This is an iHeart Podcast. All right, listen up, people.
It's Chelsea Handler, and we need to talk about something really important, and they're called orgasms. If you're not making them a priority, PinkCherry .com is here to fix that.
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Experience cloud -like comfort with high -resilience foam that's hypoallergenic and never needs fluffing.
The sturdy steel frame ensures longevity, and the modular pieces can be rearranged any time.
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Every penny back. Upgrade now at washablesofas .com.
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Have you ever brought your magic to Walt Disney World like, hey, we came to play?
Did you tip your tiara to a Creole princess or get goofy officially?
Step up like a boss and save the day?
Or see what life's like under the tree of life?
Did you? If you could, would you?
When we come through, it's true magic.
Because we came to play.
Bring the magic at Walt Disney World Resort.
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio.
Good morning. This is Laura.
Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's episode is going to be a longer one, part of the series where I interview fascinating people about how they take their days from great to awesome, and any advice they have for the rest of us.
So today, I am delighted to welcome David Berkus to the show.
David is the author of several bestselling business books, including Best Team Ever and Friend of a Friend.
He speaks on leadership topics to all sorts of audiences.
So David, welcome to the show.
Oh, thank you so much for having me.
Yeah, excited to have you on.
So why don't you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself?
Yeah, I mean, how far back do we want to go, right?
However far you want to go.
Right, yeah. So I was born at, no, I'm just kidding.
I was an organizational psychologist by training.
I was a business school professor for about 10 years.
I've always been fascinated with teams and human connections and network dynamics and that sort of a thing.
And around 2013, 2014, started to write more, less for an academic audience and more for practitioners.
And that led to invitations to speak and to consult and what have you.
And then around COVID, you know, everyone's life got really, really difficult in COVID.
But I started to get a whole lot more, hey, can you do this webinar for our people?
Can you design this whole training, et cetera, et cetera.
So when universities said, hey, we're bringing classes back in person, I basically said, no, I'm not going to be there.
I'm going to be doing this other stuff.
So I made the leap into doing that full time, I guess about five years ago now.
Wow. Wow. That seems weird. And just absolutely loving it.
I mean, it's fun to teach the next generation of business folk how to create a better working environment, how to have better teams. But it's a whole lot more fun to teach the people who can go apply it later that day.
Right. So absolutely loving it.
Absolutely love the practical ideas one can can do today.
And a lot of your recent work, as you said, has been on teams. Your most recent book, Best Team Ever.
I guess what actually makes something the best team ever?
The high promise. Yeah, right.
Absolutely. So when you look at the research, you find that culture plays a much larger role than you would anticipate.
I mean, I don't mean to diminish things like talent, getting the people with the best knowledge, skills and abilities, et cetera.
Talent's great, but we've all probably seen that example of putting a talented player They are on just a terrible team and watching the team sort of degrade them down.
So if you can get high talent to people, great.
But more importantly, work on a culture that helps turn talent into performance.
And in particular, in the book, we outline kind of three areas where high -performing teams shine in the habits and norms of behavior that they have. One is how much common understanding or shared understanding they have. So I know my role, but I also know enough about everybody else in the team, not just their technical roles, but also their personality, where we connect and overlap.
lap, I can kind of predict their behavior from it.
The second element is a sense of psychological safety.
So I understand how to help build candor on the team, I understand what somebody who's speaking up because they disagree looks like, and I give them the space to do that I even psychological safety even responds to how we embrace failure, right.
And so you tap into a bigger growth mindset on a team when you can talk about failures in a way that doesn't just sort of like punish everybody and have them diminish it.
And then the third element, the third kind of norm is that these teams constantly remind themselves of their purpose, but not purpose as like why we do what we do.
We actually in the book call it pro -social purpose.
They're reminded of who is served by the work that you're doing.
And that not only increases motivation, but there's a lot of recent research that suggests that that increases the amount of teamwork behaviors on a team, right?
Because when you know that you're doing this for someone else, you're much more likely to put your own ego aside and do what the team needs in order to get that person served to the highest level.
And so that's it. common understanding, psychological safety, and pro -social purpose.
That's the easy answer to what makes for those best teams ever.
Yeah, that sounds great.
Well, here's a sort of practical question.
How big is the best team ever?
I mean, I know that we don't always get to decide this, is there a sweet spot where it's easier to get those three things?
Yeah. Yeah. So generally, I mean, obviously if we're talking about work teams, if we're talking about a sports team, it's as big as, you know, generally in the day -to -day work, like what we we do large teams do suck.
The sweet spot tends to be between about six and eight members of the team.
After that, it becomes really hard to keep one conversation in meetings, it becomes really hard to keep one sense of clarity.
And you may actually be better off thinking of it as like, let's break the team.
If you've got a team of 14 people, it might actually be better to have two teams of seven.
Yeah. Yeah, no, that's an interesting, it's sort of like a dinner party.
Yeah, six to eight is the right number.
Past that, you've got two conversations going at the table.
But, you know, let's say that somebody has a team that, you know, they're listening to this and they're managing a team and they would like to make people feel, you know, more cohesive.
Is there something they could try, you know, today or tomorrow to make that happen?
Yeah, I mean, I'll give you the in -depth answer and then maybe I'll give you a smaller answer.
My favorite activity to run teams through is this activity we call the manual of me.
And it's exactly what it sounds like, writing the user's manual to what it's like to work with you or for you.
You know, what are your strengths and weaknesses?
Where are the opportunities you tend to contribute?
I typically, when I work with a team, I come to them with four questions that have to be answered.
And then I let them ask whatever else they want.
But we kind of start with four fill in the blank questions.
I'm at my best when blank and I'm at my worst when blank are one and two, which are strengths and weaknesses questions, but also like context questions, right?
right? Some people are at their best when they're at their office being social, other people when they're in like monk mode at home, right?
So we want to know that.
And then the third and fourth questions are, you can count on me too.
Meaning historically, this is where I make contributions to the team.
This is where I help most often.
I'm a whiz with Excel formulas or something like that, right?
And then the fourth question is, what I need from you is.
Meaning this is where I've historically needed help.
And it's funny because I give people those questions and the most common reaction I get is somebody goes, well, I don't even know the answers to that for myself.
I'm like great well you've got a week to reflect and kind of figure it out and then we come back together and share out those answers leave some time for discussion it's like what i liken it to is it's like taking the most in -depth personality differences test you could take whether you want to call that disc or myers -briggs or whatever you're paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for a multinational site -wide license to administer and doing it for free first of all you could just steal those questions feel free to um and you get the same level of conversation about differences is and about appreciation for how
people are and how we're going to change the way we collaborate based on this information.
That's my favorite.
You probably can't do that tomorrow.
You could start tomorrow, but you're going to have to give them some time to it.
You also, if you wanted to, can sneak those questions into regular meetings.
Those are like good icebreakers.
Instead of saying, what's your favorite movie, which is helpful to know, those are real questions around how you work.
Just pick one and ask one per week and that's something you could do tomorrow.
Yeah, David, what's your fun fact?
When somebody asks you your fun fact about you as an icebreaker.
My fun fact, I've actually spent the last 19 years training in this really esoteric martial art called Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.
That's my fun fact that I go through.
Your fun fact. Exactly, well, we may come back to that.
All right, we're welcome to it.
A little bit, but I'm curious, what do people get wrong about team building?
I am sure you have seen some atrocious team building over the years.
Yeah, I mean, the biggest thing I tell people team building is not an activity.
It's a habit, right?
It's not a one -off thing.
The biggest thing people get wrong is like, oh, great.
We're going to do this activity.
We're going to all rank the items we need in the metaphorical shipwreck.
Like you've done that activity, right?
Or we're going to use these wooden planks to cross the imaginary river.
And then magically, that's going to turn us into a team.
The research is really clear on this, that unless you have that, that's not to say don't do any of these activities, but unless you have an activity and then a conversation about how what we learned in that activity translates into day -to -day behaviors I can hold people accountable to, you don't see any lasting change from those team building activities.
So it's much more about the habit.
And so to me, I don't know, maybe I'm just no fun, right?
Maybe I'm a spoiled sport, maybe, but I just find it more useful to jump into something like the manual of me and like, let's just jump to the conversation about habits and norms instead of have to do the activity first, right?
So that's me. Turns out that a trust fall does not, in fact, make you trust to your team members.
Yeah, no, no, not at all.
It felt great at summer camp when we were all like nine, but no. Yeah, yeah, past that, past that, not so much. All right, we're going to take a quick ad break and then I'll be back with more from David Berkus.
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All right listen up people it's Chelsea Handler and we need to talk about something really important and they're called orgasms. If you're not making them a priority pinkcherry .com is here year to fix that.
Orgasms boost your mood, lower stress, and help you sleep.
And let's be honest, we could all use a little release these days.
From the iconic magic wand to WeVibe's couples toys to the game -changing womanizer, PinkCherry .com has everything you need.
Solo or with someone, feeling good is the goal.
So go to PinkCherry .com and save up to 80 % off site -wide.
You deserve it. If you know you owe.
tired of spills and stains on your sofa washablesofas .com has your back featuring the anabay collection the only designer sofa that's machine washable inside and out where designer quality meets budget -friendly prices that's right sofa start at just $699 enjoy a no risk experience with pet friendly stain resistant and changeable slip covers made with performance fabrics bricks experience cloud like comfort with high resilience foam that's hypoallergenic and never needs fluffing the sturdy steel frame ensures longevity and the modular pieces can be rearranged anytime check out washablesofas .com
and get up to 60 off your anabase sofa backed by a 30 -day satisfaction guarantee if you're not absolutely in love send it back for a full refund no return turn shipping, or restocking fees.
Every penny back. Upgrade now at washablesofas .com.
Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.
Well, I am back talking with David Berkus who's the author of several business books, including Best Team Ever.
We've been talking about some ways to make your team a better team.
You're also the author of a book called Friend of a Friend, which I know a lot of people are listening to like, oh no, networking, not that.
Um, so right up there with team building in terms of, uh, how much we, we enjoy.
Yeah, man, I just go right after all the things we hate about work, don't I?
All the fun stuff. So, so what, you know, somebody is listening to this and you're trying to convince them that they're not terrible at networking.
What are some practical things we should be doing to, to make, you know, relationship building more fun and more authentic?
Yeah. I mean, I think the biggest thing I'll say is that if you, if you hate networking, if If you feel sleazy and weird and what have you, like I totally get it.
Right. Before the motivation for writing that book was that I read a lot of networking books earlier in my career.
And then I attempted to apply their advice.
And the thing I ran into was that like, I feel inauthentic.
Well, of course I feel inauthentic because I'm doing so and so's version of networking.
I'm not doing my own.
Right. And so the point of Friend of a Friend is it's really a book that is kind of a way to explain here's the science of how social networks form, how humans actually create interactions and what have you.
And it's called Friend of a Friend because I think the biggest insight in there is that you don't actually have to go to any of those networking events where you serendipitously try and meet strangers if you don't want to.
You don't. You don't have to make the perfect elevator pitch. Between the existing network that you have and the ones that those people could potentially introduce you to, you have everything you need to have a robust enough network to achieve your career goals, right?
I don't even call it friend of a...
The book actually is like friend of a friend of a friend of a friend, but that's because we had a great graphic designer, but I don't even care about like we talk about six degrees of separation, but you don't need to like chase down six introductions in order to meet the CEO of a major tech company or whatever.
One or two is usually enough in terms of practical kind of habits.
What I would say is the single most neglected thing that people do is they don't spend enough time continuing to nurture what we would call dormant ties.
Right. So maybe you've heard of your listeners.
You've heard of the famous paper by Mark Renovator, the strength of weak ties.
But there's a specific form of a weak tie called a dormant tie.
Someone we know, but because we haven't talked to them in a while, we kind of fell out of touch with, right?
And so as a result, they're off in their world doing something.
We're off in our world doing something.
And the truth is most of our kind of cool serendipitous, hey, I'm looking for a new job.
I want to make a career change.
I just need advice on this thing.
Or could somebody please help me get tickets to Taylor Swift, whatever it is.
Most of those opportunities come from those dormant ties because they're people that know you you enough to want to help you and vice versa.
You know them enough to want to help them.
And they're in a different world.
They're in a different industry or sector or geographic region.
And so they have available to them opportunities you can't see.
So what does this mean?
Like practically, whatever system works for you to make sure you stay in touch with them.
You know, what I do, I actually kind of took it to, I used to play a game I called cell phone roulette, where I would basically just scroll to the bottom of my messages once or twice a week.
and I would send a message because it sorts by most frequent.
So the very bottom of your messages app is the person you haven't talked to in the longest that you know enough to be in your phone.
And I would just send them a, hey, thinking about you today.
Now that's true because I scrolled to the bottom and saw them, so now I'm thinking about them and just kind of a check in.
That worked really, really well for a time.
Now I can't exactly scale that.
So one of the things I've started to do and pursued or pursued, persuaded by my friends V is I send a regular update.
update. So about once every four to six months, I just send an update out to all of the people that I care enough about to keep informed of my life and want to hear from.
And it says, hey, here's what I've been up to personally.
Here's what we did.
We took a family trip to Hawaii professionally.
Here's what I've been doing, doing a lot of work on LinkedIn learning courses or what have you.
Here's what I've been reading.
Here's what I've been wondering about, et cetera.
And at the very end, I just say, hey, what's going on in your life?
And the coolest part about it isn't writing it.
It actually feels really weird to write it because it feels like I'm writing a Christmas letter, but like multiple times a year.
Right. Exactly. Exactly.
The coolest thing is when people write back and they say, this is what I'm up to.
And this I haven't heard of you.
And it's just the flood of conversations that happens is that little check in point.
Now, I'm doing that before I need it.
Right. There may be a time by the end of the year where I'm like, hey, I really need somebody who has a connection to to this.
But it's really awkward to do that unless you're constantly kind of staying in touch with those dormant type people.
So that's that's what I should do.
Whether you want to play the text message roulette or you want to do the quarterly update, either one, whichever one feels more authentic to you is probably going to work really, really well to keep those dormant ties activated.
Well, I'm curious about that because people want to know, like, what's the reason I'm reaching out to those people?
And I mean, yes, you scrolled through your phone and saw their number and said thinking of you because you thought of them when you saw their number.
But I wonder if, you know, I think I think a lot of people struggle with that, like coming up with the authentic reason to do it.
Yeah. Well, I get it.
I get it. I do. And I think part of the reason for that is that so many times when we're on the receiving end of one of those messages, it's because somebody wants something from us.
And we're just sort of waiting for that to drop.
And so the idea behind doing this on a regular basis is that I'm training lots of people that I actually legitimately care about them and don't want something from them, which is true.
And I think it's true for all of us, right?
right? Yeah. So if you're doing it on a regular basis, if you're sending that update quarterly or every six months or so, whatever, you're training people that like, I just want to stay in touch with you.
There might be a need you have for me later.
I might need you later, but that's not what this one is about.
And so it makes it easier when you actually do have one of those conversations where you need a favor or something like that, because they're trained to not expect that shoe to drop.
I totally get why it's awkward. And doing it the first time, by the way, always super awkward. But here's what I would tell you.
Let's roll reverse, right?
right? If you're listening to this, you're like, I could never do it.
Imagine someone you hadn't talked to that you worked at in the last company or whatever, texted you out of the blue and was like, hey, I was thinking about you today.
I haven't talked to you in a long time.
I hope you're well.
I hope everything's going on with you.
Wouldn't you kind of like to receive a message like that?
I mean, I get that some of us are kind of inherently skeptical.
They're like, what do you want from me?
But as soon as you figured out that they didn't actually want anything from you, like I can't think of a person, a former colleague or an old friend from college that I wouldn't love to be on the receiving end of that message from.
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
So David, you've just shared a couple of things that you do to make yourself more productive on the networking front here, whether it's cell phone roulette or sending a regular update on your life.
I'm curious if you have any other routines like in your daily life that you use to make yourself more productive?
Yeah, yes, okay. So I kind of have three average days, right?
If you think about it.
So now that I'm not teaching full -time, I have home days.
I have on the road days where I'm speaking or working with a client.
And then I have kind of summer schedule, right?
Which is what we're in the midst of as we're recording this, right?
Home, home days, I've become a huge fan of kind of time blocking.
So my, but the average day for me during the school year, I have kids that are in middle school and elementary school.
The average day for me during the school year, get up, help them get ready, get them off to the school bus.
And then I've got about 90 minutes or so of kind of the a quiet focus time i deliberately try and do like if i'm writing a book or working on a piece or something like that i try and do it in that time i find i can get about 190 minute block before i get hungry again and also want to beat everybody else to the the noontime gym rush so then i'm going into like a snack and exercise whether that's going to the gym to do jujitsu whether that's my wife and i become huge pickleball fans it's been terrible for my knees but a ton of fun right um some kind of some way to sweat right and then we're back
at about 12 31 o 'clock and that's when I try and schedule almost all of my, what I would say, reactive work.
If a client wants a phone call with me, I made an exception for you because we're old school friends, but if you want to do a podcast interview, something like that, anything that doesn't require deep thought, just requires conversation, that's in that afternoon bit until around when they come from school and then I'm right back into parent mode and we've got soccer practices and tuba lessons and all of that sort of stuff.
So that's like home schedule.
Speaking schedule, I'll be honest honest with you, it's a free for all.
It's entirely determined on what the client needs and what have you.
But one of the things I've been learning as I've been getting older is like a lot of us will fly in the night before an event.
We'll speak in the morning and then we'll rush to the airport home.
And I'm trying to do that less because I've realized how much stress it adds into my life to be like, got to get home, got to go.
I try and just add an extra day because then you can linger at the event.
You can hang out with people.
They tell you how great you were, and that's great for the ego.
Right. And you just don't necessarily feel that stress.
So I'm I'm trying. I'm not succeeding yet, but I'm trying to kind of take back my calendar to add more of that kind of downtime.
And then summer schedule is like total free for all.
Right. Everyone's around.
Everybody's around.
I mean, literally I, we had a sleepover last night, so I have three kids in the house as we're recording this and you just have to react to everything.
And here's the thing that used to annoy the heck out of me.
And then I got to the place where a good friend of mine, Jim Shields hit me with this a couple of years ago.
He said, look, you only get get 18 summers with your kids and whether you get any more deter is determined by how well you did in those 18 summers.
And so I've kind of just sort of embraced that, right.
And just tried to say, like, it's a, it's a total mess for two months out of the year, but we're just going to love the mess and do the best as we can.
Absolutely. All right.
We're going to take one more quick ad break, and then I'll be back with more from David Berkus.
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All right, listen up, people.
It's Chelsea Handler, and we need to talk about something really important, and they're called orgasms. If you're not making them a priority, PinkCherry .com is here to fix that.
Orgasms boost your mood, lower stress, and help you sleep.
And let's be honest, we could all use a little release these days.
From the iconic magic wand to WeVibe's couples toys to the game -changing womanizer, PinkCherry .com has everything you need.
Solo or with someone, feeling good is the goal.
So go to PinkCherry .com and save up to 80 % off site -wide.
You deserve it. If you know, you owe.
Tired of spills and stains on your sofa?
WashableSofas .com has your back.
Featuring the Anabay Collection, the only designer sofa that's machine washable inside and out, where designer quality beats budget -friendly prices.
That's right. Sofas start at just $699.
Enjoy a no -risk experience with pet -friendly, stain -resistant, and changeable slipcovers made with Performance Fabrics.
Experience cloud -like comfort with high -resilience foam that's hypoallergenic and never needs fluffing.
The sturdy steel frame ensures longevity, and the modular pieces can be rearranged anytime.
Check out washablesofas .com and get up to 60 % off your Anabase Sofa, backed by a 30 -day satisfaction guarantee.
If you're not absolutely in love, send it back for a full refund.
No return shipping or restocking fees.
Every penny back. Upgrade now at washablesofas .com.
Offers are subject to change, and certain restrictions may apply.
So I'm talking with David Berkus.
We've been talking some of his routines.
Now, do you have any sort of morning routine other than getting the kids out the door, or is that just not?
Yeah, I don't have that.
The younger one's school bus picks him up at 6 .50 in the morning.
I'll be honest with you.
I do not have time for a morning routine.
no morning routine before that.
Yeah. I mean, I, I, um, I would say my morning routine happens after they leave. Right.
And it's much more about what do I do to kind of transition into that work mode?
I, we structured our life such that there's a, I have to go downstairs from our main living area into the basement where my office is.
So that kind of feels like a commute.
Um, I usually now candidly, I'm usually looking at my phone while I'm like getting them breakfast, having breakfast myself.
And I found, even though people say like, Oh, don't do that.
Do all of your, do your amazing you know big work before you ever look I find it actually helps me to clear all of that out and kind of have an idea of what I need to respond to for the day before I then go into that deep work I just have to tell myself none of these are fires I don't have to put them out right away right so that's kind of it we do have a pretty strict sort of nighttime routine right in terms of like when we are as a family when we are like okay computers off tv off etc we're in bed we're powering downwards I do kind of have that in order to to sleep a bit better so we do do have routines
they just don't usually happen in the morning i know that seemed weird on it before breakfast well i don't either because i have to also get people out the door i mean i i love writing about people's morning routines um but when you have multiple school -aged children often yeah they are the morning yeah there's a there's a productivity youtuber i love named ali abdul and he just had a son and i put up when he announced or just had a child and when he put it on twitter i announced like congratulations your content has just gotten so much more relevant for me.
Yes, exactly. Well, there is something to be saying.
People are giving productivity advice and maybe have never even been responsible for like a puppy before.
Exactly. Exactly. You wonder, you wonder.
But we have a wide variety of people listening to this.
So we enjoy all that.
But I'm curious, when are you in bed to be up for the morning?
Lights out at lights out at 10pm.
10pm. Yeah, we we figured this out.
Okay, so all right, this is probably too much information that I'm I'm going to regret sharing on a podcast, but we were one of those weird American families that actually co -slept until our kids were like 10 and eight.
Right. So we lived, we got this weird because my wife is an ER resident and now ER physician.
I left the university, like everything, we kind of, we kind of went from a nice middle class family to being blessed with, with what we do now all at the same time.
And when I started doing the numbers, I was like, we were living in our little tiny starter house that was supposed to just be for like us and one kid, but we stayed stayed in there longer and moved to the dream house, the one we picture the kids being teenagers in.
But that house is too big for a six -year -old and an eight -year -old and what have you.
And so they didn't want to be in their rooms, right?
They were used to being much closer to us.
So we just rigged up a mattress on the floor near us and we slept in the same room, even though we had this house that we...
Now they don't. We had this house that we were like, you're going to be teenagers in, you're going to think of as your home home.
It was way too big for us.
So we all all just slept in the same room and had to go to bed at like nine 30, 10, because that's when they had to go to bed.
And then I realized like that's sleeping, actually sleeping for eight hours a night is like the ultimate life hack, right?
Like there's before you try anything else, try that one, right?
And see how that one works for you.
And so now we still adhere to it.
I mean, literally we put them to bed nine 30 on a school night, 10 o 'clock on a not school night.
And we are, we are lights out within five to 10 minutes after that.
I am a fan, although I can't sleep in the same room as my kids because they wake me up oh i don't think i could do it now i don't they're way bigger now and i could like hear them breathe but absolutely when they were younger it was great yeah well here's a question for you because um going back i was always big on life logistics and and your wife is a physician um and and in er i'm sure it's like random hours i mean maybe she picks up certain shifts on a regular basis but you were talking about how you try to stay at at a event for an extra day.
Yeah. So how does that work out with the family scheduling?
Yeah, not well as of late.
Okay, all right. Well, that's good to know.
I mean, it used to work out great because generally we would know, like a client would reach out and say, we're doing this meeting.
Can you be a part of it?
Three to four months ahead of time, sometimes even six months ahead of time.
And that's before you put in for your schedule with the hospital.
So it would just work like, hey, I have a thing on this day and this day.
So put in to not work on that day.
And we still try and do that as much as we can.
But I'm sure you've run into this too in your career.
Like some clients reach out like four weeks ahead of time.
And that's a little more difficult because the shifts are already set, right?
ER, hospitals, a lot of the shift work of a physician is actually really easy and in perfect conditions to balance with what we do because the schedule is set ahead of time.
There's no on call.
There's no charting you have to do afterwards or any of that sort of stuff.
Way easier than being like a general practitioner or somebody who would have to be on call.
But when those short -term clients things come in, it gets a little more difficult.
Now, I think where we are, that's starting to get longer, but that was just sort of like a post -COVID reaction.
I'm sure you saw the same thing of like clients were suddenly like, we don't even know if we're going to have an event.
So we're not even going to reach out to somebody to be a part of it until we know for sure we're going to do it.
And that was a short timeline.
So it didn't work out all that well for a while, but it's starting to get better and better, which is why I'm starting to kind of push for that a bit more.
Yeah. I've noticed that too.
I mean, it was in the past, it would be like, you know, if you if you wanted a keynote speech in October, you were definitely reaching out in the spring.
Yeah. To book that.
And now I feel like I definitely will get people being like, yeah, we want something in a couple of weeks.
I'm like, did you not plan this event before then?
Like maybe I'm your second choice.
I don't know. That could be too.
But it's you know, So you're not too far off.
My my theory is like especially for an internal event like we are kind of a commodity.
Don't ever I mean, if you're listening to this, no. Laura and I are the absolute most in demand best people in this field.
And but the truth is, like, everybody has to go to that internal company meeting anyway.
It's not like associations and ticketed events and things like that are back to a normal planning schedule because people want to know who the speakers are before they buy a ticket to it.
it, but like an internal event where it's like the company all hands meeting, like we're like the cherry on the cake.
People are coming for the cake anyway.
Yeah, they have to be there.
So if it works out to have an external speaker, that's awesome.
And if it doesn't, then they force their VP of sales to give the talk.
Exactly. Exactly. Also, it's happening regardless.
Exactly. Also, cherry on the Sunday.
I don't know why you would put cherry on the cake.
That would be terrible.
I mean, I would I would not enjoy that cake.
So, David, I always ask people a question of what is something you have done recently to to take a day from great to awesome?
Yeah. You know, okay.
I think most days are great.
And this isn't just because I'm like super, but like you're still alive, therefore a day is great.
So the thing that I've been doing for like 20 years now is trying to remember that.
And I don't have a sophisticated like gratitude practice.
I don't bullet journal or anything like that.
Here's where I learned this.
20 years ago, I got married.
And when you're engaged, you get all sorts of marriage advice from people who probably shouldn't give you marriage advice like I wish I would have written it all down and then had a column for be like did you get divorced later like you know who should I actually be listening to but the one piece of good advice I really really got was actually not marital advice it was wedding advice and it was hey that whole day is going to be a blur so as many times as you can throughout the day stop and remind yourself this is my wedding right like and literally the only memory I have I have lots of memories
of looking at photos and video and what have you.
But the only memory I have of like the actual day is standing there at the altar, looking at her and saying to myself, this is it.
This is our actual wedding.
Like that's my one internalized memory.
Cause there's something about taking a second and like absorbing the moment, just stop and let's do it.
Right. And so I try and do that a lot, right.
On a normal day, it might just look like walking outside and sitting on the deck for a few minutes and be like, this is, this has been a really great day on a travel day.
It might be like reflecting on how how cool it was that we sort of did something.
One of the things I like about, again, that trying to stretch out and be less stressed traveling to and from work travel is it gives you more opportunities to have that moment.
I'm sitting at the, like I pack a swimsuit now.
And part of my thing is like, I might swim at the pool or sit in the hot tub and think like, oh, that was a really cool opportunity.
And I just, all I need is like a moment, five minutes of not having to think about anything other than the fact that this day happened.
And because it happened, it was already great.
Yeah, one of my favorite speaking events, I was at a resort and I brought my swimsuit and I went on the lazy river by myself.
Like I've been on so many lazy rivers with small people.
I'm like herding along the tube.
So I was like, I'm just sitting on this tube by myself.
Yeah, no, same deal.
I bet. In fact, I bet you I know what hotel is if it was in Orlando.
It's the Marriott that has the amazing lazy river and the slides.
I did the same thing, except it was the water slide.
And because it was 1030 in the morning, I was the only person and it was awesome.
Who's that dude with no kids with them?
yeah exactly exactly so david what are you looking forward to right now yeah i mean this we're recording this in july which is kind of like half time right it's the slow down reflect and then plan so i'm i'm actually really looking forward to the to the next year we've got from a family perspective we've got some really cool things happening i have one kid who's like has been aspiring to be in marching band since he was picked up for the school band got another that that plays soccer and is kind of moving into another competitive level got some cool I just I'm just looking forward to again every
day is great so I'm just kind of looking forward to the second half of the year I don't have any big plans I'm not in the midst of writing another book or anything like that I'm just trying to make every day great yeah absolutely where can people find you oh I'm so I've been really blessed my look you you probably the same way my name is really rare there aren't a lot of David Berges is out there there is a 24 year old Hungarian filmmaker and that's the only one I've met so if you just type it into Google you will find me you'll find the platform you want to connect with me on if that's too difficult
for you, and you're listening to this in a podcast app, like just swipe up or swipe to the side.
It's in the show notes anyway, while you're there, maybe even leave a review, let Laura know how great this podcast is.
And then then you'll find me.
Absolutely. All right.
Well, David, thanks so much for joining us.
And thank you also to everyone for listening.
If you have feedback on this or any other episode, you can always reach me at Laura at lauravandercam .com.
In the meantime, this is Laura.
Thanks for listening.
And here's to making the most of our time.
thanks for listening to before breakfast if you've got questions ideas or feedback you can reach me at laura at lauravandercam .com before breakfast is a production of iheart media for more podcasts from iheart media please visit the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows All right, listen up, people.
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Have you ever brought your magic to Walt Disney World like, hey, we came to play?
Did you tip your tiara to a Creole princess or get goofy officially?
Step up like a boss and save the day?
Or see what life's like under the tree of life?
Did you? If you could, would you?
When we come through, it's true magic.
Because we came to play.
Bring the magic at Walt Disney World Resort.
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