Welcome to the Live with Sondra podcast where
we dive deep into business, tech, and entrepreneurship.
Hosted by me, Sondra Shannon, CEO of GateMaster
Technology. Each show, we explore the latest
trends in ticketing attractions and guest experience,
helping you stay ahead of the curve in this ever
-evolving world of attractions and events. Whether
you're an industry expert or just getting started,
this show has insights to inspire and empower
you. Today's episode is sponsored by GateMaster
Technology, your trusted partner for ticketing
and attraction management solutions. Let's get
started with the show. Welcome to today's episode
of Live with Sandra. I'm your host, Sandra Shannon.
And we've got a fantastic guest for you today.
But first, let me ask you a couple of things
about your business. Let's talk about this. You
can, if you're watching live, because this is
the part of the show where we wait for some of
our live audience to show up, I'd like you to
mention in the chat, what is one strategic change
your organization has made in the last year and
how did it impact your team and guests? If you're
an attraction or an entertainment venue that's
watching, I'd love to understand more about whether
or not these strategic changes have had an impact
on the guest experience. So to get started for
today, we're going to be talking about strategic
resilience and leading attractions through change
and AI. And before I get started with today's
guest, first, I have to mention, because this
show would not be possible without our sponsors,
that today's episode is proudly sponsored by
GateMaster Technology, the trusted name in attraction
management software. If you are stuck in clunky
or outdated and platforms that slow your team
down and frustrate your guests, it might be time
for an upgrade. And GateMaster is trying to make
that real easy for you with GateMaster's competitive
replacement program, which they are bringing
back, we're bringing back, to make it real easy
for you to transition from your old system to
a new system with dedicated support, seamless
data migration, and no business interruptions.
We've been powering theme parks and museums and
attractions for over 25 years, and we know what
it takes to keep you running smooth and profitably.
You can visit gatemaster .info forward slash
replacement to learn more and to schedule your
free discovery call. At Gatemaster Technology,
we are software that works as hard as you do.
We know how hard you guys out there are working
in your businesses. and to take care of your
guests. So please take a moment and visit gatemaster
.info forward slash replacement. So let's get
back to the show. Today, we're again going to
be talking about strategic resilience, leading
attraction through change and AI. Today's guest
is the president and owner of Steve Gavitorta
Group. So sorry. Cat's out of the bag. We know
who's coming on the show. He empowers individuals
and organizations to identify, develop, and exceed
performance goals. He's a certified professional
behavioral analyst and certified professional
value analyst. Something Steve can't live without,
and I love this because I think this is the first
time I've ever had a quote this thoughtful. Viktor
Frankl's famous quote, Between stimulus and response,
there is a space. In that space, in our power
to choose our response, which this quote highlights
the importance of conscious choice over our reactions
to life's circumstances. And I'm really excited
to welcome Steve Gavidorta to the show. So please
help me give a welcome to today's guest. Steve,
welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you. And
I can't believe you didn't roll the R. I'm really
upset about when you said my name. You didn't
roll that R, you know. No, great job on that
name. Perfect. Perfect. I'm just teasing you.
Oh, I appreciate it. Hey, before we dive into
who you are, though, I really I want to call
out that quote that you that you sent in because
I thought that was pretty cool. And I hope that
we're going to touch a little bit more on why
that's important to you. But our audience. Would
love to know a little bit more about who you
are, what you do. And I know that you are a man
showing up. So would you mind just giving us
a little bit more about where you're coming from
and how you've gotten to where you are? Yeah,
I'm owner of Steve Gavitorto Group, original
name, right? But I just do custom based coaching,
training, consulting programs that try to solve
for customer specific needs. The core key word
in there is custom, customized, customized. customization
um each of my clients has you very unique uh
scenarios going on different problems to solve
different uh customers and whatnot and what i
really enjoy is solving the puzzle you know figure
out their needs figure out the issues they're
facing and building custom -based programs to
fit those needs and meet their goals and objectives,
whether it be the full package strategic planning
on down or whether it's just soft skills, leadership
skills, sales training, team building, dealing
with adversity, things of that of those natures.
Kind of people like why doesn't he specialize?
Does he is he can he do all these things? And
I say yes, because I have a great background
as well, too. I've owned my business for 20 years.
Prior to starting my business, I spent 21, 20,
20, 21 years in consumer packaged goods industry,
basically selling products you can buy in a grocery
store. So things like Aquafresh toothpaste, Listerine,
Dentine. I spent 10 years with a division of
GlaxoSmithKline, five with a division of Warner
Lambert, some time with a company called Catalina
Marketing that ended my career with the company.
people may may remember i'm not sure uh called
eastman kodak they kind of went the way of horse
and buggy because uh their head was in the santa
about digital uh but through that time in corporate
america i did a little everything i carried the
bag i was in sales i was in account management
I led different sales teams. I spent time in
marketing. I spent time as a liaison between
sales and marketing. I led team in category management,
loyalty marketing, and then did some time in
training as well, too. So I really did. I have
an array of background experiences, which enables
me to be able to deliver a lot of custom -based
programs. i do today because i live the corporate
life i've lived the various jobs within those
uh companies i've worked with and i kind of can
feel people's pain and know their pain points
and know things they're struggling with and that
helps me build those custom -based programs so
to speak well and you know it's interesting that
you say custom -based programs because you know
i look at business a lot of people look at business
as their problems are going to be unique because
it's a certain industry, right? And there is
some of that in the work that we do. But when
we look at the business side of business, I think
it's very interesting with your strategic leadership
approach and what you've mentioned here, how
you can be in all of those different areas of
corporate America. And you probably saw very
similar things across each of those that led
you to where you are today. Yeah, absolutely.
You know, there are similar things I see, number
one. Number two, there are similar skill sets
that would be transferable across various industries,
like a four -step solution selling process or
leadership skills, which... across various industries
and various customers. So what I do in training
development is lay down the fundamentals for
success, teach people of a four -step process
or the fundamentals of leadership skills or a
plan for strategic, an outline for strategic
planning. The difference is though. is the customization
of implementing those skills within training
so teaching those four spelling skills to a pharmaceutical
company may be very different than to a biz dev
team on a con in a construction organization
sure because their customers are different the
issues they're facing are different and that's
where i really create the point of differentiation
for my business because we lay the skills That's
a foundation right there. Then we apply those
skills to real -world scenarios these people
are facing through case studies, role plays,
interactive exercises. What that does, that hits
that brain part and builds that cortex part of
our brain, so we're making that muscle memory.
We're seeing how these skills apply to my world,
and that helps. create immediate usage of skills,
but most importantly, long term retention of
those skills as well, too. Yeah, that's great.
Yeah, I don't want to be a one and done with
my clients and say, oh, this was a nice thing
today. Then it falls out of bed. They never use
it again. It does. I mean, it's nice for me.
I made a paycheck that day, but it doesn't create
long term sustainable success for my clients.
And that's what I'm striving for. Well, and the
thing that I've noticed is that a lot of us get
some of these skills, the fundamental skills
that you're talking about, but then lack on the
execution part, which is probably where someone
like you comes in really handy, especially because
you need that accountability. You need somebody
to help you apply that to real world scenarios.
And I know a lot of the audience is listening.
you know, certainly is bumping up against some
of these challenges, but it is nice to have somebody
who understands how to organize this and roll
it out. Do you mind if I, I've got a question
for you. And the thing is, the thing that I want
to ask you is given your experience, it's strategic
leadership. You know, what are some of the biggest
challenges you see organizations facing when
developing clear strategic vision and It's a
loaded question. How can they overcome it? Yeah,
well, let's assume that their strategic vision
was done right in the first place. So we'll put
that, most of them are not done correctly. Number
one, number two. Well, I'll give them kudos for
doing it. A lot of companies really don't do
it. Other companies do do it. The third aspect
of it is they do it. They do a great job. It's
not communicated effectively. There's never reinforcement
and people don't feel accountability to it. If
you've created vision, mission, values, your
company, everyone within your company should
eat, drink, and sleep that and see how, I don't
care what role or responsibility they're in,
how they connect into the vision, mission, values,
or the strategic objective, driving top line
sales, profitability, or some sort of incremental
growth objective. So everybody within an organization
needs to feel how they contribute to that. typically
things such as vision mission values strategic
objectives drive again let me repeat the three
what i talk about is driving top line revenue
cash flow that's strategic objective one because
if you don't have make money you don't have cash
flow you can't pay bills you can't investment
spend yeah two is you want to be profitable number
three you want to have some some sort of growth
objective whether an incremental growth objective
i should say whether it's grow my market share
bring new customers into the fold or have my
current customers spend more money. Those are
all incremental growth objectives. So everybody
within an organization needs to understand how
they may feed into that. Typically, where I was
going with this is typically vision, mission,
value, strategic objectives, leadership, sales
and marketing feel closest to it because they're
the ones driving the strategy externally. They're
engaging with the customers. firsthand but underneath
them is finance it human resource operations
and oftentimes all those other departments we
are on the same team working towards the same
goals don't feel the connection to those does
that does that make sense yeah i mean i totally
get it like with regards to some you know a company's
mission which i think is what aligns most the
team however if that mission is in in our case
our mission is to help attractions massively
succeed and that's uh and and but at the same
time if you're doing hr work you may not feel
connected to that mission right i'm hoping that
i'm understanding you correctly that's correct
because i need every department needs to understand
we are working as a team team together. You've
heard, I'm sure, silos, siloed departments. Those
are created when people don't feel the connection
to the vision, missions, values, and strategic
objectives. When we all understand how we play
a role in that. That's when we create a robust
company. So my point is, first, you want to create
a strong strategic plan and a strategy. You want
to communicate it out effectively. You want to
connect the dots so everyone understands how
they fit into the strategic plan, strategic objectives.
And lastly, you want to reinforce things every
day, every day. So just I'll give you a kind
of a funny example people can resonate with.
One of it's not a vision statement, but it's
a statement made by a Harley Davidson executive.
And I'll throw it out to you and maybe your audience.
What does Harley Davidson sell? They sell motorcycles.
They sell apparel. They've got all the goods.
Ultimately, according to Harley Davidson executive,
what he says we sell is the ability for a 43
-year -old accountant to dress up in black leather,
drive through small towns and scare people. What
he's saying is, yes, we sell motorcycles, but
we sell something greater. We sell a lifestyle.
We make an emotional connection. And with that,
very much what you were saying, not only do they
sell a premium motorcycle, which in this. I love
this statement because it enables them to create
a point of differentiation for themselves. Let
Kawasaki and Honda sell motorcycles. We at Harley
sell something greater than that. And that allows
them to charge a premium price, number one. Number
two, they can sell other things like you said,
the apparel, the boots, belt buckles. All those
things are profit drivers, incremental sales
drivers. It's a beautiful model. So where I'm
going with this whole thing is I'm blabbing here
is. if i'm in a department and i don't understand
that we sell premium motorcycles and we're building
plans to sell a shitty excuse my friends a shitty
motorcycle that is away from the vision of harley
-davidson we sell premium motorcycles we sell
the best you know so everyone has to understand
that dynamic so we're all in sync of what we're
trying to uh if we're low ball in price on our
motorcycles that's not a premium motorcycle We
forgot what we're about. Does that, does that
make sense? Yeah. But I also love, I love what
you said about the example of like a 45 year
old moving into a small town, dressed in leather,
scaring the local community or whatever, whatever
that, I don't know the exact quote that you mentioned,
but you know, what that does is gives everyone
this vision of who that is, what they want. They
can reverse engineer so much from that idea.
Yeah, it's very simple. Yeah, it's very simple.
It's very cool. Thank you for sharing that. I
didn't know that about them. I mean, I don't
ride motorcycles, but even just hearing that.
No, I heard that quote several years back and
I use it all the time. I just think it's beautiful
because it speaks to they've created a point
of differentiation with themselves with that
statement. They can sell a premium motorcycle,
which is a good thing. They're going to make
more revenue from that. Through that vision and
mission that they've set up, they can sell all
these other cool little items that drive profitability
and incremental growth. I'm not just buying a
motorcycle. I'm buying belt buckles, shoes, bandanas,
boots. You know, it's a great business model.
And that's a smart strategic plan. And that's
something that everyone within the organization
of Harley can get behind and clearly understand.
It needs to be reinforced down. Well, and I think
I heard somewhere from somebody at some point,
I think actually their apparel, that part of
their business might even exceed or match. I
can't remember what it was, whether matched or
exceed what they were doing in selling their
motorcycles, which was fascinating to me because
your average person doesn't hear that name and
think this is an apparel company. Yeah, that's
right. You're right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I can't
remember whether I'm riffing here because I'm
passionate about this topic. I don't know where
the original question was. I hope I answered
it. No, I mean, you answered that question because
the question is, you know, how can you overcome,
you know, not having that clear strategic vision?
And this executive over there clearly says it
in a way that he's now aligning all of his team
and, you know, everything that they do. can't
align with that, including the retail and apparel,
which is why I think I was alluding to also the
reinforcement mechanism. You know, we teach people
training one time. We expect them to use it and
not reinforce it on a daily basis. That's the
same with vision, mission, values, strategic
objectives. If I if an employee deviates from
the vision, mission, values or strategic objectives.
He or she should be brought back in the loop
and reminded about what we do, reinforce why
we do. Here's what we do. Here's why we do it.
So it's building that muscle memory within the
organization. It's not enough to create one.
It should be a great, you should create one,
number one. Number two, it should be awesome
and create a point of differentiation. Three,
it should be communicated. But most importantly,
it needs to be reinforced as well, too. Yeah,
you know, that's interesting. The reinforcement
part is very interesting because, you know, one
of the things and I have to say this after hearing
that about Harley, it makes me want to maybe
rework my mission statement to be way cooler
than it is. But, you know, I and I do think that
what we do is pretty cool. But what I think is
is even more interesting is the reinforcement
piece. And I think that's actually a real challenge
for businesses that maybe, you know, maybe they
do have vision. Maybe they do have mission and
values clearly, you know, displayed on their
website, given to their teams in their handbooks.
But, you know, with regards to overcoming the.
not having that clear strategic vision. I think
you're right about the reinforcement piece for
sure. And I'm curious if you would mind giving
some examples of what does that reinforcement
look like? Yeah. Well, anything. Okay. I'll give
an example. One of my clients is a, it's a franchise.
They do donuts. Let's put it that way. And their
vision statement, I'll paraphrase now, it's something
about creating smiling faces, happy customers
or smiling faces every day or something like
it's really bubbly, uplifting. So there's a lot
of tension that goes on at those retail outlets.
And there could be issues with the staff, staff
treating leaders in a store or region manager
treating staff poorly or. staff treating customers
poorly. None of that ties to a smiling face,
happy workplace, right? You are not eating, drinking,
living your vision, mission, values in the daily
workplace. So there's your reinforcement has
to come in play. If a manager sees another manager
barking out, creating bad morale, that is a misalignment.
Versus our vision missions. And it needs to be
called out and reviewed and discussed. And same
with if a manager sees someone grumpy with a
customer. That's, again, not aligned to our vision
mission values. That needs to be called out and
training needs to be conducted to teach people
that, you know, here's our vision mission values.
Here's skills you learn from Steve. in dealing
with difficult customers or customer service,
things of that nature. Does that answer your
question? Yeah, I think that answers the question
a lot because, you know, a lot of it, you're
right, just goes back to proper training, right?
Did we give them the tools to align them and
reinforce this mission? You're right. If somebody's
not treating, if a manager, and, you know, I
don't like the word manager. I think I just saw
that. I was listening to it. Someone speak the
other day and they were saying that Gallup has
a book. I wish I could remember the book that
was talking about disengagement. And I'm sure,
as you know, in the work that you do, disengagement
is. what is hurting so many businesses out there,
especially small businesses that don't have that
alignment. They aren't reinforcing that, but
disengagement, I mean, what 70 % of employees
are disengaged. And I'm sure that a lot of that
goes back to what you're saying with regards
is having that clear strategic vision. Because
if you don't know where you're going, what you're
doing, and it's not transparent, it's not transparent
about what the goals of the company are, as you
said. I think it's very easily to have people
who become misaligned and or disengaged. That's
where the silos happen, departmental silos. That's
where bad attitudes happen. And think about it.
You have bad morale, high turnover. There's a
cost associated with that. I think I heard that
a mishire or a loss of a good hire can cost something
up to nine times base salary. Wow. Most companies
don't realize the cost associated with bad morale
or high turnover as well, too. I just thought
of another. I'll give you another example. It's
a high -level example, but it covers a lot of
industries I work with. But let's hypothetically
say we've created a premium product. like a Harley,
that we want to sell our customers. We don't
want to sell our crappy lower end items. We want
to focus on these premium items that bring revenue
to them, bring revenue to us. The sales teams
often forget. They get an objection from a customer.
They chicken out and they give something away
at the lowest price because it's the easiest
thing to do. That is not in alignment with what
we talked about. And it needs to be. I see that
one all the time. You know, salespeople want
the easy sale. They'll give price away. They'll
get something lowball just to give it, you know,
to make the sale. And that is that may not be
in alignment to what we're trying to do here.
We sell premium products. We don't want to sell
what our competition does. We want to create
a point of differentiation for our company. And
those are areas that I mean, we're reinforced.
It needs to take place. I saw a good visual the
other day. It has a. A bar that goes left to
right, green bar, and like quarter of the way
in there's a red line and it says training. And
then the work day, the rest of the time. Then
it says professional sports. It has the same
graphic, but it has practice, little thing game
day. Practice, little thing game day. So in sports,
we know to lay down fundamental skills for success
and we practice, we repeat, we watch film, we
reinforce. But we don't do that in the business
world. You know, and that's the thing where I
think there's a great opportunity for companies.
Yeah. Well, you know, it's funny that you brought
up sports, which I was just talking to my husband.
He was mentioning because we were talking about
this, like you said, training is a big part.
It's like the biggest part. Who is it? Oh, goodness.
Maybe somebody in the audience. Maybe you'll
know, Steve, that basketball player that's doing
500 shots a day minimum. Yeah. And the greatest
in the world. Yeah. He did stop. He did it every
day, even when he became even when he was seen
as the greatest. And I'm going to connect some
further dots to you about to that Victor Frank
objective or quote. please so in between stimulus
response there is a space in that response in
that space we have a chance to choose our response
what good training can do what a strong strategic
plan can do can give people rational thinking
things to fall back on in rural workplace scenarios
what i mean that i'll simplify it if a salesperson
does not know how to, he or she is not trained
on how to handle a customer objection. You know
what that is, right? The customer says no objection.
There's a chance that if that objection comes
back, the salesperson's gonna panic. They're
gonna get angry, push back, or they're gonna
shut down. They're not gonna know how to handle
it because they were never trained on how to
handle it. If they are trained on that, they're
gonna have the foundational structure on. how
to handle that. So the stimulus is the objection
I have time to fall back into. Steve trained
us on how to handle objections. Boom. Here, we're
going to handle that objection now. So what I'm
saying is a strong strategic plan, good training,
laid down, reinforced, can help that gap between
stimulus and response. If I'm not trained, if
I don't know where a strategic plan is, when
the real world... Stuff hits the fan, so to speak.
There's a chance I'm going to fall into an emotional
state of freeze, fight or flight versus handling
it rationally because I've been trained on it
or I clearly understand our strategic plan. I
know our vision, mission, values, and it's not
aligned. And here's how I have to handle it.
So all this structure reinforcement I'm talking
about can help us all make wiser workplace decisions.
Yeah, I love that. I love that. And you don't
want your team, you know, figuring it out on
your customers. Right. Like that's that's the
worst possible scenario. And that that doesn't
make them feel good. That doesn't make the customer
feel good. You know, I saw a statistic recently.
The number one reason people leave their job
is because the lack of confidence in what they
do. Well, that's solved by training. Well, one,
I wouldn't doubt that. Number two, that's one
reason I got into training as I did, because
I had those times where I didn't know what I
was doing and I was floundering. Fortunately,
most of my career, I did work for companies that
trained and developed their people. So I know
what good training is. I know the importance
of it. And I know the other side of that table,
you know, where it's either no training or bad
training. and the repercussions of that. You
know, it's not good. It's not good. Well, it's
interesting. You know, I heard a quote one time,
and I don't remember who the CEO was, but they
were asked, like, how do you value the return,
you know, the ROI on training your team? Like,
what is the ROI on training your team? And he
said something along the lines of, well, what's
the ROI if I don't? That's right. Yeah. What's
the ROI if I don't, which is why I'm so glad
people like you exist in the world that are helping
businesses do that, because that's probably my
first. I love attractions. I love what we do
at Gate Master, but my first love is really business
owners. I think there's business owners and people
who are operating businesses and trying to do
really big things with these big visions and
mission. But a lot of times, like the tools that
that you're talking about aren't. first nature
to most people because in most cases you didn't
go into business to in the case of maybe the
the the donut chain you work with they didn't
go into business to build business systems they
went into business to create were probably really
great donuts make people smile right and so you
know that doesn't come as Most people's first
nature, I think, to be thinking about these other
things, the tools and how we get people. The
other thing I want to mention in that Gallup
book and if I maybe post it in the chat later,
once I can remember what what what it's called.
But the number one thing that comes up with regards
to like workplace problems is management. Right.
So you have disengagement, which is directly
tied to bad management. And bad management, in
my opinion, and maybe you'll agree with me, is
the lack of training for your team. Oh, no. Yeah.
Yeah. If I have this coaching skills, if I don't
have know how to deal with different workplace
situations and coach and train my team, there
is going to be problems even tying into when
I talk about freeze, fight or flight. If I am
not aware of I talk about in my second book in
defensive adversity. Two important parts of the
brain, the cortex and the limbic system. Our
limbic system is what we're born with. It's our
emotional brain. When we're functioning in our
limbic system, our response to negative stimulus
can be freeze, fight or flight or some combination
of those. You can imagine that's not where you
want to be in the workplace. Yes. The other part
of the brain is our cortex. The cortex does grow,
transform and evolve through time. through our
life experiences, good and especially bad, through
our education system, through training and development.
So what I look at is training and development
can help people build their cortex muscles so
when workplace situations happen, they're going
to respond. rationally using their cortex part
of the brain because I know how to do this because
I was trained to do that. Right. Or I was trained
to be a leader. I know how to coach. I know how
to deal with a difficult customer. I know how
to give constructive feedback. If that structure
isn't there and something happens in the workplace,
the chance of freeze, fight, or flight in someone
is going to come out or it's going to manifest
more often than not. So, you know, fight might
be anger, short fuse, impatience, taking control
of a situation. Flight might be not dealing with
it, acting like it's not happening. Oh, I'm not
seeing it. You know, freeze could be shutting
down and not explaining your true thoughts of
something. My point is training a manager to
be a manager, a leader, is imperative in how
he or she shapes and leads his or her team. And
that training builds that cortex muscle so they
can respond properly with real -world work environments,
work situations. And that ties back into that
Viktor Frankl. um quote as well to in between
stimulus response what i want to do is through
training is help optimize between stimulus response
what happens in the brain whether it's simultaneous
or whether i have some time to think through
it if i'm trained properly something happens
in workplace boom i'm going to know how to handle
that i have a difficult employee i'm going to
handle that in a product proactive productive
way rather than losing my patients or getting
angry or so on and so forth Sure. It's building
that muscle memory, too. And right. Like even
even with what we do, I mean, I'm in a little
bit of a different aspect of the business. We're
more focused on the technology around revenue
systems. But when we originally built our first
product back in the early, early 2000s, our founder,
who was a chiropractor. It was real focused on
like how the body aligned and was it ergonomically
correct, the way that people were moving and
what the muscle memory would look like if they
were properly trained on how to use the product
and the best ways to do that. So I think this
is a really fascinating conversation, which I
want to ask you about your books. You mentioned
your books. Can you tell the audience a little
bit about what you've done there? Yeah, I'm actually
a three -time publisher and my pride and joys
are in defense of adversity and thrive in the
face of adversity. So both of these really hone
in on that Viktor Frankl, the comment I made
about cortex versus limbic system and really
understanding the base premise behind the book
is adversity is meant. to happen in our lives
they help us grow transform and evolve into the
people we're meant to become so through that
book i give some facts about the uh about adversity
how people overcome it what they ultimately become
by overcoming it then i teach people to understand
that brain dynamic that i talked about cortex
versus limbic system which i actually learned
from a martial arts coach and then i tie that
into um understanding ourselves, understanding
how we respond to adversity based on our personality
style or behavior style. Are you familiar with
DISC? Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. The certified behavioral
analyst, which you met is DISC. So what I've
done, I've tied DISC into how a person functions
in their best state of mind and their worst state
of mind by DISC, by the three DISC styles. You
know, if I'm a dominant style, I'm competitive.
I get things done. I'm a go getter. But on the
negative side, that's the cortex part of the
brain. If you're in the emotional part of the
brain, you're a fighter. You get angry. You get
short cues. So I connect the dots with the four
disc styles. And when someone's functioning in
the optimal brain set versus the emotional one.
So they make better decisions, stimulus, response.
And then I have some real world. Skills people
can use to self -reflect and reconnect themselves
to learn from any situation, good and especially
bad as well, too. I subscribe to the fact that
people can learn. You'll learn your greatest
lessons from your failures, your defeats. That's
where the greatest lessons lie. So I encourage
people not to be afraid. As long as you're learning
a lesson from adversity, from difficulties, from
disappointment. then it's really not a negative,
it can be a positive. And that builds your cortex
brain as well too. If I'm shielded from adversity
or if I'm shielding others from adversity, I'm
not building their cortex muscle. And then when
real world things happen, chances are these people
are going to respond in an emotional state of
freeze, fight or flight, which is not productive.
Yeah, I love it. I love that you brought up the...
You know, the inoculation to stress. Because
a lot of times we don't want to mention that
that's actually part of the job sometimes, right?
Like, I mean, imagine being a firefighter or
an EMT. Like, they definitely have to. And it's
interesting that you brought up martial arts.
That was something that taught me. I did. My
husband and I used to own a gym. And he's a mixed
martial arts coach. And we did Krav Maga back
in the early 2000s. And when I was training,
I remember one time. uh, there was this, I was
holding the pad for this big guy. He was huge.
And he's like, should I go, you know, light on
her? And they were like, no, go ahead and give
it to her. Right. And he punched the bag and
just my, I wasn't even upset. I mean, I agreed
to it. It was totally consensual. Like we were
training, but my, my, uh, I don't know what part
of the brain you would call this, but my, my
body's response was to cry. And he's like, are
you? And this poor guy was mortified. He's like,
are you OK? I'm like, I'm totally cool. I don't
even understand why this is happening right now.
But as you said, the fight or flight, it was
just my the way that I responded. But the lesson
that I learned there was that I had to inoculate
myself to certain levels of stress in order to
be successful. areas of my life. And it goes
beyond, you know, training for martial arts or
self -defense. It's in our businesses. It's in
training our teams. It's in dealing with people,
our customers. If you are inoculated to the stress,
you're going to make better decisions. Right.
And you're, and so that's been, this was 20 years
ago, but that has been a lesson that I've learned
and brought forward for many, many years. And
maybe that was a failure, like you said, that
I just learned from, you know, cause you're right.
Let this guy punch me full speed, but. Well,
let's her husband. I am a Muay Thai practitioner.
I don't know if you know what that is. Everything
we're speaking on to this ties into because I
I taught the word in Thailand for Muay Thai fighters
for relax is Sabai Sabai. So what I work with
my coach on to help keep me in the cortex is
I have him push me in very uncomfortable places.
corner me, tire me out, overwhelm me. And what
I'm trying to get him to do is help me learn
how to stay calm with all this chaos, to see
things in all this chaos. And it's hard as hell
because, you know, you're getting a kick, you're
hard and stuff, but it's helping me translate
sabai sabai, thinking in the cortex, falling
back on my training. falling back on all those
things he taught me and staying calm under pressure.
And that's it's transferring from there into
my business life, too, because if you can stay
calm while you're getting your butt beat and
see things and work your way out of it, it's
going to parlay into your personal life as well
or professional life as well, too. You know,
one of my biggest clients, Stanley Black and
Decker, they say we are in a VUCA world, volatility,
uncertainty, change and ambiguity. is the new
norm. And so my premise is, if we can be more
strategic thinking, more strategic leaders, think
rationally rather than emotionally, that can
be a point of differentiation for the leader
and the organization, because we're in this VUCA
world, which I totally agree with. So thinking
logically, thinking rationally, only when we're
thinking rationally logically in our cortex part
of the brain, are we going to be able to solve
problems. Are we going to be able to see a competitive
advantage? Are we going to minimize conflict?
Are we going to say the right things? Yes. If
we're in an emotional state, we're not going
to be able to solve problems. We're going to
create conflict. We may say things we soon regret
later. So it's the importance of staying in that
cortex part of our brain during these VUCA times,
which will be, in my opinion, a point of differentiation.
Well, and I think a lot of what you're saying
is resiliency, right? It's being resilient. And
when you, you know, you, you, to me, I think
being resilient is something that happens over
time. When you've been introduced to certain
stresses, this is why it's so important to train
managers because that's what's going to keep
them from being bad managers. I mean, nobody
wants to be, my husband always has this saying
when he's on stage, he says, You could ask a
thousand kids, not one of them is going to say
I want to be managed. That's right. When I grow
up, right? Nobody wants that. But, you know,
being resilient is something that we earn to
some degree, like you're saying, through training,
through practice, through understanding different
mindsets around adversity. I know in one of your,
in your book, you... one of the takeaways in
your books is the defense of adversity. So I
kind of love that we talked a little bit about
self -defense because I think that's maybe along
the lines of what you're talking about in this
book. And, you know, actually, would you elaborate
on that? I'm real curious. In defense of adversity
means I'm defending adversity. Adversity is okay.
It's okay to have. It's brought into our lives
to help us. Again, grow, transform and evolve.
I mean, let's take something simplistic like
lifting weights. Do we gain more muscle from
curling five pounds or 50 pounds? More resistance
creates better muscles. Do we build better endurance
with the wind or against the wind? You know that
I mean, Mother Nature is teaching us this lesson.
You know, one of my favorite quotes is. You know,
I can't even remember. It's a diamond. What's
a diamond before it's a diamond? It's a piece
of coal. You know, the only way diamond is through
friction and pressure. You know, I think Mother
Nature gives us its lessons in many ways that
through our adversity is how we become the people
we were meant to become. So I'm not saying it's
easy. I'm not saying I rush out and seek difficulties.
But what I'm saying is two things. One, you can
be sure adversity is going to happen. I mean,
let's not, you can't hide from it. It is going
to find you. That's number one. So accept that
it's a part of life. Number two, acknowledge
that it is a chance for me to grow or a company
to grow or to learn a lesson. So if you take
that attitude, this is important for a couple
of reasons, especially the acceptance side. Remember
what I said about the limbic system and the cortex,
the rational brain versus the emotional brain.
If I accept that diversity is a part of life,
There's a higher opportunity for me to stay in
that cortex versus me not accepting it. If something
happens, I'm like, oh, Jesus, I'm already putting
myself into a negative state. It's like, okay,
here it is. Now what am I going to do about it?
I either can fall back on training. I can fall
back on education. I can fall back on past life
experiences. Or I can say, I'm going to learn
a lesson from this moving forward. So that's
all, you know, so, so that's the importance of,
of accepting the diversity support. Like it,
it, it transfers that ability to stay in the
cortex versus immediately, you know, going to
that. Yeah. And when we're thinking about it,
this is important not to allow yourself for that
to happen. Because if I get angry, I can't get
on that unangry like that. I can't all of a sudden
say, oh, I'm not mad anymore. It may take time.
I may say the wrong thing. I may make a bad decision.
You know, same goes with shutting down, freezing
or hiding from some things. A lot of damage can
be done in that time frame. And that's why you
don't want that to happen in the first place.
You want to keep that mind open and know that.
And that's why I'm saying training is so important.
Having a good strategic plan is so important.
It gives people within an organization a foundation
to fall back on to make wise decisions. I've
been trained on this. It's in our policies and
procedures. It's my KPI. It's what our vision,
mission, and values said. If we're all falling
back on these things we've been trained or communicated
about, we're all going to function on it as a
well -oiled machine. But if it's not created,
it's not communicated, it's not taught, it's
not reinforced, then you're going to have all
these silos run in a lot of different directions.
Right. I'm curious, where do you fall on the
disc? I'm a high, believe it or not, I'm a high
S with some secondary D. So I'm actually more
of an introvert with a dominant style. And what's
interesting. when i talk about this cortex limbic
system when i was doing the research for my second
book in defensive adversity and i was connecting
the dots between the disc styles and those four
so basically dominant styles are when they're
in that emotional state not the good state when
they're in the emotional state sure that dominant
styles are fighters influencers are flighters
steadiness styles are freezers compliance styles
are freezer fighters And researching this and
putting this all together really helped me because
it spoke to me. This is exactly what happens
to me when I fall in, when I get emotional. I
shut down. That's my high S, a freezer. I internalize
things. I don't say anything. I might nod my
head like everything's okay, but my mind's going
18 ,000 miles an hour. Then my dominant style
kicks in and Italian Steve comes out. could think
about that people are like this guy's okay he's
calm cool collected he seems fine and boom what
the hell happened to steve i i realize i do this
so what it's helped me do is learn i've got to
communicate things that are bothering me or or
call it out or participate or give my two cents
because if i don't it's going to fester and that
italian steve's going to come out so it's helped
me and i talk about my book understanding better
are our emotional triggers are triggers and emotional
responses so what are those situations events
or people who can set us into a state of freeze
fight or flight and how do i respond am i a freezer
fighter or flighter so through that knowledge
i'm going to be able to better self -manage so
hypothetically let's say i have a really difficult
customer who drives me nuts i know he or she
is a trigger for me and i can mentally prepare
for that and not allow that to happen and you
know then and i can manage that better so am
i perfect no i still step in my doo -doo um however
I don't step in my doo -doo as much, number one.
Number two, when I do, I'm able to recognize
it and get out of it faster, if that makes sense.
I'm able to say I'm shutting down. I'm not speaking
my mind. You know, I'm able to get out of that
faster. So through understanding my triggers,
responses, my disc style, I've been better able
to stay in the cortex during VUCA -type scenarios.
Well, you know what? I really, I, I, I love this
because I think that it's so, you know, when
you talk about investing in people and your team,
you know, one of the things that I really, uh,
I really appreciate about disc is I'm a high
influencer, which I'm sure you probably could
have guessed a high influencer, but I'm married
to a high driver or deep. And not only did, Doing
this assessment for my team and the people that
I work with and my husband is on the team that
I work with. So. you know, it, it made everything
better in my life. Cause as you said, you know,
you know what your triggers are, you know what,
how somebody can trigger you and better control
of that. But one of the things that I loved about
it is, and, and I, and, and, and I were bumping
up on time. Cause I think I could talk to you
about this stuff all day. Um, is that when, when
you understand where people are at or even understand
the different styles. then you have a lot more.
This is a fantastic tool. This gives you so much
more understanding of the people around you and
that you're working with. Not only did it teach
me how to talk to other people, but also being
married to a high driver, there used to be, when
he'd start coming in here and cracking the whip
and people would be like, what's going on? It
allowed even the people who didn't like that.
You know, the stabilizers, the S's or even the
analyzers, like pretty much everybody in all
the other quadrants don't probably care for that.
Right. But it allowed us to even accept him.
Exactly. Right. And I think it's so important.
I think there's so much gold in what you're offering
here and what you're teaching us today is that
you need these tools. You need to understand
each other. You need to understand where you're
going emotionally, mentally, physically, because
I think sometimes our emotional responses show
up in all sorts of ways, right? You're managing
people. You're going to have hard times. And
even if you're just dealing with customers and
guests, that's inevitable. Yep. So understanding
who you are, how you respond to things, and how
someone might trigger you is super important.
It's helped me a ton. Absolutely. That's raising
your EQ. I talk a lot about EQ, too, and three
facets I talk about is intrapersonal skills,
self -knowledge, interpersonal skills, knowledge
of those people with whom you're engaging with,
then situational awareness. It's how I and we
will respond under various workplace scenarios.
If we're going through a change initiative, if
I'm the leader, I'm going to know the styles
of my team and what buttons to push to get them
to accept the change initiative, even if they
don't like that. So what we're talking about
is also raising that emotional intelligence using
DISC as one of those tools. Yeah, and what a
great thing to give. to the people who work with
your team, the people who are out there serving
your customers and helping you move forward with
your mission, whether you're an owner, operator,
or somebody who's just assisting with the business.
So thank you so much for what you do, because
I think bringing, humanizing the work experience
is super important, especially in today's world.
And even looking at the stress, I was fortunate
a couple of years ago to get to hear from the
founder of the Spartan races. And he made a really
interesting point that, you know, a lot of people
today, because everything is so easy today. And
if we're being completely real, I mean, with
AI, we didn't even get to touch on that. There
were so many things I wanted to ask you that
we didn't get to talk about today. So I got to
have you back. We got to do this again so we
can talk about that. But with AI and. You know,
you can have something delivered in two hours
from Amazon with everything being so easy. One
of the things that he talked about was inoculating
ourselves to stress. This is why the Spartan
race exists, because there are people out there
going, I have to do hard stuff. Yeah. Yeah. I
have to go push myself. I mean, I went with I
got in from Miami. I told you earlier before
the show at I got in at 2 a .m. I had an appointment
with my trainer. Nine o 'clock this morning.
And he's like, what are you doing here? And I'm
like, I'm committed to this and it's hard. And,
you know, but it's important that we do hard
stuff because I'm going to be honest. Every morning
I get up and I go lift weights. There's nothing
that can come through my door that's as difficult.
Yeah. Right. And so it is super important that
we understand these concepts. And I appreciate
what you you're bringing to the show today and
your insights and knowledge. So thank you for
being here. No, thank you. That's part, you know,
going back to that, it's part of my Muay Thai
practice. If I showed people my shins now, they'd
think I was nuts. But, you know, I like being
put in those uncomfortable positions because
if I can stay comfortable, live, and that's my
new word now. I have a bunch of shirts. Remember
this, Sabai Sabai. It's S -A -B -A -I, S -A -B
-A -I. And it means basically relax, relax. So
be in that, even though you're in all this turmoil
in a kickboxing match. how can you stay calm
and when you stay calm you your brain's functioning
on all cylinders you're going to be able to see
how to counter and do all these things and that
translates into your personal and professional
life as well too in the workplace you know when
you're dealing with these stress -filled situations
if you can stay calm survive survive stay calm
in that workplace Again, you can solve problems.
You can be creative. You can say the right things.
You know, it is a point of differentiation in
this world today. I truly believe that. Yeah,
well, I believe it too. And, you know, I'm a
huge believer that comfort is a dream killer,
right? You got to get uncomfortable sometimes,
especially if you want to be great. So, you know,
get out there and do hard things like you said.
And it's better if we do it to ourselves, right?
You're going and getting kicked in the shins.
I'm going and getting my butt kicked by my trainer,
you know, who I'm afraid of. So I make sure to
show up every day and check in with my cardio.
You know, I don't mess around, right? Because
it's hard. So thank you for helping us understand
how hard is an important part of. Being open
to doing the things that are hard is an important
part of what we do, and training your team is
certainly hard. But people like you exist, and
you can help guide and companies navigate through
that. So before I let you go, if somebody is
interested in doing this with you or contacting
you or has questions about what we talked about
today, what's the best way for them to get a
hold of you? Yeah, shoot me an email or give
me a call. My cell phone is 813 -777. My email
address is real simple, steve at symbol, mylastname
.com. That's probably not so easy. You can see
it on the screen, though, but steve at gavatorta
.com. I'd also urge people to Google me. I have
a ton of information out there, good content.
If you want to see some good stuff on YouTube,
a lot of the stuff we talked about today, you
can get some free stuff up there on YouTube.
Google me. You can see me on some TV events,
other podcasts, webinars and all that good stuff.
And on TV, actually. And, you know, there's and
get my books on Amazon to shameless plug. You'll
find anything you want about me and find a way
to reach me as well, too. But I love what I do.
I'll tell people I don't work anymore because
I love what I do. So if anyone if anyone has
any questions, feel free to reach out or I'd
be happy to chat. Hey, well, thank you for being
here, Steve. I certainly appreciate you. Thanks
for the invite. I appreciate it. Of course. We'll
see you soon. Okay. Bye -bye. Bye. Well, you
know, if you guys are watching this show, I've
got to say, this is one of my favorite things
to talk about because I think strategic resilience.
You know, we didn't get to cover all. I have
so many questions for Steve. So I always say
if that if that happens during a show where I
don't get all my questions answered, that's just
a reminder that this person has to come back
because I'm sure like me, you probably have more
questions and things for Steve that would give
you insights that will help you be better at
what you're doing. And if you're watching this
show, I want to thank you today for one, what
you're doing to invest in yourself. by learning
more about what you do, where you've got to go,
the things that you can gain from having these
tools, and the people out there who can help
you. I love hosting this show because I get to
meet people like Steve. I get to learn from people
like Steve. And I know I'm getting better and
better every single time. So I want to hear from
you in the chat. If you're watching this on replay,
hashtag replay that. Let us know that you were
here. If you're on, one of the podcast channels
listening to us, please repost this. Let other
people know that there's information out there
like this and you're just investing a little
bit of your time listening to a show like this
and getting yourself knowledge and tools to be
better at what you do. And I really, really appreciate
Steve coming on the show. Thank you to everybody
who joined us. A quick last shameless plug for
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And I'm your host at the live with Sandra show.
Thank you for being here with me today. Thank
you for listening. Thank you to the team who
puts all of this together. Thank you to the audience
that makes this possible for your support and
to all of our amazing guests like Steve, who
keeps showing up and sharing just gold with all
of you. We'll see you guys on the next live with
Sandra.