Navigating The “New Normal“ Of Virtual Events with Rainey Foster

Welcome to the Conscious Pivot Podcast with international speaker, business mentor, best selling author of Pivot, and your host, Adam Markell. The Conscious Pivot shares the stories and wisdom of people who have successfully reinvented some area of their business and personal life. You'll gain powerful insights into how you can fully embrace new opportunities, increase your performance, and master the art and science of innovation and resilience. So please join Adam as he guides you on your Conscious Pivot.

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Conscious Pivot Podcast. I'm your host, Adam Markell, and as I sit here in this moment, I am feeling just great gratitude. Gratitude to be alive, to be breathing, to be in such a wonderful creative opportunity. I know there's a lot of turmoil. A lot of people have done remarkably well in a time of great change and chaos and others are suffering. And so it's always this tension inside of me between the place where I feel gratitude for the good and also for things that we might judge is not so good. I know in my heart after 55 years of standing on the earth, that so many wonderful things, so many valuable things that come out of time, of pain and even of suffering. So it's not motivation, it's not inspiration. It's just a truism that so much will emerge from these times that we'll look back on and be thankful for. And so I guess I'm fast forwarding the process a little just because I know the magic of gratitude and what it does on a biochemical level inside of my body and certainly in my brain, I am incredibly grateful. And I'm also feeling so much appreciation that I get to spend time, selfishly this morning with a friend of mine and somebody that I think is a blessing in so many ways to so many people. You're going to get to meet her in just a second. So I'm going to read a little bit of her bio and then invite her into this conversation. But she is someone that you will all come to see, is just a remarkable human and a beautiful, beautiful woman. So following a successful career in entertainment as a musician, and by the way, in just the bio that I'm reading, I learned so much about her that I didn't know before. So this is actually really cool for me too. She's a musician, a recording artist and actress. For the last 23 years, Rainey Foster has been a partner and executive vice president of Leading Authorities, one of the world's foremost lecture agencies and event production companies. We're going to talk a little bit about that Today she understands the critical needs of the company of a company's high profile speakers and requirements of major companies and associations who book their services. She's a five year member of the corporate advisory board of SOMME S O M E so Others Might Eat. And her goal is to put a song to the face of the mission for organizations like Sum Rebuilding Together, Service Source, Home for Our Troops and Operation Smile. She is also currently a member of the Women's forum in Washington D.C. and on the board of Governors for Live Music Awards where she also acts as a producer. Wow, that's a lot right there. Rainey, welcome to the show. So happy to have you with us today. Good morning. So that's a mouthful. And for me right now at this point in the morning, I was like, wow, I was able to get all those words in.

I'm impressed.

What's not written in that bio that you would love for people to know about you?

What, what part of the bio that's not in the bio?

What's not in there that you just love for people to know about you?

Well, I just realized it's really outdated because I've been on the board for some for 15 years, which is a great, a great organization and a soup kitchen and rehab and training and all kinds of medical facilities for our homeless. And then the board and the donations and the charity actually goes out and buys buildings and allows young adults and young families to also live affordably in D.C. so I guess the thing that is important for me, for people to know is just that I think I've been very blessed in being able to do what I love to do throughout my Life. The first 11 years of my professional career, I starved to death because my forte is jazz. So that and 50 cents will get you across town. And I didn't ever think I would find anything that I would love as much as I do. The business that you and I are in, which is recognizing talent and recruiting talent and sharing talent and knowledge with the world in a really impactful way. And it's. I kind of think it's like being on Jeopardy. Every day I meet somebody new. I learned something new. I am an expert on bitcoin and fintech and I didn't even know what that was two, three years ago or block. But it's a fascinating business and I, as well as you, I'm very, very grateful for the opportunities to work in such a cool business and meet such fabulous, wonderful people that actually change the world.

You know, it's interesting about jazz and you're you're far more knowledgeable about this than I am, although I grew up just listening to it. My dad had it on a lot. And, and it's such a. It's such a beautiful form. The, the. The part I'm fascinated about and I want to ask you about is that there's. That. We talk about resonance. People use that term a lot. Will that. Does that resonate with you, or is it something that resonates? And so we get that that resonance is sort of this harmony of sound. People go, oh, you know, that. That just sounds great. It feels great. It inspires wonderful feelings inside. But there's also, in jazz, dissonance. There's resonance and dissonance. I mean, that's what makes jazz in many ways so different than other forms of music, because there's these sort of notes that ring and you go, okay, that's a note. I recognize that note sounds the way it's supposed to sound. And then there are these dissonant notes, these notes that are almost like they sound like they're off. And so isn't that a sort of a metaphor in so many ways for life itself, that there's resonance and dissonance, and that without the dissonance in jazz, it wouldn't be jazz. We wouldn't be craving the resonance without those other notes. So what. Tell me about your experience in jazz. And you were playing instruments or you were singing. What were you.

No, I'm a singer. And I love that metaphor because my uncle was my mentor. His name was George Greeley, and he was a prodigy. So from the time he was three years old, he picked up the mandolin and started to play it. My grandfather was a music teacher, and it became very clear very quickly that he was gifted. So he, the whole family out of Westerly, Rhode island, sort of put all their energy behind this favored son, who was the oldest son. And he went to Juilliard at the age of 13, and then he joined. When he graduated from Juilliard, he. I think it was 16 when he went to Juilliard. Yeah, that would have been really young at 13. But when he graduated, he had a choice to go either the concert route or to go kind of the big band route. And being a great looking Italian guy with a smile just like yours, he went with. He went sort of the big band route. So he actually joined Tommy Dorsey band the same day that Frank Sinatra did. And they became great friends. And my uncle used to say all the time, I don't know why all the women are Falling over this skinny Italian with the big ears and the blue eyes. I'm killing myself on the piano back here. But he was a remarkable artist, and as a child, I grew up listening to his records. He was. When Warner Brothers formed their recording label in 1960, he was their first artist. And so he did probably 25 albums with 40 piece orchestra with Warner Brothers. And they were everything from George Greeley plays George Gershwin to the great concert themes to the great movie themes. And his album on Gershwin is one that my parents played and I grew up with. And it really. Gershwin really resonated with me, particularly the score to Porgy and Bess and the Dissidents and the blues and all of that. So while my contemporaries in, like, the 70s and the 80s were listening to the Moody Blues and the Rolling Stones, I was singing. I was singing the blues. I was singing, you know, Summertime or. Or I was in the scores of that. My uncle's recording of the Rhapsody in Blue was shortened. And there was a lot of criticism about that, except Ira Gershwin, who, of course was the lyricist and the brother. George Gershwin called my uncle over and said, hey, kid, I want to talk to you. And my uncle said, I just love, like two hours of your time. And he went over there and three days later he left before he actually scored this album. So that was a huge influence on me. And one of my challenges when I moved to Los Angeles to sing was that there really wasn't a great appreciation for jazz. And I was marketed to do a lot of different things. It made me into a much better singer. But when I came to my real truth about what resonated with me, I realized that maybe five people, four of them being my family, would really greatly appreciate it. And I had a remarkable ride learning production and learning how to work in a studio and how to resonate and how not to resonate, not to use your vibrato. Because in recording with popular music, you know, pop, our country, you never use your vibrato, you know, and it's like, for God's sake, don't use your vibrato. And so, you know, all of that was a great experience. But, you know, I. After 11 years, I thought, what I really love is jazz, and that's what I'd like to sing. I don't want to go on the road singing anything that isn't really true to me. And I did do a project in Nashville, and they were the nicest people I've ever met in my life, and they were the best musicians I ever met. In my life, too. And they loved me. In Nashville, they kept saying, girl, you got the hair for this.

You know, the hair for this.

Got the hair for this.

I get that all the time. I don't know.

You got the hair for this. And my maiden name was Wheeler, so they love that. It's like Rainy Wheeler. Rainy 18 Wheeler. That could work. And I said, but I was born in New York. Don't tell anybody that. So, you know, I think that to answer your question, I was really exposed to really remarkable artistry through my uncle very early on. And it resonated with me. One of the challenges was that I was 24 years old singing songs that I really didn't earned the right to sing yet. Because I think, getting back to the original metaphor, you know, there is a beautiful, full ingenue notes, and then there's the dissidents. And it's a great analogy for life. And you have to live life and you have to, you know, experience the joys and the remarkable sorrows to sing jazz. Well, and at this point in Life, in my 50s, I feel like I've earned the right to sing jazz based on my experiences.

Is there a lesson for us today about jazz? Because I didn't expect that we'd end up here in our conversation. And this is. And what a joy. I mean, that's. How do we take what you just said? This concept of. Of our experience in life is often modeled in our art. I mean, we see it all the time that art is imitating life and even the other way around in some other places in the world right now. But what are the lessons? Or is there a lesson you can think of from jazz that we could think about again?

You know, there's. I think, when emotion becomes too great for words, there's music that's always something that I believe in. And that's why a great musical has a great script, has a great book. But then when you move into the musical part, it resonates and it feels so. I just think it's a great mirror for life. And jazz, particularly has a lot of angst in it. It has a lot of pain in it. And I think that we're all feeling that pain right now. And it can be reflective. It doesn't have a great appreciation for a Cleo Lane or an Oscar Peterson, one of the world's greatest pianists.

Or Bill Evans.

Yeah, but there's a joy, I think, in sort of being able to feel things on such a deep level. And I think we're all feeling that now, in many ways, I, as you know, personally had a lot of personal loss in my life in a very short amount of time. All sudden tragic deaths. My husband, my sister, my brother, my business partner and you know, there. And believe me, I can now sing the blues. But you can't stay in that place. There's got to be way to feel the gratitude for and recognize the love and the experience that you had and also be able to find, you know, the next place understanding. And I think the greatest lesson is that really all you have is now, now right this minute. So, you know, it's either chicken salad or it's chicken shit. What are you gonna make it be? And, and there's. And there's a lot of chicken shit. But I choose to try to figure out how to make chicken salad.

That expression, you know, people singing the blues, just evaluating it in my own mind as I'm sitting here with you, that singing the blues is in some ways it almost feels like someone who is in a place where there. Well, there's certainly sadness there and maybe even victim ness there and maybe even a place where you're in a state of self pity. And I'm bringing that up only because I think there's something that's even pejorative and that something about singing the blues sounds negative, that some. Some way that it sounds like that's something we shouldn't necessarily do. And maybe that's, maybe that's a part of the challenge of blues. I don't, I didn't know that this was gonna be a music theory podcast. Right. But it's interesting because jazz has never been widely, widely appreciated. No, just hasn't. And I think in part it's because it takes us. You know, I'm gonna just say this. You could call bullshit on it if you think so, but does it take us into darker places that we, that many people are uncomfortable sort of being. Being in. And is it somehow just part of a human experience that people deny that we've got to be able to experience darkness in order to also appreciate lightness or other things. Thoughts on that?

Yeah, I think, I think that, you know, when you, when you are living through darkness, and I think we've all experienced that on different levels that.

I'm.

A firm believer that you have to grieve. Like we're right now, all of us are grieving, you know, being able to just go out to the store. You know, I'm planning a trip to Puerto Rico in a couple of weeks to get a cat because I lost My cat. And the only place I can meet this woman who has a cat that I want is in Puerto Rico. But I can't figure out how to do it without taking four Covid tests. But I mean, I think you need to grieve. People are grieving their freedom and their life and the choices in the past, the way business used to be, the certainty, that kind of thing. It's super important to grieve, you know, whether it's a death or whether it's a process or something that's familiar or a lifestyle, because. And grief isn't linear. It's not like I'm in denial. I am angry, I am bargaining. I have accepted it and I'm done. It's not a linear process. And again, I'm really talking about how most people are feeling right now as they grieve a life that they knew, a certainty, a lifestyle and a complete confidence level that they can pay their mortgage, pay their rent, continue going. It's super difficult. So you grieve because it can kill you if you don't, whatever. But what's the next step? How to be proactive? How do you turn it around? What can you do right now in this moment to make the difference in the change? And that becomes very important, I think. And a lot of times, I think for all of us too, it's not just a day at a time. Sometimes it's an hour at a time. It's an hour at a time. And as we've all gone through this remarkable earthquake in our business, how do we create something different? How do we pivot, to use your term, how do we pivot quickly, effectively, not reactively, but proactively so that you can create whatever, you know, if it's personal goodness, impact, success, you know, income for your family, I mean, I think we're all highly aware of the people that are just really, really suffering right now. You know, our industry, yours and mine, has been hit super hard, you know, similar to the cruise line industry or the airline industry. But there's business out there, there's. And clients need to be, you know, clients need remarkable guidance right now, more so than they did before. When you're just calling about, hey, who do you need for a speaker? It's like, wow, I need to produce a four day meeting virtually. I have four, four general sessions on each day. I want something entertainment at night, and I have five concurrent sessions on that same day. That's the business I'm in now, which was one that I never anticipated being in. I considered myself you know, an artist who was an agent, who understood talent, who recognized talent, who nurtured talent, and who plays talent. And now I am doing that virtually as well in our company as producing virtual meetings with my remarkable colleagues who have been producing in person meetings for many years and who pivoted super quickly to embrace the challenges of having companies and trade associations touch their clients and their members and their employees in an impactful way in a virtual world.

They've had to be resilient, for sure. And the, you know, it's interesting the, the grieving process you brought up earlier. I'm just curious, how do you think corporations, how do organizations properly grieve?

Well, I think again, you can't rest on the success of the past. I mean, I think that you have to recognize what you've done and what's worked, and then you need to figure out what's going to work and hopefully take care of your people in the process. Take care of your people because, you know, what worked yesterday isn't going to work today. And so companies need to get out of the past and even get out of the present, and they really need to figure out how to navigate the future. And I think that only works if there's a really good culture in place and they care about their people and they take care of their people. I'm super proud to say at leading authorities, we've let go of five people and they were all new hires in the first week of this. And it was just one of those not sure what's going to happen. And, you know, it was really brand new hires. We have actually hired for new producers in the last couple of weeks to embrace what is clearly where the business is going right now.

I knew I wore this shirt for a reason today because it's not knowing that we might take the approach that we have, but having one another's backs. At every organization I've ever been involved in or had the privilege to speak to or facilitate workshops for, that concept of how it is that a company truly demonstrates that they have people's backs is so important. As you said, you can use the word culture for it, but it's the feeling that you have with family and real friends, that when things are difficult, when there's grieving to be done, when there's loss in place, that people don't just abandon you. And what does that really look like in a commercial setting? And I think those are conversations that are up for grabs right now in ways that they haven't been in the past because the Kind of change and challenge that's out there is global. It's not relegated to a particular industry. Even though, as we know.

And I think there's some comfort in that. I think that, you know, my, you know, my 92 year old mom was saying, you know, I can't go out. And I said, and you know what, sweetheart, you are totally right. But this is not just happening to you. We are all in the same boat. This is all in the same boat everywhere. You know, and there is comfort in that because I think in isolated incidences, whether it's a personal loss of death, you know, I can tell you personally that, you know, when you're grieving and death, you really feel like that people have remarkable empathy and really want to help, but unless they're willing to sort of sit in that moment with you and say nothing, just try to, you have the courage to just sit in that moment and not say, I know how you feel, but I'm gonna just sit here with you. You know, it's the same thing with what's happening now is we need to sit with each other, we need to say nothing. We need to recognize what's been lost and what is no longer possible and also understand that we're all in it together. And there's great strength in that, there's great power in that, there's great reward in that. Where. And you work together, maybe you were a solo player, now you're working in teams because, you know, for our company, I understand how to produce, but I'm not making the switch to virtual production. I was kicking and screaming like a crazy person. You know, it was a baptism by fire. And then I learned, and I learned that I have colleagues that know more and that as a team, everybody has a role to play. And also in our team of people, a lot of us have worked together for more than 23 years. So there's a lot of trust. And we have remarkable event staff. They're wearing five, six, seven different hats. They're, you know, they're. And I'm super proud of them because the bandwidth is ridiculous. And not being able to see each other or be in the same room, that's something that I miss really greatly. I miss seeing my colleagues and being able to work the problem together. It's always virtual, it's always working it virtually or calling on phone, but still you can feel that glue. And there's a remarkable comfort in that. And also it works, it works on a pretty high level.

What are some of the things that we call the early stage wisdom. I mean, we always can look back on things with hindsight and say, well, this is what we, we was there to be seen and what was also there to be learned. And it's always easier when you're off in the distance away is what so far in the first six months of this thing in your industry, what are you seeing as the new best practices that are emerging? Things that, as you said, you wouldn't have necessarily anticipated, but now you realize this is what's true. This is the best way to meet organizations where they are in the moment.

For our industry, the first thing, the first task was to take care of the client. So, you know, when everything canceled, okay, you know, the answer was absolutely, we're going to kick this down the road. I'm going to make you whole. Let's just. You like this speaker for March 2020. How does he feel? March 2021, you know, and I'm going to forward your deposit and I'm not going to collect the balance and we're going to just, you know, unless a lot of the things that happened in March things are already paid for and with clients permission. We paid our speakers, we paid our speakers and we issued $0 contracts because everybody needed that at that time. And then as time went on, you know, people agreed. No one's going to get paid, no one's going to recognize revenue in 2020. We're going to kick it down the road to 2021 and make everybody whole. And so that was the first order of business. The second for us was just we had always had a production company for the last 20 years that was as well as a video company. And my dear friend and partner, Mark French, who passed away a year ago May from stroke after a valiant recovery for four years. When I joined, I was kind of the crazy girl, you know, that he knew as a singer in LA through my sister and my brother. They had all worked together in the trucking industry and at the U.S. chamber. And I used to come to their parties when I lived in LA and come to their meetings like the American Trucking association of the U.S. chambers meeting. And I would be wearing a belt that was really like as a skirt and hair down to my butt. And my sister would get me a room because I was a starving artist and I would clean out the minibar and she'd be like, you know, we get audited, we get audited, for God's sake. So that's how Mark met me was through my siblings who both worked at the two organizations with him, the American Trucking association and the U.S. chamber. And then he split off and founded leading authorities. So I was kind of the, you know, the crazy sister of Leslie and Clint who was starting to. So when I came back in 96 and I interviewed with him for a job, he took a chance and he hired me. And a couple years in, I realized that, you know, after, you know, understanding and being talent, that I really loved recruiting talent, recognizing talent, finding talent, placing talent, and also being consulted to clients on a different level, on a deeper level. My question to Mark was, you know, we need to do entertainment. Why aren't we doing entertainment? Our clients are doing entertainment and we are not booking that. And so he said, well, that might be a good idea. What about Helen Reddy? And I said, okay, is she still alive?

And.

And he goes, well, Judy Collins? He was a huge fan of Herman Herman's. I'm not kidding. And he was.

He was in. He was in a different generation. And the 60s were his, you know.

What'S his, you know, and every time, you know, Mrs. Brown, you've got a lovely doctor, you know, So I said, why don't you let me handle this? Because, you know, again, this guy thought Dana Carvey was a stripper. So we started handling forging relationships with big talents. Truth big talent agencies, and was really excited to be placing big talent. And so the point of this was that that led to, hey, if we're placing your content and we're now placing your entertainment, could I get a bid on producing the writer for that music act? Could I produce that act? You know, because I think that we could get a team of people to do it. And then as long as I'm producing your entertainment, I'd love a shot at the RFP for producing your whole meeting. Because after all, you have a stage, you've got lights, there's a lot of redundancy here. We're gonna have to bring in special microphones, racks and stacks.

Everything's related, everything hangs on all those pieces that have to fit like puzzle pieces there are.

Right. Except it was just a place where traditional lecture agencies hadn't really gone before. And the whole purpose. Because my background was in entertainment, I really wanted to go there. I wanted to book the Economist, I wanted to book the Leadership Culture speaker, but I also wanted to book the entertainment. I wanted to go and I wanted to manage it and wrangle that talent. And that led to us eventually evolving into having a full fledged production company for live production along with video. Because again, if you're booking These high ticket items. Why don't we go out to, you know, the Beach Boys and you know, we'll film a video where they do a welcome video that you could clip and then send your members, hey, don't, don't miss us in October 2020, we'll be there, etc. So that put us in a great position when this hit after we got after through the initial shock of literally thousands of cancellations, as you know, and all the paperwork and the tracking that happens to make sure that it's correct and everybody's whole and it's good and fair and right. But when we were able to really understand the chaos our clients were going through, you know, particularly trade associations, which is pretty indigenous to D.C. virginia, Maryland, and then professional societies in Chicago where they just. A lot of the revenue comes from these meetings and they really need a way to touch their members and various corporations as well need a way to touch their customers and remain connected and also assure their employees. So we all had to kind of bite the bullet and really learn how to produce an impactful virtual meeting and be able to in a way where clients understand that, you know, sometimes it can be just as expensive or more as an in person, you know, when you have all those things going, it's like producing a television show. You need a person there that is, you know, directing it and making sure it doesn't crash with multiple screens producing.

An end to end experience. So, and that is if you're doing it with sort of a siloed approach, the possibility that the integrated whole is as meaningful as it can be is not, not as likely as when you have, as you said, someone that's looking at the whole thing and put those pieces together. So you, you were more uniquely situated, I suppose, than a number of agencies because you already had production in the works, but not virtual. So what was that pivot like for you to sort of look at what best practices, how do you create that effective and impactful meeting over zoom when people are zoom fatigued and when perhaps there's just even not buy in from companies. So it's kind of two parts of the question. One is what are some of those things that you've learned that would be the wisdom that's guiding you now? And are the organizations, the associations, have they really bought into the idea that this is not just a temporary solution? It's not like we're going to make do for the next 18 months until we can all get back in a room together. We all know that that's going to happen anyway. But the opportunity for that meeting, that virtual meeting to be transformational, to really have the kind of lasting impact. I mean I've read statistics that virtual meetings can produce really remarkable. Not just the takeaway in the moment, but the retention of the takeaway for 60 and 90 days. Whereas often in more live in person events and settings, those takeaways can have a shorter shelf life, let's say. So I mean, what's the mindset of the client as you see it right now? Where are they in the process, maybe in the grieving process to go back to that they past denial and all that kind of thing. And what are some of those best practices when it comes to producing a virtual meeting at the moment?

Well, I mean clients have really had a difficult time. I mean it's been as well as those of us that serve them. But I think that there is a huge recognition and acceptance now that this is the way to connect and whether you like it or not. And so again, what's the best way to do it? There's an awareness that it's going to cost some money to do it. Well, Zoom, very limited in regards to what we're doing here. It's great one on one, 12 people. But it's hard to embed video in Zoom. So education is key. We had to learn about the various platforms. The platforms exist, they're doing great, they're brilliant IT guys. They're not really focused on customer service. It's the analogy is that retain the platform. It's an empty house. You know, we come in, we furnish it, you know, and you know, we hang the paintings, we paint the walls, we do the furniture, we put the people in there. We create the family and the experience. Everything is always going to be about the experience. Whether it's in person or whether it's virtual. There is the ability to have a very intimate experience virtually when you are watching a great keynoter or you know, whatever it is regarding to concurrent sessions. I think anybody who tells you that virtual networking is great, it's not telling you the truth. It just stinks. It's really hard to do. It's really hard to network. And of course for a lot of these trade associations, that's a huge portion of pressing the flesh. You know, they're nonprofits. They for the most part can only collect dues and registration for revenue. So the ability to take your member out to dinner or lunch, that stuff doesn't, it doesn't work. But you know, boondoggles have been a thing of the past for a really long time in this business, whether it's in person or virtual. But it certainly is nice to go to a great place and play around to golf and have a great dinner. So how do you create value for your client in a virtual. In a virtual setting? So part of it is absolutely knowing what you're talking about. And for me, I know enough to be dangerous, okay, about the virtual world. I know everything about, you know, the best keynoters and the best entertainment. And here's the cool thing you can do in between, you know, sessions. And I've learned that I need my partners to help me on a call to explain, you know, kind of those really technical things about what the platform will and won't do, how much it's going to cost for, you know, how many days and sessions per day and how we're going to come in, in and help enhance it with content, with graphics, with Voice of God, with sponsorship opportunities. Whether it's like when you used to go to the movie theaters and see they'd flash that quick picture of a Coca Cola and a popcorn. It was that subliminal advertising. And I always said, we can do that with your sponsors. We could have a watermark. We could have some sort of banner in the background that they don't even. That's just consistently there. That might actually be more meaningful than the two minutes you give them at the microphone in real time, you know, so it's really important to. We've reorganized in teams so that we can provide value to the client across the board and execute across the board. And everybody's in the know because they really need the guidance. And the good news is I think that they understand that. They really understand that this is not going to be, you know, $3,000. That depending on the level of what the meeting is going to be and how many days, and it's up to them. I always say, keep it really simple, man. Don't do five concurrent sessions if you don't have to. Let's, you know, let's keep it simple. Keep it short. Two days, general sessions, concurrent CEO roundtables, whatever you need. The more facets that you add in there per day, the more people you need to run it. And I think that's kind of the big secret is in the virtual world, you need people. You may think this just sort of happens, that it's just magic, but you need people, you know, making sure that camera angle is right, switching the channel, making sure the graphics get flown in. So, I mean, that's very comforting. To me that even if you can't see them, they're there and they're. And everybody has a role to play. But clients. Dancer this very long winded answer. Clients have really begun to embrace this and understanding and even if begun to embrace speakers, speakers need to make a living. The margins are so low virtually. So I recommend to all my speakers, how about your local fee speakers bill in increments of time and travel. So if you're not traveling anywhere and you're local to California and your local fee is this, that seems like it's good and fair and right for that to be your virtual fee. Right, right. And for which is really important for.

Speakers to hear because I think a lot of folks were being asked to work for free for a period of months and given opportunities while they were working out there their virtual content. We've been delivering virtual trainings for a lot of years, so we were also not, not terribly uncomfortable being in front of the camera and, and being able to use breakout rooms and being able to really dive deeply into process and exercise. But I think a lot of folks were working out their content and what, what's it, you know, what's the difference between standing on a stage and what that paradigm is like for them as well as for the audience and then being more on a level playing field in a camera where you're looking at people, they're looking at you and you've got the opportunity for conversation to happen and it's very, very different. And I think at the beginning what we were hearing and what we were seeing was that organizations weren't even. There wasn't an established marketplace a way to sort of value, as you say, time and IP and people were even just wanting, I know we wanted to serve at the beginning. We weren't looking to get anything. So we were putting on resilience events and other things just to, just to add value and we weren't charging for those things. But there is a time, and I think time has passed now where that shift has occurred and speakers do need to reestablish their value. And it's good to hear that part of the way you're framing it is that it's your local, it's the way you would if you were going to travel down the road 15 minutes by car. That's more the mindset of how you charge for a virtual event today. Did I get that right?

Yeah, and I think it's, it's, you know, I had a kind of a challenging conversation with a client last night. A Very good client, you know, and they'd asked me to find this, this speaker, which of course I don't ever wait like a second if someone asked me to find somebody. And she was quite remarkable. And she quoted a very low fee. And so I gave them the fee. They had a conversation with her and by the time that they got off the phone, they had negotiated her doing three separate 20 minute segments over the course of two days. And so, you know, I had to have the very difficult conversation, which I've gotten very good at. And I said, you know, she's going to be great, but I need to let you know that two days is two days and three segments are three segments and 20 minutes is really tough. Ask any TED speaker, okay, to get an impactful message out there in 20 minutes. Much easier to do a whole day of training and everybody breaks for lunch or whether it's virtual. I said, this is a lot of work, it's a lot of time and you are my client and I love you. But I also have to protect my talent because we have to value her time and her effort and what it's going to cost her to craft 20 impactful minutes over the course of two days. And you know, their response, which I was surprised, it's a big corporation. She goes, well, you know, I assume that, you know, speaker fees are really low and this woman really quoted low, really quoted low. And one of my conversations with her last night, because I'd not worked with her before, but I will, is that you need to ask for more because it's number one, you're good, you're worth it. And also we're going to charge in increments of days. You know, a lot of clients want to pre record, so something for the certainty, which is fine. And then they want my speaker to come back and do live Q and A. And I said, I am delighted to do that, but there's going to be an upcharge. And you know, the answer is, well, you know, it's just, you know, they don't have to know. You know, they've got a tech check, they got to do that tech run twice. They got to, you know, brush their teeth twice, they got to be prepared twice. It's two days. And so that's been challenging in some respects where, I mean, you don't charge double because the fees are so decreased anyway. If somebody is $10,000 for their local fee and then they're asked to come back and do Q and A, I'm going to try to get half of that fee, it's another day. Because, you know, I will often say to clients, I'm not going to do anything unless I feel it is. And this is my favorite, favorite phrase, good and fair and right. And do you think this is good and fair and right? Because I. Because I do. I do. Good and fair and right. I'm going to protect you, but I'm going to protect them too. Because, you know, we are all past the denial phase of this. This is the new normal, this is the new reality. And people need to be paid for their time and for their efforts in a fair way.

I'm going to, I'm going to say amen, sister, to that. Yeah, you know, it's. We're finding new footing. I don't want to diminish any aspect of the inquiry because it's. On one hand, it sort of makes common sense that that's the case. And yet we're finding, all of us are just finding new footing. And I think the companies still are not yet all bought in, and nor would that be an easy thing, but that they'd be bought into the new belief system that that virtual event might actually create the KPIs they're looking for or create even better results than they were looking for when it came to bringing people together from kind of all over, all over the country and the world even. So, I want to pivot just a little bit for the last segment here, talk about resilience, because part of the reason I wanted to have you on, in addition just to mad love for who you are and what you do, is the fact that you have been a model of resilience, as you said earlier, through multiple tragedies, loss of people really close to you, people that you loved and adored. And resilience, in many ways, people define it often as this ability to get back up. And that's one way to define it. And I want to get your take on resilience because I feel like you've been a great leverager, that's a word, leverager, of the challenges, the adversity, because you continue to just move forward and create new chapters in your life, new love in your life, new business opportunities, all these great things. So you model it. Forget talking about it, you just model what a resilient life looks like. So who better than you to ask what your definition of it is? And then I've got one other follow up to that.

You know, it's funny, when you said that, the one word that came to mind for me was faith. And As a deviant Catholic, I don't mean it in that respect, but I think that. I think you just have to have faith in the sense that once you get through the darkness, that there will be light, and who knows what that new chapter will bring? Like, I never thought I would get married again. I was done. You know, I had a great love in my life, remarkably, a great love in my life. And my joke was that I was going to become a lesbian because I thought I would be a very popular lesbian. And I had zero, I mean, zero interest in dating. And, you know, much to my surprise, you know, eight years later, I fell in love again and married two years ago. And that's been. Who would. Who would have thunk, you know? But at the same point, I think the thing that I feel a lot of pride about is, in terms of resilience, is that I have worked very hard to push to live through grief, to understand and live in gratitude for that particular person that's been lost, because they were all people. A door deeply. And I'm really strong right now. There's very little thing, very few things that can knock me off my feet at this point in my life. And so this whole thing is like a walk in the park compared to what could really be happening. And I think that that recognition is something we all have to recognize, no matter how bad it is for you. My mom used to always say, you bring your troubles to the middle of the table with everybody else, and you are grateful to leave with your own in comparison. And, you know, for me, I think that the way to always get the emphasis off of what you're feeling in grief is to figure out a way to pay it forward, you know, and that's why I got personally got involved in so many things like Service Corps and Operation Smile and having songs written from my music community that could be, you know, used for an organization. Put on a website every time somebody downloads one, it's, you know, 10 bucks goes toward the organization. You know, how, you know, if you just sit in the corner and suck your thumb and, you know, this happened, this happened, this happened. Yeah, it did. It did. It did happen. Recognize it, you know, and live through it and help somebody else out who's really in much worse shape than you are, even if it doesn't feel like that's possible at the time.

Be in service. Service is love in action. That's the way I like to.

Our dear friend Steve Farber said, absolutely. You know, service, you know, really, when you. When you can help somebody else out who, you know, who really needs it. It takes, it helps you in your grieving process. You know, and I think that's what's happening now in business too, is that it feels very rewarding to be able to have a conversation with a team of people that I trust, colleagues with clients that are in shock and have let go of 30% of their staff and still need to produce something impactful to keep going. It really feels good to be able to give them information that's helpful and that they can use and that works. But on a personal level, really, I think that all of us have to live in the moment, live in the now, recognize it, because it could be gone tomorrow. That's, that's a great lesson that I've learned and realized that, you know, this. I mean, we're, we're all mostly in beautiful homes, quarantined. I'm like, wow, this is really tough. I mean, it is tough. It is tough not to be able to have the freedom to go where you want. But it's nothing compared, nothing compared to what most of the world is going through in terms of, you know, not being able to pay their rent, pay for food, or make the decision between rent and food.

There's so much uncertainty. And I don't, I don't think as human beings, we don't deal with uncertainty well. I'm kind of a control. Recovering control freak maybe, But I think we're addicted to knowing. We're addicted to certainty. And so it's. I'm more than just a little interested and even fascinated by how it is that we leverage uncertainty. We've got a book coming out in the spring with McGraw Hill called Change Leveraging the Power of Uncertainty to Build Long Term Success. And again, you're one of those people that I think you've been able to be in that place of uncertainty at various points in your life and emerge with something that is valuable and things that you've. And things that you can use to then not just sustain a life or sustain even business, but to get into momentum again. So my question to you is, what is it about uncertainty that you think is leverageable? Where is there power in uncertainty for you personally or even professionally?

I mean, I think that, I mean, I think everybody hates uncertainty. I mean, it's really hard not to know what's around the corner. I think the only thing that's good about it is that it causes a lot of creativity and a lot of things that can, you know, you just have to problem solve. You just have to And I think you have to always be prepared for uncertainty. And I think, you know, that sort of lackadaisical attitude that this is the way we've always done it, this is the way it works, and this is the way we're going to do it. That's a death sentence. And that's something that I will give 100% props to. Mark French. He used to make me crazy because he would always, the minute we got used to something, he would change it. And I'd say, I hate this, I hate this change. Can we just please be in this one place? This really works. And he'd be like, yep, nope, we're going to change this. And now that's. Without him, that's what we're doing. You know, our new CEO is Matt Jones. He's awesome. We've worked together for 23, 24 years and we were all mentored by Mark. And it was like, we eat change for breakfast and you know, but we hate it, but we're going to eat it.

And you guys don't just make friends with change, you make change your best friend.

If you don't change, you will die.

I mean, in anything, disruption is the one thing we can count on. You can't count on the timing of it, but you know, it's always out there. It's constantly on the horizon. And to self disrupt is sort of counterintuitive. That's what I'm hearing you say, is that part of the culture within leading authorities is this culture of self disruption, right. Disturbing your own status quo, like shaking the Etch A Sketch, if anybody remembers.

With that, yes, I do. I'm with you on that. It actually is a part of our culture. And I will tell you, for the first four or five years, it made me crazy because I came from, you know, I was doing three or four jobs, singing jazz at night, you know, working with a 40 piece orchestra, booking Indy acts on the weekends. And basically I didn't understand this corporate world. But when. But I realized that being agile and being proactive instead of reactive, not, not saying, oh my God, what if this happens? It's just saying this most likely is going to happen. So what? You know, do you want fries, man? Here's your speaker. Here's. You know, we can also do entertainment. We can also produce that entertainment. We can produce your meeting. There's redundancy. And also we can do any kind of special videos and sponsorships, you know, do you want fries? Here you go, here's the menu.

Who knew Pivot able pivotability we like to say.

And again, I can't take credit for it. It was always Mark. It was always Mark who said, what.

Was it about him? That. Because I got to meet Mark and spend just a little time with him, I feel that that was just. That was. It was wonderful.

He was an insatiable intellect. Insatiable.

But is that the reason that he was committed to disturbing the status quo? Because that's such a. It is, It's. It's rare, I think, that you find somebody that embraces because now we're not talking about tolerating change or, you know, managing. So, so much of. In. In the consulting space is about management of change. It. This is about utilizing change in an affirmative. And please, you say proactive way in a way.

Yeah. It's kind of like if you're doing musical theater, right? There's some personalities that love musical theater. Like, I'm playing this role every night and I'm gonna. I'm gonna sing that song the same way every night. I'm gonna do this show for as long as it's on the road. That made me insane. Okay. I was bored out of my mind. I mean, I would. I didn't wanna sing the song the same way every night. I didn't wanna play the same role every night. That was Mark. Mark. Mark just couldn't. He was just driven. And so he would see an opportunity, it would excite. He would challenge himself to see if he could make that happen. And he would be dragging us all behind him, kicking and screaming, and actually the industry kicked and screamed too. And then all of a sudden it became the norm. You know, he would do outrageous things. I mean, he would, you know, he had remarkably crazy ideas. And not all of them were great, but some of them were. And then he would put the talent and the money behind making it happen. You know, he grew up in Turkey. He had. He was extremely well read. He was a very shy person. In person, I like to say that I gave Mark a sense of humor, you know, and I would say to people, okay, no, he just said that to you. But I speak Mark, so let me tell you exactly what he meant. Okay? And I speak Mark. And because he. What you speak. And this is, this is emerging from.

This now, just having a little distance on our conversation. I can see jazz is a big part of this because Mark was a jazz musician in the way that he approached that business. Improvisational and something that's not necessarily linear and not being afraid to try something that produces a non resonant Or a dissonant note, even, that all that resonance that would otherwise just bore the shit out of you, even the same beautiful note constantly becomes monotonous at a certain point. We know that when it comes to speaking, it's the death knell of any speaker to be predictable, to be quite boring. Right. Because they are monotonous. So it's interesting that the conversation about music has emerged and looking at what Mark was really great at. And so it's interesting because that was. You came from jazz, and yet, like you said, this is one of those ironies of life, embracing that sort of improv way to approach certain aspects of business. Maybe not so comfortable. Definitely not so comfortable. Right.

It certainly wasn't comfortable. And then it became the way we do it. And super grateful to him because it is part of our culture, and it did allow us to pivot. And it has helped us serve our clients and get closer to our clients and help our clients. And the thing I'm proudest of is that we still have our entire staff. We're not owned by anybody or a freestanding agency. We live and we die by the sword, but our people are. It's the value of the company. That's it. Otherwise, it's just a bunch of chairs and desks and computers. It's, how does it feel to do business with Tony? How does it feel to do business with Chelsea? How does it feel a certain way? How does it feel to do business with Rainey? You know, that's my goal. And hopefully be able to offer solutions and execute well.

I love your version of jazz. So this is. This is all good stuff. Do you have a ritual. Do you have something that you do on a ritual basis daily, even every morning, every evening, that represents your.

I cannot. I cannot. I have to make my bed in the morning.

It's like, this is how you maintain resilience as you make your bed every day.

I think there are certain rituals, you know, I think that, you know, that is actually important to me. Get up, make your bed before I do anything. You know, certain things.

It's a win. I mean, I know it. It's a. It's a right out of the gate, immediate win to do something you don't have to do. For one thing, nobody's gonna. You know, you don't get. You get no demerits. There's nothing on your permanent record because you didn't make your bed.

When you're just. The day just doesn't go well. I mean, it's just. I'm a little Bit ocd. I mean, my husband will get up in the middle of the night and you know, he'll come back in, the bed will be made. So, you know.

That'S good to know.

He's former Air Force, so he kind of digs it too. But I think, you know, I think that there are. I, my, my ritual is that. Or I guess my practice is I always say to clients, if you email me and call me and you have not heard back from me within 20 minutes, I either didn't get it or I was hit by a car. That's my, my ritual is responsiveness. If someone emails me at 9 o' clock at night, 10 o' clock at night, I was on last night till midnight with clients because I think that really this is a 24, 7 gig. You know, we're lucky in the sense we get to stay home. But even so, problems don't just occur between 8 and 5. And if I don't have staff members aren't able to respond to clients needs after 5 o'.

Clock.

They're not right for our business. This is, you know, this show business, man. You know, it is no matter how you look at it. And it's not nine to five and people, people need guidance and especially with these things now it's 24 7. And so that's.

I always thought that was just because you love me. I've said this to my wife, to Randy, numerous times. I said, you know, Randy is so responsive. And we see so many open loops, so many open communication loops in business and in personal things. I don't know if you've noticed the same thing, but people just go dark, they become silent, they don't answer texts or they don't respond in ways that used to be just sort of common, you know, like a common decency or a professionalism or civility that has disappeared on some level. And for years now I've just remarked that you are uncommon in that way. And I so appreciate that. And as I said, I always thought it's just because you love me. And now it's even better. It's not about little me, it's just who you are with everyone. And I think that that makes so from my perspective, I feel special because someone who I communicate with, who is busy like I am, still makes the time to respond and respond in a timely way. And to me that's a part of coming back from this in many ways has a lot to do with reevaluating how it is that we, that we treat people, how we show up and better than before. Communication, something we just started talking a lot about. What does it look like in a time when people are so living with this great uncertainty? And to me, the great opportunity and uncertainty is leadership. So as you said, this creativity, this is a way to creatively approach the new or the next normal leadership has everything to do with how people feel when they're in contact and in relationship with you. And so I'm just reflecting back to you that your leadership is felt the way I feel. It is somebody that cares enough. That cares enough to respond in a meaningful way quickly or in a timeframe that just makes it seem like I'm a priority. So I don't know if people have said that to you before, but that's my experience of you love. And I'm sure I'm not alone in saying that so.

Well, I do love you and. But I will always. I just can't not answer anybody. I mean, there are some people I will ignore, but. But actually, you know, I just. I just think it's courteous you're not.

Listening to this podcast. It's okay.

I just. I just think, you know, if you want to be in business, you know, you take care of your people internally, externally, internally, all across the board, and it doesn't cost a lot to answer somebody. It makes me crazy when somebody doesn't answer my email. You know, I often just send an email to a client, and then I'll always call them and say, I just want to make sure you've got it. Do you want to walk through it, you know, or are you okay? You know, but I just think it's the way business needs to get done. You know, it's courteous.

Yeah. We're moving toward more personal, not less intimacy, not less right now. So with that, I just want to thank you for taking the time and for us being able to chat about some of these things. I loved what you said at the beginning about when emotion becomes too great. That's when there's music. And as a music lover, I know a lot of people will really appreciate that sentiment, that when the emotion gets great, what are you doing for yourself in the moment to deal with that, to work through and find a creative opportunity in that emotion. It might be just to sink into something like music, whether it's to take a walk listening to it, or it's to sing in the shower or sing wherever you sing. But it's a wonderful insight.

Thanks.

I have a ritual that was the subject of my own TED Talk about two Years ago, this ritual about waking. So I always will ask a guest this question, and I'm going to ask it to you. Randy, did you wake up today?

Yes.

Because we're not. I mean that. It sounds like a straightforward question, but we're. I think we're in the process of waking up, and some of us that means more coffee, and for others it means to expand our thinking in some way to find some new insights. To me, that's a part of what a successful life involves, that each day we wake up just a little bit more. Little more awareness today than yesterday. And that has nothing to do with the pandemic. You can have quite a bit more insight and awareness in times of challenge even than in the status quo times when the wind is in your sail and things seem to be going just perfectly. And yet even in those times, people are quite often unhappy and. And we'll sat. You know, so waking up, you did that check. The second piece of this ritual is, is there something to appreciate and be grateful for? Was there something when you woke up this morning, you. That you were grateful for or appreciated consciously that you can recall?

Yeah, every morning I wake up and I count my chickens and the chickens that I love and as long as they're all still with me and I'm good to go that day.

Yeah. Gratitude, the value of gratitude cannot be overstated at this point. The science behind it and everything else, it's just, it's as elixirs go, it's not snake oil, it's the real McCoy. So wake up and be grateful. That's step two. And then the third piece, which was both beautiful aspect of that TED talk and one that's been controversial as well, is the words that come out of your mouth. The declarations that we make when we speak. I truly believe that we speak our lives into existence. We speak constantly. We are manifesting through our words. And if nothing else, the words that we speak all day long are recorded subconsciously. We hear them. And if we were to actually have those, Those words replayed to us, I think a lot of us would kind of cringe. It's. It's a question of what. What do you consciously choose to say and speak into existence? So are. Do you recall the first words that you said this morning? Any idea? And you might. Maybe you picked up the phone and you looked at a Facebook post or you saw some headline, you went, oh, shit. I used to start my day by saying oh, shit. When I was a lawyer a lot.

Actually, I think I was actually posting on Facebook, and I think you saw it, so it could have been that.

Well, that's what you typed out. But do you remember what you might have said out loud, if anything?

Let's see. Jeff and Zeke, our dog, had left about five. I think I said, shoot, I have a guy working on the office. I know I talked to myself. I don't recall. I think that I was grateful to. Again, for me, it's just every day, kind of checking in on. Nothing traumatic has happened. Everybody I love is still breathing. It really is checking my pulse on that every morning, so. And then I just kind of get up and start doing my thing.

So this is beautiful, because I want you, if you're willing, tomorrow when you wake up. And we know that when we go to sleep at night, we don't have a contract to wake up. It's not a guarantee. So even in that moment when we realize we are waking up, you can conceive that there are people who are taking their last breath at that very same moment. And so there's a lot, as you said, to just be grateful for in that. In that moment. And then if you're inspired to say something out loud, I love to know what you say tomorrow morning just as a result of this conversation, because my four words, these four little words, I love my life are. You know, it's just gone on for so many years that those are the words that I begin the day with. And I said in this talk, and I've said to people often that it doesn't mean I love my life because everything's going my way or things are. Are right with the world or right in. In. In every way, because it's so contrary to what is reality. It's. It's. I love my life, comma, no matter what.

Yep.

No matter what. So what are. What are the words? What are your. What are your words? Tomorrow, what is. What is the I am statement or the statement out loud that puts the wheels in motion of things that we can't even put towards that might only be able to. To be expressed through music, for example.

That's right.

We'll see.

I'll email you in the morning.

Oh, God. This will be like a. In the show notes for the podcast. We'll also get that, too. What are Rainey's words when she woke up? All right, listen, we could go on, but love, it's been a pleasure and thank you.

Thank you all very much.

Beautiful. Ciao for now.

Thanks for listening, everyone. We hope you now have the tools and greater insights to navigate your own pivot. Help us inspire others by sharing this episode and leaving your comments over@adammarkel.com podcasts for more tips, strategies, and support as you consciously pivot into a new business and lifestyle you love. Join our Pivot community on facebook@pivotfb.com sa.