Dan Negroni interviewed on the Big Biz Sshow 4-12-18 - Part Tw

Dan Negroni. Oh, look at that! I need new clothes. Tom DelBaccaro, the author of, uh, The Divided Era, and Dan Negroni, uh, the author of Chasing Relevance. You have, uh, you have both guys could be Bruce Wayne. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dan is staring down the barrel.

I will just tell you, he's 80.

Dan is staring down the barrel of 55.

No, 54.

3. Okay, what the hell? You're right in the range. Excuse me, 53 is staring down the barrel of 55. What we're saying is he looks like he's 30. I know, he makes me feel like crap every time when you get done with the keynote. It's not the Beats.

The tight shirt.

When you get off, when you get— no, because we're all wearing tight shirts. When you— thanks to Taylor Swift with a P. No music, just tighter fitting clothes. It's like when you get off stage from your keynote, they got to ask— people ask you how old you are.

Number one question is I have this gift of remembering up to 200 names.

How do you do that? Is that a trick or is that just something you do?

It's really hard work. It's like work of the speech. So you've tried to train myself to figure out how to do that.

Wow.

Second question, Russ doesn't know your name.

I'm really Bob. Eric. Yeah, I know there was a cocktail name.

Second question is, um, how have you been with your wife for 34 years?

And yeah, when you're 36 years old, how do you have a 26-year-old?

Yeah, or 25-year-old.

Yeah, that's great. Uh, let's talk about LaunchBox 365. Go to the website if you would, Jared. Our executive producer is on assistant directing today. Dan Negroni, of course, the CEO of LaunchBox 365. You've got corporate training, you've got career workshops. Those are two types of things. Corporate training is for corporations, I'm assuming. Career workshops are for the people coming up, or is it—

Yeah, I mean, career workshops are a little bit separate. They're for people in transition. They're for old people that need to learn how to talk to young people.

That's right, I'm saying. They're basically a Genius Bar for the rest of us in life.

It's a genius bar on communication because the same things work for communication. I mean, this is not new stuff, right? Right. But we do it in the way of the world, which is bold and technologically advanced and ready to serve people.

When you go into a corporation, okay, and I don't want you— if you want to name clients, you can, because I know you've worked with a lot of big Fortune 500 companies. But when you go in, is there a, is there, is there a, I guess, a theme these days for you when you know what they want to work on right away? Or is each organization different in how they want to approach this, yeah, this, I guess, untapped group of people coming into the workplace?

It's a great question. We do an assessment and each one is individually applied, so they may have different needs. Most of the time, if you can focus their needs about results, yeah, monetary results, right? How can I hire better people? How can I engage the people to stay and create more results, create innovation? And how can I manage them better? And how can I retain them?

Does it come down to just allowing skateboards in the hallway and a pole to slide down and a big comfy— but that's—

but here's the true secret. Yeah. Free food. Tell them whatever they want. Rub their back when they have a tummy ache. Tell them they can go home.

That's garbage, though, isn't it? But hold on a second. But, but, Pony, got a pony. On that subject, when we got out of college, you and I were looking for a $50,000 a year job so we could buy a house, raise a family, live in suburbia. That was the goal. That is not the goal anymore. I know for my two daughters, that's not even near the goal. They want to have life experiences along the way, and they're not caring about a big giant place to live and the nuclear family and so on and so forth.

Well, they got more time too. They probably have about 10 more years if you think about it, given what modern technology is.

Russ, dead is the new 80. Yeah, I'm planning on getting out of here in 4 years, so I'm living it up. Russ used to say 20 years ago we had 20 good summers left. Now we got like 25 good summers left now. I know they keep putting it out there. And then 5 bad ones. I'm not going to be ready. We have about 25 good summers left. I'm hoping you millennials watching will take care of me.

That's generous.

No, we got 25 good summers left. Well, 20 and then the last— And then 5 bad ones and diapers.

Yeah, I'm going 20 and diapers.

—then 5. The applesauce years, or the Alpo years if you haven't planned, depending on what you're eating. So, so when you think in terms of that, move forward.

Here's what I would say about them. They're confused and they think they need to know what they want to do in the 3rd grade now, right? And it's this tremendous pressure. I can't even talk yet. It's tremendous pressure. And the cool thing about them is if they just started to try and digest things and pull them down and not worry so much about where they need to be, when they need to be, they would thrive.

What are these guys negotiating for when they go in for salary negotiations and such? Is it money or is it more other stuff like time off and benefits and stuff?

Clearly money is a big thing. You'll hear many of them say, how do I get paid what I'm worth? I'm like, get paid what you're worth? What are you worth? Right. Be able to describe what you're worth. Then we'll talk about—

Build it and they will come. See, this is why Dan gets paid the big money. What are you worth? Every CEO in the company needs to learn that.

Well, what do you think you're worth?

And then shut up. And I was like, prove it.

Well, more importantly is, don't you think the best way to get the job is to explain and then prove your worth instead of demanding your worth before you even know what it is? So, but they want growth, they want to learn. Most of them will stay wherever they need to stay. I was gonna bring a millennial with me today, but I heard it was not bring a millennial to work today.

No, because we'll steal them and put them to work as an intern.

That's right. But he told me, I'm learning, I'm growing, I don't care, I'm getting mad skills.

Okay, so you yourself own 3 millennials. Yes, well— 2 and a half. There's one millennial? Almost just one. Excited about that. But if you were to take a kid that just graduated college and you had the desire to say, okay, if you wanted to, I don't want to watch a slow-moving train like we all watch with young people sometimes. What path would you have them take on their way to any career depending on, I don't care really what the industry is.

It's a great question and I think what millennials want is to have a breakthrough. In not having all that stress about what they need to be and just settling into themselves. And so what I would want to do with each of them is teach them about themselves, really understand themselves, and start to explore what they want to do and have a perspective.

Not what they think they want to do, but what they're really made to do.

Go to the heart of what are your strengths, what are your values, your skills, your passions, how does that surround a brand, what are you about? What— because they know it, they just can't articulate. Sometimes it's hard to look in the mirror. Get them that stuff. Like, do I want to—

said Rusty every day. I don't even want to look. I know my teeth are in here somewhere. Dan, thanks, buddy. Appreciate it. Dan Negroni, Chasing Relevance, LaunchBox 365, and a Fortune 500 top 100 keynote speaker in this country. Uh, he needs his own show.