Laugh. Lead. Celebrate: Joel Zeff on Energizing Teams Through Improv & Joy

Welcome to the Biz to Biz Podcast, your number one source for all business news. Hey everybody, welcome to B2B Vault, the Biz to Biz Podcast, sponsored by Nationwide Payment Systems and our brand new product NPS One, which is your all-in-one gateway that can process all your credit cards, ACH, send out payment links and more, and connect to your website. It's amazing. Book a demo. With me at nationwidepaymentsystems.com. Today we're having a special guest taking— we're doing a little combination of business and comedy. Everybody knows I'm always down for some good jokes, especially some really bad dad jokes. I don't know if he's got any of those, but we're going to be talking to Joel Zeff, and he does, um, his thing is comedy and business. So let's dive in and meet Joel. Thank you for joining us on the show today.

Thank you, Allen. I appreciate it.

So where are you? Where are you located?

I'm based in a suburb of Dallas. So we're right about to reach the temperature of the sun today. I think, I think, I think we've hit end of June, July. It really— we really hit the temperature of the sun. I'm just waiting for my air conditioning to go out.

Oh, no. I lived in Dallas from '86 until '92, so I remember those summers.

I was there. I moved to Dallas in '91 to work. Yep. I moved to '91 to work at the Dallas Times-Herald as a newspaper reporter. That's how I moved to Dallas.

I remember. Yeah. Dallas Times-Herald. Wow. Okay. Yep.

And, and I was there when it closed. And that was—

I don't remember if I was ever in that newspaper, but I was in the Dallas Morning News when I was a chef a few times.

Okay.

Well, that's my claim. That was my claim.

Yeah, I covered crime. So you probably didn't want me to write about you.

No, we don't want to hear about any crime. We had plenty of crime in the one hotel where I was at. There was constantly, but there weren't anything you would want to write about.

Yeah, yep.

So, so, you know, not, you know, not normally do I get somebody on the show that, you know, that's gonna tell any jokes or anything. But so how did you decide on, you know, I listened to your video, so you tell kind of the story, like how did you like make this transition from the news to being a speaker and deciding to blend in comedy with business, right?

Well, so my keynotes, I use improv as a visual storyboard. We were talking about that earlier, uh, before we started recording, as a visual storyboard to talk about these messages about teamwork, leadership, embracing change, uh, creating opportunity and positive support, communicating more successfully. And so the improv the audience is more engaged in the message, they're more open to the message, and we're having fun. When we get together for these events, we need to feel something emotionally, or we need to laugh and have fun. We need to create these moments together. If we're all going to be in a room together and spend this type of money, we need to, we need to create energy. We need to feel something. And there's nothing better than to laugh with each other, with your peers, with your team. Sometimes with your customers, with your managers, because it, it bonds us. It creates respect. It connects us. And when, uh, as I mentioned, I, I came to Dallas. I started as a newspaper reporter, and then I went into advertising, marketing, PR work for a couple agencies. And, uh, when I lost my job at the Herald, the other newspaper bought it out, closed it down. They said, come clean out your desk, which, by the way, is one of my favorite chapters in my brand new book, Make the Right Choice, Lead with Passion, Elevate Your Team and Unleash the Fun at Work. It's about losing my job and I had a lot of free time and what— that is always the origin story for stand-up comedy, right? You lose your job. That's always the origin story. And so that's what happened. And so I started doing stand-up and I, and I found my way to an improv comedy club, and I fell in love with improv. And there was, uh, one of my clients— fast forward a little bit, and I was working at a PR agency, and one of my clients was Texas Instruments, and they were having an executive retreat. And they said, uh, Joel, we know you do improv on the weekend, improv comedy. We're having this retreat. Can you come up, do some of that with us? And that's how it started. They had fun. I had fun. My light bulb started flickering on. Flickering wasn't fully on. It was just a flicker because I didn't know how to get from here to there. And I didn't even know people hired speakers or this was a, this was a business. And I just followed what I loved, followed my passion. And one thing led to another. And here I am, 2,500 events later on the Business to Business Vault podcast. Yeah, the business sponsored by Nationwide Payment Systems.

No, so like, you know, comedy and like joking around at work, obviously. I mean, you know, you're doing comedy for 30-plus years, right? So, you know, you're saying I'm old, telling jokes, huh?

You're saying I'm old?

Well, you know, we've been— both of us been around for a while, so, you know, joking around at work, you know, is obviously not the same today. I mean, first of all, look at this guy Gordon Ramsay. Half the stuff he says to people on Hell's Kitchen, like, if you said that at work, I mean, you would be like dragged into court.

Yes, the rules are different.

The way he yells at the cooks in the kitchen, you know, or the chefs. Um, although it is one of my favorite TV shows. The, you know, you just, you know, how, how does that play? How do you know you have to like keep it clean, you know, at an event like that, at a work event?

Yes, I'm using comedy a little bit different ways, uh, you know, and I would recommend— obviously that's a whole nother discussion, but, um, you know, humor and fun is part of our work and should be part of who we are and It fuels our passion. It connects us. But we also have to have guardrails, right? Humor is not— if you're going to do something at work, it better be inclusive, not exclusive. It better not offend. It better not be at the expense of somebody else. But there's ways to create fun and for everybody that connects us. And that's what improv is all about. For those of you who don't know about improv, nothing's scripted, nothing's rehearsed, everything's happening right there in front of the audience. And it's a, it's kind of a game. And, uh, I'll invite some audience volunteers to join me on stage and we play an improv game. One game might be, uh, answering a question one word at a time. One game might be like a game of telephone where you're trying to communicate a location or an occupation to someone who was outside the room. Or I have a game called Road Trip where I invite audience volunteers, they join me on stage, and each is assigned an emotion. And as each person comes into the car, everybody takes on that emotion. And all that humor is about connecting. It's about engaging. And because when you're laughing and having fun, you're more open to the message. More importantly, you're going to be be more engaged in the message. You're going to retain the message because laughter and fun is a very powerful tool. It creates an energy and a connection unlike anything else. And when an audience laughs together, a group, a team, it, it may— it's a very special moment and it's a, it's a, it creates a memory just like when you listen to your favorite song and you put a memory with that song. You put a memory with that big laugh. And that memory might be with your customer, with your team. It's that connection. And so I love it. It's rewarding. It's fulfilling. I love coming in, especially to groups that maybe went through a merger or layoff or tough time economically or in a situation with a challenge or an obstacle and to bring everybody together and laugh and create that energy is, is amazing.

So what, so how, you know, what, what's a good suggestion like for somebody? Let's say you have a boring office. How can you add some fun to the office?

That's a, that's a great question. My fun is going to be different than your fun. So you have to figure out what is going to fulfill you and reward you? What is it that that fun is about? And fun doesn't necessarily mean we're all going to get together and somebody's going to bring free pizza or donuts, which, by the way, look, free food always is a hit. I don't care if it's donuts, pizza, I don't care. You bring smoothies into the office, this— that's, that's going to be number one on my hit parade. But what is your fun? You You know, your fun is the podcast. Somebody else's fun is mentoring somebody in the office or making that big sale or overcoming a challenge. That might be what's fun to them. So, you got to figure out what your fun is. Fun is not always we're juggling clowns and throwing pizza around. That's not, you know, and playing ping pong, although all of that is fun. It's many different things. And so what we have to do as leaders is create the foundation for that fun to exist. And what happens is your team is going to be more passionate. Your team is going to be more engaged. They're going to care. They're going to want to succeed, which I'm pretty sure that's what our goal is. And, and that's what success is all about.

Right. So one of the things you mentioned Tada. So, what is the big—

Oh, I love it.

What's the secret to Tada?

What's the secret? I love it. I love it. Thank you for asking that. So, when my kids were younger and just like, you know, everybody who has kids, everything's a tada, right? They eat a cheese sandwich and you praise them. You're like, tada, you did it, buddy. You ate that cheese sandwich, right? They walk for the first time. What do you say? You say, tada, you did it. They pull themselves up for the first time. You say, ta-da! They go to the bathroom for the first time. That's a big ta-da.

Oh yeah. That's a definitely big ta-da.

That's a ta-da for us.

No more diapers.

Yeah. Yeah. That's a ta-da. As you get older, that's still, that's also a ta-da. Because you're just excited things, things are working. Right? Right? You know what I'm talking about, Allen.

Listen, my dog, when he goes to the bathroom, he always kicks dirt. So that's his big ta-da. He can't say ta-da, but that's his ta-da moment.

That's— he's doing something. And when you give that ta-da to your child, what happens? They build confidence. Their eyes get big. You can see their body language. They get a big smile on their face. Whatever we're celebrating, they're going to do more of, right? We're building confidence. We're celebrating. We're creating a moment. And so at the beginning of my keynotes, that's the first thing I do is have everybody stand up. We do a big ta-da. Because we don't celebrate enough. When we're little, everything in our life is a ta-da. As we get older, more and more things happen, but we don't celebrate them. We just think, well, this is just our regular day of business and this is what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to manufacture and sell and distribute and manage, and this is what we're supposed to do. And when we don't celebrate, where's our fuel for our passion? Where's our fuel to be a great leader, to be a great teammate? And so I have the whole audience, we stand up, we do a big ta-da, and everybody does it for the rest of the conference. You just see it everywhere because it should be, it should become a habit of celebrating. And when we celebrate, just like when we're little, we build confidence, we build passion, we're engaged. And sometimes we forget how important that is in everyday, in our everyday work as adults.

You know, I always talk, you know, today, you know, we look at, at work, everybody, whenever you're on LinkedIn, that's where we met. And, you know, and you always talk to companies about analytics and all these, you know, how is, how are you measuring success in your business and all these crazy like analytic numbers. And sometimes like I see all these three-letter acronyms. I don't even know what most of them mean. I have to look them up because they're adding, you know, putting together these new acronyms all the time, you know, right? You got to know what your MRR is and your, you know, whatever, ABC and your EFG and your GTM. And, you know, and I think sometimes for like employees, you know, they don't, they don't, they don't they, they look at all that and they're like, wow, like, how am I supposed to even deal with, like, knowing, like, how successful am I doing at my job, right? And I think that workplace has gotten, like, super uptight. I mean, I came from the corporate world and the hotel business. When we talked about you live in Dallas, I still live in Dallas. I worked for a hotel company.

It was—

but we had very, you know, we had very measurable— they used to give us goals and measurable goals, and we had these task lists and things like that. And, you know, it's, you know, today we're in this digital world, right? And it's really hard for everybody to see, like, okay, are we being, you know, all of these things that we're doing, you know, how does it, you know, add up to success? And I think a lot of times employees, like, don't understand the You know, sometimes it's the long game, right? And it takes a while for, you know, to see like, okay, we're doing all this stuff and then like, where is it gonna end? And I think it's, you know, I think workplace has gotten like super— and especially like big companies are super uptight about a lot of things. And, uh, you know, so how do you deal with like that kind of— like we do sometimes have to deal with big companies that I work with and you have to be super careful, you know, What are you saying to them?

Words.

Sure. It's, it's, it's tough.

Yeah, I'm sure the rules have definitely changed and most for the better. But you, what you want is your team to be passionate and nobody, when they fill out a job application, is there a requirement on the paper that says, or digitally, I just aged myself and it says, you have to have passion for this job. It's a requirement. You better be passionate about this job. I want you to have passion. I want everybody on the team, whatever, wherever their role is, I want them to be passionate. But I, as a leader, have to create that foundation. And that foundation is about creating opportunity and positive support. And when people have that, that's when the magic happens. Because when you have responsibility, when you have, when you give someone ownership, they start to care, start to care about their job. They start to care about the goal. They start to care about the company. And then when they start to care, then they have passion, passion for what they're doing, passion for the goal, passion for the company. And that is what leads to success. But if we don't create that foundation as leaders, creating opportunity, creating positive support, and that's again, fun is a magical ingredient in creating that opportunity and creating that positive support. And I play an improv game. I bring 3 audience volunteers on stage, and, and I give them the opportunity to be a leader, to be creative, to be present and in the moment, to focus and be a great teammate. And then the audience gives them positive support, and you can see the more they laugh and applaud, the more the audience, the audience volunteers will do. And the audience will laugh and applaud and the people on stage will do more. They'll take more risks and that creates success. All that happened is because I created that foundation. I gave them the opportunity. The audience gave them positive support. They made the choice. They made the next choice. And those choices were to care about what they were doing, to be passionate about it, to be a great teammate, to be a great leader, to be creative, to take a risk, to take ownership, to be accountable. And that's what we want from our teams. And if we don't create that, people are not going to be happy and they're going to walk out the door because down the street there's another company and that's going to give you that opportunity and positive support and it's going to fulfill you and create what you want to be happy at work.

Right. Everybody wants to be happy at work. So tell us about like your book. Is this the first book you've written or this is a new book?

This is his second book and called Make the Right Choice: Lead with Passion, Elevate Your Team, and Unleash the Fun at Work. And it's kind of a companion to my keynote. All my messages in much greater detail with lots of ideas that I've picked up along the way from great corporate cultures, ideas to create better communication, to stay in the game, to be more present in the moment, to embrace change. How to Find Success During Change and Disruption. And each chapter is also going to be fun and engaging, just like my keynotes. I want people to laugh. I tell funny stories about crazy managers and I tell funny stories about, you know, setting up Teams calls, you know, and, you know, taking 20 emails to get one Teams call, you know, and I want people to laugh, to engage.. And when you laugh and you have fun, then we're gonna talk about these messages, these choices. That's why it's called Make the Right Choice. These choices that we have as we work, uh, to be a better teammate, to be a better leader. And each chapter follows one of those choices.

And what, you know, you talk about staying in the game. So you're staying in the game, you know, that's from goes from everybody, the CEO to all the way down to the person in the mailroom or whatever, their data entry person. So how, how do you train? How do you like give that message to like everybody in the chain of command? Yeah, man, but the whole, you know, your entire staff.

Yeah, Allen did his research. That's pretty, pretty impressive. Sponsored by Nationwide Payment Systems. Do you see how I get the sponsor?

One, I learned to be a good listener. Yeah. Guests on the podcast, you know, obviously I go read about them and I want to talk to them about their business and how their business runs. And in this case, you know, you're a presenter and you're presenting, so we're talking about what what are the key things that you had in your book? You know, I thought you were going to come on here and play harmonica, but I'm not getting a harmonica solo.

Oh, hey, maybe there will be one. Hey, hey, hey, I got the magic harmonica right here. What do you want, Allen? We can— let's talk about staying in the game and then we can talk about— and that kind of goes into the harmonica. Sometimes those Zoom is weird, right?

About the harmonica thing.

I didn't know. Yeah, I'll take requests. Did you hear that?

Yes.

Sometimes Zoom will— Zoom, um, one time I did a webinar on Zoom and, uh, at a studio, so we had like, you know, top of the line everything, microphones, cameras, everything. And for some reason, Zoom dropped out the musical instrument. Yeah, I thought it was— yeah, I thought it was the studio. And then, uh, another friend of mine who's a producer was producing an event with his client, also on Zoom, same, but they had like drums or something, and the music dropped out. They could— everybody talked, the spoken word was working, and they figured out there was some kind of issue with Zoom and, and, um, in their— in the computer or something. I don't know. Anyway, Let's talk about staying in the game.

So it probably has to do with— it probably has to do something with like copyright, and you have to like have professional mode set up. And also if you're going to have instruments, you have to say pick up the instrument, otherwise sometimes it doesn't pick it up.

Yeah, yeah.

But a lot of times I think it has to do with a copyright and they're worried about probably you're going to transmit something and Copyright.

It was something to do with, um, I don't know what they, they figured it out. But, um, anyway, the magic harmonica. This is my magic harmonica. So, uh, I lost my job. Remember we talked about— I started, I moved to Dallas, and I moved to Dallas, uh, and I was working at the Dallas Times-Herald as a reporter. And 6 months after I joined the paper, they called me and said, come clean out your desk, the paper closed. 6 months, right? I just moved. I'm living in a one-bedroom apartment. I don't have hardly any furniture.

Over at the Village.

How did you know?

That's where everybody— that's where I moved when I moved to Dallas.

How did you know? Yes, I was in the Village. And if anybody listening to this is a Dallas person, they know what we just talked about. Yep. Village Apartments. I was, but I was, you know, they had many different.

Yeah, there was like 20 different complexes and the big clubhouse.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was at the Village. Nice job. This just made my day, Allen Kopelman. So they said, come clean out your desk. And here's the story. So, you know, the people on the Titanic, they, they did not know they were on the Titanic. They thought they were on a beautiful cruise. I was fully aware that I jumped on board the Titanic when I, when I got my job. And everybody's had that situation where you, you get a new job and you first couple days and you go, oh, what did I just get into? And I realized immediately I just jumped on board the Titanic. I didn't know when we were going to hit the iceberg, but I knew we were going to hit the iceberg. And so 6 months later They call me up, paper's closed. Everybody's gotten that phone call. And so I left my one-bedroom apartment and I grabbed this magic harmonica that I bought in college at a lecture. I don't remember why or what the lecture— I'm guessing it was a famous harmonica player. So I grabbed the harmonica. I don't have any musical ability, but harmonicas allow you to play something and sounds like, oh, he, he might know what he's doing. I don't know what I'm doing. And so, uh, I went to go clean out my desk. I found myself on the back loading dock where the media had gathered— radio stations, TV stations, the other newspapers.

Back in the olden days.

Back in the olden days, yes. And I don't know why. I don't know why. I can't tell you why I found myself on the back loading dock and why I brought the magic harmonica. It just all happened. I don't know why. I didn't have a plan. And so I started playing this. I started playing this. I started doing— let's see if it works.

This—

it's early this morning. I can do a blues note. That's pretty good. So I said, here I go. I went, I just lost my job. They said, come clean out your desk. I just moved to Dallas 6 months ago. I live in a one-bedroom apartment with just a bed and a couch. They said, you are losing your job. You got no money from us anymore. I got the newspaper blues. So that went on for a little bit. I don't know if those were the exact words, but pretty close.

And today you'd be all over Facebook, TikTok, you'd be famous.

I was viral back then, believe it or not. You could— the cameras went— and so for viral in 1991, that meant, uh, I was on the local newscast. Um, uh, two local newscasts, huge photo in the newspaper, in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the other newspaper. Friends across the country, like in Atlanta, said, hey, um, did I see you on the news playing the harmonica? I'm like, yeah, yeah, that was me. So that's viral in 1991. And, uh, but it taught me something. It taught me that I control— I don't control— I didn't control that I lost my job.. But I did control what my attitude was and how I reacted to it. I chose to be positive. I chose to have fun, which we've talked about, creating that fun. What did that do? That built my confidence. I, you know, I didn't lose my job because of my skills. I still have my skills. It taught me to be myself, be who I am. It taught me to reduce my stress. It taught me to put myself out there. It taught me to create a moment and be who I am with energy. And, you know, and that'll reduce my stress and don't give up. And that's what staying in the game is all about, not giving up. And that magic harmonica was really important moment because everybody else was angry and confused and disappointed and sad. All the emotions when you lose your job. And that harmonica, by focusing, by doing that and everything that came on after that, really taught me that I choose my attitude. And by choosing that attitude, being confident in my abilities, you know, reducing my stress, I started doing stand-up. I took some improv classes. I auditioned for an improv troupe. I joined that troupe. All this happened because I lost my job. None of that would have happened probably if I didn't lose my job and have this magic harmonica moment. And that's chapter 2 in the book. I talk about everything that I learned in that magic harmonica moment. And I hope all your listeners, you know, think about their magic harmonica moments. Maybe not be— might not be losing their job, but it might be deciding they want to change their career, deciding they want to go for a different role. In their job, deciding they want to reach out to that big customer. You know, there's, there's a lot of ta-da moments. There's a lot of Magic Harmonica moments. What is their Magic Harmonica moment?

Yeah, everybody has that moment in their life. I was a chef and the next thing you know, I'm in the payments business starting my own company 2 years later. So you have that aha moment like, okay, I'm going to flip the switch and I'm going to flip the script. And make a big change in your life. And right, you got to go for it. I always say, no guts, no glory. That's one of my—

that's, that's all— that is all what the Magic Harmonica moment is, is just believing in yourself, being confident, choosing your attitude, choosing how you react to change. And that strengthens us, and it's, it's powerful. And, um, and that's really what the Magic Harmonica gave me. That's why I wrote about it in my book, um, because I want to inspire others to, to have that moment, to— because we— everybody's going to— everybody that, that works will eventually lose their job, or there'll be a merger, there'll be a layoff, right? You don't go— it's pretty rare that you're gonna go through your whole work life and you don't have a transition, you don't lose your job, you don't—

especially in today's day and age. That may be back in the 40s and 50s, people work for companies for— you're right, yeah, 40, 50 years. Today it's unheard of for the most part. Yeah, you know, one of the things when you talk about change, right, we look at, you know, I'm in the business payment technology, so, you know, technology is today is changing at the most rapid rate that we have ever seen, and especially in my business and probably every business, and AI is a big part of that. And, you know, I encourage my employees and I encourage people that I talk to all the time. I'm like, you know, you have to embrace this AI. If you're not embracing AI and figuring out how to use AI so you can perform tasks better, how you can make something better for yourself at work, don't wait for your boss to ask you about this stuff, you really need to, you know, because technology is just changing. I was talking to a company that does coding, so the guy was telling me, I said, how fast is technology changing at your company? Guys, this technology is changing so fast that we used to have 10 coders. He goes, now we can have 2 guys that know how to do this prompting, right? They can prompt the AI engine to write all this code Then we have another 2 guys that could go in and clean all that up. And on a project that would take us 6 months, we can complete in a matter of less than 2 months.

Wow.

I was like, with 4 people instead of 10+ people.

Wow.

And that's why people need to embrace technology today, you know, at work, embrace technology in your life, but mostly like work stuff, because I tell people like, You know, you're talking about losing your job. I see a big, you know, reduction in, in, um, certain jobs because of AI can complete tasks. Well, if you know how to use AI, I don't say AI is going to replace your job, but humans who know how to use AI are going to replace humans who don't know how to use AI. And that's just something that we're dealing with today, and I think people really need to embrace AI and technology in general to upgrade. I was listening to a guy talk about statistics, and they were like, businesses today need to look at their technology and upgrade their technology in order to have a more— to have— to be able to run their businesses better. And it's, you know, the same thing with like losing your job, embracing change, right? What is this moment? You know, are we at a— we're at a tipping point with technology in, in society today?

Well, you— we will always deal with change. AI is the big change right now, but there's always going to be change. And improv really teaches us to be prepared for change and to embrace change, to be open and flexible to change. Because again, you don't control the change, you only control how you react to change, right? So you don't control what's happening, new technology, new competition, new regulations. You only control how you react. And so that's going to determine your success in how you react to that change. And improv teaches us to be, to embrace, to be open and flexible, to be present, to, to not be afraid of that change, not be afraid of that risk. Right. Not be afraid of making that mistake. And to be confident in your abilities, but to be positive, to be supportive, to be helpful. And that's going to lead to hopefully success in how you react to that change.

No, that's definitely great advice. So if people want to find your book, where— besides on Amazon, right?

Amazon, Barnes Noble, wherever, wherever books are sold. My website is just my name, joelzeff.com. So, all the links are there. And if any of your listeners or viewers reach out, mention, mention the podcast, and I will send a free chapter on change that we just talked about. I would love to send a free chapter, a PDF to, and you can do that through my website by signing up or sending a note, note via LinkedIn is a great way to do that as well.

Okay, great. So any last words before we part?

I had a great time. Well, you know, I think again, it's about how we choose, making those choices and how we choose to react to change, how we choose to embrace fun, how we choose to create opportunity and positive support. With the people around us. And it's easy to make some of these choices. Some of these choices are a little bit harder. When we talk about staying in the game, that's a hard choice. That means you have to learn something new or get out of your comfort zone. Staying in the game is hard, but it's also fulfilling. And as your listeners, I'm not asking everybody to make all these choices tomorrow. Pick one thing. I always say, pick one thing that we really want to focus on. Maybe it's being more positive, making sure we give the people around us appreciation. Here's— I'll give you a challenge, a final challenge. As you go home from work today, think about all the people that you had contact with— partners, customers, team members. Did you give the people that deserved it that positive support, that appreciation? And if you didn't, then tomorrow I want you to send a text, an email, see them in the hall, I don't care. Mail a letter and wait a week, right? I don't care. But say thank you. Say I appreciate you. Thanks for being my customer. Thanks for those words of support. Thanks for listening to me. Thanks for that help on the project. People want to hear that, and it's the best gift you can give anybody. It barely takes any time, doesn't take any money or budget. You don't have to put a PowerPoint presentation together with an upside-down triangle. You just have to say thank you. And that's a gift. And give that gift. And that's why we're going to think about it on the way home, because I know we forget sometimes to give appreciation and positive support. So then the next day we're going to reflect and we're going to give that those people that deserved it positive support. And I thank you.

You thank me. I thank you for being on the podcast. I always tell everybody, one thing I learned in the hotel business was you have to say thank you to everybody. Because it's super important. The, you know, is the chef. Thank you to the waitstaff. Thank you to the kitchen staff. Thank you even to the guys who are washing the dishes and cleaning up after everybody, because it's super important for everybody to feel valued. And one of the things you said about being comfortable— on one of my other podcasts, I was talking to a guest and I said, you know, if you want to get ahead in life, you need to get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

I like that. I like that a lot.

And it's, and it's true because you could be asked to do a task that you have never done, and maybe that task is going to lead to you doing a better job. You need to get comfortable with being uncomfortable and learning new things.

I love it. You heard it here on the Business to Business Vault podcast. Sponsored by National Bank.

Thank you for joining us today on B2B Vault. I thank my guest, Joel Zeff. We didn't get any bad dad jokes, but that's okay. I probably told a few. And, uh, thank you for joining us. You can catch the podcast on YouTube on B2B Vault, the Biz to Biz Podcast, on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you want to be a guest, you can go to the website b2bvault.info. And if you want to follow us, follow us. You can contact Joel or myself. We're both on LinkedIn. And, uh, encourage you to check out Joel's book. And maybe if you need a speaker at an event, Joel is your guy, because I found his videos on his website to be very engaging. Joelzeff.com., and we'll post the links in the notes. Everybody have a great day. Peace out. Carpe diem.

Thank you, Allen Kopelman.