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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's your host, Rick A. Morris,
Rick A. Morris 0:26
and welcome to another edition of the work life balance listening to Rick Morris and we're so excited to have a wonderful guest on but before just a quick announcement, for those of you that follow me on the entertainment side and are aware of the you know, the Mickey Mouse Club and the group that I produced called the party. We announced today that for the first time, this music that we made 30 years ago is now available via Spotify. It was it was crazy, because Hollywood Records they were the first band that Hollywood record signed, and through purchases and acquisitions, and all of that Music masters have been somewhere we don't know where but it was, you know pre digital age pre cellphones pre all that. But we finally have gotten that done, that first album was released, and we couldn't be more excited. So Jason Hampton did it did a big announcement on Instagram around noon, but you can search the party, find the original album that we released August 31 1990. So we're so excited for the band. So excited for those guys. We just had, you know, Jason and Damon on the show not too long ago. Let's get to today's show, today's gentlemen that specializes in empowering individuals and organizations in identifying, developing and exceeding performance goals. He's had the privilege of coaching and training thousands of high performers across an array of industries, from small businesses on the move to fortune 500 companies. He collaborates with organizations to build foundations set goals and Eclipse their highest potential. He's got a lot of the similar backgrounds that I do, I already know which subject we're gonna really dive into, but let's bring him on. To the show Steve Gavin torta Steve, how you doing, sir?
Steve Gavatorta 2:02
I'm good Rick, how about yourself
Rick A. Morris 2:04
doing wonderful so thank you for the advanced copy which was in defense of adversity is not advanced copy but you sent me a copy of in defense of adversity, turning your toughest challenges into your greatest success. And when I read that the thing that jumped out right out the gate to me was one of my favorite subjects to discuss and that's disk. Yeah.
Steve Gavatorta 2:24
Yeah. Oh, god, I'm sorry. No, go ahead. No, I was gonna say I think I use that nearly everything I do on my base premise is to be successful in life to be successful in business sales leadership, team dynamics, such as facing adversity, overcoming obstacles, we must know ourselves know others whom we're communicating with. So we can also lead go trust. So I use the disc disc assessment and almost everything I do, because my premise is, without trust, you're not going to be successful in whatever endeavor. you're attempting to Do our to do.
Rick A. Morris 3:00
And so there's multiple organizations that certify disk. One of the things a lot of people don't know about this because it is public domain. Now there's several companies that do certify, but it's it's public domain out there now, but I want what was the organization, you certified through?
Steve Gavatorta 3:15
A TTR? target training international? Yep.
Rick A. Morris 3:17
So I'm certified through TTI, as well. Maxwell's method. I went through a certification with Dr. Robert Rome, who owns personality insights. And so yeah, I can't learn enough about it right, the more the more I can gain that. And interestingly enough, I did a keynote this morning for the PMI chapter of Tampa Bay and one of the people that was reaching out said that she really wanted to learn how to communicate better with executives, and And my response was, you've got to learn disk in about 2002 is when I first ran into it. I wrote about it my book in 2008. It really was a staple as a project manager. My job is to communicate 90% of the time, and if I don't know what my audience is, Or how to communicate appropriately with them at least meet them where they are. That of course, you know, it's not gonna it's not going to fare well for me. Yeah. So let's talk about the book for a moment. Why did you decide to write your book in defense of adversity?
Steve Gavatorta 4:13
Yeah, as we spoke earlier, I'm actually in my home. I live in Tampa, Florida, but I'm home in Pittsburgh now, taking care of some family matters. And as you probably can imagine, Western Pennsylvania Pittsburgh, is coal mine steel mills and natural drawl back in the day and even still today for immigrant families. So about five years ago, I was home for the holidays. And I told my father I want to see where you grew up the little neighborhood when you grew up, and it's a little village within my hometown called Lang Lothar Burg, it's town to and it's nothing special. It's about a bunch of tenement houses. They're small little houses, nothing special. So my father we got there. My father points to his house and my father, by the way, was a successful entrepreneur himself said that where I grew up, there's we're doctors pathogens grew up. There's we're Dr. Stross. He grew up. There's we're Dr. So and So grew up, there's we're Barry Alvarez grew up I'm not sure if you know who Barry Alvarez Yeah, the winningest football coach of all time at University of Wisconsin. So it just really hit me like a ton of bricks. What a great story and especially as day and age with all the law, so much negativity and a lot of complaining that, you know, all these immigrant families came from around the world, to this little town, not speaking English, let alone each other's language, became doctors, lawyers, business men and women entrepreneurs, athletic directors, athletes. really a great story I wanted to tell. The only problem was I'm not a biographer. So I actually went forward, I started interviewing a lot of these families and their stories were tremendous interviewed Barry Alvarez for about three hours. And the common denominator that I found that made them successful was the fact they all it was really about The adversity that they all face and successfully overcame. And that drew to the title of the book called in defense of adversity turn your toughest challenges into your greatest success, meaning adversities placed in our lives, I firmly believe to help us grow, transform and evolve into the people were ultimately meant to become.
Rick A. Morris 6:22
One of the greatest quotes that I heard actually going through training with Dr. Robert Brohm is he said, The universe is going to keep giving you the same adversity, and it's, it's a pass or fail. And if you fail, it's just going to keep coming at you the same issue. And so if you ever questioned in your brain, you know, why do I keep making the same mistake? And that's because you haven't grown or learn to move past that mistake yet. I I've never heard anybody but it did you know that eloquently before,
Steve Gavatorta 6:48
right? That's right. You know, I talked about three things in the book or in workshops, too. It's really First of all, when adversity strikes, you must face it. You can't act like it's not there. You can't make or you shouldn't act like it's Not there, you shouldn't get angry, your response should not be emotional, you should be willing to face it, then hopefully successfully overcome it. But at the least learn a valuable lesson from it. Because as you said, it's going to come up again if you didn't learn that lesson. So hopefully, if you learn that lesson, it's gonna prepare you down the road for when things happen again, as well. And there's, I'm not just saying this on a whim, this there's a lot of brain science and brain functionality that backs that as well to the fact that when we learn from things when we learn from obstacles, they're something that allows our brain to develop our cortex part of our brain, our rational part of the brain. So adversity in our life is very useful to our development as human beings and in roles such as leadership, sales, business management, ownership, whatever that
Rick A. Morris 7:50
might be. Even Bill Gates says that the enemy of success is too much success. That's my sense, right? They you start to cruise right
Steve Gavatorta 8:00
licensing, you know, I subscribe to the fact my worst times have ultimately been my best times I've learned the greatest lessons during my adverse times. In fact, I dedicate a whole chapter. I'm not sure if you had a chance to read the book. But in chapter three, I dedicate a whole chapter. And it's titled this summer from hell. So it's one of the toughest things I face that in my younger years that made me become who I am today. So
Rick A. Morris 8:27
I think that's a prevailing factor. You know, I, I intrapreneur, or intrapreneur. I'm a professional speaker. I interview entrepreneurs all the time. But now I've now created a new word if you like that intrapreneur means I interview entrepreneurs. I like that. But anyway, did none of them come on and say, you know, my first idea was a hit. My first idea is where I made my millions, all of them overcame and many times extreme adversity, in order to understand what the work ethic is to create the wealth that a lot of people desire. That's right. Everything in life teaches us a lesson if we're willing to learn from it and use it to our advantage. So I couldn't agree with you more. So you see, this topic is really important now and even more important now than ever white. Why do you say that?
Steve Gavatorta 9:14
Well, a couple things I say even before this whole COVID thing had I part of my tagline for my business, you can look at my capabilities video I produced like, two years ago, I stated we are in a fast paced, high tech, ever evolving world changes hitting us faster than ever adversity, striking deeper than ever. And the speed at which we make a decision to make decisions is getting shorter and shorter. This is the current and future place of our world. So if we are not with the intensity, things are hitting instead, it's not going to get any easier because of technology. If we're not prepared to effectively deal with fast change, deeper adversity, if you need to make a quick decision, we're really going to struggle we're not going to be successful. So you Even before this whole COVID thing I was talking about, you know, the need to be better at handling obstacles, learn from it, overcome it, and succeed from it because I firmly believe those people who can those companies who can are not only going to survive, but they are going to thrive, they may even get a competitive advantage when they're when their competitors aren't able to be successful in these crazy days. You know, as I was researching my not only that whole philosophy there, but when I was researching my book, this is should three and a half years ago, I googled the phrase how to deal with adversity with when back in the day when you plug that you when you Google that phrase, I think it was over 20 million results came back. So obviously this is this was a hot topic even before COVID and whatnot. So I just think it's hotter now because of COVID. That just the fast pace of our world today.
Rick A. Morris 10:58
But in so let's look to relate this back to the science of disk for a moment as well 69% of the population are in that highest calc category which means in that highest category you include the one big thing and they say that you fear change I don't think you fear change I just don't think you'd like your pattern disrupted without a why right? Is that fair to say?
Steve Gavatorta 11:19
Yeah, when I talk about the motivators reached out a motivator for a high s is peace and stability. So obviously COVID doesn't tie anything to peace and stability you know change doesn't tie into anything regarding peace and stability so you're exactly right you know COVID if if for any adverse situation if a high ass or any style but if especially high so does it understand that being a trigger you know that lack of peace lack stability, the the uncertainty if they don't understand that that's a trigger for that potential trigger. It can lead to bigger problems because body don't know that, you know, life's not fair lifestyle. Like isn't going to happen in a normal order. So if you struggle with that, you're going to struggle during those times or during adverse situations. If I'm more aware of that in myself, because of my disc style, I'm going to be much more cognizant of those things that set me into a, you know, a negative, what I call an emotional state. And also I'm going to understand what that emotional state feels like, Am I freeze or fight or flight? Or if I can understand those triggers and responses, I'm going to be better at dealing with adversity. And disk is a way of identifying,
Rick A. Morris 12:32
you know, what are my triggers? And how, what are those emotional triggers? And how do I respond in my freezer fight or flight or, or some combination of those three, and it's interesting is better said than the way I phrase it because really 14% of the population is task based, or the rest is is people based. So even the highs which are the people based now going, we tend to turtle, you know, in the face of adversity because we just don't want to deal with the conflict itself. We're going to continue discussion and talk much more about disk and the book in defense of adversity with Steve Gadd. Vittoria, you're listening to Rick Moore's the work life balance.
VoiceAmerica 13:13
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Unknown Speaker 14:57
from the boardroom to you voice America Got business network
VoiceAmerica 15:07
you are tuned in to 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 15:33
and we're back to the work life balance on this Friday afternoon we're talking to Steve capitata who's written a book in defense of adversity and right before we went to break we made a point I just wanted to come back to it for a moment. So the 14% of the population are task based people right so that means the other 86 is is is people base people and people based people which is your high your high as we tend to turtle or we hi eyes turtle hi SS fear That kind of that change so when we start talking about adversity that doesn't mean we can't overcome adversity doesn't mean we can't overcome obstacles it just means that our initial reaction is something that we have to fight is that fair to say?
Steve Gavatorta 16:13
Absolutely. And you know, even from those task based people you know, their response could be fight for anger or get frustrated you know, so each each disc style has their respective emotional triggers and those respective responses you know, it's not a black or white answer here but the rule of thumb that I found it research is dominant styles tend to be if they're functioning in a non productive emotional state will be free or fight I'm sorry fight a an influencer will be flight kind of you as you were saying it's you know, don't deal with it head on. steadiness mouse or more. Freeze don't shut down and we internalize and a compliance now is a combination of free And fight, no shutting down then punching back. So that's it that's kind of a black or white description of how what how they may those emotions may manifest when they're negative. In addition, you want to consider the blended styles I as an example, and I may Hi. So as I said earlier, that also I had some high D. So when an emotional trigger such as lack of peace and stability hits me, it works like clockwork, for me, I will initially shut down or freeze I'll start internalizing things. Then if it carries on too far, my de may come up and I'll fight I'll punch back. So that doesn't look very well because people are thinking, Oh, speed, fine. He's not saying anything. Because he, no one knows what I'm thinking because I'm internalizing, not in a good way not. I'm blind when I'm internalizing. But then I snap back. Knowledge of those things that trigger me knowledge of my freeze and fight, response, a freeze and fight response has helped me better self manage in adverse times, I'm much more cognizant of those things that can set me in that limb, that negative emotional state, and what it feels like. So it's essentially through this understanding, I've been able to raise my emotional intelligence and become much more productive under duress, or change or adversity and things of that nature.
Rick A. Morris 18:24
I think the two biggest things for me that I learned when I when I really started to study desk and really started to become passionate about it, I think the first one is the identification of our blind spot. So to tell you a story in that as a professional speaker, when I first started speaking and being a high I, one of the first things that people will automatically target you as whether you are or not, right, it's that it's that communication trigger is egotistical. And at the same time, I hadn't learned the lesson yet of speaking kind of from the heart. So it was it was success after success after success. So I look like a radio an egomaniac on stage right. And once I figured that out to internalize it, the first thing I do now is I tell self deprecating jokes on stage just to kind of, you know, get everybody down. But in, in coming back to your book, though, I want to get into the leadership side of it. But one of the things that I do to make it hit home with people, is I read the section as I'm going through each profile of responds best to a leader who write and there's a few. There's a few bullet points for a D, and I and C. And then I come back around, and I said, which means if you're leading a team, and you've got more than 10 people, right, chances are you have every style on that team. So this is the leader you have to be and I read that whole section across again, and I get a lot of laughs at that point. But that's the point that we're trying to drive is that if you've ever caught yourself saying I've said the same 10 cent, same thing 10 times and Johnny doesn't get it. You're not communicating in a style the Johnny can
Steve Gavatorta 19:54
grab it. Exactly. I think one of my favorite quotes I use in my workshops a lot it would be from Vincent bardy who said the key to his success was he had to learn 40 different ways to motivate and communicate with 40 different men. So you know, he knew the hot buttons to push on his players like I think was all pro Hall of Fame offensive guard or tackle Jerry Kramer. You know, he could throw raped on the field, he could kick off the field, yell at him and scream at him. Jerry Kramer would come back the next day, Matt, he won the show coach Lombardi he was wrong. Were Vince Lombardi, I'm sorry, Bart Starr and Paul Horney. He couldn't critique he couldn't embarrass them in public because it would shut them down. And that really resonates with me too, because I played 13 years of football. And when a coach put me in the doghouse, I'm sure you know what being put the doghouse? Well, I felt that Yeah, yeah, you're in trouble base. But when a coach put me in the doghouse, right, wrong or indifferent. I bought furniture for the dog house. I decorated the dog. Meaning I wasn't coming out at the dinner. motivate me so the coaches who got the best nonummy knew my hot buttons and how to get the best out of me. I never responded to yellers and screamers some of my other teammates did those coaches who knew that about their players awfully got the best out of him as well to
Rick A. Morris 21:18
a coach told me when I got up to college and did not have a stellar career there told me that I had what was known as game film speed. I said what's that being coach he said, and on film your fastest I'll get out he goes but in person not so much. Got that? I had
Steve Gavatorta 21:38
let's go this one I had gained film height I was
when I went on recruiting visits coaches when they elegantly saw me they were a little surprised and so that's how I ended up at division three football versus Division Two or one there are I get exactly what you're saying. And but you didn't point out Doug Flutie to them
Rick A. Morris 21:57
going con science doesn't know
Steve Gavatorta 22:03
I have the arm Doug Flutie.
Rick A. Morris 22:07
So what are what are some of the attributes that you think great leaders exhibit to be successful in the face of adversity itself?
Steve Gavatorta 22:16
Yeah, I think several things, I think, tying this to emotional intelligence as well, too, I think they are highly introspective. They know themselves. They are they understand their behavior, their communication style. They understand how they make decisions, what they're motivated by how they deal with change, risk and conflict and adversity, they really understand themselves. Then second, so they have great intrapersonal skills. Secondly, they have great interpersonal skills to just what we were talking about. They have they know the motivators, the behavior, the attributes, same attributes I just mentioned for them. They know those same attributes and those people with whom they're leading so they know who they can put in production. situations, they know who they're the strengths of their team, where the strengths lie. So the interpersonal skills, intra personal skills are key. And with that the ability to build resilience for themselves and their resilience and perseverance for themselves and their team, and the ability to effectively solve problems and resolve conflict every day. But again, especially those adverse times, yeah,
Rick A. Morris 23:28
I want to challenge you on something. It's something I'm sure you've heard. I hear it all the time, especially with dealing with executives, when we start to talk about your human behavior consulting and the things that it can do. They say all that sounds wonderful. You said, Yeah, but I want to start with you. Oh, no, dude, I'm good. I'm fine. How do you how do you overcome that piece?
Steve Gavatorta 23:46
Yeah, I mean, I think anecdotal evidence is the biggest one because they see the problems in their team they need to do this. I mean, I've even done workshops where you're applying disc and the leaders think everybody should be adapting to them right now. And that's the key issue I found. And I'm like, No, no, no, no, that's not what I'm saying. So I think you have to point out real evidence where their lack of introspection or their leadership skills is really met panning out in the workplace. If there's conflict, if there's if salespeople aren't closing sales, it's ultimately going to go back to them. So I think you have to really prove provide that evidence because at that higher level, leaders are blind and so many times it's a lonely position, no one is there to necessarily critique them. So you have to show actual evidence of maybe this fault. The these issues you're having are tied back to you as well. So essentially evidence of how it's manifesting in their own team their own business. Absolutely, absolutely. So
Rick A. Morris 24:51
I find that you know, again, they they say like, I'm successful. I was successful to get here. So I don't understand why I have to change but I think it's mindset. And and you said it before when you were talking about? What are the attributes that leaders really need to have? And it's that intra perspective that they have. How do you other than other than, you know, showing them is there, have you had a method or phrase or something you've used to really create that aha moment for them, that they really do need to look inside?
Steve Gavatorta 25:24
Yeah, what I try to do is, again, help people again, that's self knowledge, their ability to make good decisions in face of obstacles, things of that nature, I try to point out, where again, they're decision making, are they functioning in that what I call the rational part of the brain, I talk about two important parts of the brain in my book, the limbic system and the cortex. Our limbic system is called our emotional brain. Our cortex is our rational brain, and I can dig into that deeper if you want. But oftentimes, I see leaders functioning in that limbic or the emotional part of the brain Whether you're getting angry or they're shutting down, or they're out there taking control things, so I try to point out to leaders to when they're functioning in that emotional part of their brain, and the results of that. So if I'm if a leaders taking control of things instead of delegating, that's not productive, because they should be delegating as leaders. So again, I try to point out where they're not functioning in that rational part of their brain and what those results are. Does that Does that kind of make sense?
Rick A. Morris 26:32
Absolutely. Absolutely. To in it's funny, but it is the emotional side. I wrote a speech A long time ago called Making emotional conversations on emotional, which was a check point to say, is this really even an issue? And so using project management terms, you get into the data, and then let the data decide whether or not you're having an issue or not, versus You know, I think this person is always late. Well, if I go back and look at the last two months, and they were only late once All right, then I'm just I'm a little bit more emotional about it right now than I am logical. And for me being an emotion based person, I had to teach myself that kind of system to make sure I validated that I had a right to be upset,
Steve Gavatorta 27:14
right? That's right. And like I said, the emotions when I say motion, some emotions are good. I'm talking about when we are angry. We're seeing rat rat fight mode when we're not functioning our optimal brain capacity. It's okay to be how should I say this? A? What's the right Burbage Ay, Ay Ay, ay, you can be direct to the point and send a very clear hearts message from your cortex part of the brain. You know, if you're thinking rational, illogical, and you need to lay down, you've told someone you folks need to operate in that, you know, you need to get your act together as a team. We're not making our numbers. There's a difference between being direct to the point. When you're in control. It's when you're out of control and you're yelling or screaming, you're seeing red You're not functioning at optimal level, that's when it gets, it gets out of control. And there can be a thin, you know, fine line between, you know, delivering that harsh message while in control versus delivering that highly emotional fight or anger message as well too. So, that's the fine line, someone's got to draw so
Rick A. Morris 28:19
so we're gonna take a break right here. But when we come back, I want to get into fear and adversity. And when you when you know you're supposed to do something, or you know, you're supposed to make a decision, and that adversity in the fear of that adversity is standing in your way, but we're going to deal with that when we come back from break or listen to Steve gavita brick Morris on the work life balance.
VoiceAmerica 28:43
Are you frustrated with the overall productivity of your project management processes? Do you lack consistency in project delivery? Our squared consulting provides end to end services to assist companies of all sizes in 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. The work life balance, we like to ask simple questions to our executives and portfolio managers. Are you picking your projects based on what the organization can spend? Or is it based on what your resources can realistically achieve? This question is not answered properly can cause great strain on your staff limiting the return on investment. When creating project selection criteria. Does your organization attempt to understand the amount of resources needed to complete the work? Is this done in spreadsheets or at a high level? What if we told you there was a simple and easy solution that was built with resource planning in mind? We call it resource first from PD where resource first was built with resource planning as its foundation. We have years of experience proves before a company fine tunes its project and portfolio management processes without a process for resource planning, the best processes and algorithms can fall flat resources should be first when deciding the strategy of taking an organization forward. Find out more at PDX aware.com. Put your people first with resource first from PD where join us at pd where.com.
Unknown Speaker 30:25
When it comes to
Unknown Speaker 30:26
business, you'll find the experts here voice America business network.
VoiceAmerica 30:37
You are tuned in to 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 31:03
And we're back to the work life balance on this Friday afternoon. We're dealing talking with Steve, dude, we're dealing with you. Alright. Can we get through this interview? Steve? We're talking to Steve, Kevin sorta. And so you're Steve, as we tease going into the break. You know, there's several people out there that that have a tough decision to make, or they're flirting with the tough decision. And the fear of the unknown becomes more of that prevention point, meaning, they kind of know they need to make a decision. They're certainly not happy, you know, whether it be a job or relationship or whatever it is. They're not happy where they are, but that fear of taking that next step. They're weighing that fear versus knowing that they're going to stay on happy if they stay where they are. What's your advice when they're facing that level of adversity?
Steve Gavatorta 31:50
Yeah, I think you have to really check what I call your perception of adversity, your perception of difficulties, and I talked about two things in my book. Number one, well the two words are your perception ties to acceptance and acknowledgement, to accept the fact that adversity, difficulties change, uncertainty, uncomfortable things are a part of life. When you accept that you're no longer I guess surprised or apprehensive that it's happening. And again, that ties that whole brain functionality piece I mentioned earlier I can connect to then the second part of that is acknowledging that adversity is brought in your life to learn overcome face and at least learn a lesson. So if you can learn look at everything in your life, as regardless if you fail, there should be no fear because there's always a lesson to be learned there are no there's no such thing as failure. I call it perceived failure because if you've learned a lesson, it's not failure. So acknowledge accepting that adversity is part of life. And when I say adversity, I'm saying, you know what might be going back to disk what might be an exciting challenge for one disc style may be a frustrating, frightful thing for another disc style. So with First is deeply personal and is defined by you. So really accepting that these uncomfortable things happen in our lives and they're put in our lives to help us grow, transform and evolve. That acknowledgement piece I learned from a gentleman name you probably have heard of him, called Chad hymas. Oh, you've not heard I'd highly recommend reading up on Shabbat Chad is a quadriplegic. He was a elk farmer, I believe it was and through. He was loading hay and unfortunately, he did not have enough hydraulic fluid in his tractor. I forget how many tons of bale of hay fell on him, but it fell on him. And he ultimately became a quadriplegic. And when I interviewed him, he stated that, you know, it's it's acknowledging that he can use this accident to help others and now he's one of the hottest speakers on the National Speakers Association circuit. Great Great guy. And you're using that difficult time to parlay that really, really teaching others lessons, especially around industries where there's any safety involved there environmental health and safety departments things that nature. So I'd highly recommend reading chat and following up on him, but that's where I got the acknowledgement part about it said, Hey, it all depends how you look at it. You know, and if you look at it and fear if you look at it with apprehension, then cancers are the result may validate your feelings. But if you could look to say, hey, there's no risk if I don't take it, the worst thing could happen is I learned a lesson from this. Does that
Rick A. Morris 34:36
make sense? Absolutely. And so what are some of those greatest lessons you think you can learn from those difficulties?
Steve Gavatorta 34:43
Yeah, I think that you can, you can do things you previously didn't think you could do on you can land that job. You didn't think you could land you can land that woman you didn't think or guide that you didn't think you can land it off ultimately proves that I think there is no no limit to our lives. If we are willing to make effort, try and seek our goals, if we have solid goals, we're willing to fight for them. We're willing to go through walls for that we're learning there learn valuable lessons, we can ultimately become what we ultimately strive to become or achieve. Let's put it
Rick A. Morris 35:18
that way. You just made a connection in my brain that I've never made before. But if you ever, you know, it's a standard response, male or female, just say, Wow, how is that person with that person? What you just taught me is? Well, the person that we think isn't worthy. He's just really good at overcoming adversity. Is that is that simply? So, you know, we've already discussed why we think obstacles are put in our path. We think that, you know, we've discussed, you're learning some lessons. Are there any exercises that we can practice to become better at dealing with adversity both in the short term and long term?
Steve Gavatorta 35:53
Yeah, again, really look at three things. I think, again, going back to the desk, I think raising understanding Your disc style could help drive your intrapersonal skills out self knowledge. It can also drive your interpersonal skills, learning how to deal with others. So the more you can understand based on your personal style, those emotional triggers What are those things that can set me into a emotional state of freeze fight or flight The more I can understand that myself, the more I'm going to be successful, the more I can understand those things in those people whom I'm leading, the more I'm going to help them be successful ultimately become successful. I also talked about something called the ooda loop. Have you ever heard of the ooda loop? Nope. ooda loop is developed by someone in the Air Force for rapid decision making how following a series of a thought process to make good solid decisions in in fast moments. It's an acronym, Udo is basically observe the situation. Number 202 o dl Da, da loop o da observed The situation as it's happening, orient yourself to the situation meaning I've been here before, or I know how to handle this, or I have training to deal with this for, I'm gonna learn a lesson from it now, then once you've oriented yourself, then the D comes in, decide what you're going to do then ultimately act. And it's a loop because it's a never ending loop and it can full feed on itself. So the more experiences I have, remember to dot o, o da, so Ori, observe, orient, decide and act. The more experiences I can learn from in my life that I have in my arsenal, the more goes into the ooda loop, especially the Orient phase. Because I'm observing an adverse situation happening, the more experiences I have to access I'm going to orient myself much better to what my decision is in the DEA of the ooda loop. Does that make sense?
Rick A. Morris 37:57
Oh, absolutely. It's it's the same language. When you tell a salesperson, don't worry about your first Yes, go get 100 knows that the reason behind that is the practice, essentially is you're setting the ooda loop. I didn't I didn't know that term but that's what you're doing is, is obviously you learn to become better on how to close business. If you're not afraid of that. No.
Steve Gavatorta 38:18
Let's go backwards. The observing piece is about forcing myself to observe it rationally. Don't jump in and look at it, not emotionally so you can see it clearly. Secondly, orient myself to what options do I have to respond to this thing in a productive manner to your point, if I'm a salesperson I have I have not experienced or I have one or two knows that in my in my belt. I'm not going to be as successful as that person who has those 100 knows and hopefully has learned lessons from those. he or she's going to be able to orient themselves better because they have more of an arsenal they have more of a options than grasp. So that's why I say r&b. ability to learn from our obstacles is productive, because that feeds into our future decision making into that ooda loop phase. You know, I, I hope I'm not insulting you or any of your listeners, but that's why I'm very adamant against participation trophies for kids.
Rick A. Morris 39:16
Don't get me started. Yeah,
Steve Gavatorta 39:19
you're not helping them do two things, one formulate the cortex part of their brain if they're not accustomed to losing or failing. They're not learning any lessons to fend to benefit down the road. In addition, it's not going to allow them to make those decisions and walk through that ooda loop phase because they have nothing to orient to. I've never failed. I've always gotten a trophy. I don't know what it means to win. So when something happens that the Orient phase there's not much to it number one, and that decision isn't as sharp and the action behind it isn't as sharp as well either. So that's my whole point about the more we can learn from our obstacles it's going to, it's going to benefit us because down the road when we have to make decisions, we have more experiences to fall back on to make wiser decisions, and have much better actions behind those decisions as well, too.
Rick A. Morris 40:14
And there's some great research out there around highly successful highly performing CEOs. And one of the common traits that they found was that they were on a high level team or championship team, that that lost the championship game. And it's interesting that that that's the common trait, but what happens is kind of in the psyche, they don't ever want to feel that way again, right. So it is a negative feeling. So they work harder and develop a work ethic that says, I'm not going, I'm going to be over prepared because I don't want to fail, and thus built a work ethic within them. That led them to great success. I think we're doing a huge disservice by not letting that failure set at these early ages.
Steve Gavatorta 40:56
We're going back to the brain funktionelle if you don't mind, I'm going to build on it. There's two important parts of the brain I talk about the limbic system. And the cortex. The limbic system is known as our emotional brain. It's what we're born with. It does not eat, grow, transform and evolve through time when we're functioning in the limbic system. During adverse situations, our adrenaline starts rushing in our response is going to be freeze fight or flight or some combination. So as you can imagine, freezing or being angry is not a good place to be when you're trying to handle an adverse situation. The cortex part of our brain also known as our rational brain, does grow transform and evolve through time through our experiences both good and especially bad through our education system reading writing arithmetic through our training that's why I'm I'm so into this training and development world we're in because what we're doing we're helping people build their cortex muscles to be successful leaders sales purse, people or two functioning effectively under situational dynamics such as adversity, change risk taking conflict resolution. So, the bottom line is when adversity strikes you, you want to be functioning in the cortex part of your brain. Because if you're not, you're going to have an emotional spot responsive freeze, fight or flight and you're not going to make wise decisions, you're not necessarily going to say the right things, you're not going to solve problems. And you're not going to be able to see think creatively or find solutions you may have if you weren't thinking from that rational part of your brain. So that's why that's so important to function in that cortex and our life experiences. If we're willing to learn, we can build our cortex muscles, so to speak.
Rick A. Morris 42:40
Absolutely. So it's important to have those experiences so we can learn essentially. So we're gonna take our final break right here. We'll be right back with Steve Gavin torta. You're listening to Rick Morris and the work life balance.
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When it comes to business,
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VoiceAmerica 44:52
You are tuned in to 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 45:18
And we're back to the work life balance on this Friday afternoon. And I've been visiting with Steve Gavin torta. Steve, kind of final question, then I've got a question that, that I asked every guest. That's, that's on the show. But why is this topic so important right now as we go through the pandemic?
Steve Gavatorta 45:36
Yeah, it is. As I said before, even before this pandemic, we're in this fast paced, high tech, low touch world. Everything's heading it's faster than ever. technology's not going to get any slower. And the other other factors that multi generational workplace, we have boomers, X's wires, everything in the workplace now, so I think Just the speed of things, speed of everything hitting us at once. a customer's needing answers speed at which to make decisions adversity. Again, I think even before this COVID the need to be strong and sit and think clearly is more important than ever, because the speed of change and whatnot. So we as leaders, if we can function effectively and our teams can function effectively during change, adversity, COVID, whatever that might be. It can again help the leaders their business, their business is not just survive the craziness that thrive in it. I truly think it's times like this, where companies can get a competitive advantage they can steal market share, because their organizations running on all cylinders or other other organizations. They're they're not changing fast enough. There's turnover. And you know, what turnover can do to the bottom line of an organization so that I have the word All machines that can solve problems minimize conflict is ultimately going to increase their cash flow, profitability, and grow their business as well to where others may not if they're not functioning on all cylinders. So I feel like what's happening with the speed of technology and everything else is if you look at the ooda loop, it's that observing orient is is getting further and further compressed. I think that that's leading to some of the the, I mean, you can have one mistake go down as a company or whatever, and it'd be all over the world within 10 minutes of you making it not having time to observe, orient, decide what you're going to do next. That's right. And if you're using the ooda loop, I mean, it's it's a successful process. It was developed again, by the airport, if I'm not mistaken by the Air Force for their pilots can make those snap decisions, you know, and that observation, the importance of them to pilots to stay rational, then the orientation is They have a whole man, they have a manual of responses, they have training of responses. So that orientation is all about them falling back on their training falling back on their experiences, then that's why I'm such a proponent of training too. And let's take a sales person who's thrown to the wolves, you know, he or she can observe a situation hopefully, rationally, but if they don't have training and skills to orient themselves, they're not going to be successful. You know, I've seen I've observed plenty of sales people who have never been trained on handling objections. So what happens is they start sweating, they start getting nervous and they're gonna fake push back at the buyer right away or the key decision maker right away, they get defensive, it's because they have nothing to orient to because they've not been trained on how to successfully deal with adversity. So those life experiences again, funnel into that orient face. The more we have to put in there, the more we're going to make better decisions, and our actions are going to be much better as well, too. So, and that's how that loop comes into play to your point. It's more compressed now than ever, then. So the more we can learn about ourselves, the more we can understand our triggers and responses, the better we're going to put input into that little loop and that loop that adds another little tool to write, to remind yourself to observe it rationally, don't go into limbic system and my emotional triggers and responses helped me know that better about myself so I can observe more rationally, then I have all these experiences and training to orient myself Oregon. There's nothing wrong with orient orient whoring or emptying yourself to the fact that I don't know I've never been here for I'd never done this before. But you know what, I'm open to learn a lesson. I'm going to acknowledge as I said earlier, this is a chance to learn something new. And what do I need to decide to do? Looking forward and whether those actions, once again, what you're going to do is add more to your orient phase down the road. So sure if that makes sense.
Rick A. Morris 50:10
So how do people get in touch with you?
Steve Gavatorta 50:12
Yeah, it's really easy. I'm like, maybe it's not so as easy if you've seen my last name, but feel free to Google me. My website's Gabba torta.com. It's my last name. It's spelled ga VA to rta.com. And you can find out if you google me, I'm out there on the public domain. You can check my YouTube sites out I have a lot of good YouTube content out there that you may find useful. My email address is very simple, Steve at Gabba torta.com and feel free to call me 813777941 for I'm easy to find out there so
Rick A. Morris 50:50
outstanding. So what's some of the best advice you've ever received?
Steve Gavatorta 50:55
Oh my goodness. Um, there's a lot of it.
I think again, Chad highnesses, it all depends on how your vantage point how you view those adverse situations which is going to determine your outcome. If you choose to view something negatively in a negative manner, it's going to be perceived in the outcome is going to be negative. So I think, you know, acknowledging that, you know, adversity is brought in our lives to help us grow. You know, I think it's not as much advice that I get. I've gotten but it's more of the motivational quotes and things I've read, one of which I often read in workshops leading up to this whole adversity topic. It's regarding Abraham Lincoln. Upon his passing it was it was stated by a news reporter who called on him at the time, and they were often at odds and I'm gonna paraphrase, but it's essentially states that Abraham Lincoln use the obstacles that he faced in his live life to his advantage. You He took every brick thrown at him and built steps to offer me become the greatest president. There was another quote, I often use it as I'm paraphrasing again. But it's the gem only becomes perfected through trials. So I think it's basically mother nature's way of telling us that we become ultimately who we're meant to become through the difficulties we face. The difficulties we face are about helping us grow, transform and evolve into the people we were meant to become. So I am not sure if that's the lesson I received or two quotes. It's been an array of different things. And they all fall under the fact that the difficulties are met help us. So.
Rick A. Morris 52:40
Absolutely. Well, Steve, we thank you so much for coming on. And, you know, most of the audience is not aware of the adversity you're dealing with, but we appreciate you pushing through and being a part of this with us. We'd love to have you back. My pleasure, would love to a lot of content I'd like to talk about so let's stay in touch. Absolutely. So next weekend. We're actually going to go to a replay I'm doing the keynote in a networking event for the PMI chapter of Austin, Texas. So I will be busy with them that next friday so we'll do a replay after that we've got Ryan Stanley coming up and, and quite frankly, getting you the the the success that you guys have given us the show, and continue to support the show and continue to push the show out there. We I'm literally getting eight to 10 requests a week now to be on the show. So not only do we have some phenomenal bookings coming up, but we're able to pick some of the best in the world coming up. And so we're booked all the way out until March on the show. We're going to continue to drive phenomenal entrepreneurs continue to drive phenomenal leaders. And of course, we'll have some fun surprises throughout. So that's what's going to be coming up in the future here at the work life balance. We always appreciate your support. You can find me at Rick A. Morris on Twitter, or LinkedIn find me at Rick A. Morris on Facebook book or Rick ab Rick A. Morris calm are more said r squared consulting.com and until next Friday, we hope that you live your own work life balance.
VoiceAmerica 54:12
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.
