Welcome to the Jody Mayberry Show. And boy, do I
have a treat for you. I have a returning guest who has
not been on the show in, I feel, 2 years.
He used to be a regular, and he just
disappeared from your ears for a little while. And he's
back. Jeff Knoll. Jeff, how are you? Hello, everyone. Hello,
Jody. Hello, everyone. It is it is so awesome to
be back on Jody's show and, and
to have your attention for a little bit. And I'm here to help
out Jody any way I can. Jody, greetings from Walt
Disney World Florida. Well, Jeff, you
know what we're going to talk about today. The 5 things
I tell myself every day, you know, I'm gonna give some background
on this because we did not do this episode last year. Every
year, I take 5 sayings, quotes if
you will, write them on note cards, and then I keep them at my desk
so I can see them every day. Well, I've done an episode
about those with Geoff at the beginning of every year, only we
didn't do it last year. I did the cards, but we didn't do
the episode. And someone reminded me and said, Hey,
I look forward to that episode every year. Where where was it? And I said,
Oh my goodness. We did. We missed it. So I had
to invite Jeff Beck. Bring him out of retirement.
Bring him out of seclusion so he can talk to
us, and we're we're gonna go through these quotes. Now this
is how it works, is I replace a couple
every year. I rotate it. There was 1 year I replaced all of
them. I think last year, I only replaced
1. This year, I have 2. So what I do is I
say what my quotes are, and then Jeff and I talk about them. So,
Jeff, you remember all that, I'm sure. Yeah. And it's always
exciting because I have no idea what you're gonna say. And and
then I try to quickly imagine if that word or that quote
was that essence would would be something I would pick
and why and and try and at the same time go, you
know, that's perfect for Jody or that'd be perfect for anyone,
actually. And that's the fun and exciting part. This is a little bit like
Jeopardy. You know, it's like the clock is going and here we go.
Alright. Now I'm going to do these these cards now.
I used to not do this, but a couple years ago, I think, I
started writing the year they were added into rotation on the
card, so I know. The first quote, Jeff, has
been in the rotation, according to my card,
since 2021. And it is from
Admiral Payne. Do your best and forgive yourself.
That's another one that's staying. The first three I'm gonna give you, Jeff, they are
staying in rotation, and that's one that will I think it's
been in rotation every year except one.
Well, that that is such a powerful mentality
essence to if you're confident that you've done your very best,
then you can't do anything better than your your very best. And if it
doesn't work out the way that you had hoped or if it works out better
than you hoped, then either way, forgive yourself for the the
extra work or or the success. Not not forgive yourself for
the success. Forgive yourself for any extra work or
worry that is on your mind about the result. I think that's
that's amazing. Yeah. It is such a powerful quote
and I took it out 1 year and just had to bring it back. I
need that reminder. Sometimes you do your best and it doesn't
work and you need to forgive yourself. Sometimes you do your best
at the expense of other things and you need to forgive
yourself. I just like that one. So that one is staying in.
The next one is staying in comes from Tony Robbins.
Trade your expectations for appreciation. That one was added
in 2,022. So that's it, Jeff. Trade
your expectations for appreciation. Will you go a
little deeper on what that means to you? Because I feel like I I might
be able to interpret it more than one way, and I wanna make sure
I'm responding in in the way that you intend. Here's what it means for
me. I think there's two levels to it. One
is I added this because at the time,
I was probably expecting things that didn't happen
and then be a little disappointed it didn't happen. Well,
this was a daily reminder and is a daily reminder for me
that instead of expecting things to happen, just
appreciate what does happen. Now that doesn't mean I'm not
going to try my best to make certain things happen. But
if we don't get there all the way, I'm still going to appreciate what
did happen. Another way to look at it, I
expected I would get to hike with Jeff Noll in Glacier National Park last
year. It didn't happen, but I do appreciate that we ran into
each other once. We got to talk. We got to text. So there's another
example. I could just have been disappointed we didn't
get the opportunity to go hiking, but instead, I appreciate
the talks we did get to have. Yeah. And you know how I'm
interpreting that, and I think it's I think this one's brilliant, too. I think your
first one was about forgiveness, and I try and just carry that
in in my heart and soul every day. And this one is to me, for
me, the way I would frame it up is it's about surrender, surrendering, you
know, the surrender prayer, you know, control what you can control and let
surrender to what you can't control. And if you can do
that, I think it really just helps you manage expectations.
You can have high expectations, but if whatever that expectation
is, if it doesn't play out the way you want, live with it. You know,
do something about it or surrender to the what you got if you don't have
a second chance at it, and be grateful that, like you said, that you even
had the opportunity to get anything out of it. Yeah.
Wonderful, Jeff. Okay. This next one will be very familiar to you.
Added in 2023, Happy Present Moment
by Jeff Knoll. That is my favorite. Of all the ones that you've
ever written, that one's my favorite. Well, the
reason I have this one in, I just wanted to
give myself a daily reminder that, hey,
I'm in this present moment. Okay. It's two sided, Jeff.
1 is to bring myself back into the present moment
and not look too far into the future, not look too far behind.
Just be here now and be happy about it.
People will text you and say happy birthday. People will text you and say
happy anniversary, happy new year. Jeff Noll is the
only one that will text you and say happy present moment,
which I love, Jeff, because it's a reminder that, hey, I'm here
and that's worth being happy because I'm here right now. Yeah.
You know, Jody, you're first too. So if you are struggling
with forgiving yourself and or others, you know, the fact that
you're alive to have even think about having that choice, because if you
weren't alive, you wouldn't have you wouldn't even have that choice. And then with
surrender into expectations and and all of that, again, you
are alive to to be present. You're here on this
planet right now, and to have the privilege to have
feelings and thoughts and all of it. I mean, when
that stops happening, then you're, you know, it's
over. Yes. So being present is reminder that we could
take being present for granted, but there's a lot of people, you and
I, and and all of you listening are we're missing right now because they're not
here. Bob Allen was recently on the podcast,
and he talked about it a little bit and said, there's a
difference between talking with Jeff Noll. He didn't
use your name. He used my name. I'm going to use your name. He said,
there's a difference between talking with Jeff Noll and talking with Jeff
Noll and being present. And I've been thinking about that ever since because
of course that reminded me. Yeah. Yeah. It reminded me
of you because maybe Bob Allen might have you
beat. I don't know. I spend more time with you than him. But there's no
one else I know that works so hard to be in in
the present moment than Jeff Noll. Yeah. And and just as
a reminder, Jody, I worked really hard at the beginning, like juggling
or any other skill playing the violin. And after enough
practice, you get pretty good at it without having to think too much about it.
Okay, Jeff. We're going to move to the 2 quotes that
I'm going to rotate out. But before we do, what have you
been up to since you've been on on the show last? Let's see.
It's probably been about a year and a half, but the big news for me,
the thing that really threw me and my life for a
curveball was was that I was out in Glacier National
Park with my wife like we do every summer, and we were coming home for
a week and then we were going back out for another month or so. And
we were just coming home for a week because we had been out there for
6 weeks already. We were just wanting to take a little break,
and the day after I got home, I went out for a walk.
I'm home for, like, 24 hours, and I'm walking
and I I went blind in my, one
eye. My retinotor, there was no pain. There was no event. I just would walk
in and all of a sudden my vision seems wonky, and I took my
glasses off and I covered each eye with my hand and I couldn't see out
of my left eye. And that led to a retina repair surgery, actually,
that very same week. And I was coming back from that and then
3 weeks later at retore and I had to have a second retina repair
in less than a month. And then this
past spring after that got all settled, I had cataract surgery
that got accelerated just in the one eye. And then so I've
had on and off issues, but the real blessing in
that moment when I couldn't see out of my eye, in 30 seconds I said,
you know what? I've had 60 plus years of being able to see out of
both of my eyes. And if I never get to see out of this eye
again, I'm just gonna be grateful that I got what I got because there are
some people that are not even they don't they've never experienced sight or they haven't
experienced sight in a long time. I'm like, don't don't be an Eeyore
because you might lose your sight. And, that's so anyway, that's the
big news. But now I could see really good, and I'm, you know, I'm mindful
that there's it's an issue, and I've got to manage it. But I'm just so
grateful for the whole experience. But it threw me because I couldn't
exercise. That was the other part of it. Doc said, you gotta be a couch
potato. And I gotta tell you, after 24 years of getting myself
back into a place of physical vibrancy to not do
anything and lose at all, that was tough. But I
said, I'm so grateful to have this opportunity to
come back. That was probably longer than you wanted to hear, but that was, that
that's it. I will tell you what was amazing about
Jeff. You heard him say that he he would
just accept it and be grateful he
had 60 years with both eyes. But I I talked
to him at the time and he actually meant it. And I I remember
thinking I would be so stressed, I would be so panicked.
And Jeff just went with it day by day and
his got his sight back. It was just amazing, Jeff.
I I couldn't believe how well you handled
it after the initial shock of what happened wore off,
how you just rolled with it. Now, I'm sure that there were some
down days and when it tore when you had to have the second
surgery, I'm sure that was a struggle. But the way
you handled it overall, I just was impressive. It
for me, it was seeing everything that I
heard you say over the years in action, and
you're always such an inspiration, Jeff, that I just couldn't believe how
well you handled it. Thank you. You know, you've always heard me say this,
especially when we hike in Glacier, that we have to plan for the worst and
hope for the best. Because if you're out in the wild and something goes
south, you have to have some sort of
preparedness for and and the simplest thing I can think about is to
having that, Garmin, the satellite access to send a
signal, because there's no WiFi or cell signal. So if you get, just always
carrying a Garmin and always carrying bear spray and water and your water filtration,
all of it, anyway. Yeah. Well, I'm I'm
glad everything worked out, and I'm sure the mountains of
Glacier look even better now than they ever have. Yeah. And I
I cannot wait to hear what you're, taking off the table and
and what you're gonna put on the table. I I'm really excited about these next
2. Okay. So here's one that is rotating
out, and it was just added last year. So Jeff
never commented on this one. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. That's right.
It's from Mike Rowe, who was the host
of the popular TV show Dirty Jobs. I heard him talking
about something about bad situations or
things go wrong. And he said, imagine imagine the New
Testament without Judas because it would be a completely different story.
And I that inspired me at the time to realize,
yeah, challenges end up making better stories.
Challenges are how you overcome things, and and it could
be the start of something pretty incredible. So that was in for
a year. I'll let you comment on that, Jeff, if you want, and then I
will tell you why. Saying is I I love that. I have never heard that,
and that is such a paradox of the way that we would think that we
would wanna omit the worst thing about something.
And, to look at it, I don't know if he's seeing it up as a
blessing, but that's the way I'm just gut reaction is
that Judas was a blessing to the whole story even though we hated
it. It wouldn't be much of a story if there wasn't that. Yes.
Exactly. And and that's why I enjoyed that
quote. I pulled it out. I I put it in. Part of the reason
why it's coming out is something has to come out for something new to go
in. So that's a big reason. The
other is I felt like sometimes
it might have prompted me to look for the
villain of a situation. And by villain of a situation, I don't
mean a person. It could be anything. But I was like,
okay. I I want better reminders. I don't as much as I like that
quote, I just don't want a daily reminder that they're villains. Yeah. I think
that's sound. I really think you that that's the perfect
way to look at the reason why you would wanna rotate something else in its
place. Yeah. Good. Okay. The next one was added in
2,023, and it is from Lee Cockrell. I think
the only Lee Cockrell quote that has been in here, it's don't get
ready, be ready, which I still like that
quote. But, also, something has to go out so something new can
come in. I love that. And, if it were me, in
my head, I would have this invisible asterisk that
says you have to get ready to be
ready. But at a certain point, you should always be ready.
And I think of procrastination as part of a theme to
this quote, meaning we're gonna start exercising, or we're gonna
start saving money or we're gonna start volunteering, you know,
at the soup kitchen or whatever it is. We're gonna get ready to
do it. And I think what the way I hear Lee's
heart and voice in that and what I think your intention is is
to just to get there. Do whatever it takes, get there,
and then just stay there, and be that person always.
Yes. That's right. And that's why it was added to have that daily
reminder. And where this quote originally comes from
is when Lee was he saw it at Marriott. He
saw it at Disney. But let's say at at Disney,
he's the executive vice president, and he would hear stories
of when he would visit particular areas, they
would get ready because Lee Cockrell's coming. When he was
at Marriott, people would get ready because someone important was
coming. And the idea was, look, a a guest
is probably more important than an executive. You should
already be at your best for the guest.
Don't get ready because an executive is coming. You you
should be good enough that if Lee Cockrell shows up,
you didn't do anything different. Yeah. That should be your day daily
standard, not when, the inspectors come in that yeah.
You should your place should be would be an A plus
inspection no matter who did it or when they did it, which is a high
standard, and there's nothing wrong with a high standard. We got habits
all the way around, and so if we have habits that say every day's gotta
be Super Bowl Sunday, then, you know, you you don't
get ready for that. You get there, and then you stay there. So you are
ready all the time. Yes. Alright. That excellent.
And Good one. That's a great one. It's a great ad. It's a great one.
And if I could keep quotes in, it would stay in, but
something had to rotate out. Alright. You ready for the 2 new
ones, Jeff? I am. Alright. This this
one was from a book I was reading. It
unexpected because I was just reading a book. Wait. I you know what? I am
so sorry. I thought the Lee one was, was new. So
I apologize. I was treating it like you added it, but you were just you
were reviewing the first two or the 2 that you've back to back that
you're Yes. That's right. Retiring for now. Mike Rowan's
So here's the new one. Lee Cockrell getting retired. This new one, I was
reading a book by David Roberts. It was about
exploring in the Southwest. He writes a lot about cliff
dwellings and artifacts and
cultures of the American Southwest. And I got
this unexpected quote in one of his books. He
said, if it's worth doing, it's worth writing about.
Wow. And I added this into this
year's rotation because, one, I've
never finished the book I was writing, so that's part of
it. A daily reminder about that. Also, just a daily
reminder of I do a lot of stuff that I should probably
write more about, podcast more about, talk more about. And
if it's worth me doing it, then it's worth putting it out there
and and talking about it, writing about it, recording about
it. So that's what's behind it. But I'd love to hear what you think of
this quote. There's part of me. I I'm I'm torn on this one
because there's only so many hours in the day.
And, boy, I and I'm making an assumption, Jody.
I'm making an assumption that we're only doing that you and I
and and the folks listening in, theoretically, we're only doing
the stuff that's worth doing. Because if we're not, I mean, why
why are we doing the stuff if it's not worth doing? So if we are
living a life that's full of stuff that's worth doing, that's a lot of rating.
That is true. Alright. Well, we will see how it
goes with with this. Yeah. I can't wait. I can't wait to see,
Jodi Mayberry's book on Amazon.
Alright. This last one, I would say is unlike any
other quote that I have done because most of
them are mindset related. Although
this last one, I think the one by David Roberts is kind of a prompt
to do more, to write more, when most of
them are mindset related. So I think the 2 added this year have
something in common. This quote comes from Ben Settle,
and he said, if you don't offer them something, someone
else will. And for me, that is just a daily
reminder to keep putting things out there. With the Cockrell
Academy, for example, Lee Cockrell and I have some
fantastic products that can help a lot of people, the
courses, the newsletters, the Cockrell Academy
itself, the workshops we do, our other live events.
And people are going to find somewhere to work
on becoming a better leader. They're going to find somewhere to find out
how to be better at customer service. They're going to find somewhere
to learn these things. And it it should be
us because our work is really good. And the only
reason Your work is to me, your work is the best that's that's
available. Lee, you know, creating Disney,
creating magic, ten common sense leadership strategies from a
life at at Disney. I think that's the best leadership book I have
ever read. I don't think it is the best leadership book I've ever read
because it's common sense, and it's coming from a person who was
in charge of 40,000 cast members at Walt Disney
World with the guests' expectations off the charts high,
and so many diverse businesses and
departments that he was in charge of, that he was able to apply these
concepts across all of them, and then he
somehow found you. You 2 found each other, and
your Midwest values, and your just your heart
and soul, and your determination to help Lee
get his message out there and your own message out there. I
mean, honestly, if you have not looked into this,
I don't think you are intending for a plug, and you've never asked me
for a plug. But, Jody, I'm just telling you, you and Lee
should exhaust every everything that anybody could want because
nobody's got more experience or better ability to tell a story than you
2. Well off my soapbox. I appreciate that, and you can go to
cockroacademy.com to find out more. And, before I
return to the quote, what Jeff said, Lee was
responsible for 40,000 people. I like to
refer to when Lee and I are working together, say, well, Lee and
I together were responsible for managing and
supervising 40,007 people
because he had the 40,000 and I had 7. So When did Lee
retire? He retired in Like, 2016? 2006.
No. It was sooner than that. Yeah. So I was there when he I was
a leader at Disney when he was feeding all of us leaders.
Like, 6, 7, 8,000 of us. He was feeding us
literally every day with the resources that he was providing
us. I was on the receiving end of it as one of his way
down at the bottom leaders. And I'll tell you
that it made all the difference on the front line, dealing every day,
working every day with trying to make people have them to help people have the
best vacation of their entire lives and create a place that people wanted to come
to work and that they could grow and develop if they wanted to.
Yeah. It's the real deal. Well, hearing Jeff say that,
that ties right into why I have this
quote. If you don't offer them something, someone else will. If
Lee and I have content that good, if
his books are that good, the courses, the newsletter, why would
I not always put it out there in front of people? Because
if I don't, they're going to go somewhere else and get their
resources. And I feel what we have
is really good, so why not put it out there? If
I don't offer them something, someone else will. So that's what
is behind that quote, Jeff. Yeah. No. It's that's
really important, and I think there's nobody better to do what you do than
YouTube. Well, thank you. I'll give you one more what's
behind it. Lee and I were on this speaking tour a number of years ago.
We were in Nashville, and there were about 300 people of
all levels of this company in the audience. And
afterwards, someone was hanging back to talk to Lee. People
came, got booked, signed all that. And then this guy came up and said he
had worked at the company for however many years, let's just say
14 years, and he said nobody ever told me
it could be like this. And Lee said, really? What tell me more.
What do you mean? And he said, well, I've worked here all this time and
no one has talked to me about how I'm a leader and
how I'm responsible for what happens and I can make a difference.
And I think of that guy often. I don't know his his name.
I just know I met him that day and thought that's why
Lee and I need to be urgent about getting our message out.
There's a lot of people out there that don't know it can be like this,
that don't know they can make a difference for themselves,
for their coworkers, for the people they supervise. So that's
also one thing that's behind this. Lee, if if we're not
putting our offers out, that gentleman would have
never heard Lee's message. Yeah. I have every issue because it
came in email, and then I would print it out, and I
would save it. I would file it away. I have every issue that
Lee published of the Main Street diary that came out once a
week. It's it's that good. Anyway Yeah.
The Main Street Diary is Lee has the
window on Main Street USA in the Magic Kingdom, and it
even says editor in chief Main Street Diaries. So that's
how important that was. It sounds like this leader that you talked to at
the end of that session was there after Lee retired and
whoever The the this this was at another company. He did
not work at Disney. We were Oh, I am sorry. I missed that point.
Yep. Well, I can guarantee that's I've seen it in my work
with 100, not thousands of different companies
that it is rare that leadership is a big deal.
Everybody just assumes that people will read a book or something, but to have a
dedicated focus on leadership development,
not leadership training, leadership development, which is
different and leadership training is everything, you know,
all the check boxes. Development is is growth, and it
is uniqueness to that person's abilities and so
on. What's your last one? That was it. That's the last one
because I only have 5. I got so you know, where I'm from, there's 3
kinds of people, those who could count and those who can't.
Well, it gets confusing because some are staying, some are removing,
some are Yeah. Yeah. Adding. So that's it. Those are the
5 things I will tell myself every day in 2,025.
Can you review them from the top, all 5 of them? Yes. Okay, Dan. We
have admiral Payne, who, if you don't know, is Lee Cockrell's
father-in-law, Dan Cockrell's grandfather. Do your
best and forgive yourself. Tony Robbins
said, trade your expectations for appreciation.
And perhaps the most important of all, Jeff Noll said,
happy present moment. David
Roberts said if it's worth doing, it's worth writing about,
which, Jeff, reminds me Elvis Presley once said if
it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing. Wow. Alright.
And Ben Settle said if you don't offer them something,
someone else will. Those are the 5. Stodie, thank you for
I think this is a great tradition that you have, that you do for yourself.
Whether you share it with other people or not is one thing, but the fact
that you do it, it's important to you, and you do it every year, and
you've got a system for it, and you've got your reasons why. I think that's
a great leadership lesson right there. I like what you said there, Jeff,
because sometimes you have to have your systems, your
processes, and your your motivations that no
one else knows about. Now, I do share these once a year. I share
these, but I do it every day. I don't talk about it
every day, but it's there. And you you should see how
tattered the card from about Admiral Payne is from
2021. It's not as crisp as the 2 new cards
that have been added because I see them every day. The reps behind
this sorry. You're doing the reps behind the scene, and you're giving
all of us the opportunity to say, hey. Here's what I do and why I
do it. And it's an opportunity. It's a pretty simple exercise,
but it pays you dividends every day if you follow if you do the reps
every day. Think about these things every day. Before
we depart, Jeff, I wanna give a special mention to
Levi Novi because had he not said, why didn't you do
that episode in this year because he said it last year, I
wouldn't have thought to bring it back. I wouldn't have thought to bring
Jeff Knoll back to make sure we did this. No. Thank you, Levi, and
thank you, Jeff, for being willing to come back after a
long hiatus. And we're so glad that
you are seeing the world. Yeah.
So blessed. All right, Jeff. Maybe this year we'll
be able to sneak you back on from time to time because I
just told someone yesterday, Rick Allen, who you
know, I just told Rick Allen you we ended up talking about
you, and I said, you know, I think the world needs more
Jeff Noll. And he said, I agree.
I'm not even gonna comment on that. Okay. I'm just gonna be
grateful it was said and, whether it's believable or
not. That's for my mom to decide. Well,
what we were talking about specifically was he
mentioned how he had listened to all 100 episodes
of If Disney Ran Your Life. And he said, oh, but it's in the
vault now. And I said, yeah. Every once in a while, I try to get
Jeff to bring it back out because the world needs more Jeff Newell. And he
said, oh, yeah. Yeah. We do. Are you telling me that Rick Allen
listened to all those episodes? That's what he told me. He has
never told me that. I had no idea that he even knew that I had
a podcast. That's insane. And I see Rick
on a frequency. We're neighbors here right behind Magic
Kingdom. Not next door neighbors, but close enough couple miles.
Oh my gosh. Wasn't that funny? Knew. You never know who's
listening when you have something to say. So then I I
recounted our adventures in Kuwait and Glacier and
Oregon and Disneyland, all the cool things we've done
together. Yeah. Oregon. We were at anyway, I'll
keep us out of the weeds, Jody. It was a world class place where we
were at in Oregon. Yes. It was. Anyway, Jody, thank you so much for
having me on the show, and let's have a great 2025,
everybody. I can't wait. I'm already halfway into,
January. Well, Jeff, I'm so happy that you came back. Thank
you so much, and thank you for listening to the Jody Mayberry
Show.
His hair is shagging in his eyes. It's Sugar
Jay.