EP32 Kari and Paul - Power of Travel

This is the Empowered athlete podcast, episode 32.

Hey there. You're with Kari and Paul on the Empowered Athlete podcast. And today we are talking about how travel makes better sports teams and businesses. Sounds a little crazy, right? You'll find out.

All right, everyone, the 12:30 challenge, that's 12 months of 30 day challenges for the entire year. 2019 for Kari and I continues in April. And this one is a special one for us. It has to do with the environment and taking care of it and making the world a better place. And the way to do that is to avoid the use of single use plastics. I personally think this might be the hardest challenge of the entire year as plastics are so invasive, they're in every part of our lives. And in starting this challenge, we know it is going to be tough. So we're determined to make it happen. Here's what we're going to do. We are committing to trying to not buy or bring any single use plastics into our home. Make every effort to use something different than single use plastic. And if we have used any single use plastics in the month, we're going to collect it and post in the group a picture of everything that we use just to get a feel of what's really going on. I've gone grocery shopping with Maeve recently, our youngest, and it was a massive challenge looking at things that we could buy that didn't involve plastic. So we're getting creative with bringing our own bags to the grocery store and special netted bags for all the produce, looking at things that come in glass containers or jars and anything that's tin, canned or in paper as well. So this is a massive one. Easy things that you can do, use a reusable water bottle, coffee cup, and if you do need a straw maker, make sure it's a metal one. So that is the challenge for April. Eliminate the use of single use plastics. Join the group in the show notes and help us make the world a better place.

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Are the only oils we use due to the highest quality and worldwide ethical sourcing. I have pretty high standards. As most of you know. My oils need to be consistent and work. For information on DIY recipes, go to mydoterra.com that's mydoterra.com Karischneider and if you want me to come teach a wellness class for you, reach out to me@ksempowerconditioning.com that's ksempowerconditioning.com welcome to the Empowered Athlete Podcast, created to support athletes in their pursuit of excellence and inspire others toward their best lives. Hosted by Kari Schneider, coach to top performers in sport and life, and Paul Durden, former national and professional volleyball player.

Hey everybody, thanks for joining. Joining us, it's Paul Durden here with Kari Schneider and we're talking today about how travel makes for better teams in sport and business and makes life better. And the reason we're talking about this is that we have had the opportunity, we've been very fortunate to have the chance to see many corners of the world, not all of them haven't been everywhere, but have been expanded to a number of different experiences which we strongly feel have brought a lot of value in other areas of our life and working with teams in the business world and just in day to day life and understanding all the people around us.

Can you list a few of the places that you've lived in, not just traveled to or visited, but just lived in? Where have you lived?

I have lived in England, I've lived in France and a couple different towns, Belgium, Germany, Turkey, Italy, Canada, and spent enough time in the US that feel like I could have lived there. And then we have a place in Mexico, so I don't live there. I haven't had enough time there yet.

So where have you visited?

Have time, Long list.

This would turn into that song, what's his name?

I've Been Everywhere, man.

Yeah, that one. Johnny Cash by Johnny Cash. Yeah, that would turn into that. So you've had extensive experience traveling.

Yeah. And obviously that's through, you know, playing sport with the national team professionally. That's one of the amazing benefits of it is the chance to have paid travel everywhere.

So I've always said that you have a PhD in travel because not in travel, a PhD in world experience because you've experienced so many different cultures, not only from an almost touristy standpoint. You know, when you're going through a country because you're playing there, but also from a resident standpoint because you're actually living somewhere in a region for an extended period of time. So you've been immersed in different cultures and that has allowed you to really see what goes on. If you have some impressions that way, what's there for you?

Well, just thinking about it, I would say that everywhere you go, there's some things that are the same no matter where you go. But everywhere you go, there's differences. They can be subtle or they can be extremely large. And, you know, just as humans, there's things that are. Everybody needs to eat, everybody wants a place to live. Yeah, obviously. But there are, you know, certain threads that tie us all together. But then there's also super cool differences that make the world so unique and exciting to visit.

So my friend was. His wife was visiting a. Visiting Dubai. And apparently in Dubai right now, they have an app there to have somebody show up and fill your car with gas. So that's the, that's the thing there right now is an app that someone shows up. And so people immediately ask, well, how do you get them the keys or to open the tank or those types of things? And typically, apparently people are leaving the keys in the car because it's a culture of such affluence that most people wouldn't be thinking of stealing someone else's car. And the punishment for something like that would be so massive that it's just a different way of thinking, you know, so it's a completely different. It'd be a bit of a culture shock to learn or see something like that when we're unaccustomed and we have different rules around that kind of behavior. Right, yeah. So that would be an example of just such a different thing.

So you have the chance to travel a lot as well, though. So what's something that you've seen for somebody listening who hasn't had the chance to maybe get outside of Canada or North America?

Yeah. So I was going to give a couple little stories that just circled my perspective around. And one of them was when I first moved away from northwestern Ontario. So I had lived in Dryden, little town in northwestern Ontario. I lived in Sioux Lookout, even smaller town in northwestern Ontario, and further north, kind of one of those places that's the end of the road. And if you go further north, you're on a fly in fishing or fly in reserve or fishing or that's about all that's further north. And then from there moved to Minneapolis St. Paul and then came back to Canada and then went to live in Colorado for university for my first couple years. But in going to Colorado, I went to this town called Greeley Colorado in University of Northern Colorado. And one of my first impressions was the stench. It was this unbelievable stench. I couldn't. I didn't know what it was at first, but I smelled it and Then I thought I might have been driving through a certain area and passing through something, maybe a pig farm, I don't know. I don't know what it was, but it wasn't an earthy, farmy smell like horse manure or cow manure. It was something I'd never really put a label to before. But upon arriving in my town then and speaking to locals and kind of finding out, because it was pervasive, it didn't go away. It might have gotten stronger or weaker depending on the wind, but it was kind of always there. And I came to learn that there was a meat packing plant like a slaughterhouse, a big one, I think it was called. I think it was Monforts, I think that was the name of the company. But a really big factory. And apparently the smell was the burning of the blood or whatever, the waste products, I don't know, but it was nasty. And that kind of, as a first year university student, kind of a horrifying realization of it. And then every once in a while when I had to drive out of town a certain direction, I would be driving by just miles and miles of almost ruined land from where these cows were. And the smell was so much stronger. And I never really saw a factory or anything like that, but I just had a really bad impression of it. But it made me realize that it was very, very similar to an impression that someone would come to the small town I mostly grew up in in Dryden, because it smells like rotten eggs, it smells like sulfur from the pulp and paper mill. But the locals attribute that to the common saying was it's the smell of money, because they attribute.

And farmers will say that about manure.

Bingo. The smell of money because it's the jobs, it's the secure jobs. They might want their kids to get a job at the mill or have that good paying union position. And it made me look at it like, oh, you know, I always wanted to find something different than that. But I can understand why, even though I might have a negative connotation at first, but I can understand why it's such a staple for a community and something that people are almost protective of or want to support in all kinds of ways. And it just started to open my mind that this wasn't just Dryden, this was in all sorts of communities everywhere. There was their there that might seem like a ugly mark, but was actually supporting a community or was feeding a community. But in terms of changing. So say the slaughterhouse went away or say the mill went away, then what? It takes an Entire shift in understanding and perspective and resourcefulness. It takes a complete shift from an entire culture of generations who depended on this one thing versus just making it right or wrong, or making it the bad thing because it produces pollution, or the good thing because it produces jobs, or it's not a good thing or a bad thing, it's a thing. And we need to decide how to look at it in what works for everybody.

And you were able to be in those situations, understand why people would live there and make that decision and put themselves in that type of environment and potentially have a lot of pride in whatever they're producing in whatever city it is and what's being manufactured.

It doesn't matter whether it's the. The oil industry in Alberta or Texas, or a mining industry or a tourist industry or whatever. But as a culture of that area or of a country or of a region, it's a matter of deciding whether this works for everybody and how can it work for everybody versus demonizing something to be right or wrong, or how could it work in a way that serves in a better way than it. It did before or evolves a little bit, those types of things. Because I think as outsiders, we tend to come in and judge. And in that situation, I was an outsider coming in, it was so easy to judge and just be like, this is disgusting. But then I realized this is the exact same thing as my hometown, and that's not how we think of it. And that's the same thing for the locals there.

And you go in and you're going in to get that understanding of it. I have a similar story of religious bent from playing in Turkey. So again and again, we're talking about travel today and its benefits, and we'll spin it back to how it relates to where we are now in teams and business. But again, just to give example of differences that being in Turkey, it's a Muslim country, I was playing with players who were Muslim. Some had strong beliefs, some didn't. Just like here, you know, everyone does their thing. And what struck me was as an athlete, you're training, you're eating, you're sleeping. Everything is so important to a top performance. But during Ramadan, there were several players on my team who weren't eating during the daylight hours. And at that time, that was, you know, over 60% of the day. And we had matches to play and training, and they're only having the minimal amount of water.

Yeah.

And the Canadian non Muslim me thinks we're here for a job. We've got to win. You Got to do everything you can to play well, guys.

Yeah.

I don't get it.

Yeah.

But I can't have that view. I had to seek to understand why they do it, what it meant to them. And getting that understanding allowed me to get to a place of being as supportive as I could for them with it. And, you know, for some of the guys that was setting alarms to get up, you know, right before sunrise to eat as much as they could and then go back to bed and those sorts of things. And just again, putting aside my views and seeking to understand. And it was a powerful thing to get over that.

I remember that time, and I remember how the season. Because many of the teams you're playing against were European as well. For the European cup, the whole schedule was set around more of a Christian holiday basis instead of a Muslim holiday basis. So the coach, who is also non Muslim, had set the holidays around that holiday. And then there was this major, major Muslim holidays, which were like, it would be just as big, if not bigger than Christmas or Easter for anyone in a Christian background. And the coach, who was not Muslim, was having them practice through. And this would have been the biggest holiday of the year. Like two or three days off. All businesses were shut down, everything like that. And he was asking this Turkish team to come in and practice, and they weren't getting any difference in their schedule. And it just created this dissonance, this.

Just a bit of a rift.

Oh, my gosh. Like, if there was already, you know, if there's already a bit of animosity towards a coach from players sometimes, especially when things get rough, like, that was. That was rough.

Gets back to the coach being new in that environment.

Yeah.

Just just not understanding the significance of those certain days and.

Yeah.

Having to learn from it.

Right. A different culture. I remember going to, especially the first year before I lived in Turkey, but I was going back and forth, sometimes bringing the kids to visit you or to visit you myself. And whenever we flew there, we'd have to go through Munich. And in Munich for the first time. And this would have been over 10 years ago. For the first time, I was in a hotel room. We'd have to overnight in Munich. And I was in this hotel room in a little town that was near the airport. And I saw for the first time these motion detector lights in the hallways of the hotel room. And the hotel was really nice. And I was noticing all these little differences because I was so curious. I was like, wow. People rarely are walking through the hallways of a hotel and they're Motion censored. So they just turn off and save the energy. And then that caused me to notice other things about the town. And anything from the doors to the lights to the windows to everything was tidy and tight. Everything was structured differently. And here I am thinking, being from Canada and how we have the extreme temperatures and cold swings to hot swings, that, you know, our building materials must be so efficient and this and that. And I went and looked at what they had going on and it, you know, it would put a lot of our buildings to shame and just the efficiency that they had going and, you know, it kind of had me do a 180 in thinking that, oh, you know, we really are a environmentally friendly country and we are very efficient and really to realize that we are so inefficient, we are so just we tend to use and use our resources because we have so much and we have such a great amount of space, whereas so many other European areas are so much more efficient in how they use things, how they build things, because they don't have as much space. And it has to last. They're building it to last for hundreds of years instead of 20 years or 50 years. So I mean, that was another 180 for me in traveling and learning and, and that kind of thing.

And so I think the word you mentioned, the attitude you had, at least in Munich, was curiosity. And regardless of where you go, if you're curious, you're going to discover all these slight differences. And then the great thing there is to then just take it and think about it, do I like this? Why are they doing this? Is this better? Is it worse? And at least you're then thinking about it in a non dismissive way. A non my way is the highway.

Type manner, non judgy way. It's such a creative stimulator, like just getting the imagination going and thinking, well, wow, if they do this and other places do what what do, what does this place or that place do? Or what could be, what could be made differently or better in our country by learning from somewhere else. Right.

And so I guess our major point of this episode is to hopefully spur you to travel and get out there and see this stuff yourself. Because as we describe may sound vaguely interesting, it might not, but to hear it is one thing. But to actually get out there and experience the differences and interpret things in your way, which is different from the way that I'm going to see it or that Kari is going to see it, is really a key message here because that will then translate to great Things. If you have that more open, broad mind around how things work in the world, that it's not just our way, that's going to translate into great things with teams and business, which is what we kind of want to transition this.

Conversation into the subtleties of what people experience in their own cultures or different countries when we haven't ever had a sniff of that experience. We tend to look upon anything different with judgment and with sometimes even disdain because we don't understand it. And that's human nature. And it doesn't matter whether somebody is a. Is a parent or a non parent or a. A different culture or another, it completely anything different than what we currently know. We tend to judge it as something that if we don't understand it, then we're gonna lump it into this big bucket of, oh, different done. And when we do that, we cut off so many resources and so many options and so many opportunities to learn and expand. I used to, in Dryden, I used to work in kind of the tourist industry, I guess. I worked in restaurants. I worked in a gas station selling minnows and fishing licenses and pumping gas. I worked at my dad's camp. So I was cleaning cabins from tourists, fishermen coming through to go hunt and fish. And 10 years ago, almost 10 years ago, my daughter and I went to Turkey, to Athens to visit Athens for the weekend. And when we did that, we flew in and it was dark, it was late at night. We'd never been to Greece before, and we needed to get a taxi and go to a hotel. And it wasn't the days of Airbnb or vacation rental by owner. We were going to some hotel that was less expensive, didn't know where we're going. And we got this taxi driver, and this taxi driver was a woman. So I was kind of feeling more comfortable that way. That, you know, me and my daughter, we're gonna get to where we need to go. And as we're in the taxi and we're not sure of our surroundings, we're looking out the window, trying to understand a little more about Athens. I make the comment that said, oh, you know, look, it's so much like Turkey, it looks just like Turkey. And that taxi driver heard me say that she just about ripped my head.

Off with her slams on the brakes.

Oh, my gosh, I thought she was gonna dump us on the side of the road. Were nothing like Turkey. There was just some old cultural bad blood from the wars between Greece and Turkey and just the judgment. And immediately I was like, okay, first of all, I need to watch what I say. And second of all, I need to get to my destination. But once I was able to reflect on that later, I realized that that's the same kind of attitude Canadians would have towards the US and the arrogance and the, you know, this and that that we perceive Americans to have. And it's not Americans, it's not the individuals. It's just this general label that we tend to put on, even so much so that if we travel to Mexico or travel to Europe, we might say something like, oh, no, I'm Canadian. I'm not American. So that we don't get the label of being American. And that's exactly what we felt in that taxi where everything looked the same, the people looked the same, the language was different, but sounded similar to an outsider, and yet to the individual, it was just like, don't ever compare me to that other person or that other country. And unless you experience something like that as an outsider, we're going to make these broad statements that can really be offensive to someone else. And unless we experience different things, not even just as a tourist, but immersing yourself into a culture, going to the places that are the holes in the wall, going to the places that aren't the touristy destinations or the, you know, the places that the cruise ship barfs off onto land. And then you only go to those special places that the tourists go to, but instead you go to the places that the locals go to. You go to the places that the. That are the nooks and crannies of the city and get to know what it's really like or stay a little longer or hike and explore or don't have a predestined plan. That's the way you're gonna find out what the culture's really like and where people will really step up and support another person because you're a human being, not because you're from this place or that place. And that's the kind of thing that if you have that experience and you know those things, it allows you to communicate and connect with people in a different way. When you're on a team, when they're from a different country, you don't. You can see through the accent, you can feel through the accent and be with that person, not based on their color or their accent or where you perceive them to be from and what you think it's like there when you really have no idea. And the same goes to business. From a business standpoint, you know those nuances. You can up level the kind of service to customers because you're not treating them like they are a blank or treating them like they are from wherever, the way that we tend to do when we learn those types of things.

Yeah. You have to think from the business world that you're. If you're in business and you're selling anything that you absolutely want to be able to sell the most people possible and well. And to do that, you need to understand what your customers want and understand your customers. So if you surround yourself with a certain group of people, you're limiting the creativity and the correct messaging that's going to be developed from that group that may not reach seven different audiences that you haven't included. You know, if you just think the difference between men and women.

Mm.

If it was a group of men coming up with advertising, thinking about what women want, I don't like our chances. You know, so just at a basis, just having diversity between men and women, making decisions about company direction and product and marketing and those types of things and.

Yeah.

Diversity is beautiful and powerful and required. It's a global marketplace these days with the Internet, you can sell to anyone, anywhere. Yeah.

The world is so much smaller.

And in the team environment to get the most out of each other, it gets back to that word you mentioned, Kari, and it's curiosity about somebody who is on your team and different. You find out what's important to them and then you can support them and giving them a day off on a. On a day that's important for them for a holiday or something that might be affecting them or whatever it may be, or understanding dietary restrictions they might have based on something they practice. And so, yeah, that even being open minded and again, accepting of these different things and curious about them allows you to create a culture within a team that's really powerful. And it makes me think of that story I told you before about Glenn Hogue, the coach they had in Paris, where we have a team of. We had a guy from Africa, we had guys from the Czech Republic, Canadians, French, Spain, all over the place. And you bring in this group of diverse people and you need to get on the same page. We've got a mission to win.

Yeah.

But what's gonna work for me isn't gonna work for the guy who's from Tunisia.

Yeah.

He's got a few different things that make him tick, and you can't ignore that. And so, you know, the masterstroke amazing thing that Glenn did was he created. He got a room basically where we trained where guys could go and play cards Have a drink after practice, have snacks and socialize outside of the gym and the standard environment where we normally interact in a team, where, you know, we come to practice, you see the guys in the locker room, you leave.

Did he force them to play cards?

Not at all. And, you know, he was never there as well. It wasn't a monitored place. It was for the players just to have, again, an outlet, a channel to connect as a group. And it was really powerful thing because the jokes and the things that happen there and the relationship building that happens off the court has a different dynamic than we're working on the court. And the intensity is through the roof. And you might be screaming at somebody and have to be able to separate.

That builds the chemistry so that it's not going to cause a mistrust later between the individuals.

Absolutely. Just builds understanding and a place for the team to come together. So that's really the goal of this podcast, is to just to throw these ideas out to you out there to consider to improve your team, to improve your office.

Hire the person you think that is. Hire the person that you may not understand because once you learn a little more about them, they might be the perfect person for the role. Or even if you're not going to hire them, at least be curious about them enough to learn more, because they may be able to serve your team or your business in a way that you could never have imagined because it's something that you just simply don't know yet.

Yeah. You want them to be able to disagree with you. Create an environment where that can happen so that you can talk things through and really see the different perspectives and find the best course of action.

Yeah. Do not look for, whether it's business or team, do not look for people who are just going to be, I'm putting these in air quotes, a good fit, because then you're just creating more of the same and you've got far less likelihood to truly grow and expand. The growth and expansion comes from diversity. It comes from challenging the norm. It comes from seeing things a different way. It comes from positive rivalry, all sorts of things.

And really to circle back, to have the ability to make those choices, get out there and see the world so that you can broaden your view and be comfortable with it and realize that it's different everywhere.

I think we want to travel more. I think that's the message.

You're saying, call your travel agent now.

You need to pick a number because we're going to do our question.

All right, we're wrapping up Then with a question from the great book.

Do you have any other things you want to say on this topic?

No, I think we've covered it.

Awesome. Okay, so number, book of questions. Yes.

To get to know Paul better, we'll go number 77.

77. What if we accidentally pick numbers that we've chosen before? We'll have to change it right on the fly.

What do you got?

Do you feel ill at ease going alone to either dinner or a movie? What about going on vacation by yourself? Legitimately, that's the question. Zuh.

That is perfect.

I know. It's perfect for this topic. Do you feel ill at ease going alone to either dinner or a movie? So first of all, have you ever gone alone to dinner or a movie?

Yeah, I've had to on the road for work. I've been traveling and had to go to dinner long.

But have you gone to a movie?

A movie? No.

Yeah, either have I. Okay. Yeah. Traveling, work, you got to eat alone a fair bit. And what about going on vacation by yourself? So do you feel ill at ease going alone to either a dinner or a movie? What about going on vacation by yourself?

Yeah, I'm going to rewind a bit to maybe when we had less family, where I might have been able to travel on my own or do something like that. And I don't think I could do it unless the trip had a purpose. I needed to be. I would need to be traveling somewhere to do X. I would need to be going to.

Okay, what if I was like, do.

A certain hike or something or some type of activity that had a reason? I can't see myself going somewhere to visit solo because I know just how I'm wired, that I love to share those experiences with someone. So the times I haven't traveling.

Have you ever gone on a video vacation alone?

No.

Huh. Yeah. I don't think I have either. I know, but I have a good.

Friend, my good friend Kurt came to visit me while I was living overseas in Germany and took off by himself to go see Egypt.

Yeah, like.

So he. There's a guy who, you know, the answer is flat. Yeah, absolutely. Whereas I don't. I wouldn't do that.

I would do something like that, but I typically wouldn't book it for myself. I don't know. It's hard to.

Yeah, it's hard to imagine being married and it just wouldn't happen for us, I don't think.

Yeah, I don't know.

So there you go.

Yeah, good one. Okay, so right now we have the. We have a New challenge going on, so feel free to join in. And it's all about no plastics.

That's right.

No plastics.

This, we anticipate, will, this is gonna be the hardest challenge of the year, I think.

I don't know. February might have been the hardest, but definitely hard.

But this plastic is everywhere.

I know. I've been watching it. It's on my radar. I've been trying to prepare myself mentally, and I can't even believe how many. It's single use plastic. So if we're. If we have a plastic container that we can use, say a hundred times or whatever it is, we're not eliminating that. But in this particular challenge, we are eliminating single use plastics. So the things like where you get your water bottle or the thing that holds your lettuce when you buy from the grocery store or the plastic bags at the grocery store or the Saran Wrap to put something away in the fridge, like any of those things to.

Pick up dog poop?

Well, yeah, any of those things. Like, it's. So we have to rethink everything and it's going to be quite the challenge. So if you want to join us, then the link is in the show notes and we would love to have you challenge yourself in a way that supports less plastic use.

Yeah. Sign up for the 12:30 challenge. Again, the link is in the show notes. And get involved in the Facebook group because this is one where we can share ideas with each other and the support will really help. Creative ideas here about eliminating plastic from all of us will make all of us stronger and better.

Yeah. The empowered top performers Facebook group. And there is a new 30 day challenge each month. We're doing this all year long. Awesome. Awesome. So have a fantastic day and peace out, everybody.

Thanks for listening.