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Complimentary Analysis

podcast

Five Conversation Levels to Connect with People on the Road

This article focuses on energy habit #4: PERFORM. Let me tell you a quick story.

Scott has been a road warrior for years and although sharp, he struggles with conversation on the road.

He’s good at his job, knows his stuff, but seems to be missing the “connecting with people” part of the program. Scott answers any questions he’s asked but any real conversation is “sold separately” with him. He wonders if it’s a personality thing since he’s a little more on the introverted side.

He also wonders if it’s a confidence issue and doesn’t want to look foolish. Scott is also more on the private side and so trust is a big issue.

ERW Research has found the following types of people who travel in relation to conversation:

  1. All business talk all the time
  2. Never asks questions and answers any non-business questions with a short and straight answer
  3. Rarely asks questions but will answer any questions asked of them
  4. A hybrid of business and personal talk

The challenge is too many business travelers really don’t connect with people on the road and either:

  1. Don’t have a clue
  2. Don’t care
  3. Don’t know what to do about it

The largest category is “they don’t have a clue” – most do care, although we’ve all met the guy who doesn’t care.

My hope is that you will know what to do about it.

Sadly, too many business travelers actually think they’re connecting when they’ve been disconnected long ago and I’m hoping to change that.

Conversation is the oil that keeps relationship smooth.

But wait, aren’t we just on the road to do our deal and get home? You know, get in, get out, and no one gets hurt.

Kinda.

Yet most of our relationships have dried up and are in desperate need of the relational oil to smooth things out. You’ve more than likely heard the phrase “people do business with people they know, like, and trust”.

Yet so few business travelers people are actually known and tolerated as an acquaintance, let alone actually are liked.

Now, I’m not talking about being insecure and going out of your way so everyone likes you. But most business travelers are on the complete other side of that concern.

With Scott’s concern in the opening story, there are variables:

  • Extroverted or Introverted
  • Public or Private
  • Straight to Business or Warming up the Crowd

Some people simply don’t like small talk. They view it as a waste of time. But there is definitely more to conversation than small talk especially if it has a purpose.

Almost all of us want to do our best on the road and perform at a high level. But we’re missing something very important and we under-utilize leveraging the power of conversation to truly connect with people.

So what are the five conversation levels to connect with people on the road?

In the book Click by Ori and Ram Brafman, they discuss five conversation levels that I want to bring into the context of the business travel world.

Level One – Phatic

On one end of the spectrum, there are phatic stamens that are not emotionally revealing at all.

They are Social niceties (e.g. “How are you?” “Nice to see you”). These are fillers (and the response is not particularly important). We say these things not because we want to elicit a response but rather because they smooth out any friction in our social interactions.

Level Two – Factual

In this type of discourse, people share and seek basic bits of objective, factual data: I live in Chicago. What do you do for a living? We seek and share (harmless) bytes of information

These are straight-forward observations to which no strong opinions are attached.

Level Three – Evaluative

Where we express an opinion on something about people or a situation. (e.g. “That movie was really funny”, “I don’t like her new haircut”).

If the other person agrees/disagrees with our point of view then it could affect our relationship with them (we are more drawn to people who share our values).

These three levels of interactions – phatic, factual, and evaluative – constitute what’s called the TRANSACTIONAL Category – communication that conveys thought-oriented (as opposed to emotional) information.

It’s only when we cross the threshold to the second category, CONNECTIVE Interactions, that we really make ourselves more vulnerable and where we have the ability to truly connect.

Level Four – Gut-level

This is where we reveal our feelings about something (e.g. “I’m sad you are not coming with us”). We usually limit these conversations to only the closest people we know. However, used appropriately, they can be very powerful with a wider selection of people.

Each of these comments reveals something personal and emotionally laden about the communicator. These comments are usually saved for people we already trust or feel a deeper connection with.

Even with those we are closest to, though, we rarely venture into the 5th and most emotionally vulnerable level

Level Five – Peak

These are the highest level of emotional states that often reveal our deepest innermost thoughts, values, and feelings (e.g. “I was really hurt when you said I wouldn’t make a good father”). The deeper we go, the deeper the engagement we can make.

Evaluation Time

  • What levels do you implement?
  • Where do you stop and why?

Connecting with people is key to performing at a high level on the road and truly being effective in your work and with others.

You Got This!

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

090 – Black Sheep Road Warrior with Brant Menswar

Transcript 

Bryan Paul Buckley 0:00
Episode 90 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 then 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, an author. But more importantly, on a mission to helping business travelers eliminate business travel, burnout, and exceed results. I’m also committed to each and every business trip to becoming and remaining an elite road warrior. And I’d love nothing more than for you to join my master evil plan and this worthwhile road trip.

Now, I absolutely love doing the actual interviews when our subject matter has a book or extensive content, and I thoroughly enjoy the prep work for the interview. And this was definitely the case with this interview. So let’s meet today’s subject matter expert. Brant Menswar is one of the country’s top 10 motivational speakers, a critically acclaimed author, award-winning musician, podcast host, and the CEO and founder of rock star impact: a boutique agency that teaches people in organizations how to cultivate value-based leadership. His innovative work has changed what’s possible for industry-leading organizations like Netflix, Verizon, SunTrust, Microsoft, ESPN Hilton, Sony Pictures, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, and dozens more. Passionate, engaging, and transformational. Brant encourages audiences to discover what he calls black sheep values, and move forward with deliberate intention. His interactive and entertaining techniques of defining what matters most compel audiences to dive deeper into their lives and start living on purpose. And man, I love his content. And in a moment, I’ll be asking Brant the following questions: What is black sheep? And why is it so important? What is the biggest lie about purpose? What was the catastrophic event in his life that forced him to discover his values? How do we program our values to appear on demand, especially on the road? And at no additional charge, so much more. Let’s do this. It’s go time.

Well, I’m live right now with Brant Menswar, how are you? And where are you?

Brant Menswar 3:07
You know, I’m doing pretty well I am in Cocoa Florida, where we you know have two seasons here we’ve got hot and hotter. And we are currently still in hotter.

Bryan Paul Buckley 3:17
Nice. Well, and you give a good line because I’m in Chicago. And we usually say we have two seasons, which is winter and construction are our two right there. So we’re off to a good start here. So let’s start and you are man, you know you say fairly well, but you are literally hours and hours after launching your book, which is doing phenomenal. And we’re gonna unpack that big time. So you just literally gave birth to a new baby book here. How you feeling about that?

Brant Menswar 3:46
Oh, man, it’s been a year-long process, right? So I come from the music business where you record a record and it’s a year before that record comes out by the time it comes out. You’re sick of the songs. Exactly. And you know, it’s the same scenario. I wrote this book, you know, finished it last year, and it’s finally here. And I’m like, I feel like it came out, you know, 12 months ago.

Bryan Paul Buckley 4:05
Exactly. Nice. Makes sense. Well, congratulations. I’ve been through the process. Man. I know. It just takes an absolute lot just to go through that whole process. But why don’t you just let me know what was the backstory of why you even wrote the book in the first place.

Brant Menswar 4:22
So the book is called Black Sheep unleashed the extraordinary, inspiring, undiscovered you. And it was born out of a couple of things. But the main thing was I was 47 years old, Bryan, when somebody finally explained to me why black sheep are not valued like the rest of the flock. And when I heard the truth, I was so blown away that I had spent 47 years without this knowledge in my brain, that it led me down this path of research. And so the truth is that the reason that farmers don’t value black sheep like the rest of the flock is because the black sheep’s wool cannot be dyed. So every black sheep is in effect 100% authentically original. And when I heard that, we’ve got a couple hundred years of demonizing black sheep in our culture, and I’m going, that’s literally my life goal is to be the 100%, authentic, original creation that I was meant to be. And so, you know, when I heard that it really sort of planted this seed of what does it mean to identify what I call your black sheep values. And that is, in the same light, these deeply held personal core values that no matter how much someone wants to twist or try to change you, they simply cannot be moved like a black sheep’s wool. And that dye can’t be changed.

Bryan Paul Buckley 5:47
I love the backstory man. And I’m some people are listening right now. Maybe they’re going through the airport. And they just had the ultimate aha moment. They’re like, dude, I’m 52. And I didn’t even know that man. So and I love, man there’s for those of you that like clever writing, and even like a little tongue in cheek on there, I mean, your chapter summaries, a big plan, word of sheep thrills, which he thought nicely, Nicely played on that, man, thank you. So well give us a 30,000-foot overview of the book, black sheep unleashed extraordinary, awe-inspiring, undiscovered you.

Brant Menswar 6:19
Yeah. So the idea here is that we all possess what I call a flock of five, black sheep values. And the book is going to sort of walk you through discovering what these are, these are your non-negotiables, these are not things that are really important. These are non-negotiables. These are deal-killers, right. So these are things that if you’re like me, so I you know, I travel 200 plus days a year easily, you know, 70 plus talks a year all over the world. And there are some deal breakers for me, you know that I go to places and if I witnessed a deal-breaker, it’s not even an option. And that’s what we’re sort of talking about these black sheep values are identifying sort of those deal-breakers, right. And so the idea is, we have to discover what they are, we have to prove that they are in fact real, and not what somebody else cares about, that has been pushed onto us for potentially decades. And then finally, we have to learn to speak these things into existence, we have to decide when and where these values appear, to have that maximum impact in our life. And that’s sort of the overview of what the book teaches you.

Bryan Paul Buckley 7:30
And that’s perfect and ideal for our audience. Obviously, you are a road warrior and discovering things late in life here. And we’ll unpack a little bit more of kind of the aha, another aha moment that you had. Yeah, you know, in your life, it was kind of catastrophic events. But even right here, you started with a different approach, which was good, because it caught me by surprise on this. You’re challenging thought leaders today. brands of you know, start with your why you’ve got to do this with your why you got to know your why first. And then everything else goes from there. So yeah, unpack for us. Why did you change the order?

Brant Menswar 8:05
Because it’s not true.

Bryan Paul Buckley 8:09
Kind of like a black sheep, right? He’s the bad guy, you know. So

Brant Menswar 8:13
listen, I think we are all familiar with a very popular book called Start with why by Simon Sinek. And I think Simon’s brilliant, I really do. I think he’s amazing. I think there should be an asterisk on the cover of that book. That’s it starts with why as long as you know what your why is. That’s right. If you don’t know what your why is, you have to understand a couple of things. One is that we have to start with what, right, you can’t get to why until you define your non-negotiables. And so once you know those non-negotiables, once you identify here are my five or maybe six non-negotiable values, then the activation of those values become your purpose, it becomes your why. And so if you start with the why before you define the what the question is, what are the odds that any of those things appear in your WHY? And the answer is very slim. And so the reason that people don’t experience that transformation, they don’t experience that result that they think they’re going to get is because their what and their Why are misaligned and when they are

Bryan Paul Buckley 9:19
Oh Say that again say that that’s money right there because they’re what and their why was what

Brant Menswar 9:23
misaligned, misaligned. when you’re when your what and your WHY ARE misaligned, it makes the how you’re going to live it out incredibly difficult.

Bryan Paul Buckley 9:32
Which you define is the mission. That is correct. So I love that. But for you with purpose, you define the book that there’s a big lie about purpose. Yeah. Can you define what that lie is? But then still, obviously make sure people still get the book. I mean, there’s a lot more to the book that just the biggest lie here all right.

Brant Menswar 9:52
You know, the, to me, if you’re I’m sure that there are many people out there listening right now that have been told this their whole lives that you Have to go out and find your purpose, right? Not only have they been told you have to go find your purpose, they’ve made it out like it’s some friggin Indiana Jones like quest that you are, you know, have to get to the Crystal Skull and the whip of the pistol out of the guy’s hand in order to figure out what your purpose is.

Bryan Paul Buckley 10:18
And that wasn’t part of my connection flight, you know, so it even makes it harder.

Brant Menswar 10:20
Right? Exactly right. It’s exactly right. And so I’m sitting here going all right, look, the biggest lie about purpose is that it’s something you find, you don’t find it. And if you’re looking for it, you’re on the wrong path. Purpose is something you choose. And you choose purpose, if you want to, if you want to be a conscious creator, is what I would call that. If you just choose a purpose, you have to choose a purpose in alignment with these black sheep values. And so that is where that purpose comes from. So for me, my sort of flock of five black sheep values: creativity, hope, impact, empathy, family authenticity, right?

Bryan Paul Buckley 10:59
One more time,

Brant Menswar 11:01
creativity, hope, impact, empathy, family, authenticity. Those are my black sheep values. I say there’s a flock of five, there’s six there. I know. I know, I’m a musician. But I learned how to count to six, right? I needed an extra we’re rockstars. We do everything to excess.

Bryan Paul Buckley 11:19
and you had more than six chapters to

Brant Menswar 11:22
barely the book is I tell people the book, listen, as a traveler, I want something I can digest quickly. And it was designed on purpose. This is like maybe 10 pages thicker than a Harry Krishna pamphlet that you get handed at the airport when you walk in. All right. So

Bryan Paul Buckley 11:37
Let’s… you get two copies.

Brant Menswar 11:38
That’s exactly right. And you all know they got a quota to make. So we have to make sure that’s well done. But my idea?

Bryan Paul Buckley 11:45
Yeah, that’s right.

Brant Menswar 11:47
The idea here is that those values got activated into my purpose. So my purpose is to creatively impact people’s lives by authentically providing hope. It sounds familiar, because it’s loaded with those black sheep values. And so the idea is, in order to choose that purpose, had to start with the what would those black sheep,

Bryan Paul Buckley 12:10
And then there was a lot of how you, you unpacked a lot of that, in fact, we’re going to kind of work through, how did you come to 5. But then also to help somebody make that purpose statement. There’s a lot here, guys, we get there, there, you stopped me in my tracks. When I’m reading, I got to a chapter in and you started unpacking a little bit about this catastrophic event in your life that really forced you to discover what you now know, as your black sheep values. Would you be willing to talk a little bit about that catastrophic event and how it really, really turned the tables on you to create these values?

Brant Menswar 12:43
Yeah, you bet. It was 2012. My oldest son, Theo, was coming home from a soccer game.

Bryan Paul Buckley 12:52
How old was he at the time? He was 12. Okay,

Brant Menswar 12:54
I’m sorry, he was 14, it was 2012. He was 14. And when he had taken a shower and was walking across the hall, and when I saw he had bruises, like on his back, and he had these weird places where he had bruises, and, you know, It didn’t match the soccer game that he was playing. And so I… I’m like what’s going on, and he didn’t really know. And so we set an appointment and long story short, we find out he’s got cancer, right, he’s got this rare blood cancer called Milo dysplastic syndrome, and he needs a bone marrow transplant in order to survive. And so, you know, they tell us, it’s going to be this hundred-day journey, and we’ll find a donor, he’s going to get the transplant, and then it’s, you know, several, weeks of sort of checking in, and then he’ll be back to playing soccer. And, you know, it was a crazy, it was a crazy time. And that was not the path of our journey, right. And so what ends up happening is… we find a donor, an unrelated donor fairly quickly, and he gets the transplant, it goes fine. But he ends up developing something called graft versus host disease. And this is sort of where the marrow gets inserted into the body, it doesn’t recognize the environment, so begins to attack, right? Like the way, they treat it is they super suppressed the immune system so that the body won’t fight back. And then they just hope that the cells duplicate themselves fast enough that it just sort of becomes overwhelming, and the body goes, Okay, I’m going to accept it. During that process, that’s what they did. During that process, he ends up contracting a deadly fungus that, you know, kills you in a couple of weeks. And the way that you treat the fungus is you super boost the immune system. And so they had two things that were threatening his life with opposite treatments. And so we get called into the parent’s lounge after a couple hundred days in the hospital. And they basically say, look, we’re incredibly sorry. But no matter which one we treat, the other is going to take his life and we don’t think he’s actually going to make it through the night. So you should probably go in and say your goodbyes. And so, you know, what do you do? Well, you’re in a highly emotional environment, you’ve got doctors who are experts who are telling you to go say your goodbyes. And so you know, my wife and I walk back to the room, we get his younger brother who’s three years younger than him. You know, we sit on the edge of the bed, and we try to find these words to say goodbye. It’s awful as you can possibly imagine. You know, I have to call family, I have to call friends. Now I call my younger brother who lives 1500 miles away up in New Hampshire, I’m in Orlando at this time, and tell him Look, if you are going to say your goodbyes, I’m sorry, but you’re gonna have to do it over the phone, you’re not gonna have time to make it. And so he does, he’s incredibly distraught, he hangs up the phone. And that night, he’s so upset by this feeling of not being able to do anything that he sits on his couch. And he films himself holding up these poster boards that sort of explain the scenario that we are facing my you know, my nephew is dying. This is what he has, this is what we have tried, these are the drugs This is this. He never said a word. He simply played the song fix you by Coldplay and held up these poster boards from start to finish.

Bryan Paul Buckley 16:07
And the number of hits that came out of that were how many

Brant Menswar 16:10
500,000 unbelievable. So by the time, you know, Theo made it through the night, by the time I’m literally on the edge of the bed waiting for sort of him to pass. By that next morning, I pick up my phone and that video, which I didn’t even know he made. He had uploaded it to YouTube. And it had been seen half a million times by the time I grab my phone. And so I look at my phone and I see all these names and phone numbers from people that I don’t recognize. And so one of those happened to be a doctor at MD Anderson in Houston, who said, Listen, I saw this video, I got your number, would you… there’s an experimental treatment that I don’t know that your doctor knows about, can I talk to him. And so we put them together. And then I get a call from Dr. Tim Johnson from Good Morning America. And he says you tell your doctor, give me a list of names. And I’ll try to make it happen in the next 24 hours. And so we made a list that a guy at Dana Farber in Boston, a research scientist at Cornell, and the four doctors put their heads together and came up with this crazy plan to try to save Theo’s life. And it worked. And so we went from say your goodbyes to we actually think we have a plan to tackle this and it’s working. And, you know, Theo just turned 23 years old. And awesome. You know, he’s a just was before COVID times was in the classroom, taking his first class in college, which is the first time he’s been in a classroom since the eighth grade, because of his immune system. And, you know, this book was born out of me being in a scenario that my feelings took over. And I made a bunch of horrible decisions, because I didn’t have these non-negotiables figured out for my life. And so when they told me to go, say my goodbyes, you know, I should have never had that conversation like I did with my son, I should have had a conversation filled with hope, and empathy, and impact. And all those things that I’ve discovered now are my non-negotiables. Instead, it was filled with emotion. And, you know, I went to bed for five years after he survived, I went to bed every night for five years with one thought in my head, which is I wonder if he thinks I gave up on him. And, and it sucks. But it’s a legitimate question. So I had to sit there and say, You know what, I’ve got to define these things. And then, if I can help some other people to find the same when they find themselves in this scenario, which I hope they never do, but if some big storm in their life rolls in, they’ve got to have these things established if they want to make good decisions. And if they don’t, they’re going to be at the mercy of their emotions. And that is never the place you want to be.

Bryan Paul Buckley 18:58
And your master plan, obviously, Brant is somebody who tends to find themselves in that catastrophic of events, that they could listen to a podcast like this, they can pick up your book, or they can hear you speak somewhere, they get their black sheep values created, which we’re going to walk through at least come from a remedial point of view how to do that. And obviously the book unpacks a ton of that, yeah. So that they’re not caught in that spot and live in that life of regret. So first of all, thanks for sharing that I and my emotions are just to put it on mute there for a second just as a choke up. I’ve got four boys, you know, and just those moments of that, and one of them has severely burned in the last year. And he’s doing great right now. But those fear moments we have as parents, and how easily our emotions could hijack that. Yeah, and everybody in the outside world would go understandable. But then when you go to the other side of that, of having to live with the regrets and those wonders of all that. So let’s make this very personal. So your black sheep values are even more important when you’re on the road, as you mentioned earlier in the episode of that, because we can really be put into some compromising situations on that. I actually have an episode that was talking about the dark side of business travel those downward spiral choices. If we’re put into that if we’re not making those decisions ahead of time, which are aka black sheep values, yet we’re very easily possibly going to make decisions that we’re going to regret. Yes. So with that, just quick review, and then want to unpack this, we get it looks like this. You get the what, which was the core values, correct? Yep. Yep. And then you could answer your why, which is your purpose. Yep. Which will help you to know how to do that, which is your mission. So how do we find our black sheep values that are going to guide our lives in general, but specifically when we’re on the road?

Brant Menswar 20:37
So it a couple of different things? I would say number one is that the what you’re correct are these black sheet values, though, you get to choose your purpose based on those values, your what your why, when those two things are aligned, it makes you incredibly adaptable and resilient. Right.

Bryan Paul Buckley 20:57
when you go on the road,

Brant Menswar 20:58
oh my gosh. And this is the other thing I want to say because most of the people that I know that are road warriors are overachievers in some way, shape or form, right. And they’ve learned that they’ve made some pretty big sacrifices in their life based on whatever it is they decided to choose, but they’ve made some pretty big sacrifices for the sake of their career. And, that sometimes works for you, and it sometimes works against you. Absolutely. And so what I want people to hear about this and why they need to figure this out before I tell you how to do it is that for as successful as you have been this far of your life, I am telling you that the potential for you to be even more successful is astronomical, once you figure out that you’ve been winging it your whole friggin life. And unless you can tell me specifically, what your five or six black sheep values are, how you, you know, engage them on a daily basis, then you are winging it, even if you think you’re not, and that was the hardest thing for me to learn as an alpha male, you know, overachiever, that outcomes are out of my control, the only thing I can control is honoring these black sheet values. That’s it. And so how do we find them? There’s a couple of different ways. The, you know, Maslow would call these things, peak experiences. And so you couldn’t if you wanted to, you know, get your peyote and go to the tent and 30 degrees and sweat it out until you find your vision, or whatever it is you want to do. I don’t have time for that. Nor do I want to, you know, have frog poison or anything else jammed me. So you know, for me it was I developed an online assessment that helps you sort of dip your big toe in the values pool, you can get there at findyourblacksheep.com. And there’s a little button that says find your flock. And what it does is it walks you through this very sort of simple process to try to narrow the funnel, right? So it presents you with 125 commonly held personal core values, and it says look knee jerk reaction. If the word resonates with you, if you look at it, you go I like that word. Go ahead and circle it, right. And so what we know, for two years and a couple thousand people doing this is that the average person selects at least 30 words as the ones that are really important to them.

Bryan Paul Buckley 23:30
I did 31 being the overachiever.

Brant Menswar 23:31
Yeah, yes. Well, I had somebody last week pick 100. And I’m like, I just, I told him that. I don’t know that I was qualified. Exactly. I think they need professional help. See,

Bryan Paul Buckley 23:43
I would have gone Come on man, you know, tell me the two you did not answer you know.

Brant Menswar 23:47
And so the idea here is we have to sort of take a look at all these things that are really incredibly important to you, and that subset of words. And we have to break them into five different groups. And so we break them based on likeness. So things like sympathy and empathy and care for others go in one bucket and things like achievement and success and respect go in another bucket, right? And then you sort of take all those words, and you group them together, and then you get to pick what’s the one word from each bucket? What’s the one non-negotiable, what’s the one you can’t live without? And it’s difficult, it is a difficult task, right? Because when you have 30 things that are important to you. We all know when everything’s important, nothing’s on board. It’s right. And so the idea here is we’re going to force you to choose now what I know that that is sort of the data has shown us over the last couple of years, is that out of those five those initial flock of five black sheep values that you proclaim as the things that are your non-negotiables we know that two or three of them are real, and two or three of them are complete fabricated bullshit. They are absolutely either who you want to be or who someone told you you should be, but they are not your sheep. Okay, very good.

Bryan Paul Buckley 25:03
That’s really important. You said that, right? So what are the two reasons why that they’re fabricated? Make sure we’ve got to be very clear on this.

Brant Menswar 25:10
So they are either who you want to be who you know, that’s who I want. That’s our aspirational sheep, or they are what somebody else has told you, you should be. And you’ve just…

Bryan Paul Buckley 25:22
And how important is that man, that you have been told that your entire life that you need to be this, you need to be this. And yet it’s it works this way into a worksheet with you where quickly you can go through 120. And you can knock that out in mere moments. Yeah, but then all of a sudden, you start getting to these clusters, as you mentioned, which is a little harder, you know, the like-mindedness and then to find out, find out what that one word and then at the end of that, you’re saying that Wait, come on now, two, or three of the five or six could actually not be accurate. So then what do you do, then?

Brant Menswar 25:52
Well, you got to, you got to prove that they’re real, right. So we have to go into this proving sort of stage. And that is where things really get real. And so if you say, here are the five, right, and what happens next is you get this workbook. And every night before you go to bed, for two weeks, you are going to sit there and you’re going to at the end of each day, you’re going to sort of go back through your day in your head, and you’re going to try to find evidence that these things appeared organically in your life that day. And what you’re going to find is that two or three of them appear all the time, and there’s a million different examples, and two or three of them, then they’re not really showing up as much as you thought they would. And so then we have to look at why that is right. And so there’s a couple of reasons why it could be because you drill down a little too far to a value that is too specific. And it actually is stopping you from identifying the real value. So something like that would look like if you told me Look, family, community, faith and friendship are four of my black sheep values, I would tell you that none of those are your black sheep value, the value is connection. And you just gave me four examples of how you experience connection through your God through your community, through your family and through your friends, right. And so that we have to I call it leveling up. So you got to level up to a word that actually encompasses what you selected, and then a whole bunch of other things, too, that’s how you’re going to find the evidence, right? If you only said that I only, that’s let’s say, community is one of my black sheep values. And you’ve been stuck in quarantine for six months, does that mean that your value doesn’t get fed? Or that it doesn’t work that way, right. And so you’ve drilled down a little too far, so we have to level up. The other thing that could happen is that you could be sabotaging yourself, right? So there could be some reason and this is often we see this with the aspirational sheep, right. And so the idea here is sometimes the things that have driven us to the success that we’ve had, actually are hurting us from discovering what really matters to us, right. And so the idea here is, you know, I had somebody recently who I’ve known for several months, we’ve had this conversation, it was actually on a podcast that we were going back and forth. And, you know, I noticed that he didn’t have the word impact as one of his black sheep. And I’m like, I listen, I’ve known you long enough to know that this should be one of your words. And not only did you not pick it as one of your five, you didn’t even select it as one of your 30 or 40 would have selected.

So this is the this is where the reality is he, in his words used to be an asshole. And he thought that if he picked that word, anybody that knew him five years ago would call bullshit and go well that’s not true.

That’s right. That’s not true… I don’t believe it. And I know because you treated me horribly, right?

Bryan Paul Buckley 28:59
Yeah.

Brant Menswar 29:01
Yeah. And so you know, I’m like, Well, here’s the deal, man. Are you that person today that you were four years ago, five years ago? Well, no. Okay. So why does that exclude this one thing that has been the center of every conversation we’ve had for months.

Bryan Paul Buckley 29:18
So you became the grace to him in that moment to be able to just almost kind of forgive himself and you talked about in the book

Brant Menswar 29:22
I do

Bryan Paul Buckley 29:23
you know, where sometimes you need to have that in whether it’s forgiving yourself. Sometimes you’ve got to forgive somebody else before you forgive yourself. Now, whether you’re talking about spirituality, we’re just talking about life in general on that I really did appreciate that on there. So into your points. Brant, I went through your process of this even though kind of living a life of values on there. And I completely agree on like the connection with faith and family on there. But ultimately, I want to be connected to God but I also am indebted to my family on there. And how am I doing those within the day? And it’s kind of hard man at the end of the night You know, you want to look through the wins of our day you know being overachievers, especially on the road.

Yes, you know, and it’s a little hard to even the bar, you know, late that evening, entertaining clients or whatever going back to that process, but even when you do you start to realize this is in my day, this is manifesting in my day. So I just want to say mad kudos, it was very revealing, but it was worth the work to go through that process of choosing those black sheep values those five you know, the what? Yeah, of those black sheep. So then we move into at that point, how to define or choose our purpose and I love one line you had in the book. I just got to say it, man. Yeah, it was an aimless ‘how’ can make an aimless? How can keep you busier than a mosquito at a nudist colony? Did I get that right? Yes, you did. moneyline. I’m just saying. money line right there. So how does somebody now we got these five or six if you will, we’ve broken them down to that. What do we do now?

Brant Menswar 30:53
So you know, it’s funny and so the aimless How is when your what and your why misaligned, right? If the product is an aimless how that comes out of that. And so, you know, the example I give all the time, my father was an high school English teacher for 35, almost 35 years. And, you know, he sort of fulfilled and fed his sheep in one way for 35 years. And then he retired. And I can’t take him to be 78 years old, and I can’t take him to the grocery store without him having a friggin 15-minute conversation with the guy bagging my groceries. And that is a nameless how that is trying to feed the sheep. And the only way he knew how to do that. And so that’s why when we see these aimless how, yeah, and that is, you know, we see people who have recently retired, and they’re busier now that they’re retired than when they were working. And it’s because of an aimless how they are trying to discover how to feed their sheep, that they only fed for one way for decades of that, at least, at least, the generation before us, right? They, they sort of come from that I was born in this town, I’m gonna marry in this town, I had one job in this town, and I’m going to retire in this town. And that’s just sort of what it was, you know, and the boomers are sort of, you know, part of that generation and even before them even more so. And so, you know, the idea here is we’ve got to choose a purpose that’s in alignment, so that the adaptability for the how becomes much easier for us to figure it out. And so we have to take those words that we have proven now to be true. And we have to include them in our purpose. And so we start to work, the way that I teach people to do this is, you know, our values exist in a hierarchy. And you have to understand that, and so there are going to be one or two of those that are truly non-negotiable. That I mean, if they get violated, it doesn’t matter if all the rest of them got fed. It’s still a no go, right? And so you have to sort of start so I tell them to start with, what are your two most if you looked at those five, your flock of five, what are the two that are at the very top for you? And we look in those? And so we’re putting

Bryan Paul Buckley 33:09
us into the context of a sentence, which was granted earlier that because that’s the goal, if you’ve got one compact mission statement, if you will, but it is that one-liner is a purpose statement. It’s exactly it’s your purpose statement. Okay, so you’re getting your one or two upfront in that statement?

Brant Menswar 33:25
And then that is correct. So what you’re going to do is you sort of bookend them by the things that matter most so for so if you look at mine, right? So again, my values creativity, hope, impact, empathy, family authenticity, right? My purpose statement is to creatively impact there’s impact, which is one of my top ones to creatively impact people’s lives by authentically providing hope, hope is my number one, right? Hope is my number one. So I ended on it, because it’s what’s most important to me. So you either start with that, or you end on that, but you don’t bury that in the middle because it means too much to you. And so when you craft this purpose statement, you have to sort of work for a little bit, it’s sort of like your own personal hit song, right? So you’ve got to write this purpose statement so that it resonates with you, it connects your head in your heart. And when it connects your head in your heart, it engages that limbic brain, which is where all of your emotional long term memory is stored. It’s why you remember song lyrics. It’s why you remember quotes for movies. It’s why you remember all those things that are your favorites. And what we need, excuse me is for this purpose statement to become one of your favorite things, right? And so that’s why we need to connect the head in the heart and so we activate those values into this statement so that you can remember it, and it’s used to keep you committed to those things that you are saying matter most. That’s how we do it.

Bryan Paul Buckley 34:47
We’ll be back for the remainder of this interview after the short break.

When I’m on the road, I want to be as effective as I can be possibly at all times. As well as not being weighed down by extra stuff. Man, let’s face it. On the road, every item we bring must be compact and worth bringing with such limited space on a road trip. Everything must have a purpose and being an elite road warrior every purpose must support one or more of the six energy habits. As a result, you can now find many valuable tools that fit this criteria at eliteroadwarrior.com/store. Here are just a few. The Elite Road Warrior waterbottle. this black 16.9-ounce aluminum branded water bottle was designed with a road warrior in mind having a handle the top of a one-inch mouth area for easy carrying, whether by hand or clipping onto another bag. Or how about the elite warrior road life journal. This is the black branded original artist and soft and thin leather. So it’s easy to carry on the road with proceeds that support a nonprofit. And there are two sections to the journal. There’s a thinkspace journal insert and there’s a roadway, journal insert. Connect cards. Each card was made by a kid for a kid and connected at the heart of elite road warrior with proceeds as well supporting a nonprofit. And there are five card choices. Thinking of you, miss you, proud of you, love you, and grateful for you. The not forgotten journal. This is a beautiful tan hardcover branded journal designed for you to write just two minutes a day to someone that matters back home designed to one day get to that loved one to prove to them they were not forgotten. And lastly, the flat kiddos. What if you could theoretically take your kids with you in a creative way you can now do so with flat kiddos. They’re nine by six-inch characters, they’re on thick poster board for durability. Flat kiddos come in four different options. An elementary boy or an elementary girl, a toddler boy or toddler girl. The only thing you’ll need upon purchase is having your kids color their own flat kiddo to personalize it for you. You can purchase any and all of these road products today at eliteroadwarrior.com/store

If you have kids, you know they absolutely love mail. Especially if it’s from you. Now with my kids, the cards they enjoy the most were the ones that were designed for kids. And I found that when I took just a minute or two and wrote meaningful words breathing encouragement and truth into the life of my children, it made a huge difference. And as a result, elite road warrior group created a Connect cards product line help you invest into the lives of those you love back home. each card was made by a kid for a kid. And connect is at the heart of elite roadwarrior. And his energy habit number six. The cool part is the purchase of this card directly supports warrior wagons, a nonprofit organization who delivers warrior wagons filled with essential oils to brave children, their families battling all forms of pediatric cancer. And there are five Connect card choices. Thinking of you, miss you, proud of you, love you, and grateful for you go to eliteroadwarrior.com/store today to pick up your very own cards.

And why that matters so much. And I love that brands. Because we’re taking the what our core values in this case, obviously our five or six black sheep, And we’re defining them upfront. Now we know the process. And then we’re taking them into the why, which is that purpose, which is our purpose statement. And so we’re bookending the one or two the most important and we’re putting the other three in there, we’re not burying him in the subtitle, right? You should that’s a stigma to that obviously, it’s got a flow, you know, kind of like a song lyric as you’re mentioning there’s so that we can obviously especially on the road, we got something that we’ve got to constantly put into our mind over and over and over. But then we don’t stop there, you’re moving into the how which is the mission, which obviously can change within any given day. So how as we as road warriors, we take what we talked about these black sheep and this purpose statements, what do we do with it from that point on to really make a difference in the day on the road?

Brant Menswar 39:44
This is the big difference, right? So this is what I refer to as deliberate intention. And so it’s one thing to know what matters most. It’s another thing to craft this purpose statement to know why you exist or why you think you need to exist on this planet. It’s something completely different to manifest these things to speak them into existence, right? To program them into your day. And so, you know, I look at this, and especially for the road warriors that they’ll know what I mean. So when you get into your rental car, and you’re gonna go to wherever it is you need to go to that day. You get your phone, and you set your GPS, right? And you say, here’s the destination that I need to get to my hotel and get to my client’s place, whatever it is, you set that in there, and you’re off. Well, our black sheep values sort of function the same way, right. And so this idea is if you set that destination in your GPS, and you decide to veer off the path, what happens, what does your GPS do to you?

Bryan Paul Buckley 40:41
Oh, it’s telling you to get back on.

That’s exactly right. and mine will even say, hey, idiot, that’s the third left you’ve made man.

Brant Menswar 40:49
That’s right. If you’ve got Sam Jackson’s voice on there yelling at you? Yes, exactly. The idea is that it starts to say, wait a minute, timeout, you said that you wanted to go there. But now you’re going this way? Do you want us to reroute you? Or are you just saying it’s a free for all, right? And so what it does is it starts pointing you back to the direction you said you wanted to go, Well, this is sort of how our black sheep values work. They are that the idea is if you say, here’s my goal, this is what I want to accomplish, right? That’s the destination, you set that destination in there. If you don’t, if you just set it there, and you just try to get there, that is not going to get it done, you have to use deliberate intention, which is I need to know every turn I’m going to make between where I am and where I want to go. That deliberate intention is speaking these things into existence. So for me, I literally pull out my calendar, I look at the… I’m still a guy who uses a… even though I’m Mr. Technology, I still like to write things down, I have both, right. So like I have a planner. And so I literally will write what black sheep values I want to appear in that meeting. And I’m going to speak them into existence, I am going to choose when and where they appear, I’m not going to rely on an accident, or the perfect timing, or maybe something happens with luck. And I have an opportunity to share none of that.

Bryan Paul Buckley 42:08
Okay, so I’m gonna interrupt you because you are back to your deliberate attention. Yep, we’re getting in the car, we’re heading to where we need to go. Even if it’s rideshare, whatever game we get to our first meeting, instead of just showing up and we’re giving our presentation, we’re giving our talk. We’re actually doing far more than that of what our highest values are. And so what you’re saying is your pre-thinking, I’m going to walk into this meeting, and I’m going to activate as many of these black sheep values as possible. Is that correct?

Brant Menswar 42:35
Right. I’m looking at like, when I came into this, even this, let’s use this as an example. Right? So I know I was going to do this interview with you today, I have to look at creativity, hope, impact, empathy, family authenticity, which of these need to show up in this interview for me to maximize my time with you, right? So I knew I needed to be creative, right? You’ve got people who are listening to this that are forced into creativity, because they get find themselves in crazy situations when you’re on the road all the time, right? That’s just I know that creativity has to show up. I know that impact has to show up because I want to have a positive impact everybody listening, right, I want to give them some nuggets that they can use to make their lives a little bit better. I empathize because I am one of those people who are on the road all the time. So I get that that’s going to show up naturally. But then for me, it’s all about hope. Right? I told you, that’s my number one. So when I finish this conversation with you, I promise you the last thing out of my mouth is going to be filled with hope. Because that to me is what I need to speak into existence, to be able to sleep well at night, knowing that I can’t control what happens after this. I can only control what happens in this moment.

Bryan Paul Buckley 42:40
And I love that and I and obviously as a podcast hosts and you who have your own podcast, we’ll talk about that in a few minutes. That means a ton that there’s that much pre-thought in there of actual listener, which is obviously our goal. But what about Brant, just to be devil’s advocate here. Yeah, you know, Jerry’s gonna walk into this meeting right in here, and he’s got 15 sales guys or whatever, and they don’t really care. And then he’s got to check off you know, his visit that he’s got to do quarterly in his territory. How do I take these black sheep? And do anything with that walking into these guys?

Brant Menswar 44:17
Yeah, you can. So first of all, you have to believe that there’s something more you have to believe there’s something better for whatever right and that it starts with that I believe that most of us never reach our full potential. And, that is because we’re not deliberate with our intention. So the truth is, most of us are successful as we are at this very moment. And we’ve been winging it the whole time. So if we’re this successful, and we’re winging it, what’s the incentive to try though, cuz I’m like, I’m pretty comfortable. I make a good living. I even take care of my family. I get to see all these incredible places and travel the world. The difference is in fulfillment, the difference is being able to say can you change what’s special possible, are you leaving a life behind that creates a legacy, right? That, to me is what I care about the most I don’t care about the awards, I don’t care about, you know, the books that I might write what I care about is, am I leaving a legacy worth remembering, and that to me, only happens with deliberate intention. And so you have to get to that. So if I, I could absolutely walk into that meeting and be like, whatever I’m gonna wing it, you know, I’ve been doing this for… Or I could go, you know, what, let me think about this for five minutes before I put myself in this scenario because that’s all it takes. It doesn’t take you have to sit there and come up with a master, you know, business plan to walk into the meeting, you have to go, what are my non-negotiables? Oh, here are the five things. Okay. Which of these five things would best serve me in this moment? Well, it’s this Okay, great, then I’m going to go in, and I’m going to lead with that. And what ends up happening. And this is sort of the big sort of Aha, that we come back to with regards to the farmer story, right. And I think this is going to resonate so much, especially with the amount of people that are a lot of people on the road are in sales in some way, shape, or form, right, we just, it’s the nature of the business. So while farmers don’t value black sheep, like the rest of the flock, they certainly do value them, they just value them in a very different way. Right. So farmers keep one black sheep for every hundred white sheep in their care, and they keep them as a marker. And so every morning, the sheep farmer wakes up, they look out over their flock, and if they’ve got 500 sheep in their care, they should see five black sheep, if they don’t see five black sheep, they know something is wrong, right? It could be family, it could be wolves, it could be disease, whatever it is. But it’s the black sheep’s ability to stand out from the crowd that gets the farmers first look. And what I say to people all the time, especially in this business, when you’re on the road, it is your job to get your clients’ first look, it is what you are designed to be trying to do. So how do you do that? You do that by leading with those black sheep values that make you that 100% authentic original and separate you from the 495 other people waiting to make that next call on your client for the exact same thing in mind. So how are you going to stand out? You stand out by leaving with these black sheep values. And when you do, what you realize is that people start to go, you know what, I think I value some of the same things that that person does. And all of a sudden that relationship starts to shift and change. And before you start to resonate between two people, you become the trusted adviser because all of a sudden they believe you. Right. And that is how we do it. And if you don’t do it that way, the best shot you’ve got is winging it enough that you sort of hit that Crossfire every now and then every now and then the two things cross and you go ope that moment right there, I was able to connect ope that moment right there, I was able to connect, as opposed to just going, Hey, these are the things that matter most to me, it’s really important for you to know that because if you want the best from me, this is how you need to frame it if you want everything that I’ve got to offer. And when you start to do that, you start to see people change their behavior around you, they change the words they choose around you and they see, the more that they do that they start to communicate better with you. So all of a sudden, doing business with you becomes very easy. And also really powerful. You walk away from these things feeling like you were fed. And that’s because that person just fed your sheep. That’s how it works. Mike drop

Bryan Paul Buckley 48:37
Exactly. I’m out. I’ve got a really expensive mic, so let’s just pretend

Brant Menswar 48:42
kind of place it gently

Bryan Paul Buckley 48:43
Oh, big time. But you know, it really gets down to your two words, deliberate intention, you know, and I would challenge you can agree or disagree because obviously, this is your whole theory, that the road, the road warrior has the highest or at least one of the highest chances to activate their values on a missional day, because of all the variety that they have. We’re not talking to you know, Charlie cube yet I’m saying the guy who said it’s getting to know nothing. I’m Charlie, we’re going to visit Charlie. And we’re going to see different Charlie’s every single day and have this so many opportunities where I’m sitting on the rental car bus to go to national car, or I’m sitting on a flight dealing with another guy who’s having you know, because Murphy got on the plane and all of a sudden flights can be delayed because of Murphy’s Law, him saying the trip and I have all these opportunities. I’m talking to the person I’m checking in at the courtyard Marriott, or the restaurant that I’m going out for the dinner the clients that I’m going to entertain, being on a stage we have so many unique opportunities. you activate that and I really truly think Brant. That’s where I got and that was probably the surprise in the book for me of how do I intentionally loop through those in my day, how do I connect with somebody that I would normally have a hard time with, and maybe because I didn’t really treat him as a person. Maybe I just went to the Alpha Dog in the room. Maybe I didn’t realize who they were and find an area to find similarities in resonance. Like you said, we’re all of a sudden, the sheep are getting fed. So I absolutely love that agree or disagree that the road can provide one of the best chances to, to actually have your mission.

Brant Menswar 50:16
I agree. I agree. 100%. And it’s why you need to be adaptable and resilient. It’s because you never know what’s around that next corner. And, you know, I laugh all the time, you know, so I’m a Coca Cola guy. I’m not a Pepsi guy. And so, you know, for me, you’re at that restaurant and they you ask for a coke and they bring you this, they bring you what is obviously not Diet Coke. And I take one sip, and I’m like, Whoa, what are you trying to pull here? Come on, and they’re like, oh, is Pepsi, okay? I’m like, Pepsi is never okay. It is never Okay, ever, right? And so but the idea is, how you’re going to adapt and be resilient in that moment? Because if you are so rigid, you know, get up and walk out of that restaurant. Wait a man, this is a non-negotiable? I’m not have I’m no, bam, that’s exactly right. So you have to have these things defined because as much as I prefer diet Coke, over diet Pepsi, it is not something he’ll never die on. Right? It’s just it’s not going to be that case. And so when you define these, these black sheep values, it really helps you be adaptable and resilient. So you just go into this knowing Hey, you know, what, if it mattered that much to you, you know what you should do? You should call beforehand and maybe suggest a different place. And that’s, that’s deliberate intention. Right? That’s how I do it.

Bryan Paul Buckley 51:33
Exactly the difference. Well, I love that man. And I’ll even the levity of that there is truth. I mean, there’s so much ability to adapt. And the guys that don’t Well, we know, they’re usually sitting in the middle seat right next to me on a flight. But that’s a different, that’s a different podcast, on how to handle situations like that. So as we’re wrapping this up, Brant, anything from the book that we didn’t discuss, you want to highlight or emphasize or just kind of sum it all together.

Brant Menswar 51:59
So what I’m going to say just, I’m a control freak, and most road warriors that I know are also control freaks, right? And, and if you don’t feel like you’re a control freak, I think you need to do this work because you are lying to yourself. It’s what I’m gonna say. And I’m at that level, where if you invited me to dinner, I’m driving your car, right? Like that is the level of control that I want to have. And it’s this idea that you know, by defining these things in our lives by finding these black sheep values, it really allows us to control the narrative of our lives. It’s the only thing I can control, right? I can’t control outcomes. That is something called outcome bias. Look it up. It is, if you are, it’s a thing. It is a thing. It’s science, right. And the science does not support you thinking that you control outcome. So unless your name is Gandalf, for Glinda, you don’t have that type of power, right? So you need to let that go. And know that those outcomes are out of your control. So what you can do is craft the narrative of your life by defining these things. So that pen is in your hand and nobody else’s. And so that to me, especially when you are living a life that is filled with a different how around every corner with a different challenge, no matter where it’s whether it’s just the travel, forget about who you’re going to talk to, it’s the logistics of the travel itself is enough to push some people over the edge, big time. So when you figure this stuff out, it really allows you to craft a better narrative for you in your life. So that at the end, when you are done, when you come home from that trip, you actually feel like it was a successful trip, regardless of the outcome. Right.

Bryan Paul Buckley 53:40
And I love that and that that actually could be the energy even though we may come back tired, where it is, we feel a sense of fulfillment, which a lot of guys we just don’t, you know, on the road, you just do our deal, and come home. And I also just want to say to all of us, we can do this, I mean this process is not difficult, but it is a little bit challenging because you need to do the exercises. So all the links in the show notes here to go ahead and go through, you know, defining what your black sheep are and then getting into the five different boxes right there defining those specific words. And then moving into the purpose statement, and then putting those into your day. So Brant, absolutely love that before we close up. Road warrior live lightning round. Are you ready for this? I’m ready.

All right. What is your preferred airlines?

Brant Menswar 54:29
Delta 100%

Bryan Paul Buckley 54:30
window or aisle guy?

Brant Menswar 54:32
Aisle only.

Bryan Paul Buckley 54:34
Why?

Brant Menswar 54:35
I need to get up and pee. And I hate asking anybody to move.

Bryan Paul Buckley 54:41
I’m a chronic urinator because there’s so much water and we’d have to sit across aisle we would not be in the same row. Exactly. Those guys right there chatting like girls, right. One thing you always do when you’re on a flight?

Brant Menswar 54:54
Headphones, always

Bryan Paul Buckley 54:57
and apparently pee.

Brant Menswar 54:58
Yes, that too.

Bryan Paul Buckley 55:00
Yes, preferred hotel chain.

Brant Menswar 55:04
This is gonna sound so pretentious, man. But I’m a Ritz Carlton guy, and I just know that I know what I’m gonna get no matter where I am on the planet. I know what I’m walking into when I go into a Ritz. I am that guy. I camp as long as there’s air conditioning and Wi-Fi

Bryan Paul Buckley 55:24
and room service that sort of besides that, I’m willing to camp Absolutely. Nicely played. Alright. Rental Car or rideshare?

Brant Menswar 55:36
I prefer rental car, I prefer national is actually my preferred brand.

Bryan Paul Buckley 55:40
Yeah, me too. I’m an executive kind of guy. I love that. Yes. All right. Least favorite airport in the world,

Brant Menswar 55:46
Atlanta, Atlanta. And I’m going to say one more time, Atlanta. All right.

Bryan Paul Buckley 55:52
All right. Here’s a lot of thought put into that. A little hesitation. But I think he’s going to go.

Brant Menswar 55:56
I know why. Let me tell you why. Because so as a musician, Atlanta has adopted a process of checking your bags that have to fit in a bin. And if your bag doesn’t fit in a bin, they have to walk you halfway across the airport to check something larger than the bin.

Bryan Paul Buckley 56:14
feels like they’re actually going into Ohio. I mean, we’re walking in Atlanta airport.

Brant Menswar 56:18
So I can’t walk into Atlanta with a guitar and have them scan it without them you know, going on a half marathon, I got to run a five K to get to where I need to get to in that airport. It’s awful.

Bryan Paul Buckley 56:29
And unless health is one of your top five, I just don’t see the benefit of a right. Musician bias. That’s what that’s all about it is and everybody Atlanta’s their favorite airport right now. It’s just it’s having some issues. Right? Yeah, I’ll show you your black sheep. Alright, let’s wrap this up here. favorite city to frequent?

Brant Menswar 56:48
Greenville, South Carolina.

Bryan Paul Buckley 56:50
What?

Brant Menswar 56:51
I love that little town. And it’s got great restaurants. It’s got a great place to walk to some great coffee there. You know, it’s right on the river. It’s just it’s like this hidden little jewel that people think it’s a college and it is a college town. But like it is such an engaging, like artistic community there. I just love it.

Bryan Paul Buckley 57:13
I love that question. Because we get a variety of different answers. The last one biggest road pet peeve.

Brant Menswar 57:18
All right, people, people who talk on their phone, on speakerphone, I want to choke their throats. Especially on an airplane, I want to slam that phone down. I want to throw it as far as I can. Because nobody needs I don’t want to know what you’re talking about. Nobody cares that much. And I, to me, it is the biggest pet peeve and it happens all the time. And I don’t even understand. If you can’t hear well enough with your phone up to your ear, then invest in some hearing aids because you’ve got larger problems, then putting them on speaker is going to fix

Bryan Paul Buckley 57:53
I love it. And even if they are not on speaker and you’re walking down to the jetway, and then you’re actually in the plane. And you’re actually the person who’s giving the announcements on there. And you are that important. I love that and I love when the amount of Southwest flight and they like you know if you’re that guy or you’re that important, you can’t put the phone on. Your option is on the wing right there. You can talk as long as you want it out there. So it’s like come on man like me.

Grant this has been awesome. So how can we find out more about you, about the book, hire to speak anything else your podcasts, bring it on.

Brant Menswar 58:28
Best Place to get me at findyourblacksheep.com. That’s gonna take you to the book site, it’s got the assessment there, it’s going to link to my personal speaking site as well. That’s the best thing on social media everywhere. I’m just @Brandmenswar. It is b r a n t  m e n s w a r do not put an E in my last name. It’s not men’s wear. It’s Menswar or as we say in New England men’s wear. And that is I’m very active on social and that’s probably the best way to DM me and connect on one of those channels.

Bryan Paul Buckley                                                                                                                                                  Excellent and roadwarriors can be a little bit lazy sometimes, we’ll make sure the links are in the show notes along with the entire transcript. So anything about there you want to kind of break down, It’ll be right there for your reading, pleasure, and linking pleasure. Well, Brant,, thanks again for just spending some time with us as road warriors. And more than just kind of little tweaks or tricks in and I can say it right there. Just the What am I saying the tricks of the trade here. We’re really getting into some real truth in some real meaning. And I love that. So thanks for taking time with us today on that.

Brant Menswar                                                                                                                                                              Thanks for having me, brother. I appreciate it.

Bryan Paul Buckley 59:46
I’d like to thank Brant Menswar for his time, his challenges and insights for us to become elite road warriors and to think differently about how we do the road and making an impact. You can find the transcripts and all the links we reference in this episode in the show notes at eliteroadwarrior.com/090. Along with the early warning signs for companies to avoid business travel burnout, and you can pick up that resource absolutely free. I’d love to hear from you. So you can reach me on LinkedIn and Bryan Paul Buckley, the LinkedIn company page elite Road Warrior on Instagram @eliteroadwarrior as well. So wherever you’re on the road, do something anything just not nothing to master the business travel life. Leverage finding and living your black sheep to help you become and remain an elite rotor today to eliminate burnout and exceed results. You got this

Love me some black sheep values!

 

Resources

Guest Brant Menswar Resources:

LinkedIn Profile

Website: findyourblacksheep.com

Guides by Bryan Buckley at Elite Road Warrior:

7 Early Warning Signs for Companies to Avoid Business Travel Burnout

Top Ten Business Travel Hacks Guide

 

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

Five Ways to Effectively Click with People on Business Travel

I had a polarizing father when he was alive. He was a business traveler, public speaker, and would light up a room when he entered.

But although he was bigger than life in so many ways, he had a rare quality for someone who was great on stage.

The legendary Frank Buckley could take the energy he had in front of hundreds or thousands of people and bring it to an audience of one: the person right in front of him.

When he was talking to you, nobody else in the world mattered to him at that moment. He would lock-in and make you feel like the most important person on the planet.

Everybody knew my father.

It didn’t matter where we went, if my father had been there before, he was greeted with a smile that would make you smile and a hug that breathed life into your body.

Everybody felt like my father was for them and their close friend. It wasn’t an act. It was who my father was because he knew the magic of connecting with people.

When my father passed away many years ago, we were not prepared for the number of people that would show up at his wake and memorial service.

The small town of Lockport, IL that held his viewing was not prepared for that night. The funeral home was not prepared. The amount of traffic that overflowed that town was not prepared.

The police showed up to handle the traffic and parking.

It was a two-hour wait just to view my father’s body.

The funeral home had to set up partitions to handle the people flow that was like going through a ride of Disneyland or general security at an airport during peak hours.

But what was amazing, even overwhelming, was hearing the stories that people shared on how my father had touched and impacted their lives.

People had driven hundreds of miles and flown thousands of miles just to attend. But also my father’s dentist, chiropractor, grocer, barber, hardware store guy, and on and on and on.

While people waited in the long long lines, the question that came up with complete strangers was “how did you know Frank Buckley?”

It was incredible to hear the stories from complete strangers of how my father had influenced them so much they felt compelled to say goodbye to the man who was bigger than life but had touched their own life.

How?

My father knew the power of connections.

He instilled the importance of this unique skill set. He told me that many can light up a room but few can warm a heart.

It was a skill that he encouraged and developed in me that has served me my entire career.

Awhile back I read a book that was unlike any other I had read in a long time. Why? I felt like it was explaining how and why I connect with people and what my father demonstrated and taught me.

Sadly though, most people are not taught how to have a conversation or how to click with people in ways that truly matter in business and life.

I don’t want that to be your story and hence this article on conversation and clicking with people.

When you’re able to truly connect with another person on the road, it’s a game-changer. The business side all of a sudden just seems to open up and things get easier.

Why?

Because in the end business is done between people.

  • People we know.
  • People we like.
  • And ultimately, people we trust.

And if we can learn this skill, and it is a skill that can be developed and learned, we will become an elite road warrior in the 4th energy habit, PERFORM, the why we’re on the road.

Five ways to Effectively Click with People on Business Travel

 

In the book, Click, the magic of instant connections, the authors discussed five ways or environments for click to happen naturally.

1. Physical Proximity:

Physical distance directly affects the likelihood of establishing a connection to someone else. You are more likely to become friends with the person sitting next to you at work than someone who works on a different floor of the same office building.

You connect with the neighbors right next to you not as much as those down the street.

Two Variables:

  • How often – The more often you’re around someone on the road, the more opportunities to click with that person.
  • How long – The more time you spend with someone your odds increase as well to connect. 3 minutes in a brief meet-and-greet vs. going out to dinner or attending an event

 

    • Example: when I can take someone out to lunch or dinner vs. in a conference room, the physical proximity changes for the good. If I can take them to an event like a ballgame or Top Golf, it’s a whole different level due to the forced proximity.

2. Similarity:

It’s known that we like people who are like us and the more we feel that we are like others, the more we create our own “in crowd”. It’s an us versus them mentality that influences quickset intimacy.

When you find someone who:

  • Has the same name
  • Grew up in the same area
  • Same job or role
  • Likes the same food, drink, hobby, sports team, same age or bday, left-handed
    … you have a quick opportunity to click and connect with them

 

    • Example: NYC dinner at a high-end Manhattan restaurant and my job was to connect 12 people (6 on our side / 6 on their side) since we were going to be working together for a long project – I spent time getting to know each person then connect them with someone else on my team.

3. Safety:

The safer we feel with another person/environment the more likely we are to open up. And conversely, the more unsafe the outside environment, the more it pushes us together.

IF someone is more introverted, reserved, or shy, it will take them longer to feel safe with someone they don’t know especially in larger groups.

This is why the 1st two “click” ways are important to build safety: proximity and similarity.

    • Example: I find the more I can lead by asking questions that uncover similarities and create environments for more physical proximity, more people will warm up and feel safe. But note, I’m also intentional to create a safe environment.

4. Resonance:

Think “awareness” of what is going on when you’re with other people.

“Being fully in the moment” allows you to tune into the emotional mood of others around you.
By being aware of others’ needs, you are better able to satisfy them. In doing so, you increase the likelihood of clicking with them. This is emotional intelligence, being willing to be present and not distracted.

    • Example: let’s go back to the NYC dinner example. It’s easy to just “resonate” if you will to those around you (physical proximity) and that’s fine but if you want to click at a deep level, you need to be aware of how others around you are in the moment. Are they not talking? Why? Do they seem dis-engaged? Bored? I’ve learned through the years to pull them back in by 1:1 with just that person and ask a question to get them re-engaged in conversation first with me, and then potentially the group.

5. Vulnerability:

When an individual opens up to another and reveals personal information about himself, they increase the other person’s perception of his trustworthiness.

You have to be smart AND intentional about what, when, and how much to share.
Whether it’s the first time I meet them and we only have a few minutes or I come back for a 2nd time. (Physical proximity)

Or maybe we spend a good amount of time together at a dinner or event (to create Similarity and Safety opportunities)

The key is leveraging RESONANCE when you’re fully aware of the right moment and reading the person.

    • Example:
      • I’ve let people know in the past I’ve been let go of a couple of jobs or why they didn’t renew my contract.
      • I’ve let people know I’m divorced
      • I’ve been honest about my faith as a Christian by mentioning my morning routine which includes reading the Bible or our family goes to church

You have to determine what you’re willing to share (vulnerability) and what feels safe at the moment.

But I’ve learned from experience when you’re vulnerable and specifically GO FIRST, it’s an absolute game-changer in the connection to click with people on the road.

Let’s transition to… Five Specific Ways to Connect with People in Meaningful Ways on the Road

These are remedial but after decades on the road and dealing with people, I’m shocked how many people struggle in these five ways.

So, as I share them, don’t assume you already do them and brush them off.

Really think about them.

ONE – Eye Contact

TWO – Questions

Why? To find something that resonates with you and them.

“Son, ask people questions and they’ll talk to you for hours. Talk about yourself and they’ll listen to you for seconds at the most.”

THREE – Observe

It’s amazing what you can learn looking at how someone dresses, presents themselves, what they bring with them, the pictures on their desk, how open they are or talk about other people, are they Peter Positive or Debby Downer, etc. –

FOUR – Researching

Leverage LinkedIn to know what they look like, their past roles and experience, their schooling, clubs, etc. Michigan State convo and their disdain for U of M?

You’d be surprised what you can learn. I also leverage #2 of questions and may ask someone else who knows them anything they’re willing to share about the person. I get so much quality information and it’s quick research that really helps me.

FIVE – Remembering

This one is huge especially if you’re following up with this person via email, text, or call at first. What did you learn from your questions, observations, and research that you can use to continue the CLICK with this person?

When I know someone likes something or a sports team, I will always reference it right away.

I have an industry friend who is a Patriots fan and we text anytime his team or my team (da Bears) are on national TV. It’s changed our connection and relationship big time.

And especially when you come back to visit, simply remembering their name and addressing them by it. Referencing something they told you.

I know there are many Road Warriors out there who want to improve in how they perform on the road. They realize they’re either not connecting with people or they can and want to improve in this area.

If that’s you, then maximize how to click with people.

Where can you improve? Seriously? Where are you weak? But also, where are you strong?

This is a skill my father taught me early on that has served me so well in business and especially on the road.

Be near people and look for things in common by asking good questions and create a safe environment. You do this by being fully present and aware then lead with being honest that allows people to open up as well.

You Got This!

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

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