Leadership Expert: Why Great Leaders Think in Pictures, Not Words with Todd Cherches | 125

If a picture is worth a thousand words, why do most leaders still rely on words alone to get their most important ideas across?

Todd Cherches is a TEDx speaker, three-time award-winning professor at NYU and Columbia, a member of Marshall Goldsmith's elite MG100 coaches, and the creator of the patented VisuaLeadership methodology. He spent a decade in Hollywood working at Disney, CBS, and Columbia Pictures before a series of layoffs, terrible bosses, and one life-changing trip to China completely redirected his career.

In this conversation, Todd breaks down why most leaders fail to communicate their vision, how a trip to China where nobody spoke English forced him to discover visual thinking, and the four categories of visual leadership that can make anyone a more effective communicator, thinker, and leader.

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⏱️ Chapters:
00:00 — If a Picture Is Worth 1,000 Words, Why Do Leaders Still Use Words?
00:42 — Shout Out to Chris Schembra
01:10 — The Gaps Between the Bullet Points on Your Resume
01:54 — Todd's Career Roller Coaster: Queens to Hollywood
04:20 — Moving to LA With No Plan (And Becoming a Bouncer)
05:23 — The Rock-Throwing Analogy for Career Direction
06:15 — The China Trip That Changed Everything
09:06 — How Do You Get People to See What You're Saying?
10:37 — Bad Bosses in Hollywood and What They Taught Him
12:15 — The Road Not Taken: Leaving Television Forever
13:45 — The Trainer Didn't Show Up. Todd Had to Teach 12 CEOs.
15:33 — Why the Worst Moments Become the Best Turning Points
16:43 — Walking to the Museum of Natural History After Getting Laid Off
17:00 — The Childhood Dream of Superman
19:23 — [SPONSOR] Magic Mind
20:22 — When You See the Light Bulb Go Off in Someone's Mind
22:29 — The 4 Categories of Visual Leadership
25:39 — Can We Control the Pictures in Our Head?
30:27 — What Great Leaders Say Differently Than Everyone Else
31:17 — Vision Without Trust Is Just a Pipe Dream
33:09 — The Bricklayer Analogy: Purpose Changes Performance
35:34 — 1,500 Books in 28 Years: How Todd Learns
37:55 — Where Do You Find Time to Read, Teach, Coach, and Lead?
40:24 — Why Todd Doesn't Chase Instagram
46:13 — AI Writing Posts to AI Reading Posts: What's the Point?
46:27 — The 4 G's: Genuine, Generous, Gracious, Grateful
48:09 — The Paradox of Generosity: Why Givers Receive
50:

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

If a picture is worth a thousand words, why do the world's leaders still rely on words alone to get their most important ideas across? Today's guest built an entire patent and framework around that question. Todd Churches is the CEO and co-founder of Big Blue Gumball, a TEDx speaker, a member of Marshall Goldsmith's elite MG100 coaches, an award-winning professor of leadership at NYU and Columbia University, and the author of Visual Leadership. Today we're going to talk about the power of visual thinking, how a decade in Hollywood shaped one of the most original leadership methodologies in the world, and why the lens through which you see might be the most important leadership tool that you are not using. Todd Church is welcome to the Grateful Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Thank you, Jack. Thank you for that great introduction as well. So I really appreciate it. So we're going to be talking about my visual leadership today, but also we need to give a shout-out to our mutual friend Chris Gembra. Gratitude Impasta.

SPEAKER_01 0:59

A hundred percent. Super grateful for him, super grateful for you. And you know, the intro that I just gave you, I went over your highlight reel, and there's still more things to add. You've done so many amazing things. You've had so many amazing accomplishments. But I think sometimes that the way we introduce each other on podcasts and have our bios written on social medias, it can paint an inaccurate picture of our lives. And there's so many people my age, a lot of my audience is younger and wants us to be great leaders. They want to be amazing, and all they see is the success, and they can compare themselves to that and feel less than. So walk me through how you started, how you got here, because you didn't know that you wanted to be a leadership coach from the beginning. That wasn't even in your mind, right? And you got here through through hurdles and through stories and through making your way. So how did this all start for you?

SPEAKER_00 1:54

Yeah. What's interesting is that's exactly right. We know we know people's bios and their resumes, but we don't know is what's the gaps between the uh point the bullet points on the by on the resume, right? So uh and I always say a lot of times, you know, we're gonna talk a lot about metaphors. Um, we always use the metaphor of having a career path as if it's laid out for you as some like stepping stone walk in the park. And I would say my career was more of a roller coaster, that's the better metaphor with ups and downs, twists and turns, exhilarating highs, terrifying plummets. So, I mean, I've been laid off numerous times, I've been fired a couple of times. Like, people don't see that. That's that's usually not included in the official bio, right? But um, what I do with my students, because I teach leadership at both NYU and Columbia. In my final session at NYU, I pull back the curtain, which is a metaphor, and reveal my whole bat background and bio from start to finish, and my students are always amazing. Because a lot of times we put our professors on on the pedestal and we assume they always ever they were always on track for that. And people assume, oh, you must have been the captain of the basketball team because I'm 6'4, you must have been the you know um class president, and it nothing could be farther further from the truth. I never in a million years thought I'd be um doing a TEDx talk or teaching at two universities or doing public present public speaking. So um yeah. So if you watched my TED talk, I don't know if you have a chance, but I talk about how when I was growing up in Queens as a little kid, people say, What do you want to be when you grow up? And I would say, I want to be Superman, right? Because I was a TV addict, I love Superman. I always put on my mother's dish towel and fly around the house. But they said, All right, if you can't be Superman, what's your backup plan? And it was Batman, right? So those are my only two career options. But when I got older, I realized I loved television, I was obsessed with television. So I wanted to do something in the TV industry, but I didn't really know what because I didn't know anyone who ever worked in that industry. So um I got a bachelor's degree in English literature, master's degree in communication, and then after a year of working in advertising in New York City for Ogle via May, they're one of the top ad agencies, I decided to move out to LA, which is one of the biggest, bravest things I ever did. Just like you're you're moving to Paris when you were 16 or so, right? Yep. Think about what it took to one make that decision, two tell your parents this is what I'm doing, and have people say you're crazy. And yet, right that I'm sure that transformed your life in ways that you never could have anticipated if you hadn't taken that huge leap. Yeah. So similarly, when I moved to LA, I didn't know what to expect. And my first job out there, I needed a survival job just to pay the rent. I applied for a job as a waiter, which I had never done. Um, but they said we don't need any more waiters, but you're tall. Can you hit there was a restaurant and bar, a nightclub. So I was hired as a bouncer. So I worked nights as a bouncer in a nightclub. Um behind the velvet rope with the clipboard and you know the suit and tie and everything else, and checking IDs. But that, even though I talk loud and fast, I'm from New York, I'm an extreme introvert. So that really pushed me out of my comfort zone. I felt like I was like playing the role of a bouncer. Um, and uh, but that you know, again, these life experiences, if you just say yes to something, you never know where it could lead, right? You never it boosted my confidence and it paid the rent and sustained me while I did internships and part-time jobs and temporary jobs until I finally finally landed some real jobs in in Hollywood. So just I'll stop there for a second. But that's like my origin story of where things started, you know, from the time I was in school.

SPEAKER_01 5:23

Yeah, it's so amazing. Something that uh someone told me a while ago on my podcast, his name's Chad, and he talked about how he lives his life is he'll pick a direction and he'll take a rock and he'll throw it. Here we go, visual representation, right? And he'll throw it as hard as far as he can in one direction and he'll walk toward it, right? And then he'll get there, he'll pick it up, look around, and say, okay, where do I want to throw it from here? And so when I made my leap and I moved to France at 16, and when you moved to LA, that that was kind of the rock. We chucked it and we got there, and we're like, all right, I'm here now. What's the difference? Yeah, now bot, right? Right. And so, from my understanding, one of the biggest moments for you in your early career is when you had to move to China, and this is kind of when uh I can connect a lot, where you moved there and you had no ability to speak or communicate in the normal sense in the way that you had your entire life through words, right? So you had to start to understand communication on another level, on a on a deeper level, and that was that was visually. I know that when I got to France, I had taken, I'd been the best in French class through high school, but as we both know, uh American foreign language classes in a public high school are not the greatest.

SPEAKER_00 6:42

So I took Spanish for four years and remember or spoke very little, you know, it's complete.

SPEAKER_01 6:48

Right. It's how it works. So I get there and speaking with my host family, I learned to read facial expressions better and to represent things with my hands and to show now I have the benefit of Google Translate, or I can show pictures. But uh walk me through what that what was it like for you when you got there? I can't imagine being in a foreign country where the where the language is so different, right? Because we're talking French and English, there's some cognates and similarities. It's so different, different alphabet, different culture, no Google Translate. What was that like for you as a as a young man?

SPEAKER_00 7:23

Yeah, yeah. Well, well, one, I wasn't as young as you were, far from it. I was actually 30, but that was my first trip ever outside of the United States. Also, I didn't move there, I just went there for two and a half weeks to oversee this installation. So I went there with two people, an electrical guy and a mechanical guy, and we had to install these audio animatronic robotic figures in a cultural theme park in Shenzhen, which is just over the border from Hong Kong. And at the time, it wasn't the high-tech hub that it is today. It was really agricultural and industrial. And no one there had ever seen a Caucasian person before, had never met an American, no one there spoke any English at all. Um, and uh, so they assigned us a translator, but he barely spoke English. So there was a lot of, like you were describing, body language, facial expressions, hand gestures, um, and then drawing. Um, when we needed things, I would actually pick up a pad. And even though I'm not, I suffer from ICD, I can't draw syndrome, like most people. But um I I was able to draw stick figures and I was able to sketch things out almost like playing Pictionary, and we were able to communicate nonverbally and get the job done. So it was really that was like my visual thinking origin story, because it made me realize that if you use visuals, it helps to overcome language and cultural bar barriers. And that's why some of my teaching, 80% of my students at NYU are international students, mainly from China. So my teaching really resonates. So I translate that to my teaching. So my slides are very visuals, visual, my metaphors and analogies. I think, all right, what's something they would understand, and how do I how do I translate what I'm talking about into a scenario that would resonate with them? So again, it's a different way of thinking and framing your communication. So it's thinking visually and communicating visually. And my catchphrase is how do you get people to see what you're saying? So everything I do revolves around teaching and coaching them.

SPEAKER_01 9:09

So when you were in China and you were kind of learning how to communicate visually, I I mean, not every way is equal, right? If I'm just like moving my hands around like this, you're not really getting any pictures.

SPEAKER_00 9:21

Yeah, it's a lot of pointing. It's like, all right, is it this big or is it this big? Is it this high, or is it so there was a lot of that kind of pointing and gesturing and um and also just again our spatial expressions, because if you don't smile, people think you're angry, right? So it's kind of like just being aware of that and trying to see your what I call flipping the eye, try to see things from the lens of the other person and see how am I coming across and am I resonating with the other person?

SPEAKER_01 9:46

It's kind of how we I guess talk to animals. We use a lot of tone with them as well, but like when we talk to animals or babies, we still try to communicate, we're still using words, but it's less about what we're saying and how more about how we say it. Do you ever uh conflate those two?

SPEAKER_00 10:01

Yeah, that's a great analogy. We have two puppies right behind me, so if you hear them barking, that's why. But uh yeah, like my dog was walking the other day, I just held up my hand, I said, stay, stay. So it's a combination of tone of voice and hand gesture. And my other dog, we taught her to go up, so we'll say up. So now we can say up and she'll go up even without the hand gesture. But at first we had to do the hand gesture and pointing. I was actually reading about that. Like dogs are one of the few animals that if you even chimps don't go to where you're pointing. But with my dogs, if I point and I lead them with my finger, they will follow that, they'll know where to sit. So it really is that's a great analogy. It really is um amazing how the brain works.

SPEAKER_01 10:37

Interesting. So after China, what was your next step? You'd kind of discovered this uh new way of thinking, a two and a half week immersive experience. Um what what happened next? How did your life change afterward?

SPEAKER_00 10:51

Yeah, well, just to rewind the tape for a second, uh, another metaphor. Um so when I first moved out there, and while I was doing that bouncing job at the nightclub, I interned at Aaron Spelling, one of the top TV producers. Then I got a job in casting at Columbia Pictures, and then I was in comedy at Disney and then drama at CBS. So I was working and trying to develop TV shows as an assistant. So I never broke through to the manager level, but I had an amazing experience working at TV networks and studios and going to rap parties and taping. So that was amazing. That was just like the whole Hollywood thing. But then I one of the recurring themes was I had terrible bosses. They were all kind of um like they were all, how can I say that's authoritarian. The one of the core values of Hollywood, in addition to creativity, is it's about ego and power and control and money. That's like those are the values, that's what motivates people. And not everyone treated everyone really well. So I had a really a lot of really bad bosses. So I needed to, the most the worst one was at the TV network I was working for. So a friend of mine said, Hey, we need a project coordinator here, and he knew I wanted, I was desperate to leave that job because I was so miserable. So even though my dream was to work in television, I said, All right, I can always go back to it, and I never did. So it's kind of like the Robert Cross poem, The Road Not Taken. You know, you come to a fork in the road and you have to choose a path, and you figure, oh, I can always come back, but we never come back. Because there's that quote, the Greek philosopher quote from uh Heraclitus. He said that um a person cannot set foot in the same river twice because it's not the same river and you're not the same person, right? So I love that quote. So, like, even if you think, oh, I'll come back to this TV network or I'll come back to television someday, we make decisions, we go down a path, and we never know where that could lead, just like your rock throwing analogy, right? You never go back to where you threw the original rock from. You go into the next, you keep throwing it forward, right? So I worked in television, then I got into the theme park company, which is when I went to China. When I got back, unfortunately the company went bankrupt and had to lay most of the people off. So I was out of work, and I was like, what am I gonna do with my life? I was out in LA for 10 years, and um I just decided to move back to New York. And uh, I moved back to New York and I had no idea what I wanted to do for a living, and I ended up with a job at um management training company, and uh they asked me they wanted someone to revamp their mini MBA pro training program, and I did that, and the light bulb went off, uh, you know, metaphorically. In fact, I keep my uh my light bulb here on my desk just to remind me. Uh so uh the light bulb went off, and I realized that management and leadership is an art and a science, right? Management is more of a science, leadership is more of an art. So all those horror made me reflect on all those horrible bosses I had and realized none of them ever had any training, none of them had any coaching, none of them probably ever read a management or leadership book, which is why they were such horrible managers and leaders. So that's when I got obsessed with management leadership development, and that's what I've been doing ever since. At first, always behind the scenes, because I always say I'm a 3B guy, a back of the room behind the scenes bookworm by nature, that's who I am. But we were just talking beforehand. I was once overseeing a management program down in down in Hilton Head, um, and the trainer didn't show up because he he was sick, he missed his flight. So I had 12 CEOs there. We were doing a management training program, and I called my boss back in New York. I said, What do I do? We have no trainer, and he said, You're gonna have to do it. Wow. And I I was almost like, excuse me, I think I said I I think there's something wrong with the connection because I think I heard you say, I'm gonna have to. So I was, you know, a relatively, you know, not not young, young, but you know, I had never spoken in front of people before and done a training program, especially for a group of CEOs. And um, and I did it, and I realized even though I was terrified of and terrible at public speaking, I realized I wasn't as bad as I thought, and I didn't hate it as much as I expected to. And it ended up being a great experience. And then I took a public speaking course, and then everything changed after that. That's when I started doing leadership development and um presentation skills training, and that led to my getting a job as head of leadership development for a Wall Street company, and that led to my teaching at NYU, and that led to my teaching at Columbia, and then my TED Talk, and then my book. So it's kind of like you never know, there's never one thing that's like the catalyst that changes everything, but it's the series of things that happen that leads uh from one thing to another. Right.

SPEAKER_01 15:06

And if you hadn't been laid off, or if your uh bosses hadn't been bad, or if your company hadn't gone bankrupt, or if you your boss didn't show up or did show up, none of that would have ever happened. It's one of the things I love to talk about the most on this podcast. How oftentimes in the moment the things that we think are the worst are what end up giving us the skills and helping us grow to become who we're meant to be and uh fulfill our purpose. It's like that's what true gratitude is when you can be grateful for the things that in the moment were really difficult and really hard.

SPEAKER_00 15:44

Yeah. Yeah, it's about being resilient, it's about it's about bouncing back from adversity. It's saying, all right, what can I learn from this experience? Um, my last full-time job, I was working for a company called LiquidNet. That's where I was the head of leadership development. I loved it, I couldn't have been happy there. And then the financial service, the financial industry uh crash happened and I got laid off. And I'm like, all right, what am I gonna do now for the rest of my day or the rest of my life? And I ended up wandering up Broadway from Midtown all the way. I ended up at the Museum of Natural History, and I just spent two just to like get my head around the reality. I just wandered around the museum and you know, looking at the dinosaurs. I don't have to, I don't know if you've ever been to the Museum of National History in New York, but you know, you have the big dinosaurs, you have that gigantic whale. It just kind of gives you a sense of perspective of like, all right, this is just one of those things. It's like, all right, it's a setback, but what next? And then I could have either tried to get another job like that, or I went the other extreme and started my own company, and that led me to where I am today. So, again, that's a great insight. It's like all of these, every decision you make and every experience you have is a stepping stone to what comes next. Like, so how do I bounce back from this? What can I learn from this? Um, gratitude for even if you got laid off, you could be grateful for the three years you had, without which everything that followed wouldn't have happened, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:00

Right. So I wonder going back to your childhood dream of one Superman, Batman, then TV, what was it you think in the dream to be in TV that maybe is reflected now inside what you're doing? Because I think that maybe your dream wasn't to be in TV, but that was the exterior expression of a deeper desire. And I wonder what that desire is and how it's expressed in the work that you do now.

SPEAKER_00 17:28

Yeah, that's a great insight because think about what does Superman dub do? He saves people, right? What does an executive coach do? In many ways, they save people. What does a teacher do? They teach people, right? So it's about helping, it's about making the world a better place in some way, right? So what does Superman Batman do? They're superheroes. And sometimes I say, I don't have Superman's X-ray vision, but I have visual thinking as my superpower. And I don't have Batman's utility belt, but I have all of these coaching tools, tips, and techniques that I've developed over the years, plus many I use that other people have developed. So, in a way, I'm still helping to make my personal mission statement is helping to make the world a better place, one leader at a time. And to me, everyone is a leader in one way or another. So if that's my foundational mission statement, then it's like, all right, what can I do? So that's the framework I always have. It's like whether whether I'm teaching or coaching or writing, whatever I'm doing, is this gonna help people improve? Is this gonna solve a problem? Is this gonna help make their life easier or better? Marshall Goldsmith's new book is called A Little A Little Better Life. Because he said, I may not change everyone's life, but if I can give them a better day or even a better minute, that could help them, right? So that mindset is uh about um reframing. I said this to my students the other day, shifting from I have to do something to I get to do something, right? Just that simple reframing. You can say I have to visit my mother this weekend or I get to visit my mother this weekend, right? I have to do this report or I get to do this report because I'll be able to have some impact in that way. So again, a lot of it is it's figuring out what's the you know the purpose, you know, doing things with a sense of passion and purpose. What's the purpose of what I'm doing? So that was a great question. Like, why the TV industry? One, it was fun and glamorous, but two, the Superman Batman thing is really about um making the world, you know, contributing in some way to making the world a better place.

SPEAKER_01 19:23

Right. The biggest hindrance toward me making progress to my goals is my inability to monotask. When I'm doing something and I'm not making progress on it, I'll instantly switch to another thing. And then I don't make progress on that, and I switch to another by perpetuating this cycle. But in the past week, this has all changed because this amazing company, Magic Mind, has sent me 15 of these mental performance shots that I have, and they've made such a big difference. I've had one each of the past seven days, and it's really made me be able to finish tasks before I move on to the next. I have concentration that lasts longer because of the caffeine that doesn't just hit you all at once, but it actually hits you continuously over a four-hour time period. It's made such a difference in my productivity, and I'd love for you guys to get to try it out. So if you use Wagoner20, the code Wagoner20 at checkout, it'll be in the description as well. You can get 20% off these shots and 48% off a bundle of 30 of them. Um what's your favorite way that you get to contribute? Because I know that I I think that being a leader of leaders is one of the coolest ways, right? Because your ripple effect right now is is so high. You might not even get to ever personally interact with the people that you are affecting. But if you're helping leaders lead visually, then you're helping the people that they lead and maybe the people in their lives. But what's the thing in your life that brings you the most fulfillment and the way of helping people that feels the best for you in this moment?

SPEAKER_00 20:53

Yeah, when I see the light bulb go off, when I see the wheels turning, and both are metaphors, when I a someone, a coaching client comes back and say, Hey, I tried what you suggested, or what we what came out of our session, and this is sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Um, yesterday at Columbia, um, one of the assignments is uh every student, there's 10 students in a class, every student has to read my book and pick one chapter, and you have five minutes to teach that chapter to the class. So when you're writing, it's a very solitary experience, right? It's coming from your head onto paper. You say this is gonna you know go into a book that's gonna be published and out there. You don't know if one person's gonna read it or no one's gonna read it, or millions of people are gonna read it, but to hear your ideas filter through the mind of, say, you know, a student like in the class, and they had to talk about which chapter they picked, why it resonated with them, and how they could use it to be more effective. Every one of those presentations was just amazing. Just like it's just to hear your own words and thoughts, say here I love this model, and here's why, here's how it changed my what life or my thinking uh or gave me the confidence or whatever. To do X, Y, and Z, and they always frame things in terms of insights, actions, and outcomes. Insight, what did you take from it? Action, what are you gonna do with it? Outcome, what's gonna be better or changed as a result of it? So when you hear those stories, when you get that feedback, that's the most gratifying thing in the world. So it could be a blog post, it could be a LinkedIn post by a student who said, Hey, I took Todd's class, I learned the passion skill matrix, I used it in this workshop, and this was what happened. It's just you know, it's amazingly gratifying.

SPEAKER_01 22:29

So you get to work with so many different people from leaders of big companies to college students, and I I know that when it comes to visually uh teaching people, everybody has different cues. As you said, like you think about the outcomes, and everybody has a more subjective outcome. So I'm curious as you've developed this model and these frameworks, if you figured out a way to effectively think about and frame the metaphors that you use or the uh the visual representations that you try to get people to see so that it's most able to resonate with people.

SPEAKER_00 23:09

Yeah, I break it down to four categories. It's visual visual leadership is the application of visual thinking to the practice of leadership. So that's the foundation. What do we mean by visual thinking? It's about thinking in pictures and images as opposed to in words and numbers, right? There's a concept called the uh picture superiority effect that says that when words are numbers and pictures battle it out mentally, our brains are wired to be drawn towards the visual. And in my TED Talk, I talk about attention, comprehension, and retention. When you use visual imagery or visual language, one, it gets people's attention, it gets them to focus because they're looking at it, they're they're you know, it's the connection there. It increases comprehension or understanding and increases retention, which is memory and recall, right? So when you use visual imagery and visual language, it helps you to become even more effective, both in terms of your thinking and in terms of your communicating. So it makes you a better visual leader. And I break it down to four categories. Category one is using visual imagery, which is pictures or props or anything that can be taken in through the eye, using mental models and frameworks, and that could be a four box matrix or a ladder or a circle, you know, with any kind of visual representation. Category three is using metaphor and analogy, and category four is using storytelling and with and or and humor, if and when appropriate. So if you combine those into any combination, it's even more effective, right? So if I say something is just the tip, you know, what you're hearing today about visual leadership is just the tip of the iceberg, right? If you picture an iceberg, we know that you the 10% is above the surface, the other 80 or 90% is below the surface. So what you're seeing right now is just a small percentage of what's possible. So it's up to you to dive beneath the surface if you want to get better at this, right? So just if I say that's the tip of the iceberg, it's a common metaphor. We all know what it uses, what it means. But if you visualize it in your mind's eye, you really see, all right, what's that piece that I'm not seeing, right? When you first meet someone, it's just the tip of the iceberg. When you first watch, start watching the 10 minutes of a movie, that's just the tip of the iceberg. So that you always know there's more that you don't know and that you don't see. So if you start with that mindset, then you'll ask, all right, what am I missing? What am I missing? Right? What else is out there? So again, that's just one example of how using a visual image, which is also a metaphor, can help to frame your thinking. And again, it's about problem solving and decision making and solution finding and innovate, you know. So again, it's a way of thinking that we often don't think about, right? So it makes us more consciously aware and intentional and strategic in terms of how we go about doing all of these things.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

Right. We have to be first self-aware of what images are in our head and what we're thinking about in order to uh end up changing it. Um are we are we in control of the images that we have in our head? I I'm not sure if this is your area of expertise, but that's very neuroscience-y, but can we can we control the pictures that are in our head? And are we able, this is a separate question, but are we able to see things that we haven't ever seen in the physical world?

SPEAKER_00 26:07

Yeah, I mean, those are great questions. I know you study neuroscience, so I'd love to get your take on it as well. But uh, yeah, I mean, we have images in our head, it's almost like having a an earworm, right? You can have a song in your head, and my wife said, I have that stupid song in my head, I can't get it out. The only way to get rid of it is to replace it with another song, right? Whether you listen to another song or hum another song, that's you get you kind of like bump it out of the way. Same thing. You can have a vision of something horrible happening, but you can replace that vision with something better, right? So, like you can picture yourself, that's what meditation's about, right? I'm not a big meditator, but the people who are expert in it, you know, picture yourself on a beach and the sun is being down on you and the waves are crashing against the shore. You could get someone to visualize that. Um, I was an English literature major as an undergrad, and that you just made me flash back on William Wordsworth's poem, The Daffodils. And uh the idea behind it is when he's on his couch in a pensive mood, he'll he'll say though that image flashes upon my inward eye, right? Um, you could take an image that you experience, think about it, and re your body and your mind will re-experience the emotions of that time, even though you're not experiencing it right then, right? So if you're on a plane and you're going through turbulence and you have a fear of flying like I do, I need to get out of that mindset of, hey, we're this plane is going down and visualize my getting to the destination or my seeing my wife and my dogs when I get home, or something like that, or you're at the dentist and you're sitting in that chair, and you know, you I just start using thinking about and picturing other things just to take myself out of that experience. So um, yeah, so we do have control if we're aware of it. But yeah, it ties into meditation. But yeah, that's a great question about the neuroscience of of how we think.

SPEAKER_01 27:50

Yeah. Yeah, it's it's fascinating to me. I I'm not sure if you're familiar with Bob Proctor at all, but he always would talk about how we think in pictures, and it's the picture flashing in our mind that will end up dictating our emotion and then thus our action and then our reality around us. And so if we can control the picture that we're thinking in our mind, if we're consistent with uh like picturing a goal that we have coming into fruition, then that will end up happening. And it reminds me of a quote that I heard you say on another podcast, which is that the leaders who can see the invisible can help inspire the impossible. Yeah. And I think that that's fascinating to me that uh if we're able to communicate with others the things that nobody can actually see, but an idea that we want to make happen, we can kind of share that picture together and create that in reality.

SPEAKER_00 28:47

Yeah, yeah, a big part of leadership, and I mentioned this in my TED Talk too. When I say when I do word association exercises, when I say, you know, leadership, what's a word that comes to mind? Vision is very often the number one most commonly mentioned word. What does it mean to have a vision as a leader or as any person? A vision is a picture in your mind's eye of a future state that's different from and better than the current reality. And I always do a whole workshop on Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech, right? He painted a picture of a better future, right? So through his words and his imagery and his rhyme and rhythm and his poetic language, he created this future. And there's two components to having a leadership vision. One is formulating it in your mind, the other is communicating it and getting it into the minds of others so that they could see what you're saying. So, as a leader, if you want to motivate and inspire people, you need to paint a picture of what the future is going to look like and get people on board with that vision and you know, and seeing the same thing. So, like right now, it's I know we're we've we're both we were both talking about baseball before we got on on the air. Um, and we're different fans of different teams, but all the teams right now they're in spring training, right? What are they visualizing? They're visualizing that parade and that that winning that World Series trophy in October, right? Um that's that's the vision. That's you're keeping the eyes on the prize. But if you're so focused on the trophy and not focused on the fundamentals of hitting and pitching and fielding and everything else, you're never gonna get that trophy. Like years ago, I dated an actress when I lived in LA. She spent more time rehearsing her Academy Awards accepting acceptance speech and thanking her parents than she did working on her craft of acting, right? So it's like if you focused on the the the prize and not on the craft, you're never gonna get the prize, right? So a lot of times people are so focused on the reward that they're not focused on you know putting in the hard work that it takes to ever get there.

SPEAKER_01 30:36

Yeah, because without that base, you're never going to get to that point. Um, it leads me to another question, which is with most leaders right now, uh, I'm imagining that they speak and I see it in in a way that doesn't communicate something visually. And I don't quite understand where the difference is between those who I can feel the difference, I can see the difference between the inspiring leaders, the Martin Luther King leaders who paint a picture, who paint a dream, and those who are just saying words. But where does it differ in the craft of what are they doing differently? What are the great speakers and leaders that paint a picture in your mind saying that is different?

SPEAKER_00 31:17

Yeah, I mean, I'm we can spend hours talking about that. I mean, it starts with trusts. Like, do you trust your leader? Do you have faith in them? Are they just you know, they is you is that vision based in some reality, or is it just a pipe dream, right? So it's kind of like I think that's a big part of it. Um, if someone paints a picture, let's say if the vision changes constantly and the strategy changes constantly, people lose faith in that leader saying, Oh, this is just the vision of the month and I'm gonna sit this one out, right? As opposed to someone who says, This is where we are, this is where I see us. Also, um, Dale Carnegie, who wrote the book How to Win Friends and Influence People, one of the great books of all time, um, he had a saying that people support a world they help create. So a big part of leadership is getting people on board with the vision. When you do that and and people feel listened to, people feel they had a say, um, people feel a sense of empowerment and ownership and accountability, they're more likely to help work towards making that vision a reality than if you just come down like Moses with the tablet saying, here's my vision, and this is, you know, whether you care about it or buy into it or not, this is where we're heading. So it's like that's the challenge is how do you get people to emotionally, mentally, physically buy into that vision and feel like it's our vision, not just his or her vision, right? So I think that's a big part of it too.

SPEAKER_01 32:32

Yeah, so what I'm hearing you say is that if I want to inspire someone to see something and really buy into the vision, I need to make it rooted in reality, so not too far-fetched that it would be unachievable. I'd need to be consistent with it, so saying the same vision consistently over and over again, not switching it up, and I would need to make them a part of the journey to reaching the goal. Right? And it's less about what I'm saying and what less about the words that I'm using, but more about how I frame it in a way that makes it consistent, real, and uh a group goal.

SPEAKER_00 33:09

You know, yeah, vision needs to be inspiring, it needs to be aspirational, it used to be needs to be so saying, you know, we're gonna increase shareholder value by 3% this quarter is not a vision. That's not something that gets people to leap out of bed in the morning and say, I can't wait to get to work and you know, and do that. But people say we're changing the world, we're fixing a problem. Um there's there's I in fact I was just telling using this analogy in class yesterday, there's the classic one about the two bricklayers, right? They're both laying bricks. You ask the first one, what are you doing? He says, I'm laying bricks. You ask the second one, and that person says, I'm building a cathedral, or I'm building a hospital, or I'm building a school, right? So they're both laying bricks, same task, but one is going about it with a sense of purpose and passion, and the other person is just doing it as a task, checking the box and collecting their paycheck, right? So again, I think that's a big part of it too. How do you motivate and inspire people to higher levels of performance? But it can't be manipulative, it's gotta be authentic and genuine and real, right? So you could trick people into doing things, but that's not what we're talking about. I know you're big on the word sustainability, right? So that come up a number of times in your profile. It's like, how do you sustain because it's hard, it's hard work, and there's gonna be setbacks and things might change along the way, but how do you sustain that vision and keep that dream alive in the face of setbacks, whether it could be financial, it could be, you know, stuff happens, right? Um baseball baseball season is a long season, right? What happens if your star player gets injured? What happens if, you know, things could happen. How do you keep that vision alive and keep moving forward despite setbacks that may come up? So I think that's a big part of the leader's job is to help get people through those rough patches, in addition to just, you know, establishing that vision and then just walking away and saying, all right, you're on your own, guys, you can get it done.

SPEAKER_01 34:52

What you said reminds me a lot of Simon Senec's framework of starting with why, where I don't know if you remember the TED talk, but he starts from the circle and like Apple starts from what the not what, but why, and the the vision and the ethos behind it. It's uh it's also great sales, right? And not just gonna say I'm gonna sell you the these these air pods, I'm gonna sell you the the freedom to listen to music wherever you want and embody uh that's really interesting, and I hadn't really thought of that in terms of creating a picture, but I guess that's exactly what great marketing is doing or great leaders are doing. They're telling people why you it's the bricks. I'm building a church, I'm not, I'm not just laying bricks. Yeah. Um, when did you kind of come across that? Because I think it's a really easy idea to to read, right? But it's a hard one to apply, it's a hard one to understand beyond just intellectually.

SPEAKER_00 35:47

Yeah, I don't know if there was a specific point or it's something that just happened over time. I'm a big book reader, so a lot of times people say, Where did you get that from? A lot of times I will remember, other times I'm like, I have no idea, it's just in there. Um I got that job I mentioned earlier is to revamp that mini MBA program, and I started reading these management leadership books. I got so obsessed and hooked on them. Um I've been reading an average of 50 books a year since 1980. I hate to give away my age, but uh since 1998, I've been reading an average of 50 books a year, which is 52 a year, is my goal, uh, one a week. So I've read over 1,500 business books over the last 28 or so years. So, you know, they're all in there, right? That's somewhere. So sometimes you forget who's you know, when it cut comes to uh quoting things or where they get something from. But I mean a lot of this is just sunk in from a combination of life experience and work experiences and things I've read and other ex and my coaching clients and my students and everything else. So um, but it's a great point that you make about, you know, it's about brand like the Steve when you were talking, I was thinking about the Steve Jobs when the iPod first came out. Instead of saying this holds five gigs of data, which means nothing, but if it says this will hold a thousand songs in your pocket, so you can leave your CD collection at home, that that's what resonated with people, right? So it's like that's that classic saying from marketing is that people don't buy a product, they buy the benefits of the product, right? The classic one is no one needs a drill. What you need is a hole in the wall, right? So you can hang a picture or whatever. No one says, Oh, I need a drill for no reason. So it's a solution, the product or service you're selling should be a solution to a problem that a customer has, right? Peter Drucker said that the most important, the number one responsibility of a business is to create, uh, maintain and serve and maintain the customer, right? So again, um thinking about who's your customer could be, you know, a client, it could be an internal client. Like, who are you serving? Like we're all serving someone in some way. So as a professor, I serve my students, as a coach, I serve my coaching clients. Um, so again, thinking about, you know, how am I helping other people solve their problems or innovate, or um that's that you know, that's a big part of what you know we're what we're trying to do.

SPEAKER_01 37:55

So as a uh a professor at two schools, as a as a CEO and co-founder and coach, and then you're also on the on the side, you're still reading and you're still learning. Where do you make the time for all that? Something that I get a lot, I get asked a lot by clients, by listeners of the show, is like, where where can I make the time to do everything? Because I want to spend all my time doing and applying, but I also need to learn and I don't know how to balance all that. Well, how have you found managed to do that along with balancing family and connections?

SPEAKER_00 38:27

I mean, one way is I don't get nearly enough sleep, which is not healthy and not good for me. So I know that I'm a huge night owl. I know some people, morning people. I am usually up till 2, 3, 4 in the morning. Um unless I have to get up at 7 or 8 for something. Um but I'm usually up late. So a lot of times I'll read for an hour before I get out of bed in the morning. Sometimes I'll read for an hour or two at night before I fall asleep. On the weekends, I may try to knock out an entire book. Um, I read really fast and I have a slide, yeah. That's a separate conversation, is how to speed read and how to and while still remembering everything that you read. That's the anyone can just skim through the pages, but how do you remember? Um, so that's a there's uh there are techniques for doing that, including you know, mar making margin notes and highlighting and circling. But it really is about it's prioritizing. I still watch Netflix shows and I still go to movies and things like that, but it's making learning a priority. I try to learn something new at least every single day, if not multiple times a day. I try to learn from my students. I always say in my classes that one third of the success of our class is the content, one third is my facilitation in teaching, and one third is the contributions of every person in this room. So if the if I'm not learning something from each student, then we're letting each other down. So part of it is just always looking to learn, looking at every experience as a learning opportunity and say, what can I take from this? How can I apply this in the future? So it's just seeing things through the lens of leadership or through the lens of learning. Whether you're watching the news or watching a baseball game or whatever, there's always something to learn. So I think that's a big part of it too, is like keeping your or having that that's part of the visual thinking mentality too. It's what am I noticing? What am I not noticing? Right? Thinking of things about things and seeing them through a different lens. So it really is hard. It's about it's just about prioritizing learning and development in your life. Um, and sometimes you have to make sacrifices. I mean, you could easily scroll on TikTok for three hours and say, all right, I could have done one hour and read a book for the other two hours, right? So it's really about choosing how we spend our time.

SPEAKER_01 40:24

Right. I've noticed that you're not, I mean, you have a big LinkedIn presence, but on Instagram, uh, like you don't have a huge presence like a lot of authors and speakers do. I really should.

SPEAKER_00 40:36

I really should. It just it's like that's one of the things that's been on my to-do list probably for two or three years now. I just haven't I occasionally use Facebook, occasionally Instagram. Um, I should be on TikTok more. Like if I had one thing that I was gonna put at the top of my list, it would be to do more video content, putting my concepts out there and posting them on Instagram and on TikTok, etc. That's just as a one-man show, it's just kind of like prioritizing. I can't do everything. And so um you really have to be focused and say, all right, what's you know, I know, ROI? Like, what's the ROI of what I'm about to do? One of the chapters of my book is called uh the future self question. Before doing anything or making any decisions, ask your future self, will my future self thank me or blame me for what I'm uh what I'm what I am about to do? Right.

unknown 41:22

That's great.

SPEAKER_00 41:24

While my future self may thank me for having a better LinkedIn, uh a better presence on uh on Instagram or TikTok, I just haven't had the time to focus on that. And if you're gonna do it, you have to do it right. I just haven't had the time. So, like AI, using AI more is a priority for me. I just haven't had the time to really so I've dabbled in Chat GPT and touched on some of the others, but that should be a top focus for my own personal development. Um, but again, what I'm teaching, like yesterday I taught for three hours at Columbia in the afternoon and three hours at NYU at night. When I got home last night, I had no voice and I was about to collapse. It was just a lot in one day. So a lot of it is seasonal. So I do a lot of things in the summer or in between semesters when I have some more time to focus on myself. Because like right now I have 20 papers I have to grade by next week. So um it's all about finding the time to, you know, not letting the quality suffer, you know, while try while trying to do too much.

SPEAKER_01 42:19

Right. Well, honestly, I really respect it because I think social media for for your clientele is also not like you'll find them on LinkedIn, but probably not scrolling on Instagram. And when thinking about ROI, there's people out there that are spending hours and hours trying to make the best content for TikTok and Instagram when they're uh the clients the the like they're never gonna really see a return on that, right? All it all it does is look good to other people, but I know plenty of people that literally are not on social media and making incredible amounts of money in in the consulting industry. So I do that's a that's a great point.

SPEAKER_00 43:00

Those things are nice to have, but they're not essentials. LinkedIn is where I belong, like that's where my clients are, my followers are. Before the pandemic, I had about 4,000 LinkedIn connections. I'm now up to almost 18,000. So um, you know, it's like that's where people find me, that's where I engage with people. So that's where I need to be and invest my time. And again, while it'd be nice to do more TikTok videos and things, it's like the the ROI isn't there right now, right? So that's like yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:29

Yeah, and talking to people that are like that do have hundreds of thousands of followers, what they did is they first got really good at one and then were able to branch off from there. But I think that having uh one platform that you're really good at uh and like getting a lot of leads and making a lot of connections is like better than branching out and half asking like five, right?

SPEAKER_00 43:51

Yeah, yeah, like while some people are very global, 90% of my business is in New York, right? So my target is like how do I meet Gatekeepers and and people who uh can bring me in or sign the check or or or sign the contract. So my targets are HR people, LND people, and C-suite people. Those are the people who say, hey, I'd like you to come in and work with this executive or do a team building offsite. So that's my focus, right? So it's New York City, it's people in that space. So I could have a million followers in in some country across the world, in India, for example, that doesn't help me, right? They may have a New York-based company because I don't travel a lot at this point in my life and for personal reasons. When I was younger, I was fine jumping on a plane and going wherever. Now not so much. So I need to be home and want to be home close to home. So right, so investing in building followership in another country where my customers may or may not be there and what it would take to, you know, I'd rather have one person in New York say, I saw this post and bring me in and do a huge uh you know engagement. That's that's the that's the ROI I'm looking for. So that's a great point. It's all choices, there's no right or wrong or good or bad. It's just priorities and choices.

SPEAKER_01 44:59

Right. My friend uh Jonathan Goodman, he's the author of The Obvious Choice, which is an incredible, incredible business book. And he uh he talks a lot about building your like on social media using it to community build the way that we used to have like uh people knock on doors or spend time in the neighborhood so you'd get to see that person around and that build trust. Like, oh my neighbors, my neighbors are hiring them. Maybe I'll I'll hire them. And it's the same thing on LinkedIn or on Instagram where you can have uh a smaller tight-knit community, right? Like I know a guy that's doing incredible in the in the consulting industry with a much smaller following than someone that I know that has like 600,000 followers and has no business, yeah, because it's the it's the quality that you're building.

SPEAKER_00 45:42

So yeah, so it's not the bragging rights to the numbers because it sounds impressive, but it's like what you know, what's your goal, right? What what's your objective? Like, for example, there was someone I connected with on LinkedIn. I went to a local New York Upper West Side networking event, and he just happened to be there. And uh we met in person. It's like, hey, we connect on LinkedIn, and now he may have me on his podcast. So it's like those are the kinds of um relationships, right? So it all, you know, we're all in a relationship business, really. Um one of the things, like one of my pet peeves, is like a lot of people are using AI to write their posts and respond to their posts. And it's like, I don't want to waste my time with that because you know, the whole idea of social media is you're interacting with the person, you're building that relationship. So if my bot's responding to his bot. What is it at that point? Yeah. Well, I tell it to my students if you're using AI to write your papers and I'm using AI to grade your papers, no one really needs to show up. I might as well just stay home and watch, you know, a Netflix series, right? So it's like the learning comes from in the, you know, it's all about the relationships and the interconnections and and you know, how can we help each other? I have I just want to mention I have my four G's philosophy, which is be genuine, be generous, be gracious, and be grateful, right? So that's the foundation. I teach a lot around servant leadership. The idea as a leader, your job is to serve others, not to be served. A lot of people don't have that mentality, but those four Gs are really impactful. When I meet someone who embodies those four Gs, it's an instant connection, right? They're genuine, meaning they're not putting up a you know, playing a role, they're not pretending, they're not, you know, fronting or faking. That's who you who I am, and you know, what you get, what you see is what you get. So that's the genuineness. Generosity is looking to help rather than to get, right? And again, sometimes things will come back and come full circle. If not, that's fine too. But when you meet someone, instead of saying, all right, how can this person help me, start with the mentality of how can I help them, right? Again, it's just a little shift. Graciousness is being polite, being forgiving, realizing that we're all stressed out. It's about assuming positive intent, giving people the benefit of the doubt. And then, you know, generous, uh grateful is just, you know, I know you're big on that, and just having that attitude of gratitude and appreciation and um realizing people aren't perfect and um you know appreciating the small things. So I think when you practice those four Gs, one, it makes you more likable, it makes you more trustworthy, it builds relationships. And the people who don't do that are the people who I, you know, don't necessarily get along with or want to do business with. So I just wanted to make sure we got we got that into our conversation because I figured you would appreciate that approach.

SPEAKER_01 48:09

I really do appreciate it. I I love that a lot. Um, I think I heard you talk about that somewhere else, but I forgot to write it down. I really appreciate you sharing. I really relate to obviously the gratitude piece, and my audience knows that, but the generosity piece I'd like to touch on because I think so many people will do things for other people because they want something back, right? And they're like, I'm being generous. So I but in and they can even say like I'm being generous to be generous, but it's all because they want something back. That's when they don't get something back, and it's this insane paradox because once you start the people I know that have started to give just to give, and it's pure intention, they're not just saying I'm giving to give, but they're giving to give, they end up receiving it. Well, the people that are giving to receive, they don't receive, and it's this crazy paradox. I don't know if you've noticed it.

SPEAKER_00 49:01

Yeah, definitely, definitely. Yeah, you want people who, you know, Adam Grant wrote a great book called Give and Take. You know, sometimes people say, if you do this for me, I'll do this for you, right? As opposed to I'm just doing it because that, you know, one, it's out of the goodness of your heart, but again, it's a win-win, right? So like one of the things that I do, I I belong to the Marshall Goldsmith MG100 coaching community. A lot of people in that group write books. So I always buy every book and I write a five-star Amazon review. If it's worth the five stars, you know, it's gotta earn it. It's not otherwise I lose my credibility if I give everything five stars. But and I'll do a shout-out on LinkedIn. I'll say, hey, congratulations to so-and-so on their new book, right? It takes, you know, it takes an hour or two to read the book, and it takes another half hour, 20 minutes or so to uh write the review and post and everything else. But people really appreciate it, you know, and again, it's it's more than just you know, it's about I call it going A, B, C, D, above and beyond the call of duty. So it's nice to do and it's helpful, and it's it's an act of generosity, but I also benefit because one of my part of my brand is being a thought leader in the leadership space. So people say they trust my judgment, they'll reach out to me for book recommendations. And I always say be careful what you ask for, because you asked if you ask me for one book recommendation, you may get a hundred or at least ten. But um, again, I'm always happy to do that because I have a passion for it, and I'm always again that's part of that Superman helping, coming to the rescue mentality, right? So um, but yeah, that's a you know, simple act of generosity, help someone out, and it's a win-win for everyone. It feels good, people feel valued and validated, and it's just a nice thing to do. Um, and again, I get that from my parents, that that's how they are. So that's kind of one of the core values I have is giving back and you know, going above and beyond what people expect.

SPEAKER_01 50:44

I love that. And a pattern that I've recognized that you just confirmed among the most successful people I know, the most fulfilled people I know, is they treat all their interactions and everyone that they interact with on this insane high caliber level, and they hold themselves to a standard to really, really come through for so many people. Where it seems to the outside eye, like, how are you doing that? How are you able to show up at this caliber for so many people? And that's how you build a reputation, and you end up being able to influence people and write books about these ideas because you are truly living uh the life that you preach about. And I love hearing that you uh leave everyone a five-star review. I've had a lot more people I'm connected with uh writing books recently, and I've I'm trying to practice the same thing. It can be a lot. I'm gonna need to get some advice from you on how to read so fast. But um yeah, I I really do appreciate this pattern. I'm realizing where the people that are in the position that most of us young people want to be in are just doing the things that to most people seems unscalable.

SPEAKER_00 51:49

Yeah, it's like in my classes, I always I I'll write uh LinkedIn recommendations for my top three or five students, and it's not always the ones who got the A's, it could be it's the ones that tried the hardest or showed the greatest improvement. So I think that goes a long way. Um, also I have people coming to me now asking me if I could write a blurb for their book, right? And I always say yes, unless I have a real reason to say no. And again, the people, you know, Marshall Goldsmith wrote a blog, a blurb for my book. Dan Pink, one of my top favorite authors, wrote me a blurb. Nancy Duarte. So all of these people who are so busy and so well known gave the time to an unknown first-time author. It's like, how can I not give that back and pay it forward, right? So that's part of my uh mentality as well, is just to say, all right, um, helping people who, you know, doing the things for other people that only a few people have done for me or that no one did for me, right? Uh it's like with my students, I try to be the teacher that I didn't have. I had three in all my years of school, I only have three teachers who were memorable. And when Chris Gembra asked that question, who are the people that you want to give thanks to? You know, Mr. Patterson in high school, Mr. Ballantyne in high school, and Professor Berman in college. Out of all the, I don't know how many professors and teachers I had in school, but only three in all those years stood out. And they're all thanked in the acknowledgments of my book. I stay in touch with all of them. And you know, this is 30 plus years later, and uh, you know, you let them know that the the impact they had on your life. So I actually just got a gift that you can't see it from here. It's sitting on there. One of my students in China from 15 years ago sent me a gift saying, I just want to thank you for the impact you had on my life. And it's this beautiful, it's a glass um kind of sculpture thing with a pan Chinese panda inside it sitting right by my window. It's like out of the blue, a student from 15 years ago is still thinking about you. So it's kind of like that's amazing, right? I mean, and and I say that's why I do it. So all the times I say, Why do I do it? It's not for the money, it's not, and it's a lot of work time and effort, but why do I do it? It's for it's for the gifts. Send me the gift. No, no, it's just it's the students that come back and say you had an impact on my life, and especially if you're still remembered all these years later, the way I remember Mr. Patterson. I mean, that's what it's all about.

SPEAKER_01 53:59

I love that so much. It's that connection that is really at the root of human experience and what we love and that makes our lives memorable. I hope that after this me and you we can sustain a connection like that. That'd be great.

SPEAKER_00 54:12

And if you're ever in New York, we'll meet up and for a cup of coffee or uh grab some lunch or whatever. I was saying I have a LinkedIn connection, this guy named Benno and Liechtenstein. I didn't even know where Liechtenstein was on the map, but I looked it up. He just we were LinkedIn friends, we kept in touch for a few years, and he won a prize with two colleagues to come to New York. And I took the afternoon off and I showed him around New York. I took him to Grand Central Station, we went to the New York Public Library, we went to Bryant Park and hung out. So it's like that's the kind of thing. Again, again, I'm an extreme introvert, so for me to do stuff like that is really pushing myself out of the comfort zone. But you create these LinkedIn connections, and you know, online it's just a profile. But when they show up and you meet them, it's just like here's you know, you have a new friend who's an admirer of your work and a colleague, and um, and now when we connect on LinkedIn again, you know, we already had that experience of spending you know a couple hours together here in New York. So it's like one of those things that I could have said, all right, what you know, why bother? Why should I do it? But it's like you just do it and it adds richness to your life. I I think that's a big thing. It just uh it makes your life better, the other person's life better. You're creating a memorable experience that bonds you. So it's just I love that. I love you know, when I meet people in real life who you only know on LinkedIn or Zoom or whatever, it's kind of a cool thing.

SPEAKER_01 55:25

A hundred percent. Yeah, it's one of the it is one of the coolest parts about the virtual world that we can uh fuse them in a in a sort and uh really bring it to life and have these uh amazing connections founded on these platforms.

SPEAKER_00 55:40

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, this guy named Perry Knoppert, who runs the octopus movement for neurodivergent uh nonlinear thinkers based in Amsterdam, he's actually gonna be in New York uh to speak at the UN next month. So I'm gonna meet him in person. So shout out to Perry. So I'm looking forward to meeting him. And other people in the community who are based locally are gonna meet up as well. So not only am I gonna meet him, but I'll meet in probably another you know, 10 or 15 other local people who are in the same movement of people who are again the unconventionals, the you know, the round pegs and the scare in the square holes, as Steve Jobs called it in in one of the uh Apple ads. So it's again, yeah, it's it's really fun to meet people um who you have things in common with. Like I'll say to my wife, I'm going to meet an old friend who I've never met yet, or I'm meeting her for the first time.

SPEAKER_01 56:24

I love that. Yeah, yeah. Well, Todd, this has been incredible. I've learned a ton. I know the audience has. If you'd like to leave the audience with one quick idea, what would that be? What is one step that they can take to help implement visual leadership into their lives?

SPEAKER_00 56:39

Sure, thank you. That's a tough one. But I'm gonna what I'll do, I'm gonna respond, and again, but you were you were in um in uh France, so uh you'll appreciate the quote. Um the last line of my TED talk is uh the Marcel Proust quote that the real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands, but in seeing with new eyes. So I encourage your your listeners and people watching, uh, hopefully on YouTube, uh, will start to see the world through a new lens. And again, you never know what you may discover if you do that.

SPEAKER_01 57:09

That's amazing. Todd, thank you so much for this time. Thanks, Jack. This has been great.