Saturday, March 14, 2020

Failing Forward - Chrissy Chromczak

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VoiceAmerica  0:04  
One problem facing people at many levels of business is how to make time for a work life and a personal life. Do you find that one seems to keep getting in the way of the other? This is the work life balance with Rick Morris. Even if you're not involved in the business world, you'll have a lot to gain by tuning into today's show. Now, here's your host, Rick A.. Morris.

Chrissy Chromczak  0:28  
Good evening everyone. This is not Rick Morris. This is actually Chrissy chrome Zach, and I am a fan of the show, believe it or not, and when I asked Rick what he was going to be doing the show on today, he told me he was doing a replay. And since he couldn't be on for you all I asked if I would be able to jump on and see if maybe I could get my hand on this one because we have been talking about doing a podcast for a little bit. I was on previously with one of my friends and Mandela fever and we were talking about today. a podcast called to have your five. That's still in the works. I don't know if it will be with Amanda. But we still may be considering that podcast. So be on the lookout for that. But the reason that Rick couldn't be on and join us today was because he was busy teaching and introduction to disc, and positive thinking to the juniors participating in the entrepreneurship Academy at Hoover high school today. So he's always busy giving his services and offering to help other people. And that was one of the things that he was doing today. So that's why he couldn't be here. But today, I wanted to talk about failure. Because I was GTS googling that stuff. And I googled the word failing. So the first thing that popped up on the screen was the definition, and it said, failing is a weakness, especially in character, a short coming. Now listen, guys Nobody wants to be told that they're weak or not good enough. So I thought I'd talk about failure today, and how we can fail forward, how we can use failure for success. So for me, and it's so funny, I should tell you a quick story about even jumping on the podcast. I've failed in the beginning, but it was okay, because they told me they're going to fix it. But anyway, I always worry about the what ifs. And the biggest What if for me, is what if I fail? And when my mentor asks me why I didn't do the thing that made me uncomfortable. I asked him a bunch of what ifs? Well, what if this happens, or what if that happens, and you want to know his answer?

He says, What if it doesn't? And I'm like, Oh, well, I didn't think about it. That

But I want to tell you something. He was the first one in my 37 years of life who approached it that way. Because most people guys, they were telling me they're so busy telling me why something wouldn't work. But then again, most of those people were average. So did I really want to be like them anyway, the average life that they're living and are still living is one that they created. And I don't know if you're okay with being average, that I'm that many of us strive to be somebody greater than the person that we are today. We have visions, and we have dreams. But we get used to living these basic average lives in the comfort zone. And when we get comfortable, then we don't want to move. So you can think of it As the comfort zone is actually the danger zone. And when we're in the comfort zone, we try to avoid failure as much as possible. And then we stay right where we are never making any progress in life. So let me just tell you a quick story. There's a bunch of kids that I teach. And a lot of what we do is building confidence or leadership with horses. And I have one kid who he's so scared of horses, but all he wants to do is ride the horse. Now, most kids, they just wouldn't come. But he has such a great passion to try and ride the horse. That whole cut he in the beginning, what he did was he just came every day to the barn and got around the horses. Then eventually we got him brushing the horses, and then eventually we would saddle up the horse and get them next to the horse just on like a Off block that he could a mounting block is called where he could just get on the block and be next to the horse almost like he was going to get on. And then we had him leaning over the horse not even riding yet but just, you know, leaning on the horse. And it was a just a very slow progression. And you know what, that boy that was so scared of horses. He got on the horse and did it because he came and he made the progress to do it. It was such a big thing that he wanted to do and he had the vision of doing it. And it's so funny too, because the other day my son came home with some homework and he's five years old and I'm the the sheet it was, you know, any words that end in at color red, any words that end in i g color green, and he messed up the paper a little bit because he read it wrong and he got so upset with himself. And I thought about it in school, in school failure really, it makes us feel like we're stupid. And I can point this out. And another example where my other son, Jacob, who is seven, he does a weekly assignment at school, and they have probably like, I don't know, 50 questions. They're all math problems, and they have to do it within a certain amount of time. And the teacher he will highlight with a red pen, all the ones that he got wrong, and all the ones that he didn't get to answer didn't do in time. And he could have gotten, you know, 90% of the questions right. But all the ones that he got wrong, is what is circled and what's sticking out. And I tell Jacob, I said it's okay to fail. Failure does not make you a failure. Failure makes you brave and brave people. They don't let failure define them. They let failure teach them. So I told him, I said, it's okay to fail. But it's not okay to try. Because he thought that if he just did do it, that then he wouldn't fail. And we have to remember that life's greatest lessons are gained from our losses. Because every loss can become a positive learning experience.

And going back to the beginning, when I was telling you about how I'm scared to fail because of the what ifs, well, being scared doesn't get me anywhere. So it doesn't keep me from failing, right? We're all going to fail anyway, we all do it. So here I am today, on the podcast, probably failing. And you know what? It's cool because there's just Tons of people that keep telling me that they want to do a podcast, but you don't see them trying. Because they're waiting to be perfect. But you're never going to get there until you act like my students who came to the barn every day, who brushed the horse who got next to the horse who got finally on the horse, you have to do it, you have to take action. So we just have to remember that failure isn't permanent. And we have to look at the struggle as a beautiful thing. It's a sign that you're in the midst of what separates the great from the average. Because 99% of the world sees that struggle as a hardship up time to pack it up. No, I gotta walk away. I didn't succeed the first time. Or maybe they're intimidated by whatever that goal is. But the best people the champion The people that are very successful they look at struggled differently. And they know that failure is an indication that they're really making some progress. And so, you know, I'm sure that you've suffered a setback. Or maybe you were the recipient of bad news or felt the disappointment. I mean, we see that plastered all over social media all the time, right? We've all been there. Nobody likes to fail. But we have to take the problems and the losses and the failures that we're all destined to experience and we need to learn from them. So one of the one of my greatest mentors is john Maxwell, and his words of encouragement, have inspired millions of people to reevaluate their choices and priorities. He stands that. Life is about learning. And we use the lessons that we learned to become better. So each day, we need to sit down and look at what worked and what didn't work. JOHN always says that experience isn't the best teacher evaluated experience is. And when if you look at a sports team, you know, if they lose, they go back, they review the videos, they talk about what went right, what went wrong, so that they can be better for next time. And even you know, if you're going to a conference, I had a conference this past fall that I put on, it was a leadership and personal growth conference. And I told the attendees I said, you can be here and you can experience all of this. But if you don't take something from the conference and act on it a CT. So what is one thing that you're going to act on? What is one thing you're going to change the sea? And what is one thing that you're going to teach, take action on it, and do something with it. Don't just leave here and do nothing, because you're not evaluating anything that you've learned. So we're going to continue talking about this after the break because we have to go there to pay Rick's bills, as he would say, and we will be back with you after these words.

VoiceAmerica  11:43  
Are you frustrated with the overall productivity of your project management processes? Do you lack consistency and project delivery? Our squared consulting provides end to end services to assist companies of all sizes and realizing and improving the value of project management. Whether you want to build a project management office, train project managers or learn how to bring the oversight and governance to your project processes, r squared has tailored best practices to help you in all areas of project management, visit r squared consulting.com are you getting the most out of your project management software. In many cases, it is not the software that is failing but the implementation limitations or processes surrounding the use of that software. r squared can analyze your current use and help improve your return on investment. r squared can also suggest the best software for your organization and goals and assist in the selection implementation and training. Allow r square to ensure that you are getting the value of your investment. Visit r squared consulting.com today

from the boardroom to you voice America Business Network.

You are tuned in to the work life balance to reach Rick A. Morris or his guest today, we'd love to have you call into the program at 1-866-472-5790. Again, that's 1-866-472-5790 if you'd rather send an email Rick can be reached at our Morris at r squared consulting.com. Now back to the work life balance.

Chrissy Chromczak  13:30  
And we're back. This is Chrissy chrome Zack again, talking to you today about failure and how we can use failure to be successful and to fail forward. So, living means loving what you do, right? We all want to love the things that we do and that is living our best life. So if you have to fail here and there to do what you want to do in life, then Soviet Who cares if you failed? You have to love success, more than you fear failure. Don't get to the end of your life thinking what could have been just because you were worried maybe about what somebody would think. If you did those things that you really wanted to do. The thing is that, you know, most people they give up, because failure makes them feel worthless. And like we talked about before, nobody enjoys failing. We have to change our mindset that it's okay to fail. And if, if you think about the statistics, actually, there's, if they say only 1% of people make it to the top. Well, that's because only 1% of people stick with the program long enough to see the results. So think about You know, if you said that you were going to go to the gym, not a lot of people stick it out, you don't see the results from day to day, you have to go every single day, and be disciplined enough to stick with the program. So the 1% of people at the top, that doesn't mean that we only have a 1% chance to make it to the top, it means that we can't behave like the other 99%.

So,

in my mind, I mean, at my mind, my wheels are always turning, and I always have all these great ideas. I come up with a new idea every day.

And we have to be disciplined enough to try all of those ideas. Just like I said, My mentor tells me before he tells me all my ideas are great ideas. I said Why do you always say that you're the only person that tells me that My ideas are great. You never told me I have a bad idea. You just tell me I should go ahead and try it. Well, why does he say that? It's because he wants me to fail? Because he knows that when I fail, I'm going to learn, and what am I going to learn? I'm going to learn if I liked it, if I didn't like it, if it works, if it didn't work, the biggest disservice that you can do guys to somebody is to give them the answer. And I hated it when I learned that because I always wanted to know what, what's the answer, I'm a person of certainty. I want to know what people think I take their advice. But at the end of the day, we have to know that we have to fail to learn. How many things didn't you do? Or how many chances didn't you take because you were worried about what other people would think? I want to talk to you about a quick quote that I saw at my cousin john. He's awesome. He has a rated our sports hub show. If you want to find them on Instagram, by the way, it's sports hub 518. But he has a podcast called sports hub radio. And he's hilarious. But at his high school graduation and this was years ago, he had a theme focused around a quote from a Hockey Hall of Famer Wayne Gretzky, and Wayne Gretzky said, You miss 100% of the shots that you never take. Whoops. that's saying something. I since that day, never forgot that quote. You have to take action and you have to try. Think about all the different accidental inventions that came about just because people were trying something right. So if we think about equipment like pacemakers, X ray images, the microwave, all those were accidents playdough, matchsticks, safety glass, even potato chips cornflakes in Coca Cola and medications, penicillin, Viagra. And the most famous one of all post it notes. Could you imagine life without some of those things. And it's all because of failures. We have to know why we want something and we have a burning desire to achieve it. And when we punch that destination into our GPS, our trip can change along the way. There's a million different ways that we can get to that destination are always going to end up in the same spot if we know what that is. Sometimes it might just take longer because we're learning along the way. Maybe there was an accident or roadwork that we have to have But the point that I'm trying to make to you is that we don't know what's on the road until we go until we take action.

So

the lessons are the power of our success, right? The lessons in that failure. But failure itself, it doesn't always lead to success either. We need to learn from the failure. But the problem is that most people have a negative relationship with failure. We need to remember it's okay to fail. The other thing I wanted to talk about was when we when Nothing hurts us, right? Everything's cool, everything is good, Nothing hurts. But when we lose, there's a lot that hurts. So we learn way more from losing than we do from winning and it's funny because I am actually a barrel racer and the Women's Professional Rodeo Association. And I love barrel racing with those girls because they're all so competitive. Now I could just go to the local rodeos or just the family type girl races around here. But my horse, he always is very successful in those arenas. And it doesn't ever make any strive to be better. I want to be with the best of the best because it helps me learn it helps me strive always to be better. I was thinking about that when I was there was a story about they were talking about how, you know, we should give all kids trophies. Yeah, they shouldn't have to feel that they lost something. Well, let me ask you a question parents. Is it more important for your kid to win? Or is it more important For your kids to learn. Sometimes we as parents, even leaders, we have to step back and think about what the ultimate lesson is. Failure makes us change our thinking. That's how we learn. Learn from your mistakes, quote, unquote, right? So encourage the people that follow you encourage them, your employees, your kids, whoever you're leading, encourage them to fail. When we're young, we have no problem failing over and over until we get it right. So think about riding a bike. How many times you think those kids fail before they can actually do it, they don't think anything of it. They fall they crash and burn. And they're cool as a cucumber. They get back up and they try it again and all of a sudden they're riding the bike. They don't have to learn that ever again.

When we get older We get weak, and we get soft, and we get lazy.

There was a story that I was listening to about meetings at work. And before I tell you the story, I have to tell you about my meetings at work, and I won't disclose who that company is, but it's a very large national company that I work for. And every week we meet, and we check in and let any, you know, let each other know we have any issues.

Okay, well,

that doesn't really get us anywhere. I was listening to a story that I was going to tell you as I was listening to how another company does it who's very successful, and they actually encourage their team to come to me come to all their meetings, each person needs to come to the meeting with a failure Those leaders are actually encouraging their people to try something new. They want them to fail because they know that if they do that, they're going to figure out how to do things differently and how to do things better. So we are shortly going to go to a break. But before that, I just want to tell you one more quick thing. I don't know what success looks like for you. But I really want to encourage you to define it and know exactly what you want. There was a study that I just did with thinking Grow Rich, and they talked about that you have to have a burning desire to achieve it. When you know what you want, and you have that burning desire, it doesn't matter what's in your way. It doesn't matter about all the failures that are going to come along your way. You're just going to tackle them and move on

So start figuring out what you do want.

Sometimes in order to do that, we have to start with what we don't want. And I think Rick might have brought this up in another one of his shows. But you know, when when your husbands and wives ask each other, what do you want for dinner? And nobody ever knows, right? We all know what we don't want. And we know what we don't want, because we tried it. And that was the only way that we figured out that we didn't want those things. So we're going to go to our next break. And when we come back, we will continue on the journey of talking about failure. Look forward to speaking with you in a few minutes.

VoiceAmerica  24:52  
Are you frustrated with the overall productivity of your project management processes? Do you lack consistency and project delivery? R squared consulting provides end to end services to assist companies of all sizes and realizing and improving the value of project management. Whether you want to build a project management office, train project managers, or learn how to bring the oversight and governance to your project processes, r squared has tailored best practices to help you in all areas of project management, visit r squared consulting.com are you getting the most out of your project management software? In many cases, it is not the software that is failing, but the implementation limitations or processes surrounding the use of that software. r squared can analyze your current use and help improve your return on investment. r squared can also suggest the best software for your organization and goals and assist in the selection implementation and training. Allow r squared to ensure that you are getting the value of your investment, visit r squared consulting.com today

When it comes to business, you'll find the experts here voice America business network.

You are tuned in to the work life balance to reach Rick A. Morris or his guest today, we'd love to have you call into the program at 1-866-472-5790. Again, that's 1-866-472-5790 if you'd rather send an email Rick can be reached at our Morris at r squared consulting.com. Now back to the work life balance.

Chrissy Chromczak  26:42  
And you're back with Chrissy Chrome's talking about failure. And I have a question for you. How did you fail today? That's the question that I asked my kids when they come home from school every day. I want to know one thing they did that day, that day. failed at. Because really, the truth is when I asked them what they did at school, they tell me that they don't know. But if I ask them what they fail that that really sticks out in their mind, and I make it okay for them to fail, I make it an okay environment for them to fail. So I'm here to encourage you to fail, not just today, but every day, seek out failure, because that's going to help us recognize the areas that we need to evolve in. So the sooner that you fail, the more often that you fail, the quicker that you're going to get to success. Right? When we practice things, you know, for going to the gym or practicing lifting weights or we're practicing riding a horse. That's all controlled failure. We know that we're going to fail or we're never going to get bigger muscles, we know that we have to fail or we're never going to get on the horse. You can't get fit without blood, sweat and tears at the gym. Right. But most people, they don't live their dreams or even reach their dreams, because they stop at their first failure. Winners guys, and I love winning fail a whole lot more than they succeed because they extract the lessons from the failure and use the energy and wisdom for the next phase of their success.

So

I know it's a huge value add for my community when

I can teach them that it's okay to fail.

I had an event like I said in the fall and It was really successful. But I want to do it again because it was so successful, I want to make it better for next time. And so I'm starting planning now for this fall October session. And what I have to do is I have to reach out to the people to the community and let them know about the event. But it's a scary thing to do, right? Because I'm mostly going to get knows from people. They don't know me, they don't know about the event. They don't know how it's going to add value to them. All I can do is let them know that that event is going to exist. And what I've come to realize was I needed to make a goal for in the light that most people are going to say no. So my goal guys is I need to get 100 nose because those hundred nose, they're going to get me to my yeses. And those people that say yes are going to get that humongous value add from This event, which again, it's another leadership and personal growth event called live to lead that we do through the john Maxwell team. But if you want something bad enough, then being uncomfortable, it's an ingredient. Success takes work. Nobody just falls to the top of a mountain, right? We have to hurt now in the present. And that very same thing that makes us hurt, grind and hustle. That's the thing that's going to transform our lives down the road. Think about some of the greatest things that you've accomplished. You didn't get them easily. It took a lot of hard work and determination. I always tell my friends and some of the people that I coach, live at the edge of your capabilities live where you're almost certain to fail. And that's evident even in school. Right going from from for my kids. from kindergarten to first grade to second grade, they don't know what to expect from one grade to the next. They don't know how to do all of the work in that particular grade. But they learn to do it through failure. And when they get to 12th grade, they can finally graduate because they learned from it. The most successful people that I know the champions, right, they're there, because they failed more times than the guy next to them waiting for the right time to start. And most of us do that right. I do it still. Keep waiting and waiting. When's the right when's the right time to start? Well, the right time to start is now the champions they take action no matter what. They don't care what's in their way. Reminds me of David Goggins. If you don't know him, look him up. Holy. You want some motivation? some inspiration? The guy's unbelievable. But the best don't stop at their first failure. They don't stop at the 10th failure, the hundred failed. They do what ever it takes to achieve their goals. And they don't quit until their dream is a reality. There was a quote by Maria Collins, and she said, If you can't make a mistake, then you can't make anything. And I was like, Wow, that's so true, right? We have to be willing to make those mistakes so that we can create the next thing that we look forward to doing.

The other thing that I wanted to bring up was

one of john Maxwell's mentors was john wooden. And he wrote a foreword in one of john Maxwell's books, which I will talk about later because I think that that's something that everybody should read. But in the forward He said, If we learn to look at losses as opportunities for growth through learning, then we become undefeatable who doesn't want to be undefeatable guys, we will always be fraught with loss. But if we are properly armed, the loss will not overcome us. So fears inevitable we're all going to experience it. And then he goes on to say, because the man or woman who takes something worthwhile from the bad times, strips them of their control over our minds, bodies, hearts and souls. And rock Thomas, who I believe was on this podcast a couple of weeks back. He always says, if you have something bad going on or or you know, you got bad news or you failed at something, ask yourself what's good about this? It's impossible for us to think about something bad and something good at the same time. So flood your mind with all of the good things about it. He talks about how when he was younger, he actually experienced alopecia. And so what happened was all his hair fell out at a very young age. And he was very upset about it. And he sat back and he asked himself, what's good about this? What's good about it is I don't need to buy shampoo, I don't need to comb my hair. I don't need to worry about getting it messy in the winds. And when you think positively like that,

it changes your mindset and makes it better.

Even if we think about what's going on right now with this whole Corona virus, right? Everybody's stuck inside. They're getting trips canceled and conferences and games and all kinds of stuff. We need to sit back and think about what's good about it. It gives us time to sit down at home and reflect and be with our families. And just slow down and take it all in. So, think about what's good about this. It's a great way to think about things. And again, we're all going to experience those losses and, and the failures charade up problems, right, there's zero way to avoid it, the only thing that we can do is just change the way that we react. So just keep failing until you get it right. I'll have to tell you a story. When we get back from break about my kids and how I, I really encourage them to fail and it's, it's kind of funny. I want to tell you, I wanted to tell you about the resource that I wanted to use. It's a book that I wanted you to pick up. So, john Maxwell wrote a book called, sometimes you win, sometimes you learn. And in the cover and the inside of the cover. He says this, sometimes you win, sometimes you learn is a roadmap for winning. By examining the 11 elements that constitute the DNA of learners who succeed in the face of problems. I encourage everybody to get that book. And there's actually another book that complements that one. Sometimes you win. Sometimes you learn for teens. Every team should have to read that because they're the ones that get the most stuck when they fail. Again, I said before school, it really makes us feel stupid when we fail, that we're not allowed to fail. My son was when he was in kindergarten. He His teacher would rip up his papers or crumples papers every time that he did something wrong. How do you think that that makes a five year old feel? I didn't realize the extent of that until he went into the first grade. And he told me Ma, guess what? He said, It's okay if I make mistakes. I said, What do you mean? It's okay if you make mistakes. He said, Oh, you know, my teacher in kindergarten, she always got mad at me and she would crumple up my papers and throw them in the garbage and my heart broke, that you can encourage somebody, you can't encourage them to fail. When you do something like that to them.

It's awful.

So I think that we may go to a break early. And then when we come back, we are going to tell you the quick story. about, about my kids when they're younger, and about seat belts. That's a very cool story.

So we will be back after these messages.

When it comes to business, you'll find the experts here, voice America business network.

VoiceAmerica  38:29  
Are you getting the most out of your project management software. In many cases, it is not the software that is failing, but the implementation limitations or processes surrounding the use of that software. r squared can analyze your current use and help improve your return on investment. r squared can also suggest the best software for your organization and goals and assist in the selection implementation and training. Allow r squared to ensure that you are getting the value of your investment visit r squared consulting.com today Are you frustrated with the overall productivity of your project management processes? Do you lack consistency and project delivery? Our squared consulting provides end to end services to assist companies of all sizes and realizing and improving the value of project management. Whether you want to build a project management office, train project managers, or learn how to bring the oversight and governance to your project processes. r squared has tailored best practices to help you in all areas of project management, visit r squared consulting.com.

You are tuned in to the work life balance to reach Rick A. Morris or his guest today we'd love to have you call into the program at 1-866-472-5790. Again, that's 1-866-472-5790 if you'd rather say An email Rick can be reached at are Morris at r squared consulting.com. Now back to the work life balance.

Chrissy Chromczak  40:10  
And we're back with Chrissy chrome Zack talking about failure. Well, you want to hear about a big failure. Actually, I guess it's not that big. But so I kind of like, told you everything I wanted to tell you about failure besides my last story. And then I realized that we have a lot of time left. So it's probably good that I failed. Because next time, all right, and next time, I got to give myself a lot more information, just in case. So maybe I talk too fast in the beginning. Maybe I didn't take enough notes. I don't know. But I, I just only have one story left. But before I give you that story, I did want to read you one quick thing from I mentioned the book from john Maxwell. Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn. And in the beginning, he talks about that learning is not easy during downtime, because it requires us to do things that are not natural. So what he's talking about is learning isn't easy when we fail, right? When we fail, everything sucks. But no, nobody wants to learn when they fail. It's hard to smile when we're not happy. And it's difficult to positively respond when numb with defeat. Right? You see people all the time they're upset because they lost something or they were defeated or they got beat or whatever it is. It takes discipline to do the right thing when everything is wrong. And we can all attest to that. Right? And but that's why it's so important to guys to have mentors and have people that can support you through those times because they believe in you And they see the potential in you when you don't see it. And john says, How can we be emotionally strong when we're emotionally exhausted? And how will we face others when we're humiliated? How do we get back up when we work when we're continually knocked down. And the reason that I brought that section up, is because that's what this book is all about. It helps you learn about all of the different things that you need to succeed in those face of problems and failure and losses. But I wanted to end with with the funny story about my kids. Because really, you don't think about it. But when our kids are little, they really do look to us to see what how we react to certain things. And not that long ago, I was listening to Bruce Lipton and he talked about how when You know, the kids are small and say they're on the playground, they fall down. And the first instinct is for them just to look up at their parents and see their parents reaction. So was the parent, you know, telling him that they're fine? Or was the parent freaking out because the kid might have gotten hurt? Well, I can tell you, and I'm not saying that I'm the best parent in the world. But I'm the parent that keeps telling my kids that they're fine and that they can do it. We have a can do attitude around here. Nobody is allowed to say Can't they can say that they can't yet. But they're not allowed to tell me that they can't do it. And so the story that I wanted to tell you with that is that when my kids were really small, probably like, I don't know, two and four probably were like when they were two, whenever they can possibly figure something out. I make them do it. And when we're in the car, and I have two kids, I have two seat belts. And clothes, get in the car seat belt in and close the doors. Like it gets to be a lot of work. And a lot of like when you're in a rush, you need to make sure these kids can do these things themselves. So I taught my kids to get their seatbelts on as early as possible and get your doors closed. So I don't have to do all that because I'm, you know, hustling around doing all these other things, getting stuff in the car and whatnot, getting everything else situated.

And so probably when my kids were like three or four years old, they could get themselves in the car, close the door, buckled themselves in, let's go

well,

out when they're like four or five, six years old, then their friends want to start coming over. So we were at a party, and one of these kids who was like six years old, he wanted to come over to our house. I'm like, Yeah, no problem. Like just we have an extra car seat. Just hop in the car. Let's go six years old. So he stands at the door, and he's crying. I said What happened? He goes can't open the door. Okay, well I opened the door, shuffled the kid and close the door sat in my seat. He's crying again. I said, What's the matter? Because I can't get up in the seat. You can't get up at your old I don't understand. So I help him get out of the car. I help him get up in a seat and I should have known right because I go back into the driver's seat, sit down, close the door. He's crying again, can't get a seat belt on. I'm like on believable kid. Really? What it is, is his mom did everything for him. So it goes back to, you know, giving everybody a trophy again. Well, if you keep helping everybody with all the things that they need in life, then they're never going to learn how to do it themselves. My kids failed a lot of times trying to put the seatbelt on. They cried and complained, but they did it. And now that they're a little little older, like I said, they're five and seven years old. They don't even ask me if they know that it's something that I think that they can do. Because they, I encourage them all the time to do it to figure it out. And we have to do those things for our kids and for, for our employees even to write, there's lots of things that we do, and they could do it. They don't always need us. I run a couple of businesses and I have people that reach out to me, they work for me, and they reach out to me a lot of times, and it's like, okay, like, you could have figured this out by yourself. We have to train them to do all of those things and let them know it's okay. And that we, we trust them and we believe in them to make those right decisions. So I just, you know, to round out the whole entire call. I just I want to encourage you to fail, fail a lot, fail often. fail as soon as you can. So now is the best time. If there's something some goal that you have, what are you waiting for? Don't wait. Do it today, fail now so you can get to the success for tomorrow. I love you all. Thank you all so much for listening. It has been a pleasure. And Rick should be on next week, I hope, I think because we were supposed to be at the john Maxwell conference in Orlando at the International Maxwell certification coming up and all of that got cancelled with this Corona virus. It's crazy. While we were on the show, actually, I got a text that my children's school got canceled on Monday. So now we have to figure out that situation. But it's cool, right? What's good about this, I get to see them on Monday instead of them being out of the house. So just think about it that way. change your mindset, change your life. You can do this. Take care.

VoiceAmerica  48:08  
Thank you for joining us this week. The work life balance with Rick Morris can be heard live every Friday at 2pm pacific time and 5pm eastern time on The Voice America business channel. Now that the weekend is here, it's time to rethink your priorities and enjoy it. We'll see you on our next show.

Sunday, March 8, 2020

No Time is the Right Time - Anthony Donovan

To get to the web page of the radio show, click here.

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This transcription was completed through an automated service.  Please excuse any typos or misrepresented words.

VoiceAmerica  0:05  
One problem facing people at many levels of business is how to make time for a work life and a personal life. Do you find that one seems to keep getting in the way of the other? This is the work life balance with Rick Morris. Even if you're not involved in the business world, you'll have a lot to gain by tuning into today's show. Now, here is your host, Rick A. Morris, 

Rick A. Morris  0:26  
and welcome to another Friday edition of the work life balance. So excited to have everybody along. They've got a really, really fun show planned for today. appreciate all of the people reaching out and everything from last week. appreciate all the messages on social media.

Talking about Barb stegman, and in that show, she was she was incredible. My guest here has a lot to live up to and I think he's prepared for the course so we're going to get right into it. This gentleman is an artist who brings a little bit of everything to the table. I mean, he's an actor.

He's appeared appeared on stage and musicals, such as Avenue Q next to normal Spring Awakening, the who's Tommy which is an award winning, Turner's Big Bopper. In buddy, the Buddy Holly Story saw that one recently. He also served as a series creator, co executive producer, head writer and actor on the San Diego based sketch comedy TV series The house which we're going to talk about today on the show. He's produced that on virtually a non existent budget, I think he said something like 50 bucks, but it ran for eight seasons, becoming the longest running sketch comedy show of its type, and it garnered a small but dedicated cult following as well as back to back honors for outstanding regional production with two Telly awards. This led to a sold out live show and a short film geek sex, which was the top video on the site Funny or Die. I could continue to go on and on and on. But he is a writer. He's a personalities speaker he was on bH ones World Series of pop culture. He prides himself on being the original Shazam to his family and friends.

And he's also combined this lifelong passion for cartooning and humor into a commission based business that specializes in animation style pieces, from everything from portraits, t shirts, greeting card signage, and murals. It's got a podcast that he's had for about six years and I mean, just again, it kind of a master of all trades, and we met through kind of a common fandom as well. So let's bring them on to the show. Anthony Donovan. How you doing Anthony? What's up, buddy? Thanks for having me on the original ad is what we call it.

I like that. That's quite a bio though dude. Like I don't even know where to start to unpack that. So I think we just go a little bit about a little bit but what we said just you know how we met we met through the MMC 30 reunion. Yep. Very, very fortunate was just meeting there.

Anthony Donovan  2:50  
Because well, and it was funny. I think we we shared that commonality of kind of getting our start on that show behind the scenes. Yep. And that was the first

place that I had ever done like background work and stuff like that. And when I, when I came to the Mouse Club when I first moved to Florida, I was almost 18 years old and I sat in a taping. And I loved the show for years. And I was excited to see that but once I saw the set and the crew and seeing the process of how that all happens, I just became so swept up in it. The Mouseketeers almost became like secondary to me. I would wanted to go there every day and learn everything. And when we met you had told me that you were doing some some camera work on the show. And yeah, I was an intern. So I got to work on about four or five shows a season doing various tasks like they were letting us do all of the production but like, I get to hold the camera or I get to be on the soundboard during a recording session, things like that. Yeah, it was a great place to learn and I almost everybody that's come from that show has echoed that sentiment. It's phenomenal place to learn and now that but the talented people have come out of it has turned into our family and in people that we support

Rick A. Morris  4:00  
We were just out in LA together in February at a fantastic event.

Demi Moore was there but Richard Dreyfuss, Brian Tracy and of course our great Mickey Mouse Club. What a lineup.

Anthony Donovan  4:13  
We can all cap by by DJ Damon. Yes.

Damon Pamplona, Mr. Damon Pamplona.

Rick A. Morris  4:20  
Oh my goodness, nobody can rock a stage like in fact the other the other DJ get jealous and cut off and said,

Anthony Donovan  4:28  
I know I know. And I was a little disappointed because they I think he was just getting started.

Rick A. Morris  4:33  
I don't think he was warmed up yet. That was the creepy thing. But anyway, um, talk to me about the show the house though that sounds like a really fun ride. And, you know, you still together with the guys tell me tell me how that all came to be and how you got that show produced?

Anthony Donovan  4:46  
Okay, well, when I I had always planned on being an animator for the Walt Disney Studios. That was my goal. And then the Mickey Mouse Club happened and it completely changed my life and when the show got canceled, I hadn't even thought about college or anything like that. And I went to film school, and I decided I want to work in television. I want to write comedy. I want to create my own series. And I thought, well, you know, I could go to go to school move to Los Angeles pound the pavement become one of many who are trying to make it happen. And then I thought, what if I were to just do it now? Like in my young naivete, ambition, I was like, I'm ready now. Yeah, let's go. So my best friend who, who we met in college, she was big into directing and choreography. And when we decided to after, after I finished school, the plan was to move to Los Angeles. And, you know, in about a month become rich or famous. This was my plan. And, of course, gotta love being 22. And so we came out here and we stopped in San Diego, and we realized we were out of money. Like we hadn't we had come out with no place to live, no job lined up. We didn't know a soul. And so we were like, all right, well, let's just get our get on our feet here, and then after a couple of months, we were like, you know what we can produce the show here, like, and back then this was before the age of YouTube or social media or any kind of widespread user friendly internet. We used the resources we had in front of us, which at the time was public access. And, you know, if you remember back in the day, it was local cable, anyone could go in there, and you basically had to show you knew how to use the equipment. And you had to have a show schedule. And I had come up with this show, and I'd written a bunch of sketches. And I was fresh out of film school. So I knew how to use every piece of equipment in that studio. And I went in there and I got certified in no time. And it was all on a volunteer basis. And we started to just kind of cast the show and brought in some local actors. And we were as my bio said, on a nearly non existent budget and and Amy Meredith and I as my producing partner, we found every way we have used every ounce of our creativity. To build sets to costume, the show to I mean, you name it, just finding different corners to film in. And I was like, I was like a camera stunt man at one point with an EMG pack on my shoulder. And I'm like hanging from a staircase, try to get an aerial shot. And it's like, stuff that you would I would never do.

Rick A. Morris  7:20  
But it sounded cool at the time,

Unknown Speaker  7:23  
of course, and

Rick A. Morris  7:24  
I can hang on that staircase, you know,

Anthony Donovan  7:30  
insurance now I'm fine. I'm in perfect. Yeah. And, you know, we were just trying to think of how to get it done. And we would film the show, I would cut the show. And it took us about eight months to finally get a finished pilot that was ready to air where all the pieces were in place. And when we finally did it, it was like, Okay, well, now I guess we have to fill out a whole season. So that was really where I started to get my bearings of writing a series and the demands of that and one thing just led to another and people I was so consumed with getting the show made. I didn't think anyone would actually watch it. And as it turns out, they did. And they would correspond with us and send us emails. And before you knew it, we we had a following. So we just kind of built on that and kept it going.

Rick A. Morris  8:17  
So what was what was the point of the show the sketch show? What was kind of the theme of it?

Anthony Donovan  8:23  
Um, well, we had, we had three standing rules. The first was I didn't want to do any political humor. I did not want to do any recurring characters. And I wasn't big on doing parodies. I wanted to do standalone, just funny sketches. And they were very silly, and we incorporated music, and we would sing on the show and that kind of stuff and kind of like a classic variety show.

Rick A. Morris  8:43  
But that I mean, that's essentially the story of Kentucky Fried theater, right? I mean,

Anthony Donovan  8:47  
I kind of Yeah, I guess we were like a late 90s version of that.

Rick A. Morris  8:51  
Because those guys got together and just filmed a bunch of stuff, whatever was in their head, which they started a sketch comedy, then they moved to that film which you can Thank you very movies, right? Classic is one of the best films. It stands the test of time to me but then of course they graduate the airplane and Police Squad, one of them goes and does ghost and the other ones stay in the stupid lane. But that's exactly how they got started. And, you know, I think in the age of YouTube, though, in those areas, that's how a lot of these people are getting started. Just figure it out. You think you've got it? Let's go.

Anthony Donovan  9:23  
Exactly. And I also like the fact that it is so accessible now because now it's purely a creative question. Now it's who can think of the best bit not you know, how are you ever going to get the scene by the

Rick A. Morris  9:34  
net? Not necessarily, what's the best produced show? Right? What's really funny?

Anthony Donovan  9:39  
And and that was a big thing. Like we didn't wait, like we didn't wait till it was perfect. I had something to say. And I was hungry to say it, so we just did it.

Rick A. Morris  9:47  
Well, I I imagine there's a tremendous amount of lessons that you that you learn from that and I think we can get into some of those. But we're going to keep talking to Anthony here. I want to get into podcasting with you in the next segment as well just Yo, what's up Good podcast, why is it good, but I need to know because I have one and you know, I don't know if it's any good or not. And then we'll talk about, you know, social media, all that kind of stuff. So we were really just going to cover the gamut here with somebody that I respect in the business and would love to hear from so we hope that you'll continue with us as well. We're gonna go ahead and take a quick break right here you're listening to the work life balance.

VoiceAmerica  10:26  
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Unknown Speaker  11:36  
from the boardroom voice America business network.

VoiceAmerica  11:46  
You are tuned into the work life balance to reach Rick A. Morris or his guests today. We'd love to have you call into the program at 1866475790. Again, that's 1866 725790 if you'd rather send an email, Rick can be reached at r Morris at r squared consulting.com. Now back to the work life balance.

Rick A. Morris  12:12  
And we're back to the work life balance on this Friday afternoon meeting with Anthony Donovan who basically, I think it just does it all is what's on the bottom of his business card. But certainly an entertainment powerhouse. So we were talking about, you know, you putting together this sketch comedy shows on a nothing budget. But then, you know, a lot of people will say today that it's almost impossible to age, what do you what do you say to that?

Anthony Donovan  12:38  
Well, I think because I hear that a lot from people in the comedy community. And I think that regardless of what kind of business you're in, whether it's entertainment, whether it's business, whether it's art, or writing, you have to get used to the concept of change, nothing is going to stay the same. I've been in this business for more than 25 years, and there are things that I wrote in my early 20s that I would die if anybody Now saw you understand there's an ebb and flow to how these work. And when it comes to comedy, if you constantly punch down and cater to the lowest common denominator, you're going to get the audience you deserve. You have to understand that you don't talk down to your audience. And you have to respect the fact that an audience is giving your attention. I've seen so many comedians bomb, because they go out there with the mindset that they have control of that situation. You have to listen to your audience. And if you don't, you know, and especially for me, I'm 44 now, and a lot of these comics are younger, you have to understand that your audiences are going to get younger too. And it's up to you to grow and change with the times and I think that if your stuff is good, and you're not punching down, you will find a way I think that's a cheap excuse to say you can't write comedy now.

Rick A. Morris  13:47  
Yeah, and I totally agree with the punch I love I love intellectual humor just humor that that even like the has the the almost have quadruple meanings when they drop the joke, right? It just kind of keeps hitting me and hitting And hit me afterwards. It's one of my favorite jokes to have with. What's interesting, though, and I want to come back to is the amount of change. Yeah. And I'm surprised by the creativity by a lot of the people. So for instance, you know, I enjoyed vine when that when that came, yeah, you got six seconds. And in fact, my favorite was a bad dad. The guy, the guy that had Batman mask on, he would scare his wife and scares kids and just do silly stuff. But he had six seconds. So you know, it was entertaining every single time, which we're seeing kind of that being revitalized through Tick Tock. Yeah. So every time you kind of see this, this platform change, you've got to change the way you deliver the comedy as well as how you do that. So how do you stay on top of all of that as as a comedian or sketch writer, as somebody who wants to stay in entertainment?

Anthony Donovan  14:51  
Well, I think the key is not only keeping on top with where everything is going, but seeing how you fit into that because it's still your voice and you want to make sure that you're not just tailoring everything you do to fit the fashions of the day. You want to kind of walk that fine line of doing what you do, but in a way that's palatable to multiple audiences.

Rick A. Morris  15:11  
I'm seeing people like on Tick Tock get a new career, meaning

Unknown Speaker  15:15  
yes and no.

Rick A. Morris  15:17  
I think No, I'm saying I'm saying in general in terms of viral capacity. Set Donny I can't remember his name, but he's, he plays just a dumb redneck on there and he's funny zone get out. on YouTube, it's not so funny. If you hear him for 10 1112 minutes. It's not as funny, right? But those little one minute clips that he can throw down on Tick Tock has really, really taken off for his career.

Anthony Donovan  15:42  
And there is an art to that and actually, if anything moving because we we were still on the air when kind of we started we were feeling pressure from our viewers to put a lot of our stuff on YouTube. And you know, I in my younger days in my sketch comedy, I was very long winded as a writer, and I had to learn how to get more synced with what I wanted to say and deliver my message and it deliver the jokes in a quicker way. So that's that was one of the ways I adapted and I think there is a skill to brevity. I think you know, that to get out there and so things like Tick tock, a lot of people may look at it superficially and think, Oh, well, anybody can get up there and be funny in six seconds. But I'm like, have you ever tried that?

Rick A. Morris  16:21  
Right? It's hard. So your so your setups took a long time to get to the end of the punch line. It's

Anthony Donovan  16:29  
not necessarily a long setup, but it was just, I said in three sentences, what I could have said in 10 words,

Rick A. Morris  16:36  
and how's that working now for you?

Anthony Donovan  16:38  
Well, I mean, what I find is that it depends on the venue, if I am going to be doing a hosting event where I go up there and I essentially do stand up, you feel the room, and if they're with you, you can take a little bit longer and you can dig a little deeper into some bits. And if they're not really feeling you and they're just waiting for the next performer, then you find a way to get around that quickly. So I think you know, whereas if I'm Doing something for a video, I tend to go a little quicker. I tend to do a little more succinct on that, because that's kind of the attention span of that. So it depends on the venue.

Rick A. Morris  17:09  
And so how do we think is this is changing the consuming side of the habit as well?

Anthony Donovan  17:14  
Oh, man, I I die a little on the inside when I hear people bingeing show. And maybe maybe that's my age talking because I understood in the thick of it eight seasons of what it takes to produce series television. There is so much to it, and there was so much blood, sweat and tears in the work of thousands of people. And it takes months and the idea that something like that, could you know, months worth of work can be consumed in an afternoon and then a viewer is looking at you going, Okay, well, when's the new one coming? Yeah, like that. That gives me like heart palpitations.

Rick A. Morris  17:49  
Let's see. Show portlandia NBC. Yeah, I'm do that with that Battlestar Galactica. Yeah, it's so well done, right? Because it's so iconic, the done done for Battlestar Galactica and they binge on Watch it, they they seek out to go find Ronald board and make them write more episodes.

Anthony Donovan  18:04  
It's true. And I mean, obviously, that was a very, you know, hyper, you know, a lot of hyperbole going on there. But that's kind of how it is. Yeah.

Rick A. Morris  18:13  
And why can't you produce something? What Why does it take, you know, nine months to produce a season that I can watch in two days, right?

Anthony Donovan  18:22  
You know, like, I'm a while back, I'm in the car with my niece, who's 17 years old, as song comes on the right and she's like, I want to hear this. It's old and it's a song. It's been over three months. Yeah. Like, where is your attention span girl.

Rick A. Morris  18:35  
So what that allows it, you know, and David Polina has got a podcast coming out called a tongue lashing we were talking about while the ease of the entry is really good, you know, specifically around music you brought up using the ease of edge for us to have a bunch of suits determine what was going to be popular what wasn't right and you now we have this beautiful method of people getting you know, just Bieber being found on YouTube, you've got Spotify, where you can just put stuff up there and hope it goes viral. But that means we have this abundance of quantity now. Yeah. And we're lacking some of that quality that that some of the control provided.

Anthony Donovan  19:14  
Well, and one of the other things that that irks me about that way, especially when it comes to music is I spent a lot of time studying music law in school. And I understood that there are things that happened in the music industry that are standard forms of business practice that are literally illegal and other forms of business. And I know that when you have people on there, like Spotify is wonderful for exposure, but the artists are making a lot of money. And the the model has, in a lot of ways not shifted in favor of the artists. So I think the fact that it has become so consumable, I think, I think there's a plus and a minus to it.

Rick A. Morris  19:50  
But so too, right? You just said it perfectly. So if we look at two of the biggest forms of media that I can recall just being younger, that was books. And that was music. Yep. Obviously movies and TV will push us aside. I'm just talking about in forms of media that now. And I mean, when you got that music contract that was huge. Oh, yeah. And, you know, my first book went through the traditional publishing route and I got a nice advance to write it and your royalties that still come in now, you know, everybody's doing CreateSpace and, you know, I can use autotune on my computer and make a song and drop it out there. But there is that just has sucked all the money from the best artists so they've had to adapt. Yeah. Right. So what I what I love is the it's not only the the opportunity or the challenge, but how do you rise through all of that noise? Now? What would you suggest to kind of somebody who's who's just getting into this wanting to be a comedy writer? How do they begin to rise above

Anthony Donovan  20:58  
I would say the first thing you need to know Is be solid in the reason why you want to do this and find your voice as a comedy writer. And then once you do that, and you kind of dive in, then it's up to you to navigate what's going to work for you and what's not. And I understand I understand, believe me, I understand being hungry, and needing that gig and, you know, taking whatever you can, but I've seen a lot of young writers get screwed out of a lot of property intellectually. And you, you have to kind of be careful what you're getting into. And I think if you want to take your stuff to social media, that is a great way to be seen. But I would also advise, don't empty the gun. Because, you know, you want to make sure that you're like you said, quality versus quantity. You want to make sure that you're you're keeping your content coming, but make it good content. And you know, don't, don't throw it all out on the floor right away, build what you're doing.

Rick A. Morris  21:59  
So Knowing

ground entertainment, or at least studying entertainment law, as well as everything that you've kind of done, what's kind of one of the biggest things you had to to undo or try to get out of? When, because of that it was it was yours. It was clearly yours. Somebody who's trying to siphon in or take it away. Have you ever been in that situation?

Anthony Donovan  22:20  
Um, actually, I was I wrote an industrial video back in the day. And I had a co writer working with me. And I was really the writer and she was kind of the idea person. And everything was kind of done on a handshake, even though it was a paid job with the production company. And, you know, we did our thing, and I wrote the script and everything. I delivered it on time, everything was great. And I got a call from the producers, saying, Hey, we need you to come down here and take a look at the script. And I took a look at the hard copy of the script, and she had taken my name off of it. Oh, wow. And it was my completely unfiltered 100% me script And I didn't take those measures to protect myself. There was no paperwork, there was no discussion. It was in my early 20s. And it was just one of those things again, I was just so happy to get the gig. But I didn't know to protect myself. And so that was probably that was the biggest lesson I got where it's like, oh, okay, so you know, yeah, there's friends Yeah, there's business but you need to make sure you're handling your business first.

Rick A. Morris  23:26  
And there's no there's really rarely is their friends in this business. Let's that

Anthony Donovan  23:31  
was another thing I learned.

Rick A. Morris  23:35  
So what's the biggest kind of horror story you have just in general the business?

Anthony Donovan  23:40  
I mean, largely, largely, I knock on wood have been very lucky with the stuff that I've done that I haven't been taken to the cleaners to. But you know, you you hear about it all the time. And I've had many friends that have gotten just completely hosed because they didn't read the fine print because they didn't Take the time to research who they were working with. And, you know, not a specific one doesn't come to mind, but just a general overall feeling of, you know, you, it only takes one time for you to see what can happen if you don't protect yourself.

Rick A. Morris  24:14  
That's scary. That's scary in it,

Anthony Donovan  24:16  
especially as a content creator like you want to. Yeah, it's it's hard and I have joked many times because I don't know if you've heard Pete Davidson from SNL recently did a thing where he had had a show, and he gave out, like, non disclosure agreements to the audience. Wow. So they won't like take his jokes. And, you know, my first thought was, well, a man, a man worried about people stealing his ideas as a man of limited ideas. But at the same time, it's like this is this is where it's got it now.

Rick A. Morris  24:46  
When it Chappelle is the Chappelle that makes everybody put their phones in a tote before they

Anthony Donovan  24:51  
I think Chappelle did that. Yeah, yeah.

Rick A. Morris  24:54  
Yeah, that's starting to become a new thing too.

Anthony Donovan  24:56  
Yeah, that's kind of becoming a common practice and and I get that because the Not so much the protection the material, but you know, that's that's the show and you don't want to cheapen the experience by having that be, you know what have you got there never bad night, you know and then the world gets to see you on a bad night. And I having been having had a bad night as a comic. I know how painful that is.

Rick A. Morris  25:15  
Yeah, but there's also I mean, there's a there's points of surprise or elements of surprise that can be designed really well in the show. We actually talked about this with Lindsay Allie, you know, she she has put a lot of time and effort into her beautiful, you know, show that she does the Blood Sweat Mouseketeers. Yeah. And then you know, next thing, you know, somebody streaming that entire performance that she did for an exclusive audience, you know, on online and there's some jokes in there that it's not so much protection of material but it cheapens the opportunity for an audience to experience that for the first time.

Anthony Donovan  25:47  
Oh, absolutely. And it's it's never the same. Seeing it online is never the same as the experience particularly with comedy is seeing it in person.

Rick A. Morris  25:56  
Yeah, there's there's definitely Well, there's that and the other thing is I Like when I watch, like America's Got Talent, they have like full choirs, and it never sounds good on TV but man, will I get chill bumps? If I'm in that audience and hear them hit some of those notes? Yep. Right I literally get chill bumps but it just doesn't translate. I got a chance to see a couple of tapings and there was one choir I just loved and I was telling my family about it. It comes up on on the show and it sounded awful coming through the TV and I was like that was so not what I heard. Alright, so we're going to take another break right here, but I do want to give you a chance just to say I don't hit you cold, but you You are a self professed pop culture. geek. Alright, so I found a quiz that is supposed to be 15 of the pop culture things that most people get wrong and we're going to see how he answers that when we come back after break and listen to the wreck Mars in the work life balance.

VoiceAmerica  26:57  
Are you frustrated with the overall productivity Your project management processes Do you lack consistency and project delivery? r squared consulting provides end to end services to assist companies of all sizes and realizing and improving the value of project management. Whether you want to build a project management office, train project managers, or learn how to bring the oversight and governance to your project processes, r squared has tailored best practices to help you in all areas of project management, visit r squared consulting com Are you getting the most out of your project management software. In many cases, it is not the software that is failing, but the implementation limitations or processes surrounding the use of that software. r squared can analyze your current use and help improve your return on investment. r squared can also suggest the best software for your organization and goals and assist in the selection implementation and training. allow our square to ensure that you are getting the value You have your investment, visit r squared consulting.com. Today

you'll find the voice America business network.

You are tuned into the work life balance to reach Rick Morris or his guest today, we'd love to have you call into the program at 1-866-472-5790. Again, that's 1-866-472-5790 if you'd rather send an email Rick can be reached at r Morris at r squared consulting.com. Now back to the work life balance.

Rick A. Morris  28:44  
And we're back to the work life balance on this Friday afternoon. We've got self professed that they actually call you Suzanne, is that is that fair?

Anthony Donovan  28:53  
Yes. I get a lot of phone calls from my friends being like, Hey, who does the song? There we go.

Rick A. Morris  28:58  
So I'm gonna I'm gonna watch me up so I don't hit you local. I'ma give you a warm up. Who, who? Who performs the song of my lead and music?

Anthony Donovan  29:08  
That would be the party.

Rick A. Morris  29:09  
That's right. All right. That one. That one was easy. Who was the first American Idol?

Anthony Donovan  29:16  
Kelly Clarkson

Rick A. Morris  29:18  
and this Kardashian sibling is the one without a K name.

Anthony Donovan  29:23  
Oh man, I'm

Chloe. No, she's okay.

Is that the one name could chain I don't know. Cuz they just make money. That's their job.

Rick A. Morris  29:35  
That is their job and in look, God love them for it. It's it's Rob.

Anthony Donovan  29:40  
Oh, Rob. Okay. See, I was thinking sister. Yeah,

Rick A. Morris  29:44  
absolutely. I'm starting to get going.

Anthony Donovan  29:47  
Like their mom probably has at some point.

Rick A. Morris  29:52  
Oh, this one's good finish the TV theme song. Okay. I want to be the very best like no one ever was.

Anthony Donovan  30:01  
Want to be the very best like no one ever was?

Rick A. Morris  30:04  
I don't know, to catch them as my real test to train them as my cause I don't even know what that is.

Anthony Donovan  30:10  
Is that the greatest American hero?

Rick A. Morris  30:11  
Yeah, yeah, there you go. Oh, well. Is it pokey? pokey, man. There it is. Alright. Hey, jumping in, man. You're good. I'm old. All right.

So sometimes you want to go

Anthony Donovan  30:27  
Oh, where everybody knows your name Jared is

Rick A. Morris  30:29  
all right now we're really warming up.

Anthony Donovan  30:30  
So here we go by Gary port and I who also sang the theme song to Punky Brewster.

Rick A. Morris  30:38  
So what Star Wars movie does the line Luke I am your father come from?

Anthony Donovan  30:41  
That would be the Empire Strikes Back 1980

Rick A. Morris  30:44  
no line never appeared in any Star Wars movie the actual Oh, because he doesn't

Anthony Donovan  30:48  
know he's told you what happened to your father? He told me plenty. He told me you killed him. No, I am your father. There we go.

Rick A. Morris  30:56  
There it is. Who was the first Disney Princess Is

Anthony Donovan  31:01  
Snow White?

Rick A. Morris  31:02  
Ah, it's PR Stephanie is in the silly semi. Yeah. Goddess of spring.

Anthony Donovan  31:09  
Oh and a Disney question. Wow, I was good. I've been shamed hard

Rick A. Morris  31:15  
first actor to portray James Bond on screen.

Anthony Donovan  31:18  
It wasn't Connery it was

oh my gosh, my the CO hosts of my podcasts are screaming at me right now listening to this. I know they are. Be.

Rick A. Morris  31:30  
Barry Nelson appeared in a 54 made for TV movie. These are the hard ones they are hard. What is what is the what is the name of the first Harry Potter book?

Anthony Donovan  31:42  
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone or as it was called in London Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

Rick A. Morris  31:48  
Oh, get through Harry Potter baztab. What TV program aired the first interracial kiss.

Anthony Donovan  31:57  
Was that the Jeffers? No no. We're stopping Track.

Rick A. Morris  32:01  
It's credited, but there's actually one called you and your small corner which is a play aired in the UK. That's that very so Star Trek wins. I will Okay, I won't be that hard on you. And then who originally singing the song? I love rock and roll.

Anthony Donovan  32:17  
Oh, gosh, it wasn't Joan Jett? It was. Was it Tommy James?

Rick A. Morris  32:22  
Uh, he did. No, but it's a British band called The arrows.

Anthony Donovan  32:27  
The arrows. Okay.

Rick A. Morris  32:29  
I think that's good. I think I i think i tortured you now but you shouldn't be perfect. You're metal,

Anthony Donovan  32:35  
you know? And it's funny. I always have friends who run to me if with something to stump me. And of course it does. And when you know, they make fun of me for not knowing something I always tell them the same thing. I'm like, I did not get on the World Series of pop culture because I know everything about pop culture I got on because I know more than you do. So describe

Rick A. Morris  32:56  
that experience going out for that show what it was like to film You know, talk about a little bit about that.

Anthony Donovan  33:01  
I went out with durwood, Marie and Amy Meredith, who are two of the three other hosts of my podcast, the house of pop culture. And we we went to LA, and there was a written test, and there were 10,000 people. And some people had had like shirts made at that point and stuff. And we did the written test, and we passed it. And then they brought us in to see how well we did on camera. And they gave us some questions. We played a preliminary round, and we won. And then we played a second round in LA and we actually lost and the team that beat us wound up on the show, but they called us and said that the producers had decided that we would be one of the 12 teams on there because I guess we were really I'm sorry. And they decided to have us on the show because we did really well and we were good on camera and we were entertaining. So we we went out there and that was kind of my first experience as an adult. Being on national television with people on the internet. Having opinions.

Rick A. Morris  34:03  
Talk about that though.

Anthony Donovan  34:04  
Well, when I got when we got to the show when we were shooting, we were on the second season the first season champions, who was a team called El Chupacabra. I met my friend Jody Roth, who was part of that team. And I asked her, you know, what advice do you have for me once this aired? And she thought for a minute, and she said, don't read the comments. And I thought, Oh, that's probably pretty good advice. I'm not going to follow it. Of course, I read every single printed word about us. And I had the greatest moment, as a result, after after our show aired, there was this there was a message board because that was how we did in the 2000s. There was a message board called survivor sucks. And there was a user on there. Her name was Cindy Dendi 76. And I will never forget this as long as I live, she was talking about us on TV and she said, she said, I didn't like the team that beat them. But that guy with the Mohawk, who by the way, was me. She's like, I hated him so much. I wanted to drop kick my TV. That was the greatest moment of my life up into that point because at that moment I ceased being a real person with thoughts and feelings who exists in the world. And I was just one of those guys on TV, and that is all I have ever wanted to be. I was just an image on TV presented for her immediate approval or disapproval. And I thought it was great if I knew who she was, I would send her flowers every year.

Rick A. Morris  35:27  
So Seth Godin who wrote the book tribes and he's a marketing genius, I love Seth, but he said if you're not making somebody mad, then you're not doing something right. In the truth

Anthony Donovan  35:39  
Hey, you know, Prince once said, it's better to be overlooked. It's better to be looked over than overlooked.

Rick A. Morris  35:43  
Wow, there you go. So there you go. Hit me back with the pop culture. There you go. I went business you went pop culture you went.

Anthony Donovan  35:51  
Now I do.

Rick A. Morris  35:54  
So so taking that experience, right and all that stuff you decide to create this podcast talk to us about the podcast. And what that whole experience is like and what you think makes a really good podcast?

Anthony Donovan  36:05  
Well, it was important for us to kind of go off the heels of that because we had some attention on us at the time because of the h1 and we thought All right, well, let's let's get on there. And there was a, there was a fourth guy, our friend, Joe Reese, who in himself in himself as a pop culture, Maven, and he kind of trained us for the show. So we had Joe come on with us, and it's the four of us, and we called it the house of pop culture because all of us were involved in the TV show the house. So we thought let's continue on that and basically because we we have such a useless knowledge and we vamped so well with each other. We we do a lot of top five lists like the minute the movie high fidelity came out, so many of my friends, jack Black's character was like, Dude, that is Anthony for days. And it's true and a lot of my friends are like that. So we started doing these lists and people have opinions, man, they will interact with us, and we asked for show ideas and you know, it gets pretty heated with with the exchanges, and it's really funny but we, we try to keep it incredibly silly. And we we do a lot about movies about TV, about reality TV, we we and then we tried to kind of expand our focus this past year with talking about some other things that weren't necessarily as funny and like we did it. We did an episode about the me to movement and about Harvey Weinstein and what and you know what happens when our our heroes of pop culture disappoint us and they break our hearts. So that was a really interesting discussion that our viewers were surprisingly receptive to like they were cool, letting us put aside the jokes for a week and be serious about something. So that was really neat. And I mean, Rona Bennett, who we both know and love, she was so generous to come on the show, and we had a great talk with her. And yeah, we we've really expanded it to the point where we talk about just about everything pop culture related.

Rick A. Morris  37:53  
That's fantastic. So what do you think really goes into making that a success though beyond just you know, being cillian telling jokes What? What if somebody is wanting to start a podcast? What advice do you give them?

Anthony Donovan  38:05  
I would tell them, make sure you have something to talk about.

I would tell them because a lot of people and this is this kind of goes, this kind of comes back to that whole public access YouTube type thing where everybody now has everybody now has the resources to do it. I've known a lot of people that are funny in real life, but they are not actors. And when you put a script on them, it doesn't work. I know a lot of people that are funny and talkative in real life, but they don't know how to present content behind a mic. And that makes a big difference. I've heard a lot of people who are great individuals get on a podcast and they don't have a lot to talk about. What they're saying makes absolutely no sense to the people on the other end of that you have to have something that can be received. It has to be consumable, and you know a lot of inside jokes with your friends are great, but you have to open it up and understand you're talking to somebody and you know, understand how to present How to Talk no thumbs and ahhs and have some idea of what you want to say that's the most important thing. And, you know, open it up for things that people want to listen to and talk about you. Ideally, the best podcasts are the ones where you want to jump in and start talking as a listener. And that's been one of the greatest compliments we've had about the house of pop culture is when people hear us and it's like they're having a conversation with for their friends.

Rick A. Morris  39:25  
So basically everything I don't do, okay, I got rid of the list.

Anthony Donovan  39:29  
You're showing late

Rick A. Morris  39:30  
buddy. First of all, listen to people, okay? Don't do that. encourage people know inside jokes, okay. Pretty much everything I do. Okay. So, but But honestly, though, it's, it truly is. First of all, a lot of people think oh, we're going to go start a podcast and I'm going to get all this advertising revenue. Yeah. I wish. Yeah, exactly, exactly. But at the same time, so it has to be something that you're passionate about that Oh, yeah, that you would do, even if nobody listened, because sometimes they won't. And even though that you're not going to generate any money, because it really doesn't generate any kind of revenue,

Anthony Donovan  40:14  
we're very fortunate to have Patreon and our patrons are great. And they help cover the overhead, which is not a lot, but none of us are getting rich off of it.

Rick A. Morris  40:22  
Sure, sure. So So really, to me, the when people ask me about podcast, I'd say, I ask, Are you ready to serve your audience? Yeah. Because if it's about you, if you think you got something great to say, nobody cares. Let's just be honest about that. And nobody really cares. What they want to know is what's in it for me and how can you serve you my what's my entertainment level? or What am I going to learn? Exactly. So we're going to take our final break here. When we come back, we're going to find out how in touch with Anthony, how he can come to your organization, shake things up, all that kind of stuff. I'm not his agent, so you have to contact them and now It's on media. So therefore it's done. But they'll we'll find out and we'll ask the question we ask every one of our guests in the final segment, but we'll do that right after the break. You're listening to Rick Mars and the work life balance.

VoiceAmerica  41:17  
When it comes to business, you'll find the experts here, voice America business network.

Are you getting the most out of your project management software? In many cases, it is not the software that is failing, but the implementation limitations or processes surrounding the use of that software. r squared can analyze your current use and help improve your return on investment. Our square can also suggest the best software for your organization and goals and assist in the selection implementation and training. allow our square to ensure that you are getting the value of your investment visit r squared consulting.com today Are you frustrated with the old overall productivity of your project management processes Do you lack consistency and project delivery? r squared consulting provides end to end services to assist companies of all sizes and realizing and improving the value of project management. Whether you want to build a project management office, train project managers, or learn how to bring the oversight and governance to your project processes, r squared has tailored best practices to help you in all areas of project management, visit r squared consulting.com.

tuned into the work life balance to reach Rick A. Morris or his guests today, we'd love to have you call into the program at 1-866-472-5790. Again, that's 1-866-472-5790 if you'd rather send an email Rick can be reached at our Morris at r squared consulting. com now Back to the work life balance.

Rick A. Morris  43:03  
And we're back to the final segment of the work life balance with our main Anthony Donovan. And you know, when when I do this show, I have a pre show packet I send out to our guests so we can ask some questions, get to know them a little bit. If I haven't met them before, I always ask for possible topics. And you know, Anthony sent me several topics and I chose one called there is no such thing as the right time. And Funny enough, I haven't asked a single question about that, Anthony. So what do we mean by that? And what what do you mean by there is no such thing as the right time.

Anthony Donovan  43:34  
I am encouraged I've encountered this so much in my life and career is that one of the things that as a creator, we tend to think, or artsy type people or really anybody is if you want to do your project, you think, Oh, I can't do this right now. I don't I don't have a B and C. This this situation isn't perfect. We don't have the right money. We don't have the right people this that the other night if I had, if I had stopped myself from pulling the trigger on every artistic endeavor, that I wanted to do because of that I would have never gotten anything done. They say the zero they say that the most difficult part is from zero to start. And that really is the most important. It's the truest thing. And I think if you have something that you want to say in a project that you want to do, you know, try to get your ducks in a row. But the most important thing is to do it. My team and I had no business starting a TV show, back then in going out there and just winging it and being first timers and five seasons later, we won a major industry award for our little dog and pony show that because we did it, we didn't listen to, you know, the voices in your head telling you you shouldn't or even the other people who were just like you shouldn't do this. I had something to say I wanted to share something with the world. I wanted to share my comedy with the world and we did it. And you know, same thing with a podcast or things like that. Make sure it's as good as it can be. But ultimately, you got to come through with it.

Rick A. Morris  44:59  
Yeah, So one of my dear friends, Colin Ellis says that we do our best work on the edge of uncomfortable.

Anthony Donovan  45:05  
Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Rick A. Morris  45:06  
Yeah. I asked people all the time why they haven't started this or haven't you know? Well, this is what I want to do it the biggest thing I think you probably hear like I do was I'm gonna do a podcast. I hear that all the time. It so that follow up is and what do you start, right? It's not I'm going to but I but we've got to push ourselves to little uncomfortable state where we do our best work. And it's it's one piece at a time. Give yourself a deadline. For me, the best thing is always to tell another person, because I'm big on being impeccable with my word. And if I say somebody, hey, I'm going to deliver the script to you on date. I'm going to do that. And I'm going to get to that finish line. I did that I have a whole a whole season of a series written that I told durwood Murray, one of the CO hosts of my show, I'm like, I'm going to give you this entire script on December 1. And December 1. He called me I'm like I'm in the car. I'm on my way and I put it In his hand, because you that that's the thing follow through it, as they say follow through is the superpower. Well, there's actually science behind that. So if you make a goal that is, is voluntary, and is is active that you you volunteered or shared that to somebody, you will follow through, it's or you have the higher chance of following through. So when we do we do declare public of personal goals. When I do coaching, it's, it's what are you going What are you committing to me? And when they, when they say it to me, then they don't want to show up, you know, the next week or the next month and not have done it

Anthony Donovan  46:37  
exactly way. And it's not to say that, you know, the seven days leading up to that won't be me sitting in front of my laptop, or o'clock in the morning. Yeah, cursing the heavens because my imagination chose not to show up to work that day, but I'm going to get it done.

Rick A. Morris  46:51  
But you you just said something really important. It's something you know, when I'm writing books and in when I'm doing a lot of this stuff. There's just days Where you have seasons, the seasons of creativity come and go. Oh, so how do you kind of force?

Anthony Donovan  47:07  
Yeah, you know, and that's a that's a fine line. And I learned that from writing for series because, you know, we we had an air date, and we had to have something to shoot. And, you know, you, you just kind of get in there and you you, especially with writing, pounded all out, do the do the verbal diarrhea on the page, and a lot of it's going to be terrible. But until you start doing it, you're not gonna have anything to work with. So the key is just even if it's bad, keep going, you will come back to it, and you'll find something of value in it to build on.

Rick A. Morris  47:38  
So what's some of the best advice you've ever received?

Anthony Donovan  47:41  
I think one of the best pieces of advice has always been, Never be afraid to ask for help. And that is something that has bit me in the rear end a number of times early on in my career, and sometimes I still have those moments where I I kind of work it all out in my head. And I'm overthinking it. I'm thinking All right, well, this isn't gonna work. And this isn't gonna work. And I have to figure out a way and and I realized that there are people in the world that want to see you succeed. And it's important for you to reach out to them, because my favorite thing in the world is when I can be of service to somebody else. Sure, you know, and when somebody says, I wasn't gonna call you, I'm, like, offended. I'm like,

why wouldn't you call me?

I can help you with this. And I forget that the rest of the world, it works the same way with other people.

Rick A. Morris  48:27  
Right? Absolutely.

Anthony Donovan  48:29  
You know, so don't be afraid to ask for help you, you would be surprised what is waiting for you if you just stayed it out loud and you're ready to receive it.

Rick A. Morris  48:39  
So how do people get in touch with you and are you available for higher bookings and things like that? I

Anthony Donovan  48:44  
I sure am. Particularly in Southern California, I am available for speaking stand up the whole nine yards. The best way to get ahold of me is probably through social media. I'm Anthony Donovan on Facebook. You can also reach my official art page because I'm also a cartoonist on Anthony Don art on Instagram. And you know other than that the best way is find one of those two things and shoot me a direct message. I'm also on Twitter at the boy da Bo y.

There's a long story behind that name. But uh,

Rick A. Morris  49:14  
yeah, I don't want to hear it Is that bad? I kinda want to hear it.

Anthony Donovan  49:17  
Well, you know, when I, when my roommate and I, we first moved here, we were like, so Charles Dickens, so poor that she, she was at work one time. And she had mentioned to a co worker, she's like, I gotta get home and feed the boy. Apparently, her co workers thought she had a baby. And so that kind of became my nickname. And when I when I got on twitter 150 years ago, I decided to just use the name, boy. And what I found is that there's a lot of people out there that want that name. I've had people offer to buy that handle from me, and I'm like, Well, I

Rick A. Morris  49:51  
yes, I'm the boy.

Anthony Donovan  49:54  
Remember, remember

Rick A. Morris  49:57  
any final words for the audience?

Anthony Donovan  50:00  
Thanks for listening. Thanks for all the support. Thank you, Rick for having me on. I really appreciate it. And yeah, I hope to see many of you real soon.

Rick A. Morris  50:08  
Absolutely new. Any any

upcoming engagements, maybe they can catch San Diego.

Anthony Donovan  50:16  
I'm actually I have a show opening tonight.

Rick A. Morris  50:19  
Hey,

Anthony Donovan  50:20  
I am in the musical Sweet Charity at the Brooks Theatre in Oceanside, California. And that runs through March 29. And musical theater will always be my first love. So we'll be doing that for the next month.

Rick A. Morris  50:33  
Well, we appreciate you coming on the show, sharing your talents with us sharing your wisdom and allowing you to

Anthony Donovan  50:40  
check out the house of pop culture on Spotify and Stitcher and pod bean. There you go.

Rick A. Morris  50:45  
Yeah, if you didn't drop your own podcast, I thought we did a pretty good job earlier but absolutely need to go subscribe to that. But we appreciate you being here and sharing everything with us and hopefully we'll get you on again in the near future and find out what's going on your world.

Anthony Donovan  50:58  
I would love that. Thank you so much.

Rick A. Morris  51:00  
Appreciate your brother. So coming up next week, I think next week, it's going to be just me on the show. I'll share some topics, some updates things that I take that I take that back. Now I'm right. So next week, it's just me and then we're going to go into replays as I do the international Maxwell conference in Orlando, Florida that I do twice a year. And probably one of my most popular shows is the recap from that event when we come back so that that is our upcoming shows and upcoming show schedule. Otherwise, we appreciate you hanging out with us listening to the work life balance every Friday continue to listen to the voice America network for the next upcoming show. And until next Friday, we hope that you live your own work life balance will talk to you that

VoiceAmerica  51:45  
thank you for joining us this week. The work life balance with Rick Morris can be heard live every Friday at 2pm pacific time and 5pm eastern time on The Voice America business channel. Now that the weekend is here, it's time to rethink your priorities. Enjoy it. We'll see you on our next show.