EE100 – John Di Julius

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Transcript:

[00:00:00.830] – Tony Winyard
Exceeding expectations, Episode 100

[00:00:06.950] – John DiJulius
A large percentage that realized this is the time to invest in customer experience, that it’s the one thing that insulates you during any economy. It’s the best thing you can have. And so, , we’ve actually gotten really busy with that. But the most important thing was, was, , how we treat our customers and employees during these times will be how they treat us in the future.

[00:00:40.440] – Tony Winyard
That was the voice of John Di Julius, who is the guest on this week’s show. And for those of you who’ve been listening to the show for a while, you may remember his name. He was the guest on Episode 14, and that was by far the most downloaded episode of this podcast. And so because of that and this being the last episode, episode 100, I asked John if he would do me the honor of coming back on once again, and he kindly obliged.

[00:01:07.980] – Tony Winyard
And so we’re going to hear a bit more from John in a minute. And as I mentioned just now, this is the last episode of Exceeding Expectations. Next week, I start a brand new show and you’ll find out a little bit more about that during the show and at the end. But right now, it is time for John Di Julius. Exceeding expectations, and my guest today for the second time is John Di Julius, how are you doing?

[00:01:38.080] – John DiJulius
I’m doing fantastic, Tony. How are you?

[00:01:41.050] – Tony Winyard
I’m very well and we were speaking just now before we started recording. And for the listeners, the reason why John is back on a second time. This, as , is the one hundredth episode, and this is the last episode of Exceeding Expectations. But of all of the previous 99 episodes, by far the most downloaded episode was episode 14, where John was the guest. So hence I asked John, would he do me the honour of coming back on?

[00:02:14.500] – John DiJulius
That’s very cool. It’s quite an honour because I was just looking at your guests and you’ve had some great, great guests to interview. So that’s really a good honour. And it probably helped that I downloaded it 100 times myself!

[00:02:32.230] – Tony Winyard
[laughing] So many people say to me that they really enjoyed some of the nuggets that you shared in that episode. So that went out in Christmas 2018. So what have you been up to since then, Jim?

[00:02:46.360] – John DiJulius
I wrote a new book that came out a few months ago called The Relationship Economy, and up until the beginning of the year was was running around all over the globe, consulting and speaking and customer service and raising my three boys.

[00:03:03.940] – John DiJulius
And now since March adjusting to the new normal and finding the gift personally and professionally in all of this, doing some key things in our businesses, pivoting that were much needed. And this this quarantine and and break gave us the opportunity to to do things that quite frankly, we should have done years ago. But we were just too busy to do it. So, really excited about that.

[00:03:36.250] – John DiJulius
And, taking advantage of that, traveling and, creating more content, cooking dinner every night and spending quality time with my boys. I’m someone that’s probably a little odd. I like a recession. And it’s not that my companies do better in a recession, but I believe my competition does worse.

[00:04:07.750] – John DiJulius
And I always say a recession is like a business animal and it does a cleansing of of businesses that shouldn’t be around giving us all a bad name. So I think there’s a lot of advantages to a recession. If you’re positioned right and you’ve been doing the right things, I think you can really capitalize on disrupting yourself.

[00:04:32.830] – Tony Winyard
And I think a lot of businesses do. When there is any kind of recession, they do panic and everything is doom and gloom and so on. So you clearly have a very different attitude and approach to it. So what would you say is different about how you go about it?

[00:04:52.000] – John DiJulius
For some reason I’m at my best when, myself or our companies are faced with, what appears to be insurmountable obstacles. And I I become more focused and more, energized. And I just really do a good job, which almost makes me concerned that, maybe I’m not so good when when things are going well. I like when it hits the fan, things slow down for me.

[00:05:27.970] – John DiJulius
I’m able to think more clearly, pivot. From a standpoint that that may be a best practice. What we did is we immediately, got together as a team and we made three columns on the whiteboard and the virtual whiteboard and the one column, the first column was, all right, what do we need to still do that’s critical to our business? So, you can relate to this as a speaker and consultant.

[00:05:59.170] – John DiJulius
That means still still doing vlogs, still doing videos, still doing podcasts, still producing content, all those things. That’s critical that we absolutely cannot get away from that.

[00:06:11.860] – John DiJulius
Then the second column is what can we do now that we can sell now that, we can keep the lights on and that we can keep people employed and anything from inventory to virtual to. If you want to buy my my three boys, for the right price! And then the third column was, what can we do now that we can sell later?

[00:06:43.480] – John DiJulius
And that’s the most exciting to me is the reinventing. And in typical times, we have that list, but we’re just so busy with demand that we can’t really get to it. And we keep on pushing off, push off, knowing farewell that that if we don’t do that, we’re not going to evolve and grow and in scale.

[00:07:06.640] – John DiJulius
So that’s what it was was really exciting was during this time we were able to really jump in and, dedicate so much of our, what became free time that we don’t ordinarily have and and worked on new business products and services and even a brand that I think is is going to be is going to make us stronger coming out of 2020, but definitely make 2021 and the next five to ten years dramatically better than had we not had this quarantine and break and all those things.

[00:07:49.780] – Tony Winyard
Wow. And how have your customers been reacting to what’s been going on the last few months.

[00:07:57.750] – John DiJulius
Like everyone, at first I scared, very nervous. There’s always, I don’t know what percentage, 10 to 20% of businesses that are doing better. Right.

[00:08:13.480] – John DiJulius
From grocery stores to the soap dispensers to, the necessity businesses, mortgage companies, because the interest rates have dropped.

[00:08:26.890] – John DiJulius
So, those types of clients have, increased. And then there’s other consulting clients that needed to put it put us on hold, which we totally appreciate it. And then there’s, a large percentage realized this is the time to invest in customer experience, that it’s the one thing that insulates you during any economy. It’s the best thing you can have. And so, we’ve actually gotten really busy with that.

[00:09:00.100] – John DiJulius
But but the most important thing was, was, , how we treat our customers and employees during these times will be how they treat us in the future.

[00:09:09.700] – John DiJulius
And as you probably saw, there were so many companies that that did knee jerk reactions and were forcing people to oblige by their contracts or all these things and kind of drawing a line in the sand. And now’s not the time. Now is the time. A generosity and empathy is what everyone needs. And the companies that showed that I think have really won the hearts and emotional equity of both their customers, well all three; customers, community and employees.

[00:09:47.830] – Tony Winyard
I remember when we spoke last time one of the big projects you were working on at the time was the Qatar World Cup. So has that been affected much by what you’re doing for them?

[00:09:58.130] – John DiJulius
Yeah, yeah, yeah .Totally, they had to go with someone local, in their country because of what’s going on. And we, quite frankly, didn’t want they didn’t want to do it virtually. They wanted someone, boots on the ground. And we understood that. And we didn’t want to be traveling across the country during this right now. So they may come back, in the near future if if things get better.

[00:10:29.020] – John DiJulius
But that’s a project that had to go away for understandable reasons.

[00:10:39.400] – Tony Winyard
I was watching a conference that you were speaking at and I can’t remember which one it was. But remember one of the things that you were talking about was how some of the top people like Steve Jobs and Bezos and so on, being obsessed with customer experience. I’d love to hear you talk about your thoughts on them.

[00:11:03.160] – John DiJulius
Yeah, when we talk about customer experience, it starts at the top.

[00:11:07.500] – John DiJulius
And and if you talk about the, nationally or world known brands that are known for customer service, everyone from Richard Branson, Virgin of Virgin Airlines, Disney, the Ritz Carlton, Zappos, Amazon, you name it, Starbucks, you can tell why Because the person that started their company or is running their company currently, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, Walt Disney, Howard Schultz, Tony Shea, I mean, the list goes on. Steve Jobs, they they they are or were obsessed about the customer experience.

[00:11:49.770] – John DiJulius
And they were meticulous that no matter what topic they might be talking about, new product launch or sales or, operations, they always brought it back to, how will that affect the customer experience? And let’s look at it from the customer experience and think from their eyes, not our eyes. And you could just see that’s the one thing they all have in common. And if otherwise, it’s Flavour of the Month, program of the year managed by a best seller.

[00:12:19.050] – John DiJulius
If the companies want to improve in customer experience, that’s one of our filters that when when someone calls us, we successfully talk probably a third out of doing business with us because if we can’t even get the CEO on the line. And in the discovery of talking, if we should, if we’re the right fit and if we can’t find that there’s buy in from the top.

[00:12:48.690] – John DiJulius
And that’s not just writing a check. Right. That’s giving all the resources, brainpower, bandwidth, all those things to the project, it’s not going to be a successful project. And quite frankly, it’s going to be a poor investment on their end. And then we’re going to look bad and we don’t want to look bad.

[00:13:09.840] – Tony Winyard
Do you think most of the bigger companies are very customer service driven?

[00:13:22.290] – John DiJulius
I wouldn’t say most of the bigger companies no, I think it might be the same percentage, small, medium, large, a very low percentage of our customer experience, focus obsessed, whatever you want to call it. They build their their company around the customer experience in the culture. But I don’t see it, any more big companies as I do in small companies. I think it’s still the same percentage. Now, the big companies have have more resources to throw at it, but that doesn’t mean they do.

[00:13:57.870] – John DiJulius
The fastest growing position in corporate America is the Chief Experience Officer. The last 10 years, the Chief Marketing Officer position has gone down in large companies and they’re in the Chief Experience Officer, The CXO is growing.

[00:14:17.580] – John DiJulius
So I do like that trend.

[00:14:19.220] – Tony Winyard
Who was it who started that trend?

[00:14:26.310] – John DiJulius
I don’t know. It’s been gaining momentum slowly for probably the last 15 years, but really gaining traction in the last seven years. And, to the point that we have a a customer experience executive academy for that type of position, because, at least in the US, there’s no degrees in customer experience, while there’s a degree in marketing and accounting and and operations and finance and everything else. But but there’s no I don’t even know of a class that’s offered in customer experience.

[00:15:03.870] – John DiJulius
So there was a huge void that people want and need customer experience officers, but they didn’t have, the formal education. So that’s where we offer both a physical and an online.

[00:15:23.670] – Tony Winyard
Obviously, they’re learning about customer experience, but what kind of things is it that that you do in the academy?

[00:15:30.330] – John DiJulius
From our 20 years of working with those, the best companies, we have found that there is a, 10 key we call Ten Commandments, that world class customer service companies all work on and have in common.

[00:15:45.570] – John DiJulius
And it doesn’t matter if they’re manufacturing, B2B, B2C. the best companies are methodical about these ten things. And so, the first one is having a customer service vision statement, a North Star, and that’s different than a mission. And a purpose is not better. It’s not worse. And I love my mission and I love my purpose. But typically, mission statements are who we want to be when we grow up.

[00:16:12.000] – John DiJulius
Like someday we want to be the number one, most respect whatever it may be. And that’s great. But that’s not an actionable thing.

[00:16:20.100] – John DiJulius
It’s not supposed to be, a purpose statement is we want to change the world for the better. we want to, whatever. And that’s great. But that isn’t actionable. The service vision is we like to call it the action statement that everyone has to do when they, engage with someone else. And that could be the customer. That could be a coworker. That could be the UPS man coming in with a package.

[00:16:46.830] – John DiJulius
And so that’s the first one.

[00:16:48.510] – John DiJulius
The second commandment is world class, internal culture, making sure it’s the culture is the one that we have high morale and low turnover that you get. You give a blueprint for your leaders to just manage people and make it a place where they feel that they’ve never worked for a leader like you in a company like you, whether it’s a temporary transitional job for, 18 months or, you’re going to retire here after 30 years, , companies have both.

[00:17:26.910] – John DiJulius
And then it goes on and then there’s, the non-negotiable standards and the journey mapping and and training above and beyond culture and recognition and kind of peer pressure of, hey, let me tell you what Tony did yesterday for a customer. And, it inspires everyone else to try to do something like that and look for those opportunities to zero risk, which is are you a zero risk company to do business with? And in zero risk doesn’t mean you don’t drop the ball.

[00:18:01.590] – John DiJulius
Everyone drops a ball. The Ritz Carlton drops the ball what zero risk means is, You have systems and processes in place that you probably dropped the ball less than your competition. But just as important, you have service recovery that when you do drop the ball from.

[00:18:21.450] – John DiJulius
Line a 19 year old, front line customer facing employees can pick it up and make it right almost to the point that you’re more impressed with the company and the way they took care of it than if nothing went wrong. So that’s what zero risk is, is that I just I have this trust factor that, you’re probably going to get it right. But if you don’t, you’ll take care of it.

[00:18:45.000] – Tony Winyard
And is it individuals applying to join the academy? Or is it companies sending their staff?

[00:18:51.150] – John DiJulius
So it’s a little bit both, but 90% are companies sending their current or future chief experience officer. And then we have and then some independents do it to strengthen. There’s what we are opening. So one of the things I was talking about that we we pivoted during this quarantine that we’ve always wanted to do, but we just never had time because we’re so busy now. We were able to do it for the last three months. We’re launching a new brand in January of 2021 called CX Coaching.

[00:19:30.810] – John DiJulius
And that is where we’re licensing our methodology to coaches so they can go out and coach, smaller companies on this methodology. So that’s what we’re really excited that we’ve had so many people that have asked and wanted to come to work for us that we could, frankly, hire.

[00:19:51.060] – John DiJulius
We weren’t growing fast enough to hire, 50, 60 people that have really, became evangelists of our methodology in our books and all that. And now they can. They could they could be they’re a sole producer and and, kind of own their market.

[00:20:07.700] – John DiJulius
And now we can really scale it versus being a small boutique consulting firm. We were limited how many clients we could take on at a time. So that’s what I’m really excited that our mission, our purpose is to change the world by creating a customer service revolution and having, several coaches, independent coaches out there I think, , it’s more realistic now.

[00:20:34.980] – Tony Winyard
Do you think it is a certain type of personality that does well in customer service or can anyone be trained in it?

[00:20:43.530] – John DiJulius
That’s a great question. A lot of it can be learned. And the reason I know this for a couple of reasons. One I have 150 employees that work for me and my three companies.

[00:20:58.560] – John DiJulius
And we’ve seen I always say I love to ask and we may have talked about this on the podcast Number No.14, but I love to ask, when I have an audience in a room, I say, if you’re going to build a world class customer service organization, what is more important now? I don’t care what industry. Right? It could be health care can be a hot dog stand. It could be a restaurant. Whatever the industry, it doesn’t matter what is more important, the hiring of new employees or the training and culture. You bring them in and I say before you vote, I’m going to tell you the obvious answers. Both have to have both, without a doubt.

[00:21:36.480] – John DiJulius
It’s like if I’m going to say to you, Tony, what’s more important for me to be in the most optimal wellness fitness? what’s more important, my diet or my exercise.

[00:21:49.140] – John DiJulius
And, obviously you can’t do it without doing great in both areas. Right. So but but in the in my equation, I say I’m going to force you to give me 51%, 1% extra in one of those. And the majority, say be the culture and training. And I totally agree. And it doesn’t mean hiring is so important. But do we think Disney’s of the world really found 50,000 cast members born to serve?

[00:22:18.280] – John DiJulius
No, I mean I don’t think there’s five hundred people walking the planet born to serve. And so that one of the reasons why I know it’s a learned behavior is because, over the course of being a business owner for almost 30 years, we’ve probably had a thousand employees and we’ve seen raw people come in and drink the Kool-Aid and also be doing things where like, , their parents will come in and they say, I don’t know what you did to my daughter, but she’s not the same, Twenty one year old that was living at home six months ago. So that’s always a compliment.

[00:22:55.080] – John DiJulius
But the second reason is myself. I mean, when I was 19 or 20 too this wasn’t common sense to me , my best experiences, weren’t, nice luxury brands and flying first class and staying at five star resorts. So I didn’t know what world class looked like. But once I got taught it, it opened up a Pandora’s box where I became intoxicated with it.

[00:23:25.020] – John DiJulius
And I loved seeing a reaction from a customer and a bounce in their step. And, whenever you’re a “Day maker”, I say this all the time. Daymaker, it could be that you pay the guy’s toll behind you who doesn’t even know you. You just , it’s $2. You you give the the what the the teller four dollars and say, pay the toll behind me.

[00:23:51.450] – John DiJulius
You do something like that where it can’t come back to benefit you.

[00:23:56.250] – John DiJulius
Who feels the best at the end of the night. The day maker does, right. More so than even the person who made the day. So when you create an environment that exceeds expectations and gives employees the autonomy, they don’t feel really good about themselves.

[00:24:14.490] – Tony Winyard
Would you say, I kind of get the impression from what you were saying then that a lot of this, what people are taught in the academy goes hand in hand with emotionalal intelligence?

[00:24:26.490] – John DiJulius
Oh, totally. 100%. And again, I don’t think I think emotional intelligence is learned. I know that for myself. I’m embarrassed for the person I was in my twenties. I probably was a typical kid and meaning I was self-absorbed, narcissistic. It was all about me. in my new book, I talk about the five keys to relationship building and one of them is having insatiable curiosity. And, I say to the point where, you you want to explore, you want to explore things that you’re even unfamiliar with.

[00:25:09.600] – John DiJulius
And, you want to know why and how someone got there. And I think back to my 20s, even probably even early 30s. This is an embarrassing example. But I remember my wife would tell me, hey, I made dinner plans Friday night with Susan, who she works with, and her husband, Bill. And I’d be like, no, good God, no, I’m not going out. I don’t I can’t spend two hours with Bill, and there was nothing wrong with Bill, what was wrong was Bill didn’t like to talk about my topics and I had like two topics.

[00:25:44.390] – John DiJulius
I was obsessed with customer service and sports. And if you weren’t an avid interest in talking to me about those two things, I wanted nothing to do with you. And that’s I can’t believe, that’s who I was.

[00:26:02.030] – John DiJulius
And so that’s why I know emotional intelligence, all these things, empathy can be learned because I’ve come so far in all those areas. So it’s a humbling experience.

[00:26:18.170] – John DiJulius
But I’ve seen people come so far in it.

[00:26:26.240] – Tony Winyard
I really wish the education system would actually teach emotional intelligence at a school level.

[00:26:34.170] – John DiJulius
You ain’t kdding, I mean, that’s what my new book is about. I honestly believe there is no greater skill, any of us, us our kids, employees ,obviously can work at then they will have a bigger impact on our personal and professional lives and the ability to build an instant rapport with others, be it a stranger, acquaintance, friend, co-worker, client, whoever that may be.

[00:27:04.430] – John DiJulius
And everyone would agree. where you are today is a product of the relationships you have built and the happiness. And that’s going to be true in ten years. It’s going to be on your deathbed, our deathbed. And yet it’s not taught in school. It’s not taught at home. I mean, listen, we my generation loves to pick on the millennials. Well, number one, we’re the generation that raised them. So, and what we did? We handed them an iPad to keep them occupied so we could do our thing, get through emails or whatever. And, it’s no fault of their own. Millennials and Z’s are relationship disadvantaged.

[00:27:47.900] – John DiJulius
So it’s not taught in school. It’s not taught at home. And that’s why, a few of the businesses, they’re doing really well have have have made it part of their orientation and ongoing soft skill training because they know that, people are starving to be known as someone with a name and someone that has dreams and fears and children and, all those things.

[00:28:20.390] – Tony Winyard
It seems to me that if you have a good understanding of emotional intelligence, it’s very unlikely you could be racist or narcissistic or homophobic and all the other isms and so on?

[00:28:34.460] – John DiJulius
I totally agree., it’s we have a superpower. And to my knowledge, we’re the only species that has a superpower.

[00:28:45.890] – John DiJulius
And it’s empathy and really an empathy doesn’t mean I necessarily agree with your opinion. But if I really put myself in your shoes and it could be anything from the day you’re having, I can see why, say we had a situation where at first I thought you were overreacting because I was five minutes late, right. And, you’re you’re blowing a gasket. I’m thinking to myself, do right. There’s there’s real problems in the world and the fact that I’m running five minutes late.

[00:29:17.480] – John DiJulius
But maybe if I take the time and peel back and ask some questions and I realize that, your schedule’s tight today and you left no margin of error in your schedule.

[00:29:31.910] – John DiJulius
And you need to go from here, our meeting to your kids dance recital and, I’m throwing it off, doesn’t mean I agree that you should book yourself that tight, but I can see why you’re flustered.

[00:29:47.720] – John DiJulius
But to the same token as I could see by your upbringing or the culture you’re from or, whatever it means that you could have been you could have thought like that or think like that. Now, I don’t know where the I often think about this, right.

[00:30:07.490] – John DiJulius
With all the the news that racism and black lives matter, what I’m curious is so I do have empathy. I could see why certain people could be brainwashed. Right. By their upbringing or environment or whatever it is to maybe then have that thought pattern.

[00:30:29.840] – John DiJulius
What I don’t have the answer for is when is it no longer. Something you can blame on your parents or your environment. And when is it that, you’re old enough now to know the difference? and I don’t know the answer to that with that because because even I have five brothers and sisters, and they range from 15 years older than me.

[00:31:00.270] – John DiJulius
And, my older brothers and sisters are different from my younger brothers and sisters in a lot of this aspect. And I could see, from from the timing of things to even my dad left when I was six and I never saw him again. But but but my older siblings were 21, 19, 16. And so they had a father for those years. And they have a different opinion or thought pattern than I do. And good, bad or indifferent, I could see why, because of, whatever whatever my dad’s opinions were.

[00:31:51.260] – Tony Winyard
Changing the subject; I know you’ve done and you’ve had mentoring and you also mentor other people. I wonder. There’s a lot of people I get the impression don’t realize the value of of mentoring. What would you say for anyone listening who maybe doesn’t have a mentor and doesn’t realize the importance of mentoring and what it could do for them?

[00:32:16.560] – John DiJulius
I say let’s look at Tiger Woods, let’s look at Michael Phelps, let’s look at Michael Jordan.

[00:32:23.250] – John DiJulius
I mean, the greatest people, the GOATs, greatest of all times, had coaches, had mentors that would hold them accountable, would be an outsider, poking holes at, Tony is, that thought pattern. That might be an old paradigm that, I’m noticing, a glitch in your swing.

[00:32:52.740] – John DiJulius
I’m noticing, you’re writing about the same things too often, whatever it is, just, holding that mirror to you and not being, someone who agrees with you all the time, like like our employees may, like even our leaders may. I always say I don’t need someone that agrees with me that that moves left when I move left and nods when I nod, my shadow does that, I need someone that’s going to call me out and call B.S. and call that you’re being a hypocrite.

[00:33:27.500] – John DiJulius
And nine times out of ten, you’re not going to get that from someone you pay. , he’s just not they might do it a little and that’s great. But they they won’t have the comfortability that someone you’re hiring to do that is saying, Tony, I want you to push me. I want you to tell me when I’m in a rut. I want you to tell me when I’m not on Brand.

[00:33:52.290] – John DiJulius
Right, that you read a post of something I posted on social media and you’re saying, John, that’s off brand like that, and I always say that, if you feel that you’re off brand, too often you’re not off brand, you’re on brand!

[00:34:13.590] – John DiJulius
You just don’t know what your brand is. Right. So, I mean, it’s crazy not to have a coach, a mentor that at all levels that can really make us better.

[00:34:28.320] – John DiJulius
We all have so much room to improve. And listen, the one thing that BlackBerry and Blockbuster and Circuit City and, a ton of others all had two things in common.

[00:34:44.310] – John DiJulius
Everyone knows one of the things they have in common. Well, they’re not around anymore.

[00:34:48.210] – John DiJulius
But what no one knows is the first thing they had in common was that they were all number one in their market, that back when they were number one, if we were starting a business, we would have killed to be the BlackBerry like you would have told me, John, someday your business will be the blackberry … I would have been, no way!

[00:35:10.260] – John DiJulius
So they were a number one and they got fat, they got content and we’re all kidding ourselves that we’re going to stay at this level with without someone who’s going to hold us accountable.

[00:35:25.910] – Tony Winyard
What advice would you give for someone, anyone listening on how to find a good mentor? What sort of questions should they be asking? What kind of attributes, what would you say?

[00:35:38.680] – John DiJulius
There’s so much research that you could do now, and it’s reading, articles and blogs and listening to podcasts and saying, God, every thing this person, she says resonates with me or or annoys me in a good way, like, damn it, that really annoyed me because she was right. And, I swear she was talking to me. And I just think that, the Internet and content and podcasts and blogs, you can just, feel that person can match it.

[00:36:16.750] – John DiJulius
And obviously, the the other place that’s almost as good as is talking to people and talking to people you admire and that you want to be, like I want to be just like him or her that, they’re really good spouse. Right. They’re a really good parent. whatever it is that, you admire about them and ask them. And chances are they’re working with someone and say, would you recommend?

[00:36:43.180] – John DiJulius
Oh, absolutely. he or she has changed my life and made me look at things and called me out on that. I say these things are what I value. But, now show me your calendar and your calendar doesn’t lie. I can say I value my kids, quality time with my kids. But now look at my last six months of my calendar and then you say, well, John, didn’t you say your son wrestles or plays baseball?

[00:37:10.060] – John DiJulius
Yeah, well, I don’t see any of their games or matches. Oh, I’ve been traveling a lot, Tony. This isn’t a good time. Well, then they’re quality time. Their activities is not a priority. You could say all you want because it sounds nice.

[00:37:26.350] – John DiJulius
So that’s, I think, what a great coach mentor does.

[00:37:31.230] – Tony Winyard
And speaking of that, when you were talking about quality time with kids before we started recording I mentioned to you about how the new podcast, which this is going to be news for people listening, because they haven’t heard this yet. The new podcast as of next week is going to be about quality of life and living a good quality of life now rather than what most people do. They keep putting it off for when the kids leave home, when when I get that promotion, when whatever it might someday.

[00:38:00.010] – Tony Winyard
Yeah, exactly. And I know from reading your posts on blogs and your social media post, I get the feeling this is something that you’re quite passionate about?

[00:38:11.530] – John DiJulius
So I have a personal mission vision statement and it’s on my mirror. It’s in my wallet. It’s, even at our corporate office and it’s “To live an extraordinary life, so countless others do”. And that really means something to me. It’s not just a phrase and a platitude. I don’t want to live an extraordinary life. So I have more cars and vacation houses and fancy whatever. I want to live an extraordinary life so all the people that are are dependent on me and, my kids, my employees, my clients, my neighbors, my friends, that they have a better chance. And so I take that very seriously. And so, I look at that. We all have seeds of potential. Everyone has seeds of potential. And, some of us, some people don’t take advantage and grow every seed of potential or 90% and some maybe only do 50%.

[00:39:14.950] – John DiJulius
And, others could say that’s it’s none of your business, But I disagree because if you’re my brother. If you’re my boss, if you’re my anything best friend, you’re ripping me off. if I choose to eat crap food today and skip a workout and have one too many drinks and hang around negative people, that is your problem. Because if you’re directly or indirectly related to me, if you’re my business partner, you’re my son, you’re my spouse, well, you’re going to get less of me.

[00:39:58.510] – John DiJulius
And you’re counting on me to try to live the best version of my life. So it’s a burden for me. And so, not only do I say I have to live an extraordinary life, I spell out how I have to and what things I have to do in my life. And I have a whole chart. And when I am not living an extraordinary life and trust me, it’s it’s a lot more often than I like to admit I go to. That chart, and I can immediately see what it what I’m not taking care of and, it might be I’m not feeding my mind with inspiring podcasts and books and whatever, or it might be that I’m not hanging out with the right people.

[00:40:45.310] – John DiJulius
It might be that, I’m not working out whatever it may be. But I have, a list of of six things, three person, three professionally that I have to do to keep me closer to my ten, then, than anything else I do. So if I look at as an obligation, not as choice or, it’s something I have to do. And so let’s go to what if Nelson Mandela what if Walt Disney, what if Steve Jobs, what , whoever, the greatest people and I know Steve Jobs wasn’t necessarily a great personal person, but he was a great businessman. But what? If those people said when they were younger, ah, screw it. Right. I’m just going to be ordinary, , how different would our lives be? and there’s someone probably in our lives, hopefully there several maybe our parents might have been a coach, it might have been a teacher, whoever that an older brother, that was extraordinary for us.

[00:41:48.970] – John DiJulius
But what if they would have taken the lazy path, the easiest path, and they wouldn’t have been the role model that they were, how different what our life had turned out and we owe that to to the people that are counting on us.

[00:42:07.060] – Tony Winyard
Do you have any thoughts on why is that so many people put off their happiness into the future? And think that in 10 years time, they’re going to be happy. Do you have any thoughts on why people do that so much?

[00:42:21.160] – John DiJulius
Yeah, I mean, I was guilty of it in my 30s. You get mistaken on what’s important or you think you can come back to it like I’ll always have my wife, I’ll always have my kids.

[00:42:35.830] – John DiJulius
And if I just can build my empire or whatever it is, that that is taking that needs my time right now, then when I get there, it goes back to that someday, when some day happens and I can, have a date night with my wife, I can, be at all my kids activities or whatever those things are. And typically, you find out the hard way that, since I’m fifty six now and I was talking to kids yesterday, my interns, are twenty three, but to me they’re kids.

[00:43:13.060] – John DiJulius
And I was saying that, you change a lot, at least I did. And what your priorities are when you’re twenty three. Twenty eight. Thirty five. I said two things I really enjoy about being older is one, It seems like since I turned about the age of 40, which has been 16 years, I’ve changed less. I realized what was important. And sixteen years later, it’s the same thing. I realize it’s relationships. It’s I realize it’s quality time, you And while money and a quality of life is nice, those are just, whatever the word would be. But the relationships you have, that’s number one.

[00:44:03.610] – John DiJulius
And then the second thing that I have found, and I don’t know if this is for everyone, is as I’ve gotten older, I worry so much less. And I don’t know if you can teach. And I, I see so many young, more so than when I was young, have such high anxiety. And I know that comes from a lot of things.

[00:44:21.340] – John DiJulius
But, I worried, more when I was younger. And I don’t know if you can teach this.

[00:44:27.820] – John DiJulius
I don’t worry about anything now because I know and it’s probably through, , living through 9/11, living through the Great Recession and living through covid, living through tragedy is another thing that no matter what comes, I’ll figure it out. So I kind of have that experience and confidence that this common confidence that whatever you throw at me, I’m going to figure out and I don’t know if you can tell someone who hasn’t had that those life experiences in those scars, if that there’s not to worry so much. I just I know I enjoy life because I just don’t worry. I don’t lose sleep.

[00:45:11.950] – Tony Winyard
You said that in your 40s, you changed. Was there a catalyst that made you see things differently?

[00:45:22.360] – John DiJulius
Yeah, crisis’s, decline in relationship, with my wife, because, I kept on thinking and we probably both did thinking that we could, we had forever and that would always be there. And, my kids growing. I’ve done a lot. And I was a good I still am a good parent. But, there’s things I missed or wasn’t there, not even physically, but maybe emotionally. Right. And so we losing those times. And then and then my wife passed away in a car accident, in my early to mid forties. And, you realize, you don’t have forever. you don’t you may not have 30 more years to to catch up and make it right or whatever that may mean.

[00:46:21.420] – John DiJulius
And, we have to live a sense of urgency because there is no guarantees. We have a passport and we’re just tourists. And we don’t know when that passports can expire. And we have to make the most out of it every day.

[00:46:40.080] – Tony Winyard
Well, time is flying again. John, before we finish, you were talking to me before about you’ve got a conference coming up later this year with some major speakers. Tell us about that?

[00:46:50.610] – John DiJulius
Yeah, I’m really excited. We’re having “The customer service revolution”. This is our 13th year we’ve had it and it’s every October. And this is the first year that it’s going to be a virtual for obvious reasons. But again, because it’s virtual, we’re able to take advantage and get a line up. We always have a really good lineup, but our lineup is just off the hook this year.

[00:47:15.690] – John DiJulius
So it’s every Thursday in October and there’s five Thursdays in October. That’s why we picked it.

[00:47:22.140] – John DiJulius
So it’s the 1st, 8th, 15th, 22nd & 29th from three p.m. to four thirty pm Eastern Standard Time, ninety minutes every Thursday. And we have like twenty five speakers and so five speakers every Thursday and we have Seth Godin and Guy Kawasaki and Jesse Etzler and Ken Blanchot and Mikki Williams and myself and it’s just, too many to to rattle off right now. But it’s really an amazing event.

[00:47:58.180] – John DiJulius
And the theme is Reimagine. Revolutionize. So reimagined because we have to reimagine the world. We’re navigating personally and professionally. So and then we want to continue to revolutionize our industry, our business, and not get sucked into the whole.

[00:48:19.860] – Tony Winyard
And if people want to find out more about that, where should they go to?

[00:48:25.450] – John DiJulius
www.Customerservicerevolution.com or the https://thedijuliusgroup.com/ both will take you to the same place.

[00:48:35.260] – John DiJulius
Or they can email me at John@thedijuliusgroup.com and I’ll put them in touch with the right person.

[00:48:57.070] – Tony Winyard
And I believe you’ve got a book that you often recommend, apart from the five books you’ve written.

[00:49:05.430] – John DiJulius
Yeah, My favorite book right now. And it changes weeks to week. But I love everything that Howard Schultz writes.

[00:49:14.920] – John DiJulius
He’s the CEO, president of Starbucks.

[00:49:23.920] – John DiJulius
And his latest book came out at the end of 2018, beginning on 19 was “From the ground up”. And I read it. And now I’m really OD’ing on it. I’m listening to the audio while rereading on Kindle at the exact same time. Like, I don’t know what that means. I’ve never done this before. I’ve never listened and read a book at the same time. But I want to make sure. And Tony, to your point, it’s a great story. But where you’re headed, the reason why I love the book. I know Howard Schultz’s story in his first two books and being a fan of his I know the Starbucks story. I really didn’t need a third book to read. What I like about this book is how he attacks social responsibility and how he feels that, it is every company’s responsibility to step up and not be politically correct, not keep their mouths shut because, afraid that they’re going to offend, 40 percent by if they, go against, what he believes and he believes in. And one of my favorite things that he did and I saw this in a video is he was they were in support of gay marriages.

[00:50:45.310] – John DiJulius
Right. And this is years ago. And which his shareholders weren’t too happy with, , because, again, you’re going to annoy a percentage. Somebody asked him at a shareholder meeting, why don’t you just keep your opinions to yourself? why do we have to go publicly and take a stance? And I loved his comeback. He said, listen, every decision we make is not an economic one. And I truly believe that this is the right decision. And a company like Starbucks needs to come out and support it. And he says, and in the past 12 months, Starbucks has produced a 38% return and with all respect to you, if you feel that you can get a 38% return somewhere else, I invite you to take your money out and go buy a different stock!

[00:51:35.890] – John DiJulius
And I love that. he wasn’t afraid to, come out and stand. And so it just really gave me a lot of, like, soul searching of, while I feel bad about a lot of things that’s happening, that’s not doing anything for anyone, And I’m like, oh, that’s horrible. Oh, that shouldn’t be. Well, me feeling bad is not getting anything improved. So it kind of gave me, kind of a shout out that as a CEO and as an influencer, I need to step up for what I think is right.

[00:52:10.260] – Tony Winyard
And finally, before we go, John, have you got a quotation that you like?

[00:52:14.770] – John DiJulius
Yeah, it’s something that pops up in my phone every morning at 6:00 a.m. and that’s how I want to start my day. It says: “Act as if today is the day you’ll be remembered for how you treat others”. I want to intentionally do that. Act as if today is the day you will be remembered for how you treat others.

[00:52:35.590] – Tony Winyard
Who’s that by?

[00:52:37.520] – John DiJulius
Myself. Just something I came up with, I just want to have an intentional purpose for how I go about my day.

[00:52:47.680] – Tony Winyard
Well, John, I so much appreciate the last fifty minutes experience. That’s been fantastic. Once again, thank you.

[00:52:55.670] – John DiJulius
Congratulations for making one hundred. That’s a big milestone. And I can’t wait to see the the new podcast.

[00:53:04.020] – Tony Winyard
Yeah, well, I may well invite you on again if you would honour me again

[00:53:07.240] – John DiJulius
I’d love to. Absolutely love to

[00:53:10.210] – Tony Winyard
John. I hope you have a fantastic summer and I look forward to speaking to you again sometime.

[00:53:16.610] – John DiJulius
Thanks, Tony. You too.

[00:53:18.860] – Tony Winyard
Thank you, John. So that was Episode 100 with John Di Julius, I hope you enjoyed the show, if anyone who you think would really get some value from some of the wisdom John dropped, please, do share the episode with them.

[00:53:36.320] – Tony Winyard
And next week is episode one of my new podcast called “Happy Vs. Flourishing”. And we examine quality of life and whether people put off happiness. A lot of people think they’re going to be happy in the future when they get that new job, when kids go off to university, when their mortgage is paid off. Whatever the case might be. But don’t enjoy themselves now. And there’s also a number of things about enjoying life now. Is it just stuck in front of a TV every night? Well for some people maybe they do get enjoyment from that, so often that’s not the case. There is research that shows people who are stuck in front of the television, get depressed. So we’re going to examine a lot of areas around happiness and around flourishing. We’re going to discover what the difference is between happiness and flourishing. With some of the guests that I have lined up over the next few weeks and months, we’re really going to drill down into these different areas of quality of life, and it will involve both from a business perspective and from a personal perspective.

[00:54:48.350] – Tony Winyard
So we’ll look at how maybe by raising prices and working less can give you a better quality of life, but also by improving your health, by doing things like breathing techniques and meditation, better sleep quality. Nutrition and many other areas as well at this overall, how can we improve quality of life so that we enjoy life more? Now, I’m not putting it off into the future. If you subscribe to Exceeding Expectations you don’t need to do anything. Your subscription will stay the same and you’ll just receive the new episodes with new artwork and a new name. If you don’t subscribe, why not take the opportunity to do that now? And if you do like the episode, I’d love it. If you could leave a review on iTunes or Stitcher or Spotify or any of the other podcasts. So that’s the new podcast “Happiness versus Flourishing”, which starts next week. I hope you have a fantastic week.