366: How to Create Career Magic to Get the Life You Want

Joshua Rivers 00:00
Discipline and resilience, work ethic and attitude, meeting new people, having new experiences, these are just some things that will help shape not only the life you want to live, but the career path you continue to go down. Do you wake up in the morning excited to go to work? If not, why? Do you have an answer? There's no reason to be living a life that doesn't suit you or make you happy. The first thing to realize is that things don't work out unless you make them. You are the person in charge of your life. Be willing to take risks. Learn to get into the habit of doing hard things that need to be done to change your path to get to where you want to go in life and in your career. Lee Cockerell joins Scott today to be able to talk about experiencing career magic. We shared a conversation that Scott had with Lee two weeks ago. And today he's coming back. If you didn't get the listen to the last one, I definitely would recommend that. Lee was the Executive Vice President of Operations for the Walt Disney World resorts. As he did that, he oversaw 20 resort hotels, four theme parks, two water parks and a lot more. He also helped be able to get Walt Disney Paris off the ground, back in the day. And so he has a lot of different things, he's been speaking and writing on leadership. And he even wrote a book called "Career Magic" and that's what we're going to be looking at today as Scott gets into this conversation with Lee.

Introduction 01:47
This is the Happen To Your Career podcast with Scott Anthony Barlow. We help you stop doing work that doesn't fit you, figure out what it does and make it happen. We help you define the work that's unapologetically you, and then go get it. If you're ready to make a change, keep listening. Here's Scott. Here's Scott. Here's Scott.

Scott Anthony Barlow 02:11
I'm excited for round two of conversation. But you've got such a great story and such an interesting take on careers, in general, that I find both incredibly simple and I mean that in the best possible way. And very refreshing because a lot of times, people don't go for simple and I think it's, well refreshing is the right word. So I really wanted to be able to delve a little bit more into some of your story and then at the same time, talk about some of the things that we're going to find in the book.

Lee Cockerell 02:44
I hear you good. I'm simpled because I am not too smart. So I have to go simple.

Scott Anthony Barlow 02:49
You and me both, Lee. You and me both. Well, hey, we got to spend a bunch of time chatting last time around about really diving into some of where you began because you've spent, geez, is it really more than 40 years working around hospitality in that industry?

Lee Cockerell 03:08
Yeah. I got out of the army in 1965. And I started with Hilton that and that March and that's quite a long time ago.

Scott Anthony Barlow 03:16
That is quite a long time ago, as it turns out. So there's been a lesson or three learned along the way. And I'm most interested in really how, so actually, even house you made some of your decisions 'cause you made a couple of career changes in there. And that's what I'd love to start and you've got a couple of stories that we didn't even get to fully dive into last time around. And I got to hear, I got the pleasure of hearing when I got to meet you in person last, oh my goodness, it has been over a year ago. Wow. So you started with Hilton, but what really prompted that first career change?

Lee Cockerell 03:57
I ended up, I'd had a great career with Hilton. I was in Washington at that big Hilton there, where Reagan, where John Hinckley get shot Ronald Reagan at big convention hotel and I got transferred to Chicago, the Conorado Hilton, into the Waldorf Astoria in New York and then I was Los Angeles. I was having a great career but in LA, I ran into a boss that I thought he was unreasonable. He's one of these screamers, the one I work six days a week, and I wasn't happy. And so I found another job and I quit and took a job in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, the hotel double my salary, and I got fired after 60 days. After 90 days, place went bankrupt. My wife had warned me but I didn't listen to her. But yeah, so then I didn't have a job, no job, two year old Volkswagen bug. And when I was looking for a job and so that was my career was up and then all of a sudden it was back to ground zero.

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:54
I didn't realize there's a short period of time in between. So you went and got that new job, promptly ignored your wife. And then it was only 90 days later when they made the decision then.

Lee Cockerell 05:10
Yeah, absolutely. I said, I went in to see the general manager at five o'clock and at 5:02 I was unemployed. And but it turned out to be a good thing. That's why I write about that my new book, "Career Magic" because that got me to Marriott. And so, you know, I tell people, "don't get too upset about the little bumps in your life, they may get you to a far better place and probably will." Yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:38
So, let me ask you about that then. Because that's something that a lot of our listeners have experienced, first of all, what you started with, you know, they get into a role and they're having a fantastic time, you know, maybe it's even a great company, everything else, and then they get a new boss or something else external happens the company gets acquired or something else. What are your thoughts first of all on your ability to influence those types of situations versus when it's time to cut and run, if you will?

Lee Cockerell 06:13
Yeah, I think if you get the wrong boss and, you know, and I let it go for a year, I mean I didn't jump out right away. It was a, I was trying to be reasonable about it. I mean, wasn't killing me but I was working all the time never home and I didn't feel like I was appreciated, I think if you don't feel valued, and that people really have a hold you and esteem, that's the time you start thinking about leaving. And I, you can either hold out, hope your boss leaves or something happens to him or you go looking for something else and I were not very happy when people don't appreciate me. And so I moved on and it happened again at Marriott. I got passed over for a big promotion because I'd been too aggressive in my career, probably I was a vice president by then. And I moved on to Disney eventually, and all three of those moves were big, move to Paris, you know, big chances, I'm kind of wired for risk. I mean, I don't mind taking a risk. And my wife supports that. I said, "we can go to Paris." She said, "Absolutely. Let's go." So I could have got over there and got unemployed. But you know, that's where the fun is out on the edge. If you just stay in your little town and you never do anything, and you don't meet new people, and you don't have new experiences, you're probably going to have a good life, but you're not gonna have a great life and difference between good and great is pretty big, hard to explain what it is, in fact.

Scott Anthony Barlow 07:41
Okay, well, let's try because I'm super curious about that. Plus, at the same time, a whole bunch of our listeners that is part of what they're trying to figure out. So I'm gonna push you on that a little bit, if that's okay.

Lee Cockerell 07:55
Sure. I mean, here's how I think about it. To be great, it's harder. To be good, it's kind of easy. And you know, I think Jim Collins wrote that "the enemy of great is good." I got a good life, I take a chance, I got a, you know, pay the mortgage, you got the car, the kids are in school, that's good. Well, that's a good life. But when you have to experience, I always ask people, "do you want to have good kids or great kids?" It's harder to raise great kids, you got to be spend time with them, you got to be coaching them, you got to be disciplining them, you got to make sure they're on top of things, you got to be checking out all the time, making them feel loved, feel secure, believe in themselves, it's hard. You want to have good health or great health? You know, it's good. It's easy to have good health, but to have great health, you got to work out, you got to get your physicals, you've got to do some strength training, you've got the difference between feeling good and great when you wake up in the morning, it's pretty amazing. Or do you want to have a good marriage or a great marriage? You got to let it go a lot, you got to let things go or not, you know, try to get an argument over something and be defensive and you just got to learn that there's some pain and then you can't always be right and I think in every, oh, and then maybe the best one where you're going to go get, oh surgery, do you want to have a good surgeon or a great one? The good one will kill you, the great one will save your life. And then, so to me, I'm willing to take the risk and put in the hard work to have this payoff at the end because I don't want to go through life. I saw some, the other day says, "you only have one life but if you use it right one's enough." And another quote I heard the other day, which really makes a lot of sense, "you are only one decision away from a whole different life." And a lot of people won't make that decision. And then they end up,you know, it's too bad to get old and be have regrets. I wish I'd taken that move, I wish I'd quit, I wish I'd spent more time with my children, I wish that I'd taken care of my health, you know the story. So I really wake up every morning thinking about I don't want to be good. But it's hard and it's stressful to be great. And but once you get there, it's a place where there's not a lot of people hanging out by the way.

Scott Anthony Barlow 10:17
That is interesting. And I'm curious Lee, what took place that really caused you to come to this? You know, was there a point in time or was it a really a progression through your life because, you know, I just heard you say, hey, I wake up every morning and I am, you know, I made the decision or I'm determined to be great and have a great day, have a great life, etc. But what caused you to get there? What caused you to have that realization?

Lee Cockerell 10:43
Well, I grew up in a family that was very dysfunctional. My mother, you may have heard this story before that we lived on a poor farm in Oklahoma, no indoor plumbing. My mother was married five times. I was adopted twice. I got my name Cockrell, when I was 16, when she married number four, and I wasn't very good student, parents didn't pay attention to it back in those days. So I went off to college because this guy had money. I flunked out because I didn't go to class. I didn't have the self discipline, went in the army. And so I had this drive to work ethic. I think I had work ethic because you grew up on a farm, you live in Oklahoma, you work, you work when you're young, you work... you have summer jobs, you work in the heat you do. It's just typical. Everybody works. And I think parents don't do that today, they're not preparing their kids for the tough workforce. Mommy's not going to be there when you get to work late in the morning, your boss fires you. So I take that work ethic and attitude. I had a grandmother who really, my mother taught me a lot about discipline and doing what you say you're gonna do and keeping your promises. And my grandmother really taught me empathy. She always was just great with everybody, always had time for everyone. She went to the hospital and helped the old folks, she did, she was an incredible woman and I learned from her empathy. And I think discipline and empathy are those two things that can drive you because if you don't have a great attitude, you know, I can do this and resilience, I had resilience because when you grow up working all the time, you're very resilient, you know, hard works hard, but you get it done and you get paid for, it feel good about that. And we got to teach kids resilience, and they kind of go off today, you know, the mother buys them an iPhone and an iPad and they don't have to work and they had the gorgeous room, TV in their room. And next thing you know, they graduate from a big college and they really smart and they get to the workplace and can't handle it, because it's tough. Your boss doesn't want to hear about it. They want to know what you can do, not what you know, and you got to have the discipline to be able to get things done, be organized, planning, and you also got to be a good leader. So you got to have some empathy to understand how other people are reacting to you and how you're affecting them. And so I think I got all of that probably from my, you know, even though my childhood was pretty screwed up, but my mother getting married all the time. My grandmother was not far away and I'd go to her and she really built up my self confidence. She told me every day I could do whatever I wanted and I could, you know, so I didn't want to repeat that. I grew up in Oklahoma in the 50s and 40s and 50s. And people were pretty bigoted there and they, you know, they would what the things they said about African Americans and our family and American Indians, Jewish people and gay people was embarrassing. My uncle's you can imagine. And my wife and I decided that when we were about to have our son that he would never hear those things in our house. And I tell people, we changed it right there. We've been married 48 years. My mother is married five times. My brother's been married four times. When grandmother was divorced, my wife and I are setting new records, I'm trying to get the family average down in the marriages. And my son's been married for 23 years and I broke it right there. I broke it because we stepped up and we took care of it. I got a son, it doesn't have a discriminatory bone in his body. And then he married a French woman and I had to quit telling French jokes, you know, and now I've got grandkids, they don't care if you're gay, black, Indian, they could care less, they don't care, they look at the person, they have friends. And none of that stuff bothers them, we could care less, they really have a respect for everybody. And that's because they've traveled, they grew up in a family where there was, they didn't hear these inappropriate comments about other people. And you know, you become like the environment you grow and grow up. And if you're not careful, you'll adapt, you know. It's like the politics right now. They say people really don't understand the policies what they do, they're republican or democrat or conservative or liberal based on how they grew up and the town they grew up in and the family that grew up in.

Scott Anthony Barlow 14:38
That does seem to be the case very much.

Lee Cockerell 14:40
Well, it is. That's how I saw some parts of the country, country blue and some are red. And it's not about most people have no idea about the issues. None. They couldn't explain one thing to you about the issues, about the policies, about, so but we become like the environment we grow up in so we wanted to change that environment. And I tried to change that environment. It work too, make sure everybody matters. And I want everybody to think they matter. And I want them to know, they matter. And I want our leaders to make sure they know they matter.

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:08
So let me ask you about that then. Because I think that, that's really important, because I just heard you outlay so much about why environment matters and what's surrounding you matters. And, you know, that's certainly been the case with your kids, and certainly something that you've been able to do over the years for people that you have worked with, your direct reports, you know, creating the culture, etc. But how can I do that for myself? Because that's what a lot of our listeners are wondering, say they're not in the greatest environment and they've had the realization that, hey, look, I need to change this, whether it be, you know, surrounding myself with the different type of people or surrounding myself with some different tolerances or whatever it happens to be for them. So how can I do that within my career?

Lee Cockerell 15:54
Well, I tell you know, everybody ought to step back and think about their deepest beliefs. And remember that if you're not going to be bigoted, and you're going to change the way you think, you're going to have to forget about half of what you learned when you were growing up in your house. Because that's where most of it came from. And I got out people said, "why were you successful?" I said, "I got out of Ardmore, Oklahoma and I saw the world. And I worked with African Americans, Hispanics, gay people, Jewish people, Muslims. They were all good friends of mine still are today. I don't judge people by a group. I judge them by individuals." There's a look, you know, people who say, Well, I could say, yeah, I don't care, I don't have any problem with African Americans. But I have a problem with some of them. And I don't have any problem with Caucasians, but I have a problem with some of them. Treat people as individuals, and you've got to rethink, you know, this is absurd as bigotry and hate, it's going on. It's just absurd. It doesn't make any sense. And most of the people don't like gay people or they don't like Muslims or they don't like Jewish, they don't even know one. They don't even know one. And you know, until you're exposed, you just can't get, you know, reading about something and experience in are two different things, you know, you could read your kids books every night about Paris, you're gonna change their life by going there.

Scott Anthony Barlow 17:14
And we were just a little bit context. We were talking about right before as asking Lee advice for where to go in Paris because we're taking our kids and our family over there for about six weeks and you regularly spend, sounds like a while in France every single year or two or not.

Lee Cockerell 17:31
We spend a month there just about every year because Greg get take the kid grandkids back to see their grandparents in France and go to camp and get to see their cousin and now all my grandkids speak fluent French. They're very comfortable. They're making straight A's in French in school, at least. I don't know about math, they are. But it's just, they just see the world totally different. My grandson, he had a appendectomy in June on a Wednesday. His stomach started hurting and talking man, they did surgery on him. And 24 hours later, he flew to France by himself. 24 hours later, and five days later he's in the pool, you know. And most people lay around and complain. But that's teaching kids to be tougher until you can do it. And he has self-confidence. He's traveled by himself before and we let him do that, we don't wring our hands and worry about everything. You can't worry about everything. And so resilience again, these kids are learning resilience, what you need in college, when this work is hard, and you got to stay up all night, you got to study all week, and you get to learn these things and that's what you do when you take your kids traveling. You know, they're gonna want to know what's on their plate and what's this and they won't run into somebody on how to use the subway the first time and how to do that. And you come home saying, "wow, now I know how to do this" before you went, you were insecure and when you get back, you'll be very secure. And that's how life works. I said always do the hard things and then life gets easier. So once you learn how to, you know, every time we go to something, we don't know what we're doing how bad we feel until we do know what we're doing.

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:05
Exactly.

Lee Cockerell 19:06
And you got to step into it. You can't just hope it comes to your brain overnight. It's not going to you, you got to go experience things. And then, you know, and nobody can take that away from you ever.

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:15
See, this is why I like talking to you, Lee, because I asked what I think is a hard question and I get such a simple answer, you know, how do you expose yourself to other stuff? Well stop reading the dang books and go start exposing yourself to it. And I actually go start doing it.

Lee Cockerell 19:35
Even in your hometown, you know, take your kids down the shelter and let them help serve meals, let him, my son does that with his kids. And, you know, they spent experiences on Saturday and going to a museum they don't want to go to but then they come out and say, "wow, I learned something." You know, you gotta force, you got to do things on purpose in life because it's educational for you and for your children. And you know, you go to a museum, you might see a painting that gives you the best idea in the world for your business, and exposure. It's just about exposure. That's why I do these podcasts, exposure. I meet people, I talk to people I hear from people all over the world, you know, I'm going to Venice, Italy and in November to speak to the US Army Garrison. They invited me my book "Creating Magic" now required reading by the officers.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:22
Is it really? That's fantastic.

Lee Cockerell 20:23
And at Fort Bragg, I just came back from speaking to the Joint Special Operations Command, these guys go off in the night and do tough stuff. And there are my books, they have to read it that there and I was Patrick Air Force Base. And you know, I went to Baghdad in 2011 did 13 seminars during the war. And I've just, that exposure by and it's unbelievable, you know, you can never think again after you do those things. You can never think the way you did. And I just can't tell you. I think experience is probably better than anything. And especially when you're going to meet new people from different countries and different foods, and, you know, take your kids to Asia one day when they see the food they might run away from home, but, you know, in Japan when their breakfast is green, blue, so, but those are things that just they mature and they, like get rid of the bigotry and like they feel better, they'll make friends that are totally unlike them. And they will even in France, you go to a park, you're gonna make the other kids and they'll be playing soccer together and playing and having fun. Kids, you know, can get, if we were as resilient as children are, we'd be a lot better off. Kids adjust immediately. They don't wait to somebody, they go up, say "hi, you want to do this?" Adults, they sit in the house and wonder if anybody's ever going to call them and kids are resilient. And those are the more experiences they get and the more exposure they get to things that are not normal, you know, culture in your family is just as important as culture in the workplace. And I can tell you a culture is not part of the game, it is the game. You get the culture, right? There's... it's unlimited what can happen. When your kids feel secure and educated and developed and exposed. Man, you'll see kids, they'll be struck by something and it could start a new career for them when they go to college. Happen to my grandson, he spent two days at Walter Reed Hospital with troops coming in with lost lambs and today, he's studying biomedical engineering. He did that when he was 16. And it struck him deeply.

Scott Anthony Barlow 22:26
Oh, wow.

Lee Cockerell 22:27
That one experience. So you never know.

Scott Anthony Barlow 22:30
Here's what I'm taking away from all of that, because I get, you know, just for the type of work that I do, I get constant emails and questions and all kinds of things from people about, hey, how do I, here's a common one, you know, how do I find what I'm passionate about? Or how do I identify, you know, those things that I'm great at? Or how do I, etc. But what I'm taking away from everything that you just said, is it really does come back to some measure of exposure? And it really does come back to some measure of intentionally exposing yourself to other new things even and maybe even especially when it's uncomfortable.

Lee Cockerell 23:15
Oh, yeah, I mean, I think you know, there's certainly a lot of services where you can be tested for what you might like to do in life and your career. But I think for me, I tell people, if you're on a job, you don't get excited when you wake up in the morning, you can't wait to get to work, start looking for another job while you continue to do a good job because if you're going to be miserable for 40 years, that's the worst thing you can do for your family, your health, the people you work with, what a shame. And I think about 80% of the people don't like their job. They don't like what they're doing. I'm telling you, I woke up every morning, excited to go to work. One guy told me, "you're crazy." I said, "Well, I like it. I enjoy it. Every day wasn't perfect. I had a lot of hard times too, but on balance, I had a great life and I felt like I was taking care of people, I was serving people, I like that." So, exposure is important. And probably a lot of people know what they wish they were doing, and they're not doing it. Because it's risky. Now they got a mortgage, you got two kids, they can't move, their mother in law lives in town, your wife won't move, you get stuck. And I tell people when you're young, be careful where you get stuck, because you might be stuck there for the rest of your life. So until you find what you love to do, don't get married, don't have kids. And because they'll tie you down, it'd be hard to sell that house and move to another city and just try to figure out what you want to do young people before you get out there and get stuck and then have to just bring the good life home every day for 40 years and wish you'd done something else later.

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:43
Which it sounds like again, is the key to that before you get stuck some place you don't want to be stuck is that exposure that we were just talking about. So that's...

Lee Cockerell 24:53
Even if you're married, I'd say don't buy a house yet. Wait a few years round. Make sure you're gonna like your job, make sure you're gonna like that city, make sure you're gonna like your boss. Don't just rent, get a couple two bedroom and you'll be fine, your kids don't care. Kids don't care where they are, as long as their parents are with them.

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:11
At all.

Lee Cockerell 25:12
They could care less where they live.

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:14
Not in the slightest.

Lee Cockerell 25:17
Even if you move them, they'll adjust in 10 days, two weeks.

Scott Anthony Barlow 25:24
Okay, so let me pull a couple of things together here. First of all, let me, actually be even before we do that, I just want to repeat one of the things that you said because I think it's infinitely valuable. And if I heard you say, correct, I heard you say that, if you are waking up and you're not excited, continuously not excited for going into work, then that's your indication, you need to change your job, you need to change your life in that way. And the question I wanted to ask you about that is, was that something that you've learned more recently or had read a realization about? Or was that something that came from some of those, you know, some of those other experiences, or some combination of both?

Lee Cockerell 26:16
Well, I knew what I didn't want to do. I certainly didn't want to have a farm. And I wanted indoor plumbing, and an air conditioner. And, you know, I didn't want to work in a lumberyard like I did, or drive a delivery car like I did when I was in high school and college and work in the kitchen because I, you know, and later on, I didn't want to be a waiter the rest of my life, I wanted to have, to be home for dinner, and I knew all the things I didn't want to do. And so slowly, but surely it opened my eyes that I liked what I was doing, and I was learning. And I found that when I had a good attitude, and I was disciplined and organized, people kept giving me more responsibility and they liked that, and I got promoted. And I say, you know, I tell people, if you want to be successful and there's 10 people doing what you're doing, you make sure you're the best one by far with your attitude, raise your hand, get in there, stay late if you have to and next thing you know, you'll get promoted because most people are not trying very hard. And you'll stick out like a sore thumb instead of whining and complaining when the boss tells you to work Saturday and come in Sunday morning. And yeah, forget that stuff. I told somebody the other day she said, "oh, no, I don't want to work. My boyfriend will be in town on Saturday." We don't care about your boyfriend, you know, you can see him after you get off. Come on.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:31
The bar is infinitely low is what I discovered. So it's not very hard. Yeah.

Lee Cockerell 27:36
If you want to be off to go to your son's graduation, that's a different story. Sure, we're gonna let you off. But not for, when you're starting out in your career, you've really got to hustle. And you've got to make yourself stand out above everybody else. And I guarantee it's not very hard.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:51
So what are some, I heard you mention a few different ways that you can stand out if you will, but what are some of the other ways that you think are the most important to stand out? I heard you say attitude. So I suspect that maybe one of them, but what do you mean by that? And what else would be the most important things to be able to stand out in a good way?

Lee Cockerell 28:11
I think the things you got to think about when you're young and knows, you got to look like you're somebody. And I think too many people take that too lightly, you know, I made sure that took a good view of what the general manager of my hotel looked like, what he was wearing. I came in looking like I wanted to be a general manager, you know, I didn't come in looking like I just got out of bed and been in Georgetown all night at the discos. And then that's one thing, look professional, act professional, behave like the job you want to have one day, ask questions every single day to, don't ever go home with a question that wasn't answered for you. "Why do we do this? How do we do that? What is that? What is this? What's that food? Where was that wine from? Can I taste it? Can you show me ?" Learn, learn, learn, and when you do that, you will know more than anybody else and it'll be be evident to your bosses, be disciplined and organized, learned how to organize yourself, take a time management class, read my book "Time Management Magic" because if you're not reliable and credible and keep your promises, you're not gonna have a good career, you're not gonna have a good life, actually. And somebody said, you know, and I put it in my book, "if you don't spend a lot of time planning the life you want, you're going to spend a lot of time living the life you don't want." And so those kinds of things, professionalism, being cool, calm and collected, not raising your voice, not using profanity, not telling inappropriate jokes, being a real pro, a real professional. And a lot of people get caught up in that, they come to work late, they go out and get drunk tonight and don't show up tomorrow morning. And man, I was Mr. I was there. They said, "Lee, you need to be, to work at six this morning." I was there and they said, "you need to stay until midnight because we got... we lost two waiters, didn't come in." And I said. "no problem." And to me, when early in my career is no problem back then. Because when you don't have a college degree, you better have a really good attitude. And attitude will take you much further than your degree well, I guarantee you. Most people know their technical what they have to do, they go to school and get experience. But most people don't get fired for that, they get fired because they got a lousy attitude and their behavior and how they treat people and how they speak to people and how they... those things that gets you in trouble in life. People don't get a divorce over anything but how the husband treats the wife, what he says to her, you know, you don't say I love you, she might leave. And if you apologize, you learn from each, you know, argument you have, you don't do it again the next time, you get better and better and better. That's why I always tell people that's reflection. Think about yesterday, what you didn't do as well, next time you do it better, and then you're going to get better and better, better. Reflection, most people don't reflect what happened yesterday. And I reflect a lot, how I could have done that better or what I could have said or what I could have said in one of my speeches that I forgot to say or in just whatever it is, that's what I do. And I know that I get better by reflecting on how bad I was at something yesterday that I could be so much better at it if I would pay more attention or I had said the appropriate thing or done the appropriate thing or followed through, like I told the person I would. All those things, so you build trust, because if people don't trust you, you can't get anywhere in life. Especially with your marriage. If your wife doesn't trust you...

Scott Anthony Barlow 31:24
Then it's not gonna go very well.

Lee Cockerell 31:26
Yeah, you're gonna be living in a room above some store by yourself. And so you got to really pay attention to this stuff. It's about you, you got to behave yourself. It's not about them. Your kids don't cause problems, you do, you know, how you react and how you've set expectations and how you discipline them and your wife doesn't cause problems you come home stressful, you start having an argument when it's not, as my son said, when he was 14, he said, "Dad, when you come home, you ought to sit in the hot tub for 15 minutes. Everything was fine until you got here." And, you know, that was a good lesson for me. You know, take a deep breath and go in, you can make it better or worse, it's your decision. And don't make it worse and it's not your wife's fault you had a bad day. And so yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:13
So I heard...

Lee Cockerell 32:13
You gotta be think for. Yeah, you just got to think, use the noggin and start thinking about your own actions and your own behaviors. Beyond the insecurities, by the way.

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:22
So tell me about that. What do you...

Lee Cockerell 32:24
What? Insecurity?

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:26
Yeah, tell me about that. Because I just heard a whole bunch of stuff in there that and I've been taking notes as we go along here, and I'll rattle them off in a minute. But I'm curious, when you say, think about your own insecurities and using your noggin for that. Talk to me that way meant that.

Lee Cockerell 32:41
Over my lifetime, I was pretty insecure from the way I grew up and experiences I had and family situation, kind of dysfunctional times. And so I grew up a very insecure person. Insecure people are the ones who yell at you, they raise their voice, they don't treat you very well. Insecure. Anytime somebody yells at you or tries to intimidate you, I guarantee you 100%, that's an insecure person that has a lack of self confidence. And I've, slowly but surely worked my way out of that. I started going to classes, start learning about it, start, I saw a psychologist to kind of deal with my insecurities and why I felt that way and I finally learned that when I get to work in the morning, I have the ability to make it better or worse when I get out of my car, and I start behaving. And I start, I'm nice to everybody, I don't raise my voice to anybody, I don't care what happened at home this morning or how I'm feeling. And when I get home at night, I used to come in and be stressed out and turn the TV on, have a glass of wine and get in an argument with my wife over nothing. And now I come in and I say "Darling, I love you. Did you have a good day?" And then I turn the TV on. And I listened to her when she wants to talk to me, I turn the TV off. I've just learned these things don't work. You can't watch TV and listen to what happened today and with your son or your daughter or you got to put yourself in a position to be present. Now I've learned those things and I didn't know those and I used to react because I'm a control freak, because I was insecure, I didn't trust anybody. Somebody said the other day "love everybody and trust no one" that was me. And now I am able to give it up. I do trust people. And I... made me a 10 times better leader over the last 20 years in my career than it was the first 20. And because when you're a control freak, and you don't give people responsibility and authority, and you don't trust them, and you don't delegate, people don't, they don't want to stay with you. Great people want those kinds of things responsibility authority, and I had to learn that I was the problem, not them. And that's what happens.

Scott Anthony Barlow 34:37
Let me ask you about something because you sort of alluded it to it here and, you know, we were talking about, hey, planning the life and the time that you want. And then you were also talking about your wife and Jody Maberry, who introduced us, had told me a story once, I don't know maybe he told me about eight months ago or something along those lines, 10 months ago, I can't quite remember, might have been longer than that, but told me a story about you. And really about acting like the most important things in your life are the most important things in your life. And part of that story was about how, whenever Priscilla called then you would make the assumption that it was important, and you would take the call and step out of, pretty much anything that you were doing. And that kind of struck me, to be quite honest. I thought that was phenomenal. And this was back before I was in this business full time. So I started doing that, incorporating that into my life and with really simple things, but if I say something is important, and then I better darn well act like it actually is. Especially starting with my wife and starting with my family and I gotta be honest that, so first of all, I hope this is true. I'm assuming it is if you told me but I want to get your take on it. And, you know, how you kind of arrived at that. And but I gotta say thank you for it too, because it's made a profound impact on my life, actually, acting as though the things that are most important are in fact most important.

Lee Cockerell 36:17
Yeah, well, I think you got to know who you are and what is important to you. And my wife said me once, she called my office years ago, when I was first starting out, I told her I was in a meeting. And she said, when I got home at night, she said, "Lee, who's more important than me? I said, "Nobody." She said, "why don't you take my call?" And then from that day on, I told my secretary, "my wife... always put her call through if she wants to talk to me or my son and my boss." Those are three people you can interrupt me for and unless it's an emergency, and I just struck me that there is no more person more important than her. And it's kind of like airline life, things that are important to me right now in my life. If you said Lee, "what do you focus on everyday?" I'd say, "number one, I focus on me, tried to take care of my health, take care of myself, because my wife said, Lee, take care of yourself so you can take care of us." You know, and I'm in a perfect health. I mean, I weigh the same as I did when I got out of high school, I do strength training twice a week, I do exercise at four o'clock every day. And I eat properly and I weigh myself every morning and I want to be around, my grandkids are 21, 18 and 15 now. I want to go to their weddings, I want to get to know them. I feel better than most 30 year olds and I do that on purpose. Second thing I think about is my family, you know, and those kind of, take care of yourself and take care of your family kind of go one-two together, they could both be number one and last, I take care of my business. And then after that, if I have any time left over then I can go play golf or help Kim Kardashian solve her problems or The Real Housewives but I don't waste time on things till I got the three or four priorities in my life or underhand every day. And because I go tell you, if you got your health, you got your finances and you got your family together, you're going to have a pretty successful life and you can't let those get away from you. People sitting around playing Candy Crush and setting on Facebook for three hours a day. That's really going to help your career and help your life and help your family, I don't think so. And so, I think most people have never sat down and can name the top three things they're going to do every day before they do anything else. And I do that every day and because things will not work out unless you make them work out. You can sit around hope, pray and wish things work out, they won't. You got to do them, you got to do the hard things, you got to be honest with yourself, quit procrastinating on the heart. I tell everybody on your show, listen, "take one hard thing and do it in the next two weeks. The hardest thing that you've been putting off, get it done." You're gonna hate to do it to that night before you have to do it. And after you finish, you're gonna feel like a million dollars. You need to get in the habit of doing the hard times and then you won't have, a lot of things won't happen. If you take care of your health, you don't have to buy bypass surgery, you don't have to buy treadmill, you don't, you know, buy the treadmill before your surgery not after. And these are things people don't, you know, you got to do things that won't pay off till later. I always tell people, "if you quit smoking it'll pay off later, if you exercise it'll pay off later. Tell your wife you love her, it'll pay off now, tonight. If, you you know, if you take care of your retirement right now when you're young, it'll pay off 30 years down the road, you'll have a good life. And think about aging parents, grandparents, think about how you're going to take care of them now before they get dementia and you can't deal with it legally. And just think about what your children, you take care of your children, spend time with your kids and get involved with them and take them on trips and teach them the right from wrong. That's going to pay off for you big time down the road."

Scott Anthony Barlow 39:43
Lee, this has been fantastic. I always get a ton out of the times that we've been able to chat and I've got just one more question possibly the most important. So before we hit the record button, you said hey, "when people have read this, they're gonna feel most sorry for Priscilla. So, I'm curious, what you meant by that?

Lee Cockerell 40:04
Well, Priscilla and I moved 11 times. I dedicated this book to her, I did the last one too. But I dedicate... I said, you know, I dedicate this book to Priscilla, who's put up with me for 48 years, as we moved 11 times, looking for career magic. And then one day, we found that it was right in front of us, it was our family, our health and our happiness. We'd been searching for it everywhere." But she's a good trooper, she went with me, we loved everywhere we live, she moved 12 times with her dad. So she's moved 23 times, he was in the Navy. And we're just, you know, if you get your family together doesn't really matter. You spend 90% of your time at home and at work anyway. And you don't have as many friends as you think you will, your family who will be there for you when you have trouble. Maybe you have one friend or two but you don't have too many. And so that's how I think about it is yeah, that's a... you get and you learn these things as you get older. What you ought to do is try to learn before you get older. Learning while you're younger, would have less divorces, less kids that are in rehab and on drugs and in prison and getting a court dates and flunking out of school and, you know, you talk about the most important leadership job in the world, it's the one you have, being a mom and dad. You fail with that one, that's sad. And as my son told me, "Dad, you can't fire me, you got to develop me." And you got to think about that. Just families and have dinner together two or three nights a week, those kids get far less trouble, they do far better in school, just a few times at the table together, talking about life and what's going on and the trip you're about to take and when you get back the great stories you're going to have about a trip you just took and yeah, you know, my daughter-in-law even had picnic night, on Thursday night. It was picnic night when the kids were little, they put a blanket on the floor. And they had a picnic on the floor. But you had to watch French movies to improve your French. So they agreed. And so you could do Spanish movies, whatever you want them to learn. And the kids, by the way, in three months, they'll be speaking Spanish and you won't. So those, just think about the things you could be doing instead of getting in a rut and running around, eating dinner with three different places, and the kids going off to sleep and taking their phones with them and spending too much time on them and no family time. And you got to really think about doing things on purpose. I guess that's what I would say, I think most people are not thinking about what they're going to do on purpose. Next week, next month, next year. And why they're doing it. Yeah.

Scott Anthony Barlow 42:34
That is exactly what this show is about. So I so appreciate you, coming on, telling us stories and making things simple for me. I, every single time that we've chatted, I've been able to take something away. This time, I think I have like seven or nine things to take away. So I really appreciate it and I know that...

Lee Cockerell 42:55
Just remember though, "simple is not easy"

Scott Anthony Barlow 42:57
Simple is not easy. Agreed.

Lee Cockerell 42:59
Those two things, confused.

Scott Anthony Barlow 43:01
And in all attest to that, too. So you know, I think some people could say, well, Lee, you had a secretary and you're, you know, the VP of this or that or whatever. So it was easy for you to be able to, I don't know, say that you're putting your wife first and when you're the boss, but I actually did that and put it to the test in a corporate environment and I was not the VP and it was weird and it took some adjustment for both me and other people, but it was totally possible. Was it easy? No, no way. Not at all. Not even remotely close. Not easy for me and not easy for the other people there either but it was totally possible.

Lee Cockerell 43:39
Yeah, well schedule the priorities in your life in your calendar. Like today, business in here at one o'clock you keep your appointments and, you know, I run my business, I don't have a secretary now, I have a good website guy, a good accountant, I have a good computer guy that works for me, I have a good, all this stuff and I set fill out the contract and send them to clients, I do the invoicing, I keep track of the revenue and the expenses and you can do it, if you're organized. And if you focus, if that's one of the important things you want to do, and what's important is what you'll do. And if you don't do it, it's your fault. So...

Scott Anthony Barlow 44:18
This is so true. Lee, I so appreciate you making the time and taking the time here and go check out the book, and where people gonna be able to buy it? Besides Amazon, anyplace else?

Lee Cockerell 44:29
I think, the best thing look for anything you want from me and a lot of it, it's free on my site, leecockerell.com, but it's already on Amazon. And yeah, it'll be in Barnes and Noble or wherever you buy books, they use the current and my podcast, they ought to look at it's 15 minutes, it's free. And it's all about leadership management and customer service. It's called "Creating Disney Magic"

Joshua Rivers 44:49
Now, if you're looking to get some help for your career, you can be able to check out our signature coaching program. We opened this a couple times a year and we're just opening it this week, our signature coaching program is our custom high end coaching program, where you work one on one with one of our career coaches to work through your personal situation, to be able to, first of all, identify the outcomes that you need and then, we help you figure out the goals and actions you need to be able to reach those outcomes. And this program is four months of coaching. And you can be able to choose the frequency of the coaching, whether it's 2, 4, 6 times a month. And if you register by this Friday, July 10th, you'll be able to get an extra month of coaching support for free. So if you want to find out if signature coaching is right for you, you can be able to schedule a time to be able to talk to Phillip, who is our Director of Client Success. You can build a conversation with you and he'll help answer any questions that you have and also be able to see if signature coaching is the right fit it for you. And if it's not, he's going to work with you to figure out what is the best way that you can be able to get the help that you need. So you can be able to get on with your life, be able to make the right decisions, so that you can have the life and the career that you want in your life. You can schedule a conversation by going to scheduleaconversation.com and you can be able to pick out a time to be able to talk with Phillip, you want to be able to do that early so that the times don't fill up, he can only have so much time in his schedule to be able to talk with people, so make sure to do that early. And we want to give you, as a podcast listener an early opportunity to be able to do that. So check that out, scheduleaconversation.com and you can be able to schedule a conversation with Phillip today. Now, in the next episode of Happen To Your Career, we're gonna get the opportunity to be able to hear a conversation that Scott had with Greg McKeown, who is the author of "Essentialism." And I am really looking forward to being able to listen to that conversation. I know there's gonna be a lot of great things that are gonna be able to come from that conversation. So stay tuned next week when we come back on the Happen To Your Career podcast.