulletin board. Stanley’s parents rolled him up, put him in an envelope, and mailed him to his friend in California. We did the Flat Stanley project for my cousin’s kids from SoCal having Flat Stanley visit Chicago. Our kids loved it.

I had to figure this thing out.

Now, I had my WHY of wanting to connect and not just check in with my kids and I had this idea of doing something with Flat Stanley. Now what?

How I Use the Flat Kiddos Concept

I needed to begin to look through the eyes of my kids and what would be relatable to them in my road world.

I have five kids but not all are age-appropriate for Flat Kiddos.

For example, my high school sons prefer postcards from every location and it allows me to speak an encouraging word that I know they’ll read in this form.

Currently, I have two elementary-age kids and one four-year-old.

My 3rd and 5th graders are perfect for this age and my little guy is now ready for his Flat Kiddo too.

How Do You Make Your Flat Kiddos?

I’m often asked, how did you actually make the Flat Kiddos?

My two were basically an art project:

  • I went online and printed out a boy and girl Flat Stanley character
  • I cut out the characters
  • My wife glued them to strong poster-board
  • I had my kids color their own Flat Kiddos

It was simple but took some time and energy.

The favorite part was having my kids color their own Flat Kiddo and therein was the Buy-In.

Now, there are many road warriors who either aren’t creative or resourceful or just simply don’t have the time or won’t do it. Just recently I had a business traveler tell me: “Love the idea but this will never happen if it relies on me but I would buy them immediately. I can definitely tell my kids to color these for me.” You can buy them here.

So, you make or purchase your flat kiddo, you have your kids color them. Now what?

Here are Six Ideas for my Flat Kiddos

Airport

  • At the Gate or in the Terminal (up on the window with the plane in sight / checking the departure board/massage chairs)
  • On the Plane (in the seat / looking out the window)
  • With the Pilot or Flight Attendant

Hotel

  • Working at the desk
  • Watching TV
  • In the bathtub
  • On the toilet
  • On the bed
  • In the kitchen (since I stay at a lot of hotels with kitchens so I can prepare as many meals as possible)
  • Fitness Center – working out with the dumbbells/on the treadmill/bike
  • Pool catching some sun

Rental Car or RideShare

I’m in a rental car often because I fly into one city (for example, SD then drive to OC then to LA and fly out there or Tampa to Orlando to Fort Lauderdale) – I get some great upgrades and my kids love to see their Flat Kiddos in the driver seat

  • The driver seat of a cool rental car
  • Back seat watching an iPad
  • In the trunk!
  • Sitting next to me in an Uber or Lyft

Restaurant

I have my Flat Kiddos in my work bag so it’s easy to pull them out in a restaurant setting

  • Ordering food
  • A plate in front of them

Sight Seeing

  • The Alamo
  • Space Needle
  • Sunsets on the coast
  • In the mountains

The possibilities are endless – the key is just leveraging the city you’re in AND taking a few minutes for downtime – remember the definition? Time to Be, NOT to Be On and this is a great cause to take a little downtime.

People You Meet

People are often more than willing to join in a picture for such a cause – you just have to be willing and courageous to simply ask.

  • I mentioned Pilots earlier
  • Hotel front desk
  • Co-workers
  • When I speak, sometimes I’ll ask some people in the group to take a picture with my Flat Kiddos. I did that a few weeks ago speaking to 16 CEOs and these guys loved it!
  • One of my mentors from afar who I met, Michael

Get creative and ask for your kids

This is Possible Road Warriors…

Let me tell you about a quick story.

I met Barry in an airport before a flight when I was taking pictures of my Flat Kiddos in a couple of places near the gate. He asked what I was going but in a curious tone. So, I let him know WHY I do this and my desire to be a Connect-In Guy, not a Check-in Guy anymore on the road.

Barry paused then said, “If I were honest, I’m a Check-in Guy and this is a great idea that I can do to become a Connect-In Guy. Thanks for being an example and for giving me this inspiration.”

The key to being an elite road warrior is leveraging the road and what it CAN give to you if you let it.

I wouldn’t do Flat Kiddos at home obviously because I’m with my kids. But I can take a few minutes here and there to have them enter my Road Life through their Flat Kiddos.

You Got This!

Written by Bryan Buckley · Categorized: CONNECT, Creatively, Embrace Better, ERW Podcast, Intentionally, Podcast, Thoughtfully · Tagged: ERW Podcast, podcast

Are You Implementing This One Road Superpower On Every Business Trip?

When I started out on the road many many years ago, I had seemingly unlimited energy and in fact, was nicknamed the Energizer Bunny because I just kept going and going and going.

Energy was my superpower and I found people around me on the road were attracted to it, motivated by it, and depended on it. Energy was the most common word used to describe me. And between us girls, I loved it and thrived on it.

What I didn’t realize is energy is a limited resource and will eventually run out. I knew it was a limited resource in the world at large, but not with me personally. I didn’t believe this universal truth until it finally caught up with yours truly.

If you’ve not heard my full story, you can find it way back in episode #2 of the Elite Road Warrior podcast, read it on the About Page on the website, or the chapter in the Elite Road Warrior book called, My Story.

But the highlights or more aptly put, the lowlights were the sad reality I treated my high-performance car (aka my body) as a 1980 beat-up work Toyota Camry putting in cheap fuel, giving little to no maintenance, quick and inexpensive repairs just to get me back on the road.  My RPMs were in red and my gas tank was on fumes, always. I claimed it was only a season, but it was turning out to be my only season.

Now, the irony is the outside of my car looked immaculate. Always spotless and waxed with the engine revving to impress others. The inside even looked pristine.

Just don’t open that hood and see that neglected Energy Engine.

I would steal night hours to extend my day hours and no one would argue with me due to one inarguable word: RESULTS. I would brag about what little sleep I “supposedly needed” and just pointed to my results. I ate whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted and as much as I wanted.

Again, who would argue due to my unlimited energy and my impressive results? But then it happened. I went around the proverbial curve marked 30 and I was doing my usual 70 and hit the wall and didn’t recover this time. I didn’t bounce off the wall like I normally did. I went through the wall then just sputtered out with a ton of damage.

The engine shut down and eventually, every part of me did as well. The Energizer Bunny was officially off the road.

I had burned out so hard it affected every part of my life and bad. I needed months and months to recover and it was brutal and hard on everyone, especially my family. I was forced to shut down due to business travel burnout in the worst way.

And here’s the Lesson Learned: The Energizer Bunny uses rechargeable batteries which is my new M.O. (means of operation) and has made all the difference on the road.

Let me ask you a question I ask road warriors all of the time. What is more important on the road: Time or Energy?

Many answer time but it’s actually not accurate. Why? If you had time but no energy, how much do you actually get done? Slim to none. Think about the evening time on the road when you’re with your Laptop Lover over dinner, then you take her up for a nightcap. You have the time but how’s your energy? And how much do you actually get done or should I ask what is the quality and the results from your energy-less time? When you finally make it home from a business trip absolutely exhausted and you have the entire weekend to do whatever with your time, how much do you get done with little to no energy? Exactly.

But what if you have energy and limited time, how much can you get done? A surprising amount. Why? You had the energy. Energy is everything on the road. Energy allows you to perform at an elite level on the road every single time. To do your best work and feel proud of what you’ve accomplished.

But where you draw your energy from is all the difference in long-term success on the road or burning out like I did.

Elite Road Warrior Group runs on the premise of Three Focus Areas:

  1.  Work
  2. Health
  3. Home Life

Most business travelers too often sacrifice their health and/or their home life for the sake of work. They burn through all their energy on the road with the grind of business travel then cheat their health and their home life. I see it ALL the time.
An occasional weekend becomes every weekend, every month, and every quarter then year.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

We also live our life on the road with our habits or what I call our Road Routine. This is “our unique way of traveling” that becomes hard-wired in us. Want some proof?

Think back to the last time you traveled with someone else for work. From what they bring with them to how they eat and drink, what they listen to, how and when they work, and on and on and on.

Traveling with someone else for work often exhausts me because I realize just how different my Road Routine is than other people’s and often I find myself dumbing down my Road Routine to accommodate the other person.

The two critical factors combined are what create the potential for your road superpower: your energy and your habits.

Did you catch the word “potential?” I want to help you combine both your energy and your habits.

A habit is:  a behavior that is repeated enough times to become automatic, and wow do we have those on the road where we’re just on autopilot. (All pun-intended with the autopilot reference)

But have you ever thought if your habits are bringing you the results you ultimately want on the road? I’ve learned from decades of traveling the one game-changer that affects absolutely everything I do on the road is my energy.

It’s so important to me that I was willingly and unknowingly stealing energy from my own body to fabricate it so I could succeed on the road.

Once I crashed and re-evaluated everything about my life, I had to learn the routines that would not only bring back my energy but would be sustainable energy for the long haul. Did you catch that? Sustainable energy and from the right sources.
They became a framework that I literally needed to learn how to take them on the road and have now become known as Energy Habits.

Why? Because if my energy level is the most important resource for me on the road, I need to find a way to engrain energy so deeply into my Road Routine, they’re done automatically with the sole purpose of providing me sustainable energy to allow me to get the results on what I want and need on a consistent basis.

There was a lot there on that last sentence so if you zoned out, here me out on this key concept:

If my energy level is the most important resource for me on the road, I need to find a way to engrain my energy so deeply into my Road Routine, they’re done automatically with the sole purpose of providing me sustainable energy to allow me to get the results I want and need on a consistent basis.

Consistent results are what both you and your company want from you as a road warrior.

This leads us into the official Elite Road Warrior definition of an Energy Habit:

Energy Habit – a sustainable, repeated behavior that brings energy designed to produce desired results

That’s what I want on every single business trip – a sustainable, repeated behavior that brings energy designed to produce desired results.

Next, I needed to figure out what the energy habits were that I want and need to repeat within the three focus areas of Elite Road Warrior: work/health/home life that I will bring with me on the road and I want to produce results.

This led to the six energy habits framework.

Three energy habits are physical and three energy habits are mental. Let me touch on them briefly:

Three Physical Energy Habits:

  1. Move
  2. Fuel
  3. Rest

Three Mental Energy Habits:

  1. Perform
  2. Develop
  3. Connect

If you follow Elite Road Warrior, you’ve heard this framework. But did you understand the psychology behind habits that produce energy?

This is your superpower on the road.

All six energy habits allow me to produce in the three areas that matter to me: my work, but also my health and my home life. Notice, it’s intentional to have these three focus areas weaved into my Road Routine.

Why You Must Implement Energy Habits on the Road

1. Your energy is not a guaranteed resource and must be recharged – I learned this the hard way so learn from me and recharge your energy on the road.

2. Your energy must be channeled into more than just your work – don’t be “that guy” or “that girl” that loses their health and home life for their career.

3. Your best way to create long-term results is leveraging the Six Energy Habits Framework – Elite Road Warrior has done the work for you so all you need to do is work the system.

To this point we’ve learned the following:

  • Energy is more important than time
  • The definition of an energy habit
  • Why you must implement energy habits on the road

Let’s revisit our definition of an Energy Habit – a sustainable, repeated behavior that brings energy designed to produce desired results.

So let’s lean on an expert to help us develop our road habits. James Clear wrote one of my favorite books of all of last year called Atomic Habits. The 2nd half of this article is credited to his work with my job of translating it to the road. If you’ve not read or listened to his book, your first action item is getting it immediately. A game-changer book for any road warrior.

I love how James Clear frames a habit.

“Each habit is like a suggestion: ‘this is who I am.’ Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs but as the notes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity.”

The most practical way to change who you are is to change what you do.

Two-Step Process:

1. Decide the type of person you want to be
2. Prove it to yourself with small wins

For example, I want to be an elite road warrior, therefore I need to do behaviors of an elite road warrior.

And this is where the Six Energy Habits Framework comes into the picture. I want sustainable, repeated behaviors that bring energy designed to produce desired results in each of the six energy habits.

I want to be a road warrior who:

  • Moves consistently
  • Fuels properly
  • Rests strategically
  • Performs optimally
  • Develops personally and professionally
  • Connects thoughtfully and creatively

So, according to Atomic Habits, each small decision, or habit, is a vote towards being an elite road warrior or a vote towards being an existing road warrior. If you’re having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn’t you. The problem is your system and this is why we have Energy Habits and the Six Energy Habits Framework to leverage this system to become the best version of you.

James Clear says this:

“All BIG things come from small beginnings. The seed of every habit is a single, tiny decision. But as that decision is repeated a habit sprouts and grows stronger. Roots entrench themselves and branches grow. The task of breaking a bad habit is like uprooting a powerful oak within us. And the task of building a good habit is like cultivating a delicate flower one day at a time.”

Time magnifies the margin between success and failure. It will multiply whatever you feed it. Good habits make time your ally. Bad habits make time your enemy. And too many a road warrior has some powerful oak size bad habits that don’t serve us or who we are and ultimately who we want to be.

For the seasoned road warrior, they can feel the Travel 20 or in my case the Entitled 40 (aka the weight we’ve gained from the road). We feel the exhaustion of the road or the slow decay of our relationships with those back home we love.

So, this is a perfect time to re-evaluate if our habits are serving us.

Let’s take a moment to get basic and granular in how a habit is even developed.

The process of building a habit can be divided into four simple steps:

  1. Cue. A piece of information that suggests there’s a reward to be found, like the smell of a cookie or a dark room waiting to light up.
  2. Craving. The motivation to change something to get the reward, like tasting the delicious cookie or being able to see.
  3. Response. Whatever thought or action you need to take to get to the reward.
  4. Reward. The satisfying feeling you get from the change, along with the lesson whether to do it again or not

The cue is about noticing the reward.
The craving is about wanting the reward.
The response is about obtaining the reward.

So the money question is how do you make an Energy Habit sustainable? James Clear gives Four Laws of Behavior Change to help us implement Energy Habits on the road:

I made it into an acronym: OAES

1. Make it Obvious

“What gets our attention gets attention” (my own quote)
On the road, we need these cues or triggers that catch our attention and remind us to do the desired behavior that brings us energy.

For example, I carry with me absolutely everywhere on the road the Elite Road Warrior water bottle. Why? It’s always out in front of me and an obvious cue to continually hydrate.

My room key cues me to do a routine I called H.OM.E. away from Home. You can learn this cue and routine in episode 015. What can you make obvious on the road that enforces the energy habits?

2. Make it Attractive

The more attractive an opportunity is, the more likely it is to become habit-forming.
I rarely do the things I hate but if I can somehow make it attractive to me, the likelihood of doing it dramatically increases for me.

For example, I love writing in the Elite Road Warrior branded journal. The rich soft, artisan leather calls my name. The Not Forgotten Journal is the same way. And both products are available in the Elite Road Warrior Store.

I love listening to a podcast or audiobook when I workout or go for a walk and have episodes already in the cue. This makes the workout or walk more attractive to me.

What can you make attractive on the road that enforces the energy habits?

3. Make it Easy

Out of the four, this to me was the most important – I needed the habit to be easy to do especially on the road.

James Clear talks a lot about Environment Design. He’s a big advocate that “You don’t have to be the victim of your environment. You can be the architect of it.”

When deciding to practice a new habit, it is best to choose a place that is already in the path of your daily routine. Habits are easy to build when they fit into the flow of your life. It’s the concept of “If This, Then That” in my current environment.

Too often, we try to start habits in high-friction environments. The greater the friction, the less likely the habit. Reduce the friction associated with bad behaviors. When friction is high, habits are difficult.

Sometimes success is less about making good habits easy and more about making bad habits hard. For example, it’s starting very small when integrating an energy habit. Workout for just five minutes each day or read for just five minutes each day on the road.

What can you make easy on the road that enforces the energy habits?

4. Make it Satisfying

With our bad habits, the immediate outcome usually feels good, but the ultimate outcome feels bad. With good habits, it is the reverse: the immediate outcome is unenjoyable but the ultimate outcome feels good.

The cost of your good habits are in the present. The cost of your bad habits are in the future. When the moment of decision arrives, instant gratification usually wins.

As a general rule, the more immediate pleasure you get from an action, the more strongly you should question whether it aligns with your long-term goals.

Just as we are more likely to repeat an experience when the ending is satisfying, we are also more likely to avoid an experience when the ending is painful. Pain is an effective teacher.

Cardinal Rule of Behavior Change – What is immediately rewarded is repeated. What is immediately punished is avoided. For example, when I do the Flat Kiddos in my environment and send those creative pictures to my kids, they’re thrilled knowing dad was thinking of them and that is very satisfying to me.

What can you make satisfying on the road that enforces the energy habits?

Here’s a quick summary of Atomic Habits and how to create a lasting habit:

Sometimes a habit will be hard to remember and you’ll need to make it obvious. Other times you won’t feel like starting and you’ll need to make it attractive. In many cases, you may find that a habit will be too difficult and you’ll need to make it easy.
And sometimes, you won’t feel like sticking with it and you’ll need to make it satisfying.

Obvious…………………. Invisible
Attractive……………….. Unattractive
Easy…………………….. Hard
Satisfying………………. Unsatisfying

An energy habit is the one road superpower you need on every single business trip.

Your Action Items…

1. Pick up the Atomic Habits book or audiobook by James Clear

2. Go to the Elite Road Warrior Store and pick up some items that will make your Energy Habits more obvious/attractive/easy/satisfying

3. Maybe it’s revisiting the Elite Road Warrior book or audiobook as well

4. Or reading the weekly article from Elite Road Warrior on LinkedIn or the Elite Road Warrior site

Take action on this road superpower today.

You Got This!

 

Written by Bryan Buckley · Categorized: Embrace Better, Energy, ERW Podcast, Podcast · Tagged: ERW Podcast, podcast

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