What do we say to our customers? How do we keep from cracking up? And more!

Dennis, one of the, you know, one of the reasons I was so psyched to get you on is we're hearing from a lot of people, and some of it's getting kind of nasty at this point. It's kind of strange, but, you know, everybody's feeling the pinch, right? And, you know, they're wondering, how do we reach out? How do we try to keep the wheels moving a little bit? How do we approach our customers, our clients, or even people that we've had in our funnel as prospects? And there's nobody in the world better than you. I'm serious, there's nobody in the world better than you at this, so I'd love to hear your thoughts. What do you think right now?

Well, we're, you know, obviously we're in uncharted territory right now, so I think we're all trying to figure out what to do, and, you know, nobody knows what's gonna happen even the next hour versus, you know, the next week, right? So, you know, a few things that I think is important. And one of the first things that I want to mention, which is going to seem counterintuitive, but I think from a business standpoint right now, and I know we're going to talk personal and business, right? But from a business standpoint right now, I think companies of all sizes need to be planning what they're going to do when things turn around. And I know they're scrambling right now to figure out what we're going to do right now. But it is going to turn around, and when that happens, if you're not prepared for the turnaround, you know, how are we going to re-onboard our people? You know, if we have people working remotely, if we've had furloughs, you know, whatever's happened, if we don't have a plan to figure out how we're going to remobilize pretty quickly, how we're going to reopen our facilities, you know, whatever business it is, you're going to be having the same problem of playing catch-up. So, a certain amount of time, I think right now, has got to be dedicated to what are we going to do when things turn around. And even if that's just a few minutes a day with your team or yourself, just to have that plan in place about how we're going to remobilize when business does start coming back in.

Now, you know, I appreciate that so much. One of the things that people have been asking a lot about, and it's our own fault because we push the word so much, you know, inspire, empower, guide, right, with the Sensei Leader Movement. And you know, when folks have been talking about, how do I inspire? You know, I keep saying, look, are you looking for the grand speech? It's not about a grand speech. It's about what you just said, right? If we could show a little caring, a little interest, and it has to be sincere. You know, one of the things I always say this at presentations, "If you don't care, don't bother." Yeah, I like that. Right? I mean, you don't care, don't bother.

Yeah.

But if you care, if you're sincere about it, then, you know, we really need to reach out, right? One of the greatest gifts we can give another human being is our attention.

Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, and again, you bring up a great point. And again, right now, talking from the business side of things, is demonstrating that care for customers and employees right now. And it's hard. It is hard. But, you know, a lot of organizations— I just got a notice today from our air conditioning company. When you live in Florida, air conditioning is really important. I know it's not important to you up in Maine right now.

Yeah, we just got 5 inches of snow, Dennis. To me, I'm looking for the comments to see somebody say, "Go to hell," right now.

So, we just got a notice from our AC company today just walking through, all right, if you have an issue right now, if you have a problem right now, here's who to call, here's how to do it, here's what's going to happen. You know, we're going to ask you, does anybody in your family have a fever, or is any of that stuff going on? When you come over, here's how we're going to manage things in a safe way. But it was an excellently worded email from the AC company saying, Tough time, but here's what we're doing. And I think that's another important thing for, for any company right now is to keep the lines of communication open, whether it be email, social media, telephoning your top 20 customers, you know, your top 20, and just let them— hey, I'm here, I'm here to help however I can. Uh, staying in touch with, with those your customers as best you can and letting them know what you can do versus what you can't do. Same thing with employees. I think that if you have employees who have been furloughed or they're working from home, keeping the lines of communication is critical. You know, Zoom meetings, they're fabulous. I'm learning more about Zoom now than I've ever known before. And they really do a good job. And so, having that contact with your employees. I just talked to a guy this morning, a business owner this morning, as a matter of fact, who every day they have a morning meeting, a Zoom meeting, 'cause all his folks are working from home. They have a Zoom business meeting. But then at lunchtime, for anybody who wants to, they have a lunch meeting where they just all get on Zoom and they have lunch together. And they just talk about what you would normally talk about over lunch. So trying to add some normalcy with our employees in a very abnormal time, I think, is another thing that leaders can be doing right now to sustain that goodwill with their people.

I couldn't agree more. You hit so— we're always singing in harmony anyway, but I like the idea that you said focus on what you can do. There are plenty of things we can't do right now.

There are a lot of things that are totally out of our control.

Out of our control. But there are plenty of things you can do, and you know, every little victory counts. There was a psychologist recently who talked about that, and I can't remember the phrase that he kind of coined for that, but it's often overlooked that sometimes the smallest little victories, if we can pay attention to that, will fuel us, right? They'll keep our energy going, and they mean, they mean sometimes more than the big ones. I should say too, yeah, anybody, if you've got a question, a comment, please just— we're watching the comment stream there, Okay, here's an— actually, here's a nice one. What did I do? There we go. Tracy Rhodes, have a video lunch together. That's a real cool idea, isn't it? That's a real cool idea. Oh good, you got some good comments coming and we'll be posting some of those up. But yes, focus on what you can.

Yeah, I guess, you know, from a comment standpoint, you know, people who logged on to my Facebook page, I put a link to Jim's that if you want to comment, that's probably the best way to be doing that right now. There you go, to click on Jim's.

Or you could also send a private message if you can't figure that out, and we're going to try to help you figure this out as we go along, but also just send a message to Alexandra Armstrong. She might not like me saying this, but for the next half hour, she will be accepting all Facebook friend requests.

Alex is wonderful. Alex is wonderful. But yeah, so Jim, I think from a business standpoint, communication right now is the key.

Right.

The art to it, though, especially with customers, is not to overcommunicate. I think some of us, and I'm sure you're having it, where we're just getting bombarded from certain organizations multiple times a day.

Right.

And I appreciate the effort. I would say I appreciate the effort. But I think we need to be pretty selective about what we're putting out there, the amount of information we're putting out there, and make sure that it's it's relevant and that it's important.

I got a nice one the other day and it was funny because this was for a high-ticket item. I had applied to be part of the Forbes coaching circle. And you know, this is a few thousand dollars. And when I first talked to the representative, I was ready to go. But then, of course, you know, and Dennis and I were talking about this the other day. Those of us in the speaking business, you know, we definitely feel your pain because our businesses stopped, right, when the conferences—

We were like the first thing cut.

We were the canaries in the cage, weren't we? Full stop. Um, but anyway, you know, this person called, and I, I have to say, at the time when I took the call, I was feeling a bit down, and I was ready— I was braced to be a jerk, you know. And all she said is, she said, look, we're just calling our, our clients and our soon-to-be clients, our soon-to-be members. And she said, just want to make sure, uh, you know, we're thinking about you. And how you doing? And she said, you know, and that was it. She didn't try to sell me anything. And I got to tell you, I said, I so appreciate this phone call. Yeah, you know what I mean? That went all the way in.

That's another excellent point. And some people are going to disagree with this philosophy, and I get that. But I'm not sure right now is the time for a lot of us to be selling. I think the focus needs to be on helping. I think the benefit may come down the road. And again, there may be other businesses that I'm totally off base with this. But the last thing that I need right now is a bunch of sales calls. What I'm looking for are those helpful connections. So, one of the things, and I know you're doing the same thing, Jim, that, you know, we're reevaluating the way we do business right now. And right now, nobody's buying conferences, nobody's buying speeches, but there's still a lot of information we can put out there on things like this, on YouTube and other channels that just keep us relevant with our clients so that when the turnaround happens, you know, we're there, we're there. So I think that's one of the things that businesses should be focused in on right now is what can I do to— what can we do to stay relevant, even if it's not a sales relevance, it's a communications relevance. Does that make sense?

No, I couldn't agree more. And Alex, maybe you can put up the link because— and Dennis, put up a link if you have some resources too. And anytime as you're developing things, send them to us and we're going to share them with our network.

I'm trying to put as much of it on Facebook because so many people now, they are on Facebook. You know, there's so many channels out there, but it seems like Facebook is sort of the hub right now. Do you agree with that?

No, I do. And the thing is, for those of us in the information business, because that's really what we do, you know, I mean, whether it's doing speeches or webinars or coaching or books, whatever we're doing, it's the information business. And the cool thing about that is, you know, believe me, I feel for people who have widgets sitting on shelves. You know, that's a tough situation, especially if they're not essential things, right? But, um, they're essential to the people who are selling them, for sure, right? Their living depends on that, right? But we can— there's a lot that we can give, and it doesn't cost us anything. So I want people to understand, if they're in the information business in any way, I, I, you know, I support what Dennis just said. Our value really is who we are, right? Um, you and I have joked about this. Nothing that I'm saying is new. This is not rocket surgery.

Right. It's not rocket science.

People have said it, but it's our relationship with people in the room that really has the value. So giving away the information itself is— hey, I'm going to hit some of these questions that are coming up. First of all, I want to put a couple suggestions first.

Not being tone deaf. I saw one about not being tone deaf.

Yeah, let's come back to that one because I want to make sure some people get their voices heard.

That's a good question. And I think part of it is in all of our communications, there needs to be a lead-in that says, we know what's going on right now. We know you're hurting. We are here. But I think that we need to be very realistic. We need to be very transparent, more than ever right now. So in terms of not being tone deaf, again, I'm getting tons of sales messages that had that have no reference to what's going on right now and have no relevance to what's going on right now versus the ones that do get my attention that says, "We know what's happening. Here's what we're doing. And we're all in this together." I appreciate that kind of authenticity right now. So that's an excellent point about we can't be tone deaf. We can't just put out our typical marketing stuff. It's got to be relevant to today's situation.

No, that's perfect. Here's some great tips. Louis must be one of our brethren because—

Yeah, Louis is a good buddy of mine.

Very cool.

He's a great, great guy. Ex-Disney guy. Ex-Disney guy.

Another one.

Wonderful speaker. Wonderful, wonderful speaker.

Well, I think he's got a great idea. He's got a couple here. So I'm going to post a couple of his. First of all, he said he's been sending video to all the past clients. Let them know he's thinking about that thing because we have access to this technology. Here's another one that he said. He also sent a video to all the meeting planners. The meeting planners are hurting in our business, right? And they, some of them are taking this in the teeth because, well, hopefully it's trickling down a little bit. But, you know, we heard from one just a couple of weeks ago. They were on the hook for the venue and the venue wasn't budging, you know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah. So as these things, we're making adjustments as we go, but So I know, yeah, and I know Louis very well, and all of us, we, one of the things that, and I've done a similar thing in sending out videos to meeting planners and so forth that I've worked with, is just saying, hey, when things get better, you know, let's connect, let's talk about rescheduling, you know, when things settle down. In the meantime, if there's anything I can do, If there's videos that you want to send out, and I do a lot of work with associations, if there's videos you want to send out to members in the meantime, let's do that. Let's do that. But that's a great idea. You know, if you're a professional, you know, in professional services, those kinds of mini videos to your clients, they pay attention to those.

Yeah, and I'll say this too, because It's funny, I had the honor to interview this guy, Mark Redlis from Tridium. Tridium is a, it's a platform that connects behavioral and mental health professionals with their patients. And I'm selling it short. It's a very sophisticated platform. It helps, it helps really forge a deeper connection even before the patient is in the office. That's a fantastic thing. And they had a press release and we did a, we did two Walking the Walk podcasts with them. Alex, you can post up the link for that. And this morning, he extended— their company, Tritium, extended that service free to healthcare providers through July. Yeah, and that's the type of things that people are stepping up. I think, you know, this guy, Danny Snow.

Yeah, Danny. Danny, shouldn't you be working right now?

He is. He says he's using BombBomb to send out videos.

And that is true. BombBomb is a wonderful tool for sending out video emails. People will tend to open up a video email more so than just a written one. It's easy. I mean, it puts a— Danny said he just woke up. It's easy to put a— it puts a little clip on the email itself and then it links to the actual video. So people know it's a safe thing to open. Yeah, and they do a 2-week free trial. So if somebody is looking for right now, how can I stay in touch with clients and customers through email, you know, like your top 20 customers that you want to stay in touch with? Yeah, go to BombBomb and it's spelled just— that's a weird name, but that's BombBomb like bomb.

There it is.

And they offer a free 2-week trial. It's a wonderful communication tool.

Mary, thank you so much for— you are such a big supporter. Of the Sensei Leader Movement. Really, really appreciate you all the time. And she said, I agree. Supportive, helpful connections should be the priority. Sales later on. One of the other things that we've been offering, and, and, you know, I encourage people in our, in our business to do this. You know, we've had to learn how to use these tools, right? And a lot of our clients haven't yet. And so, and that's part of the reason I brought up Tridium, because we're gonna, we're gonna help them out. I think they're trying to get some some assets online internally as well as externally.

Yeah.

And they're scrambling and they've got enough to do right now. So I'm glad to reach out. Hey, just reach out. We'll help you get on stuff like StreamYard and Stealth Seminar we're using now. Yeah, same thing.

People are looking for BombBomb, you know, other technologies, Zoom. I would never, never position myself as an expert. Right. I would position myself as being just a little ahead of where some people might be right now. And so, can help them through those initial stages because, again, that's a critical thing right now is when some of us do have this downtime of, yes, focusing in on the business, but learning new technologies, learning new approaches to doing business. And so, like you, I'm watching a lot of video tutorials on different things.

My eyes are ready to fall out. In fact, I was going to bring— and Kizzy Ferrer, if you're listening today, thank you so much for the eye drop recommendation. And it started with the idea, you know, when this, when this first recommendation came out, don't touch your face, blah blah, you know, I know that, but my eyes itch all the time and I wear contacts usually. So Kizzy, thanks for— I think, I don't remember the name of the stuff you recommended, but it works great. And one of the few things that actually did last 12 hours like they said it would.

You haven't touched your face once during this whole session.

Never had to touch my face. Let's talk a little bit about, because I know one of the things we wanted to talk about was, you know, how do we keep from cracking up during all this, and you had some good tips. Go ahead.

Well, you know, we're all kind of getting cabin fever right now, and so I've been doing these short little videos on my Facebook page just of things that I'm trying to do myself just to keep my sanity during this challenging time. So a few of the things that I would recommend, just this is more from the personal side, obviously, is to get moving. You know, I was feeling really down. I was feeling really, you know, the business stopped, all of the stuff that we're dealing with. And my gym, it's a gym called Orange Theory, I just, I love them. One day, and this was early on in all of this, they were still open, and the last thing I wanted to do was go work out, but I did. And I'll tell you, Jim, I felt 100% better after that workout, and I just felt energized. Going out for a run, you know, I'm not a fan of running, but hey, What else am I gonna do?

That's why I learned how to fight so I wouldn't run.

Yeah, that's right. Well, I'm running. Well, I'm not running. I always say I'm loping.

I'm not running. I was too slow, so I had to—

I'm loping.

Yeah.

But, you know, I listen to motivational stuff when I'm out there running. Orange Theory, and this is something that I think most gyms are probably doing right now, is they're offering online workouts.

Right, right, right.

So going online, and there's a workout for, you know, whether it's yoga or weights or whatever you wanna do. There's a workout online. To do. So keeping moving because that stimulates the endorphins and boosts your mood. And so keeping moving. Another thing is tapping into your positive— I call it the positivity network. There's plenty of folks out there and plenty of sources of really bad, depressing news. Amen. And we need to stay in touch with what's going on. But there's only so much we can take, right? I mean, there's just so much you can take before you just want to curl into a ball. So tapping into those sources that make you feel good, that make you feel positive. You know, there's certain things on social media. There's certain things that, you know, family, whatever it is that we've got to focus in on those things as well. And then taking the time to laugh. You know, that's the video I just shot that I'll put up on Facebook a little bit later, but taking the time to, whether it's watching a funny video, having a, you know, with your spouse or your significant other, just have some time to laugh.

Yeah, stop watching Outbreak, man.

Yeah, but you know, the thing is with the news, you know, with the think about the news. If you caught up on the news 3 times a day, that's plenty, right? I mean, that's, you know, really what's going on. If you check in the morning, check in at noon, check it in the late afternoon, you're up to speed on what's going on. Everything else in between is just somebody's opinion on what's going on.

Hey, I wanted to put, you said there's a lot of resources, and this is a dear friend of mine, one of the people I so much admired in martial arts for years and years and years, Tony Fournier, and I was looking for his website, but he's live streaming on Facebook classes for the kids. Oh yeah, and we did a live stream yesterday. I actually put my gi on for the first time in a few years, and it fit. But we were talking about that, and Tony is doing this cool thing. Uh, he's, he's, like I said, he's live streaming, and he's, he's put it on Facebook Live. So if you want something to do with the kids, definitely. And he's one of the best of the best. I want to get back to a couple things. Louie keeps— you are a great guy, Louie, thank you. I'm being marketed like crazy from people who claim they can sell me virtually. Now, you know, that's happening. And I actually, boy, I have to admit, I had mixed feelings because I was getting angry about that. I was getting inundated too, in a thread with some speaker friends who were just saying that. And then, you know what, I all of a sudden said, Jesus, I got to practice what I preach. You know, compassion is one of the most important aspects of leadership. And here I was getting impatient. I had to realize Well, you know, some of those guys are hurting too, right?

Yeah.

And, you know, I'm still not going to buy anything, if you listen, but I understand. I feel it, and I think we have to be patient, and this happened in retail too. We've been hearing from people, of course, now there's more takeout, but it's happening there. The lines are getting long, and people are getting impatient with the folks that are working so hard to service, right? And I know You guys, when you were working at Disney, and I know because you've shared some of these stories with me, you had terrific techniques for helping your cast members be patient with people, right? Can you share a couple of those?

Yeah, well, a few of the things—

Without killing them, right?

Right, right, right, right. You know, a few of the things that they reinforced in training and ongoing training and all that is recognizing that the guests at Disney have spent a tremendous amount of money and effort to get there.

Right.

For some of them, this is their first and maybe their only time that they're going to be there, so we've got to make it special. My feeling is the thing that made— that makes Disney work, and they don't get it right every time, so let's just say that, you know, they don't get it right every time. But the thing that I think that makes it work is that they focus on, we're not selling rides, we're selling an experience. And you as a cast member are part of that experience. And so the way you interact with a guest who's confused, who's upset, you know, I can't tell you how many times I was held personally accountable for the rain. Right?

Well, that was your fault. Yeah.

Yeah, there's not a whole lot. I know my last name is Snow, but there's not a whole lot I can do about the rain.

Yeah, everybody in Maine can thank Dennis for this morning.

But what they're really— what they're really— they're just venting, right? I mean, that's really what they're doing. They came here and now it's raining, and, you know, so obviously it's not my fault, but I'm part of the experience. And so the compassion and the empathy— and I just saw a comment up there about compassion and empathy— but that's the secret, you know, in terms of working your way through challenging situations with customers is compassion, empathy, and respect. Remember those 3 words.

Yeah, I'm going to add that from our side too, because as customers, we have to realize, especially people dealing in food service, and you know, we see somebody slow coming to the table or coming, you know, to give us our takeout, right? And we see that, you know, things are moving a little slower. They have to observe a lot more protocols than usual. Not saying that they're not clean, but you know what I'm saying.

Yeah, yeah.

And you know, to, to us, we see somebody slow with our food. To them, every one of us coming to that window looks like a big giant coronavirus.

That's true, you know what I mean?

So we have to, we have to express compassion. Thank goodness they're working. Thank goodness they're there because they're putting themselves at risk all the time for us too. Yeah, especially at healthcare too.

Yeah, oh yeah, the healthcare folks, you know, they're saints, you know, right now, what they're dealing with, none of us can imagine it. Anybody who's tuned in right now who's in healthcare, which they're probably not, 'cause they're busy right now, but you're saints in what you're doing, just the fears that you must have, but going back to what you were saying about the person serving the food, or whatever the job may be, not only are they worried about, you know, doing the job and that person in front of them may be a giant source of coronavirus, they're worried about childcare.

Yeah.

They're worried about being laid off tomorrow. They're worried about all of those, so the patience part of it is not only from the customers being patient with service providers, or the businesses being patient, but customers being patient as well, right? And recognizing, man, we are all in this together.

Here's a great one from Tracy too. Typically— excuse me, professional speaker, right? Typically work from home, and many of these suggestions are great to follow even after the current situation. Yeah, that's for sure.

Thank you, Tracy. Is another good— another good friend of my ex-Disney— another ex-Disney guy.

We got the Disney theme going here. And Louie's got another great one. I think this is This is an important one. People, so many people are making this transition. You know, Dennis and I, when we're not on the road, we're working from home most of the time. We've got the home office. And I know for me, when I trans— you know, when I translated from the dojo to this, there were a lot of adjustments. And there are certain things that you can do, like you mentioned, staying in touch with people virtually. I have a virtual coffee break. A lot of people are doing that. Yeah, that's pretty cool. You know, the virtual water cooler. Louie has a great one. Continue to dress professionally. It does make you feel different, right, when you put on the battle armor, you know. I mean, that's why we wore gis in martial arts. It changes your mindset when you put that thing on and you put your belt on. So Louie, I think that's a terrific idea.

I do too. I think that's a great suggestion.

I'm going to be in my pajamas tomorrow morning, though, that we're doing one from—

At least I'm wearing a shirt, you know. I'm wearing a shirt anyway.

Well, you always have great clothes. Yeah.

Yeah, because you're just seeing me from the chest up, right?

That's— I used to work in broadcasting.

And no, Louie's absolutely— I can vouch for the fact that Louie does do that. He really does do that because Louie and I have coffee periodically, and he really absolutely lives that philosophy, right?

Somebody came in on the side here. I want to— well, go ahead, Dennis, you talk. I'm going to find another link for people.

They were asking about the Well, you know, again, going to the, to the business side of things, for the employees, for people who have employees who are at home and just unsure, I think another important leadership tip is we need to let them know where to go for information. Very confusing for employees right now on who do I go to. So, whether it's a website, an intranet site, you know, something that you set up, and it's got to be something that is, this is the clearinghouse for information. I think it's important that leaders post short videos. You can do it just—

Oh, did we lose you?

I think I'm back.

No, you're back.

Yeah, I don't know what just happened there.

Corona's got into the internet stream.

But I think as leaders, posting short videos for our people, and I think that coming from senior leaders, just letting them know what's going on and being as transparent as possible. Yeah, again, you're not going to have every answer, and that's part of the transparency part, letting your people know, hey, we're working through this. I'm sure you've got questions. We don't have all the answers yet, but providing a place that your employees can go for information that takes it out of the rumor mill.

Right.

Rumor mill is running rampant in every organization right now.

No, absolutely. And we put up a link here. Use the Bitly link, SLM Leaders Resources CV, and there's a couple of videos there that really reinforce what Dennis just talked about. One is specific to the coronavirus response. Well, I say it's— we did it because of that, because people were asking us questions. But, you know, like Tracy said earlier, these are things that you're going to take with you afterwards.

So, yeah, yeah, this is a great time to be learning stuff. Yeah, and I'm learning things that I never did before.

Sure. And the communications one talked about reinforces that point that Dennis—

You know, another thing from the personal side that is more of a sensitive subject, but I think is worth addressing, is, you know, people are in real financial challenges right now. I mean, some people are— it's serious stuff. Paying their mortgage, paying their rent. There is no reason not to pick up your phone and call the bank, the mortgage company, your landlord for your business or your apartment, whatever it is, and just saying, what can we do? You know, can we, can we stall the payments for X amount of months? There's no reason. These folks, they— not all of them, but they want to help.

They are stepping up. You know, we both do a lot of work with credit unions, and the credit unions are stepping up. And here's the thing about that, I couldn't reinforce that more, Dennis. You know, some people— here's the thing— some people, a lot of people are still getting paid right now. Some people are still able to work. They're doing jobs where, you know, that they're not going to lose their job. And so the banks and the credit unions and whatnot, credit card companies, they can't— they don't know who's working and who isn't, right? So they're not going to offer just a blanket. They shouldn't, but I wouldn't ask them to, but they're being very, very proactive. I think Capital One sent us an email last week saying, you know, anticipating this and saying, if you need help with arrangements, here's a link, here's what— and a lot of these organizations are stepping up and doing that, but they don't know what your situation is.

Right.

So if you're in trouble, it's, it's, it's on us to reach out. It's not on them to figure it out. Right.

And you would hope, you know, I mean, obviously the ideal situation is that they reach out to us. But they're going a million miles an hour. So, I mean, there's certain things that we need to take control of. And one of them is reaching out to people that we owe money to and just see, hey, what can we do? What can we do? And I think that more people than we realize are willing to work with us. So I would really encourage people to don't bury your head in the sand of, making those calls, uh, you know, to folks that we owe money to.

Danny just put up another good one. This happened actually before the, uh, the coronavirus thing hit, but, uh, I was calling my internet provider because I wanted to see what the options were. I do that about once a year, right? And I found— and I would have never found this out— I found out that I was on a program that they didn't even offer anymore, and they had one that was like 20 times faster for less money. I wouldn't even know.

Why didn't you tell us that before?

Yeah, and I said, well, that explains why my internet is intermittent at that time, which is really what I was calling about. But yeah, you got to reach out to them. Thank you, Danny. That's another good one.

Yeah, that's a great comment. You know, Debbie and I, my wife Debbie and I, you know, last weekend we went through all of our financials, and we hadn't done that in years. You know, to go through and just take a look at, okay, what's coming in, what's going out, and, you know, making some decisions around that. Right. And that's something we should do all the time. But it took this to make that happen.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Should have, could have, would have, right? Yeah, yeah. No, I think you're absolutely right on that. One of the things that I'd like to, you know, and we don't have to go on and on on here, Dennis, you'll come back again, right? We should just do this regularly.

Where else am I going to be?

And we're going to get you on StreamYard, so we're going to, we're going to be on your turf too. We'll have to do that. Um, you know, we talked about this idea of patience. There's another, it's another aspect to that. We've seen, in fact, Alex and I went for a nice walk the other day. There's a nice trail next to the river near we live, near where we live, and, uh, it was interesting to see the different reactions people had. And most people were pretty friendly, waving or keeping a distance. The poor dogs, because the dogs wanted to be pet, right? You have to—

yeah, yeah, they're straining together.

Yeah, yeah. But there were a couple of people we came across where, you know, I said, hey, how you doing? And they looked at me like, you know, I jumped out of the bushes at them, right, right. And, you know, I think this is a particular, uh, it's an opportunity You know, for so long we've been criticized as a culture of being insular and hunkered in and not reaching out to people. And I want you to think, because if you are out for a walk, if you're in an area where that's still possible, and lots of us live in those areas, you know, nothing wrong with waving. Somebody told me, was it you that told me the story about the people putting the chairs out on the driveways?

Yeah, that actually was Danny. Talk about that because I thought that was a great idea that they put their chairs out on their driveway, and some of their neighbors did exactly the same thing, and they had a neighborhood distance block party, which I thought was great. So my wife and I did that last night. Yeah, at our house, we set out a couple of chairs out in front and waved to neighbors as they went by, and people would stop as they were walking their dogs, and we'd say hello, and all keeping that, that distance. Oh, and speaking of which, that reminds me, would you address your philosophy about the whole social distancing thing? I really think that's of a lot of value.

I wish I could take credit for it. It was actually, I think the guy's name is Les Stroud, and I was just, I was, you know, scrolling through my Facebook feed and I saw this thing. He calls himself Survivor Man. And he had some tips for what to do when you're hunkering in, and believe me, I was expecting something totally different, and Les, I'm sorry if you're hearing this and I had the wrong perception of you. What a caring, generous person. I was expecting, you know, hey, get ready, arm yourselves, and he had the coolest thing, and he was the one that really brought that up. He said, no, social distancing, what a foolish term. I don't know how that thing made its way to the mainstream, but he said no, physical distancing and social interaction. Yeah, I mean, we need social interaction, we need this interaction, we're a herd animal, you know what I mean?

I've been trying to change my language to match that because I love that philosophy. The other thing I was hoping that you would talk about, and if you don't mind, is I know you did something yesterday about, you know, when you Operated a dojo. A lot of people listening, they have kids at home right now.

Oh yeah, yeah.

And they're going nuts. And you had some tips about managing children during these challenging times in a, you know, in the environment we're in.

I'm looking in the wastebasket for the notes.

Just one, just one tip. I'm sure just one people would appreciate.

Well, you know what, if you don't mind, there's actually a couple that I'd like to hit because the first one is wear them out. Don't let your kids sit there in front of a screen for, you know, 8-10 hours, especially if you're working at home and you have to, you know, you expect them to be quiet when you're taking a critical phone call. No, no, wear them out. Give them— that's Sensei's biggest secret. You know, people would ask, how come my kids are so well behaved when you send them home? I said, because we just beat them into the ground for an hour in the dojo. In the dojo, yeah, it's okay to do there. Yeah, yeah, wear them out. Give them some activities. Spend some time with them. And the other one, it goes back to what you had talked about with employees. Get them involved and be transparent with them, especially if financial situation is getting tight. You know, a lot of kids in this generation were blessed not to know any hard times financially. You know, I remember the stories, I'm sure you do, of our parents growing up, you know, Depression and whatnot. Kids are very resilient and they're very understanding given the chance. If times are tough, then be open with them and say, "We've got to make some choices." Solicit their input. The same advice Dennis and I would be giving to any leaders in any organization, right? Solicit their input. Get the input from the front lines and ask them. Say, "We're going to have to tighten up our belts." Explain to them what it means because they don't have the context for that yet. Make it real. "We're going to have to make choices. We're going to have to pick one thing instead of two," so on and so forth. And let them choose. You know, we can—

that's great advice.

We can do that, right? Yeah.

Uh, I know Danny's at home with, uh, my granddaughter right now. So, uh, Danny, if you're listening, if you're still listening, there's the picture. That's right, that's my pride and joy, my grandkids right there, and my son and daughter-in-law.

But my grandkids, and aren't they cute for the first 2 weeks you have them home, right? Yeah, yeah.

Then everything changes. Yeah, good. That's great. That's great advice. So, I guess, you know, from the two things, you know, hopefully what we've talked about has been helpful to folks. Dancer said homeschooling is going well. Yeah, there you go. You know, from a business standpoint, you know, plan for the turnaround. Plan for how you're going to remobilize when the turnaround happens, which it will happen. So, have a plan in place for that. In the meantime, staying in touch with your customers in a respectful, non-tone-deaf way, keeping your employees up to speed on what's going on, letting, being very transparent, very honest communications, a place where they can go to get correct information. From the personal side, just doing what you need to do to periodically disengage from the noise, recharge your engines so that when you come back to it, you're ready to go.

Amen. And you know what? I respect and appreciate your humility, and I know you're not going to sell you, so I'm going to. And here's, uh, you know, here's Dennis's, uh, email. I see some more Comments coming in too. Yeah, we'll hang with you. We'll get to a couple of these too. But be sure, I mean, seriously, Dennis is the best in the business. You know, I joke with him. I said, you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a Disney expert these days, right? But most of them out there that I've met, they're self-appointed Disney experts. They didn't grow up in the culture. They went to a seminar, they went to the Institute, or they read a book and they're out there preaching it. Now, that doesn't mean it's not good information. Oh, Antonio, don't you go anywhere. We're going to brag about you in a second.

And anyway, continue bragging about me.

I'm gonna go.

I'm joking. That's good. I appreciate it.

But you went from, you know, driving the submarine to one of Disney's top executives. And, you know, the culture— I— you know what, it's not the Disney culture anyway. It's your culture. You just happen to cultivate it at Disney. Uh, their culture was influenced by you as much as that culture influenced you.

No, I don't know about that. I, you know, I wasn't in senior management there, but I learned a lot. I learned a lot. I got, I can honestly say I got more out of it than I probably gave. I owe my whole career to Disney.

I'm looking for the button to take you off so I can just brag about you. No, no, but seriously, if you prepare for what's coming when we have to hit the ground running again and and call, call Dennis at snowassociates.com and, and find out about us. Just go there.

Very nice of you.

Let's hit a couple of more comments here. First of all, I'm going to bring Sensei— this is Sensei Antonio Fournier, Sensei Tony Fournier. He is the best in the business.

Oh, so he's a sensei as well?

No, he is decent. He is the sensei. He's one of my sensei.

Oh really?

Yeah, he's terrific. Uh, I mean, he was well established for years when I got into it. First place. And, and we've become friends and over the years, and terrific. And, and Tony, your live streams are just fantastic. And to see the kids jumping on there and, and, uh, maintaining that enthusiasm and that fun and all that great spirit, that was so cool. And hope you don't mind, we put up your— and please put up your, uh, contact info— we put up your Facebook page because I know you were streaming there. And I think you're You're fine with people joining you from all over the world, right?

So, uh, anything that boosts my, uh, that boosts my energy, I'm, I'm for.

Yeah, and it's not just for kids too. Just all I'm going to caution you, because I was trying to do some of the stuff with them the other day, and Tony, I, I'm, you know, I can't kick as high as I used to. So, uh, be careful not to hurt yourself if you're trying to do what the kids are doing. So anyways, let's see, we got Marcel. Keep in mind, folks, folks get depressed due to not having control of anything, right? Exactly. Talk about options to deal with that. Well, I'll jump in real quick. One of them is, and we talked about it earlier, but just to restate it, try not to focus on the things that you don't have any control of. There are so many things that you have control over, and it goes along with the idea people have been asking about inspiration, looking for that, how to make a grand speech to their people.. Don't worry about that. You know, sometimes the smallest things mean the most, especially in moments like this. So just focus on what you can do. Take, take some time and just do a little inventory. What can I do? Can I reach out? Dennis said earlier, can I make a phone call to somebody? Can I check on somebody? Uh, can I drop off some groceries? If you happen to be out and about, ask somebody if they need something. These are the small things that really, really— and when you do that, and this is— don't believe an old bald guy, but You know, psychologists have proven this beyond a shadow of a doubt. When you do something like that, it affects your physiology.

Yeah.

Right, it affects— it improves your immune system, it improves your attitude, it actually feeds more energy to your brain. It's amazing. So yeah, I think— unless you got something—

depression is going to be a real issue.

Yeah.

All of this, and I think again, stay moving, focus in on the positive stuff as much as you can, you know, disengage from a lot of the negative crap that's out there. There's just too much of it. So, you know, tap into those positive things. And you know what lifts your spirit, you know what's fun for you.

Yeah.

So make sure every day that you're blocking out time to do whatever that fun thing is, even if it's just for 10 minutes. Make sure you're blocking out time to do that.

There's plenty of it. Hey, you always wanted to learn how to play guitar, some of you. Yeah, what better time? Marcel had another one. I can't help her with this one. Emotional eating. Love cereal, chips, crackers, oatmeal, cream, baked potato. Hey, what the hell's wrong with that?

Yeah, that all sounds good. I'm starving now.

Thank God I don't have—

I'll tell you, one of the hardest things, one of the hardest things during all this is any kind of weight control.

Yeah, yeah. Well, hopefully that continues to be a problem and doesn't shift the other way, right? Yeah, yeah. And, you know, get on the live— we did— Dennis jumped on with us the other day. We did a live stream where, um, you know, we're going to do a lot of these. We're going to bring good information to you and whatnot. But, uh, it was the day that Tom Brady announced that he was moving down to Dennis's neighborhood.

Yeah.

And, uh, we just got on. I had my Patriots, uh, sweatshirt on. I said, we're not talking business. We're not talking leadership, we're just talking football. And we had a ball.

Yeah, Jim was singing the blues though. He was in the top-rated blues.

I, I ordered my, uh, my TB12, uh, Tampa jersey too though.

Yeah, I was expecting to see y'all curled in a ball in the fetal position there.

I had my moments. Yeah, but then I got some, uh, cereal chips crackers, oatmeal cream baked. Marcel, is this Is this like a mix? Are you eating this all in one bowl here, or what? What the hell is going on with this? I think one of the time those are probably okay, but all right, well, let's wrap things up. Hey everybody, thank you so much. Yeah, and so much fun. And I don't know, I don't want to speak for Dennis, but I'll tell you, this is helping my, my mindset as much as it's helping.

Jim, thank you so much for hosting this. I, I— this has been If it hasn't helped anybody else, it's helped me. I mean, definitely reboost my energy.

No, and I always treasure any time that you and I can spend together. So that's, that's kind of cool too. Hopefully it'll be in Florida again soon.

Hope so. I hope so.

All right. Oh, what's this? One more. Oh, okay. We got two more things. We're going to eat every hour. There you go. And what's— Alex has got one more. St. Patrick's. Oh yeah, that's all right. The Pats took an ad out down there. They said, you got a good one, take good care of them, right?

Now I will admit, and you know this, I am a Patriots fan. I grew up in Vermont, so I'm a Patriots fan.

There you go. And what's this, Tony? Can't wait to see the full— yes, in the full replay. Um, well, if they're watching now, they're not gonna see it, right? But yeah, we'll put up the full replay and, and, uh, make sure we that out to you. Thank you, thank you, Sensei. Thank you, Dennis. Thank you, Marcel. Thank you, everybody. Danny, everyone. All right.