Ep. 221 How Love Works In The Business World With Joel Manby

Darren Lacroix. Good day. How are you, sir?

I've never seen you quite this excited, which is awesome. And when I hear a story of Mark Brown at an international convention where he's a hero and he's so moved that he goes and stands in line to meet someone and buy a book, that's special, that's unforgettable.

Well, I tell you what. For me, it was 11 years ago, 2012 Toastmasters, and I heard a keynote speaker who blew me away with his style, his stories, his message. And I thought to myself, I've got to get Joel Manby to come on our podcast. We'll introduce him in greater detail, but I can't wait to unleash the management style and the communication skill of Joel Manby. Let's do this.

Anyone can give a presentation. Few deliver unforgettable presentations. What's the difference? You're about to find out. Welcome to the Unforgettable Presentations podcast with your hosts, world champion speakers and coaches, Mark Brown. Mark Brown.

Your life tells a story, and there's someone out there who needs to hear it.

And Darren Lacroix. And Darren Lacroix.

Stage time. Stage time. Stage time.

Ready for some powerful presentation? Ahas. Let's dive right in.

All right, so who's Joel Manby? I don't have three and a half hours, so I'll give you the Reader's Digest condensed version. This man has been involved in CEO leadership for over a quarter of a century. Not calling him old, but he's got contacts through Maxwell leadership involving hers and entertainment. I mean, he has done it all. But this man is a humble soul who brings a unique message to the corporate world that turned me when I first heard it. And I'm so thrilled to have you meet Joel Manby, CEO extraordinaire. Hello, Joel.

Hey, Mark. How are you? And Darren, good to see you as well. I'm very excited to be here. I. I certainly know of you guys and your extreme talent in the. In the speaking field. So I'm very excited to be here.

Well, I tell you, it all began in 2012, Darren. When I had to, I went in. I draw in the line after a convention to get this book and I still have it handy. I have taught leadership and I've referenced the book and the message and Joel.

Mark, Mark, one second here. There's CEOs and there's CEOs. He's a CEO of Sea World. Come on.

Like true.

I could say I'm the CEO of Darren Lacroix Institute, and that's Nice. I get two employees. That's different.

Yeah, that. You're right. You're right. You know, CEO, I mean, look, Joel, I know you don't want us to give us to give you a CV and your resume, but to say we're impressed, it's for a reason, and you really are. And there's something else that's really cool. The aside, some people may not know he was also an undercover boss. Darren did not know that. Joel, that TV show where bosses see employees do good work and reward them. It's a TV show that makes my eyeballs sweat. And it kind of shows the heart you have, Joel, for the people you serve. And I just want to say thank you because when I heard you present in 2012, the first thing that got me was not only your humility, but the way your opening story grabbed my heart immediately. And I want to ask a direct question regarding your presentation style. You used an opening story. And for those who are wondering, others say this, Joel, you had me with you on that plane. All the thoughts going through your head on that flight from the USA across to Europe when your boss summoned you very, very succinctly, and all the emotions you felt going to face the boss in this meeting among me caught on the carpet, I was able. I felt literally uncomfortable in my seat. So help me out, Joe. I'm going to go straight to the jugular. Your story you opened that convention with 11 years ago, I remember. It's also in your book. What's your process for telling a story to reach the audience so powerfully and so immediately?

Sure, absolutely. A couple thoughts on that. First, I have various stories to use in my opening, depending on the audience, depending on what I think they'll relate to the most. So, for instance, at that convention for Toastmasters, I knew a lot of people were speakers, but not necessarily leaders at certain corporate levels. So I used something that everyone could relate to, which is public admonishment. And it does. It doesn't feel good. So the story is basically my boss in Sweden. I was CEO of South North America, which is a huge operation. My CEO, who I reported to in Sweden, worldwide CEO for Saab, didn't like our numbers for a quarter. He called me over on a Sunday morning. I had to fly over to Sweden and basically just to get chewed out publicly in front of everybody. And so I explained this story, but in the end of the day, the point is I didn't remember what was said, but I never forgot how public admonishment made me feel. I got chewed out I got ridiculed. I was embarrassed in front of my peers and I pledged to never do that again and that I felt that story would relate the most. But I also have another, another point I'd make to your listeners on picking a story. Instead of giving sometimes my bio in kind of chronological order to an aud, I'll start with the turning point of my life. And I think it's one way to really pull an audience in. So the second way sometimes I open is I, I go right to a hotel room where I was devouring a bottle of wine in my depression because we were selling this startup that I had. Fine, we were an Amazon startup selling cars on Amazon and I had invested all my net worth in it. It had basically gone bust. I was at the end of my rope. I was even thinking about, do I even want to stay in leadership? All I had really seen is kind of a dog eat dog world of business. And I was at this very low point and I got a phone call. And the phone call changed my life. And that phone call hook will bring people in. And then I would tell them a little bit more about what my core idea is. And we can get into core idea and so forth in a few minutes. But then I say who the phone call came from, which is a person in the theme park business who hired me out of autos to teach me how to lead with love. And I knew him because I was on his board, but he then taught me what my core idea is, which is leading with love will transform you personally and professionally and help change the world. So my point to your audience is, you know, I could have just gone up there and droned about my background and gone in chronological order, but instead I went to the low point and it was the turning point in my professional career. And then I, in doing so, communicated what I feel my core idea, which is what I just stated. And then the rest of the talk uses that basic core idea as a theme throughout all the rest of the stories I tell, which we can get into as well.

Love it. Just so many different ways we could go. But seriously thrilled you're here. And what is your process for let's say, figuring out, okay, this audience needs this story. I love that perspective that you just said you knew the Toastmaster audience wasn't these high level CEOs. You're there to talk about leadership and love in your book. And okay, so how do you go about choosing those stories? I love your first example. But for the rest of, let's say, filling the body of your speech or your closing, what was your thought process on which other stories should back up your main premise?

The first kind of decision tree for me is what's the makeup of the audience? And because my message is of love and it actually is based on Jesus's number one commandment. That's kind of where I come from because that's what I was taught growing up. But I also know there's a lot of people who don't know or don't believe in who Jesus was. And I don't want to get into religious things, but if I feel like they're friendly to that, I might go right away to it's Jesus's number one commandment. So this is the way we should all lead. But if it's a non faith audience, strictly business people, their main thought coming in usually the knock against servant leadership or leading with love is most business leaders think, well, we can't hit our numbers doing this. You know, we have to be jerks, we have to fire people, we can't treat people well. And that's changing a little bit in our society. But if it's that kind of an audience, my, my first story will be more about the data that's out there that shows that leading with love makes a very successful organization. So it just depends on the kind of think of whether they are of faith or not, whether they're business leaders or not. That helps with the opening. Now to further answer your question though, Darren, if I have this theme of leading with love and how do I choose the rest of the stories? The basic storyline is, okay, we're using love, but really what is love? Because everyone's confused. So they think of it as an emotion. They think of it as how I feel about you. Well, that's, that's what most Americans think about love. That's not the love we're talking about. We're talking about agape love, which is a verb. It's how we treat people. The Greeks have four different words for love. They have eros, which is emotion. They have, you know, the verb agape. Or they have philosopher, brotherly love or story for parental love. The audience needs to understand that so that they know I'm talking about the verb love. And then from there I paraphrase First Corinthians 13 into seven words. And I tell stories about each of those seven words depending on the audience. So to your point, how do I choose them? It really, I. Some of it is just intuition usually. I think this is really important for your listeners. I Always try to have a dinner or a pre call with those who organize the event. I mean, the pre call is nice, but I like to go in the night before and have dinner with them, break bread, talk to a lot of people, ask them questions. And based on where the organization is, I will pick the words that I feel most apply to what's troubling them. So for instance, a lot of businesses have poor cultures for telling the truth. People are afraid to tell the truth. They are afraid they're going to get chewed out or their boss is going to fire them if they disagree. And matter of fact, most people leave organizations because they don't feel safe telling the truth. So if I sense any of that, truthfulness is one of the words of love and I will definitely pick that word. Or if I sense the CEO is really impatient and just not, not really listening to his team, I might choose the word patient, which is another one of the seven words. And that were the main theme from the Saab story I told earlier is praise in public, but admonish in private. So Darren, I really just, I have, I have seven key words that define love and I usually don't have time to cover all seven of them. And so I'll pick them based on what I have garnered either from the prep call or the night before.

Now before Darren responds, I must say this, Joel, because you just dropped wisdom and by the way, my head goes down at times. I'm actually taking notes. One of my jobs, Joe, is at the end of the podcast to recap the golden nuggets you give to us. We call them the keepers. And I'm writing furiously now with my pencil and paper. Old school. But you just said I have seven that I can use, but I will not use all. I'll choose the best ones for that, for that purpose. The goal there, Joel, is coaching clients all over the world for, come by, I don't know, 40 years or so. And very often they want to give the audience everything they know in a 45 minute keynote. But your wisdom is one, we can't give them everything, but two, we have to be aware of what they need. Hence your encouragement to meet with them. Not only call, but meet with them, have conversations. And you're right down Darren's street because Darren has calls, he phones people, he meets people, he goes in a day or two early to have that interaction. So that's really why our listeners and viewers understand we can't teach everyone everything we know, but when we are selective, we will be affected. Darren.

Yeah, I'M just. Sometimes I forget I'm interviewing. I'm like, okay, yeah, what else? How else do you do it for you and your process? How do you dig or mine your experience for those stories?

Yeah, it's a good question. And sometimes. Well, let me say this. I'm always adding because life continues to teach us, right? So I try to vary them. So if you heard. I. I will tell you, Mark, if you heard my keynote today, it is very different than the keynote you heard in 2012. I'd like to think it's better. Here's. Here's what I learned, and I hope I'm answering your question, Darren. But it's another. It's another good process that for your listeners. And I need to give credit. I learned this actually from Don Yeager, who's an author, but he's also a very good communicator. He taught me something about telling stories, that it's a threefold thinking process. The first is select a story that will connect, right? You want to connect to the audience, but from that story, then there's principles to communicate that came out of that story. And that's like the teaching moment, right? The story connects, then the principles I teach, and then there's a call to action or a next step for them. So it's those three things. So it's okay if I give a couple of examples?

Please, please do. Yes. Yes.

Well, let's just take the sob story I shared. I kind of already shared the story. I get called over on Easter Sunday. I get chewed out, come back. That takes a couple minutes to do. But the principles that I teach, praise in public, admonish in private, and then being patient in how you handle very difficult situations. Basically, don't lose your. Whatever you want to call it, your temper.

There you go. What is your mind?

Don't lose your mind because everybody's watching you. And so the action step for them is, who do you need to be more patient with? Another example. I'll give one more. Because it's Dolly Parton, and everybody loves Dolly Parton. And I, I, when I ran Herschend Enterprises, which is a theme park company, we managed all of Dolly's parks, and I'm still on her board. We still communicate. Fantastic human being. But when I talk about truthfulness and creating an environment of truth, the story is really watching Dolly create an environment of truth. And I. I'll just tell the story. Only takes a minute or two, but then I'll. I'll. I want to. I want to fold out the model That I showed you guys.

Perfect.

It's the first board meeting I am ever at with Dolly Parton at this time. I'm not the CEO yet, I'm just a board member. She comes, and she doesn't always come to board meetings for her theme park. And the management team's pitching to put a hotel at Dollywood. And surprisingly, the board votes the management team down. And you can tell Dolly doesn't like this. You think about all the ways she could have responded. She could have said, hey, my name's on the building. If you don't do it, I'm out, or I'm going to take away my licensing deal or I can't. You know, she. She could have done a power play, but instead she went around the room. She started with the lowest level board member first, worked her way up to the most senior person and asked him why he wasn't supportive of this hotel. And Nelson Schwab's the. The chairman. He has a very deep radio voice, and he says, well, Dolly, we don't want to invest in hotels because they get a lower return on investment than theme parks, and we don't want to divert management from what they're good at in something new and more risky. There's a long pause after he says. And Dolly says, nelson, I have to say you have the sexiest voice I.

Have ever heard, but I don't agree.

With the words you said. So that's basically the story. But. And I, I tell it more flowerfully, but in a lot of setting. But the principles are she talked last. And as a strong leader, if you talk first, people are going to respond to what you say because they're political. She's smart enough because if Dolly says so, it's just going to happen. She always talks last. And the second thing she does, of course, is don't shoot the messenger. Which, that's intuitively obvious. But. And the third thing she does that's so magical is she summarizes the why. So when she says, I, Nelson, I disagree with you, and you said this and that, but here's where I disagree. She. She will make you feel respected. She'll. She'll show that she listened to you and respects your opinion, but then also disagrees. You know, the principle of talk last, don't shoot the messenger and summarize the why is kind of the important principle. And then the action item is how are you going to change your behavior going forward to create an environment of truth in your business? So I think no matter what your listeners are telling Stories about I think having that mindset of story to connect, principles to teach and what's the action item for the audience will assure that they leave the talk with something they can do tomorrow to implement what you're talking about. But back to what even prompted the question. Doing so takes some time. Now I could go through all seven words and just say patience this and kindness means this. Truthful, trusting, forgiving, unselfish, dedicated. Those are the seven words. I can do one sentence on those. But I can only deep dive with that three point model on two or three words and in a 45 minute keynote, maybe two hour keynote, maybe three or four. But if I get 20 minutes, 18 minutes like a TED Talk, I'm basically just summarizing a very, very high level. But I think it's a really good model for your listeners to take.

Yeah, we love that idea and we teach that idea ourselves or love hearing it from a different new perspective. And what he's saying too is look, if you want your presentation to be unforgettable, you have to take time, develop the points and then I love your, the three steps. You got to get them to do something. How does this apply to your world? Now we're not responsible to get them to do it, but if we're up on stage, we need to set the stage for them to then take action. So love it.

Mark, the style is wonderful and your technique works. I'm curious though, in your own mind and heart, you speak to various audiences different. You have faith based, you have non faith based. You may have the tough CEO executive audience. So your, your audience range is very diverse. The configuration, how do you establish rapport with the audience regardless of their demographic, quickly, comfortably and confidently. Because that question many of our viewers and listeners have. I'm asking for a friend.

It's a great question and I, I'll tell you how I do it. I'm not sure this would pass the Toastmasters muster or not, but typically when people read my. Let me start with this. I think people connect more with failure and struggle than they do with success. And typically what happens is they'll read my bio kind of like you did Mark. And I'm not, you know, this is common, right. Joel's a Harvard MBA. He's been CEO of 25 for 25 years of four major corporations, Saab and Sea World and all this success, right. And I'll, I'll often at some point, maybe not in my opening, but I want to connect with the audience through my own failure. And if I do it Lightly. I have a story where I tell them about my first day at Harvard Business School where I'm so intimidated because everyone's going around the room saying what they did before Harvard and they were like running Goldman Sachs division or they're in Wall Street. Whereas I was a, I was a plant foreman and a truck plant, you know, running a bus line in Pontiac, Michigan. And so I was so embarrassed to even say that that I completely pivoted and said, well, well, my name is Joel Manby and my claim to fame is I guarded Magic Johnson in a high school basketball game.

Oh, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant.

This nervous laughter. And then I say the truth and I held him to 48 points.

Brilliant. Nice.

Take some down.

Nice.

Or, you know, later I've had, you know, that Amazon startup that I talked about, the low moment that, that crash and burn, you know, you guys remember the dot com implosion in 2000 and I was depressed, I was suicidal, my marriage was in trouble. In fact, you know, in some talks, I'll share that I, my first marriage did not make it, which is one of the biggest failure of my life. And, and it resulted mostly in my own mistakes and not always being truthful. So if I'm talking about truthful and I want to connect that I'm a human being too, and I've had huge failures and huge successes. So to answer your question, I think the best way to connect is, like I said, people connect more with failure and things we didn't do so well. And I don't know why that's the case, but that's, that's, I, I just want to do that to show some humility, which I have a lot of, because life beats you up over time. That's how I do it. So that's the answer to the question.

Well, I have two questions, two follow up questions. Number one, did you prepare the Magic Johnson line when you knew you're up against this amazing class of gradients? Spontaneous came out.

It just came out because I, I was so intimidated, but that literally I froze up and that's what came to mind. And then everybody laughed and I was kind of the class clown after that. No, that one I didn't prep, but I certainly prepped for it for the keynotes.

I see.

I think it could be Mark. I think it could if when you're giving it in front of audiences, if you just want another laugh, my background is stand up, you could say, and get the laugh. Magic Johnson. And then you could say. And he only played half the game. He only paid 2/4 or we only played 1/4. 48 points.

I'm gonna take that one.

Go for it. That's yours.

And the other follow up question, Joel, is this. At what point was the switch flipped that said use your failure for connection? Because so many people, their intro is the CV all they have done, but you say, no, use a failure. At what point did that click for you? How did it change the way you spoke going forward?

It's really just. I think I got that advice from someone who heard my talk and I really can't remember was. But they just said they knew me well and they, they knew I was uncomfortable with it. I, I'm a very, I like to think I'm a very authentic person. And so when people just give the 3 minute bio without the other side of the story, it just makes me very uncomfortable. And so A, my natural discomfort and B, someone kind of gave me the permission, go ahead and share your, Your. Your failure. I, I just think people need to hear that because the truth is all of us struggle at one point in life or another. We struggle with our confidence at times, or we have failures, we have to recover from them. And so I just think it's the way to go for you guys and for your audience too.

Yeah, we like to teach people to share your failures, your flaws and your firsts. Your failures, your flaws and your firsts. I remember I used to. When I was pursuing my dream of becoming a speaker. I was a telemarketer at Bose Corporation. And I remember my first day on the job. Sherwin Greenblatt, who is the COO, Dr. Bose's first employee, he came down to the orientation meeting and he showed a picture, a black and white picture of the Bose logo in this office park. And he said, the truth is, Dr. Bose and I were the only employees we had to go and get people in other offices to drive their cars over and park it. So it looked like. But I remember the feeling it gave me that humility. It's now, I wasn't working for a company. I was working for this good, honest guy.

Yeah. Yeah.

And Joel, I want to kind of piggyback on what Darren just said. I don't work for a company. I work for this good, honest guy. In your experience over a quarter of a century in leadership, and particularly with your message of leading with love, it's really two questions. One, how did you go about presenting this, I would think over the last 25 years, controversial and almost counterintuitive perspective to the hardened individuals who say, I'm in a dog eat dog world. It's, you know, I'm going to come to the top and I got to be aggressive. I got to put my people, we're going to get more overtime. We got to deliver, deliver, deliver, produce. How do you go about communicating that in that fast paced world, particularly after what you went through in Sweden and get people to buy into it?

Yeah.

What's the secret?

I'm really glad asked that question because it's a. There's a twofold answer and one is I think the one. One of the reasons I am so uniquely qualified to speak on this controversial topic is I have led in both worlds. The 20 years in auto was autocratic, fear based hit. Your numbers are out yelling and screaming, scotch drinking, cigar smoking, typically old white guys, you know, that were just not with it and they weren't very innovative. And I'm sorry, I shouldn't, I shouldn't maybe be that critical. But that's what I experienced. And yet I experienced that I was successful in that environment. But I tell the audience I had an angst in my soul. The angst in my soul was I grew up being taught by my parents. Number one commandment in all the scriptures is to love God, love others. So how am I supposed to love others when this is all I see in the uncle street? Suppose that coming into then Jack Herschend bringing in me into Herschend enterprises and theme park business. We work together to develop this vernacular of leading with love. The culture was in place, but I put the vernacular to kind of represent it so we could teach it to others. So the fact that I did that and then had 20 years of success in the theme park industry said all right, I've lived both worlds. I've actually been successful and have failures in both worlds. I can tell you definitively that leading with love is better. It's better financially. Our profitability was better than in the auto industry. Our people scores were better, our engagement scores, our employees and the guests like our product better. And then so that's kind of point number one is I had lived in both worlds and Herschend was extremely successful and the SeaWorld turnaround was extremely successful in taking it from A to B and improving. But sometimes that's not enough for people because that's my experience. I think for most audience that's enough because I, I've been CEO twice on both sides, blah blah, blah. But I also, to your point, the, the more snarly the audience, the more I bring data. I have some results from Gallup which is A, one of the best. Or you guys know who Gallup is and they.

Oh, sirs.

Yes, they're the experts on engagement scores and they've had this huge study that shows if you have high engagement scores, you're more profitable, you have less turnover, etc. Etc. And at Herschend, we linked who had high engagement scores to who led according to those seven words. I mean, we literally measured it and we linked it. So I had statistical evidence that those who lead with love and all Herschend and SeaWorld were those who got the highest engagement scores and therefore, you know, the best financial results. And so I try to dismiss the myth that you, you have to be hardcore jerk to be successful because A, it's not true and B, as you guys know, the 20 somethings of today just won't accept the culture that I lived in at General Motors. Yeah, it's just getting much more people. Leaders have to be more attuned to how employees feel. On one hand, I might not need to show the data as much as I used to because people are more receptive to it. But two, I, I think my message is actually more relevant today and more accepted today than it was 20 years ago.

Real quickly, when you first brought this message to the rump harpet big wig group, so to speak, and you drop that in your lap for the first time, what were you thinking going into it and what do you experience afterwards when you first landed that message?

You know, I honestly sounds arrogant. D or Mark. I. I didn't, I didn't really care how they responded because I believe so much. And what I was saying, I had experienced it myself. This is now my life message, you know, now, because I want to love at home, at work, with my family, with my friends. I don't want to be disconnected from who I really want to be to who I have to be at work. And so I went in, not really caring what I found. To specifically answer your question is how many times people came up to me afterwards and said, I've always felt there was a better way. I thank you for doing this. And kind of going back to amplify that. Going back to the Undercover Boss question, I will just say this about Undercover Boss. We followed the NCAA quarterfinals on CBS between Duke and Villanova. There were 25 million people watching that game. And they all stayed on to watch Undercover Boss. And our. We had so many emails come in after that show ended that our server shut down at Herschend.

Oh, that's great.

And I still have in my Office, you know, six feet, bookshelf, full of notes from people basically saying the same thing I just said earlier. I had, I had an angst. I knew there had to be a better way. Thank you for showing a better way. And it's because of all that response that I ended up writing the book Love Works, which you showed. I didn't want to be an author. I wanted to prevent others like that that had that angst like I did. But I wanted to get them the message in their 20s and 30s, not wait till, I mean, I was 40 years old before I got that message. So I was surprised at their responses that I didn't get the pushback. They actually were thankful and all like whispering thank you for sharing that because our boss needs to hear it.

Well, I'll comment and let Darren respond. My comment is this. I dare say you're a bit of a revolutionary because you brought a brand new idea that has changed the way people think and they lead. Darren?

Yeah, I don't know if it's a brand new idea. I think Jesus came up with it.

However, that's true.

But Joel applied it in a new way, in a new industry.

So Aaron, I'm glad you said that because some people call me a thought leader. I don't like that term because I, you know, Jesus came up with it 2,000 years ago and it's so radical in the Roman Empire and where he was to, you know, to speak to women and, you know, just done. And he. So what I do feel like though is I've brought it to vernacular and a community that's not used to talking about it and, and I, I'd love it if my, if people remember me. For one thing, it's that he, he taught to love in, in business because at a broader level, guys, I think if, if America and democracy and capitalism doesn't learn to be more caring and give more to the front line and to the workers, it's going to be in trouble. And, and Herschend has proven that you can be very gracious to your employees and still have very, very profitable, successful company. So I'm, I'm happy to be on that march.

I think you're going to be told someday, my good and faithful servant, well done, well done.

You know, and, and now I sitting here, Joel, I'm going to confess, I'm sitting here hearing you talk. I'm thinking I need to get to know Joel a little bit more. If you be my friend on LinkedIn, you connect, we'll talk some more. But given the opportunity. And let me ask you this. Have you had young executives hear you at a conference and kind of try to bend your ear and ask for advice? What advice would you give the young executive who wants to be a better leader and better communicator to combine those two?

Yeah, first of all, I do. I actually, if anybody, I do have a website, joelmanby.com and I do have one on one mentoring group, mentoring that's available, you know, for, for people who, who are interested in that. But to answer your question, I always start with, you got to be yourself. You have to be authentic. And I know it sounds trite, but if we're not doing what we're passionate about and what we love to do, we're not going to be effective at it long term. And people often ask me, I want to be a CEO. How do I bet I be a CEO? I. I just say the truth to them. I never aspired to be a CEO. I aspired to do really well at every position I had. I always worked harder than anybody else. I wasn't always the smartest guy in the room, but I would outwork people and I was always honest and did what I said I was going to do, or I tried to be honest and the rest took care of itself. That I think it's the process along the way, it's not the destination. So if your goal is to be a CEO, you might be very disappointed. If your goal is to be a certain kind of leader along the way, then I think it's a much better goal. So I call those seven words of love, B goals. It's what kind of leader do I want to be? That's much better than a do goal, which is a Dougal might be, I want a company worth, I want to work for a company worth 10 million, or I want to work, I want to make a quarter million or whatever the figures are. I just think those goals are empty. So that's, that's what my advice would be to them. Focus on your B goals.

Joel, I just want to make a quick observation. You telling your story here with us as it sounds like reflecting what you say on stage. I love that you talk about the failure of your first marriage, because if you were just this love guy and talked about love and didn't share your failures and your flaws, there'd be some skeptics out there saying, yeah, yeah, yeah, he's just a, you know, Pollyanna type of thing. But the fact that you say, no, look, I messed up. I had failures that just Adds to the credibility of. Of Dude's real. That's why I should listen.

Well, I appreciate that because I. The biggest reason I did the new version after SeaWorld and, you know, which is it was about 10 years later, I did the second version. It was to add those chapters and share not only the difficulties I had at SeaWorld, which was more a conflict with a board member who did. Who was abusive and so forth, and the fact that my marriage failed. I put that out there because if I was going to be truthful and authentic, I felt it had to be out there in public so no one could ever say, well, yeah, he talks about love. Couldn't even. Couldn't even, you know, his marriage didn't make it. I would hope people don't. Don't judge based on that. But I'd rather have that out there than. Than not. And that's just part of being authentic. Even though, you know, I've had people not want to deal with me or have me speak because I got a divorce, you know, I've had that happen. But I'd rather. I'd rather them know and them say no than not.

So Mark has this. Mark has this great wisdom, and what we're hearing here is you bring you to the stage, you bring you to your presentation, you know, telling our listeners, but you're a great example of that, that it's the beginning, not the do goals, and just really appreciate you spending this time with us. And Mark, I don't know if you had any questions before you gather the keepers for my one last question.

I do have one more question that kind of piggybacks onto the idea of mentorship. It's an unfair question, but I'll ask it anyway. Joel, you know, Darren and I are involved in Toastmasters, but we. Our scope is much broader than that. And we have clients from all over the world who want to be in contests, who want to do TED talks and have to do corporate presentations. And somebody comes along and they're almost thrust into this role. They go to an event, they see Joel Manby on stage. He's conversational, he's funny, he's flowing, he's humble. And they pull you aside and say, Mr. Manby, how can I be as good as you are on the platform? I don't know if this ever happened, but if it ever does, what do you say?

I'd love to. I'd love to know how you guys would answer that. But is. I would say, you can't try to be me. You have to be yourself. And you can learn certain things from me, just like I didn't even mention earlier from John Maxwell. I learned a lot about just great voice and pacing. And so I was too monotone and. And he would taught me to go up and down and pause. And so I would just tell you listeners, they have to be themselves. They have to develop their own personal style that's true to them. And if they try to be someone else, it'll come across inauthentic and it's not going to work. And so yes, you can learn from other people and you can get better, but it still has to be you and it still has to be how you're made and how you're wired and so forth. So that's, that's what I would say.

Thanks, Joel. Darren.

So Mark is going to gather his keepers and gather his notes. My last question, if you were sitting down with, say, a emerging presenter and they said, man, I love you on stage, I want to be unforgettable. I care about my audience. I have a message that I care about. Where do I start? I want to be unforgettable. Where do I start? What advice would you give me?

The first is that the core message that they want to communicate, and I told you mine was leading with love will transform you personally, professionally, and help change the world. That core idea has to connect to those folks in some way, shape or form. So however they set up their core idea, they have to bring the audience to the point that they want to listen to it. And for me, I feel like I do that in my talk because I just think if you care about human beings at all, you should want to lead with love. So my setup's pretty easy, but for any other audience, I would make sure your listeners the core idea you got to develop, why should the audience listen to it and pull them in so they want to engage and stay with you for another 20 to 40 minutes?

Well said. Well said. Mark Brown, what wisdom has Mr. Manby dropped?

Well, we started with stories and he told us there's always new stories around. He says look for them and depending on what the audience will relate to, find the most appropriate stories. He also said you can start and open with a turning point in your life to really hook the audience. In his story, it was the phone call hook that he had. Take your audience to the lowest point and be vulnerable with them. Determine the audience makeup and demographic so you can best serve them. It's good to have phone calls, but it's better to meet with event organizers, preferably the night before and have conversations identify their problems. And that works if you bring more material than you need. But then selectively decide what serves the audience best. Remember, life continues to teach us with your material, with your stories and your content. I like this one. Select what will connect, select what will connect. Use stories to connect, communicate a principle to teach and give an action for them to take. He didn't say this, he did this. Darren, use character voices for authenticity. He had the board members voice and he had Dolly Parton's voice as well. You taught us that by doing it. That teaching by doing. Remember people connect more with failure than success. Be authentic and share the angst in your soul. Be passionate, aspire to do good work. Establish your be goals and remember, learn the style of others but develop your own personal style. Above all, make sure your core ideas will connect with your audience every time. Thank you Joel.

Back to you Darren.

All that wisdom man in 40 minutes.

So check out his book. I assume it's on Amazon and probably everywhere. Consider having him in for your leaders as a speaker, as a presenter. And thank you so much for being here with us. Check out joelmanby m a n b y.com manby what a cool conversation. And Mark, we have a new thing, unforgettable presentations. When you present with love.

That's true. Joel, thank you so very much. We wish you every success, every blessing and friends. If you're new to our podcast, check us out every Thursday a new episode. And please check out Stage Time University where good presenters become great. We don't want you good, we don't want you great. We want you to be unforgettable.

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