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. All right. Welcome to
today's episode of Live with Sondra. I'm your
host, Sondra 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 sponsor, 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If you are stuck in clunky or outdated and platforms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 gate master
.info forward slash replacement to learn more
and to schedule your free discovery call at gate
master 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. Victor 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 Gavitorta 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, 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. uh the core key word in there is custom
customized custom 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 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 the horse
and buggy because uh their head was in the santa
bat 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
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, 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. uh create immediate usage of
skills but most importantly long -term retention
of those skills as well too yeah yeah i don't
want to be a one and done with my clients and
say oh this was a nice thing today um then they
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 so 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
that's 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 in 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 going on. 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 slash
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. 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 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 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. Cause I need every department needs
to understand. We are working as a 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 French, a shitty
motorcycle. That is away from the vision of Harley
Davidson. We sell premium motorcycles. We sell
the best. You know, everyone has to understand
that dynamic. So we're all in sync of what we're
trying to work. 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.
Yep. 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. 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,
but either 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, and I do think that
what we do is pretty cool. But what I think 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 the
um 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 you know bubbly uplifting so
there's a lot of tension that goes on at the
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. Sure. 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, mission, and it needs to be called out
and reviewed and discussed. And same 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 learned 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 needs to be enforced. 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 align 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
that needs to take place. I saw a good visual
the other day. It has a bar that goes, you know.
left to right green bar and in, in like quarter
of the way. And there's a red line and it says
training. And there's then, then the work day,
the rest of the time, then it says professional
sports. It has the same graphic, but it has a
practice, a little thing, game day practice,
little thing, game day practice. 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. Yep. He didn't stop. He did it
every day, even when he was seen as the greatest.
And I'm going to connect some further dots to
that Viktor Frankl objective or quote. So in
between stimulus and 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 by 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 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 wanted to mention in that Gallup
book, and I'll maybe post it in the chat later
once I can remember 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. 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. Freeze
could be shutting down and not explaining your
true thoughts of something. So 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 and that that training builds
that cortex muscle though so they can respond
properly with real world works work environments
work situations and that ties back into that
victor frankl um quote as well too 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 proactive, productive
way rather than losing my patience or getting
angry or so on and so forth. Sure. It's building
that muscle memory too, right? Like even with
what we do, I mean, I'm in a little bit of a
different aspect of the business because we're
more focused on the technology around revenue
systems. But when we originally built, Our first
product back in the early 2000s, our founder,
who was a chiropractor, 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 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 understanding ourselves, understanding
how we respond to adversity based on our... personality
style or behavior style. Are you familiar with
this? Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. The certified behavioral
analyst, which you met is DISC. So what I've
done, I've tied this into how a person functions
in their best state of mind and their worst state
of mind. by DISC, by the three disc styles. So,
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 ways, 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. So, yeah,
I love it. I love that you brought up the, you
know, the inoculation distress. 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 we, he's a mixed martial arts
coach. And we did, we did Krav Maga back in the
early two thousands. And when I was training,
I remember one time 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. We were training. But
my, I don't know what part of the brain you would
call this, but my body's response was to cry.
And he's like, are you? And this poor guy was
mortified. He's like, are you okay? I'm like,
I'm totally cool. I don't even understand why
this is happening right now. As you said, the
fight or flight, it was just 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 in areas of
my life. And it goes beyond 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.
That's right. Um, and you're, uh, 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 here I let this guy punch me full
speed, but. Well, let's her husband. I am a Muay
Thai practitioner on it. You know, if you know
what that is, everything we're speaking on to
this ties into, because I, um, 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 they 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 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. 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. 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, resilient
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 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. Right. It's like,
OK, 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. 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 the 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. 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 or 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 I can manage that better. So am
I perfect? No. I still step in my doo -doo. 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. Yeah. 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. 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 interpersonal 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.
You know, if I know part of if we're going through
a change initiative, I'm going 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. You know, even if they don't like
that. So what we're talking about is also raising
that emotional intelligence using disk is one
of those tools. Yeah. And what a great thing
to give to the people 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 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 for 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. 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 yep i have to go push myself i mean
i went with i 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 and 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. Cause 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, 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, 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, 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 on this,
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, 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, 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 net, let us know
that you were here. If you're on, uh 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 and A quick last
shameless plug for our sponsor, GateMaster Technology,
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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.