[Music] I love it it's great yeah but that was
the thesis for this is like nobody can provide or copyright your story it's
like the Dr Seuss quote of there's so many other people out there but there's only one of you that's right how did you
get into mountain biking uh mountain biking uh you know I've always liked to
bike since I was a little kid I was always on my bike if I had free time I was on my bike and I got so much into
bikes that you know you get your crappy bike from your parents and it's you know an okay bike right but I wanted a GT
Performer and you know that's like you know this is back in the 80s right so
BMX skating the owl is coming really big right so my parents are like well if you
want it you got to earn the money so I actually hustled and I was a paper boy I
cut people's grass I babysat and I saved up all my money and this is dating me but I actually ordered my own bike when
I was 12. wow and I ordered it from a magazine and there's a thing back in the
day called cod cash on delivery so the UPS person would come and they'd drop
off your package but you had to pay them cash or a check well it's like pizza yeah but it was crazy though so this UPS
truck comes up and my parents never ordered anything so it was kind of strange and I remember ups and I still
have Affinity to that brand to this day because they delivered like my pride and joy with the Transformer GT yes it was
Pro Performer actually uh yeah it's actually wasn't the pro it was just the performer but still it was like a 250
bike back in the 80s so by today's standards I mean that's like over a thousand dollars and there's this 12
year old kid in the UPS driver gets out he said hey is your parents here and I'm like what do you no this is this the
bike and he's like oh yeah and he just couldn't believe that it was this kid that ordered this bike by himself and I
just handed over the cash and he handed me this big box um and I put together my my dream bike
and uh had it for a long time it was awesome and since then you've been into mountain bikes yeah so sorry that's a
little bit long-winded but it all started with his passion for bikes I always liked bikes and I think it's
always uh you know help you know the freedom um and the adventure of where you can go
on your bike I can go wherever you want and I used to take that thing single speed all the way to the next town that
was like 10 miles away and you know drive on like pretty major roads so when I think about that sense of adrenaline
and Adventures cars are always by very not safe no helmets back then I wear a helmet now but then yeah even as I got
older then you graduate to the mountain bike and then the adventure just got even richer being outdoors and being at
these trails and in Kansas I mean anywhere really there's amazing Trail systems you just have to look for them
and there's some great mountain biking in Kansas around here yeah I go at least once a week I mean unless it's under 30
degrees and then I can stay home I remember whenever the first time I saw you leaving the house with the mountain bike on the back and you're like yeah
I'm going out on mountain biking and I was like Wow and I thought it was so cool because you have like the office
life but then you get out of the office life and then it's adrenaline daring
going down the big steep slope with all the rocks and mountain biking and it
seems like a good way to get that adrenaline fix that Wild at Heart Like Freedom oh yeah well it's a good workout
too now it's ironic that I work for a risk mitigation health insurance company but other than that yeah you know it's I
remember um you know telling my boss that I was on this mountain bike Adventure he's like just be careful we need you here so
I have wiped out a few times pretty bad um yeah the last one I went over my
handlebars it was in my toe Clips so I I the bike stood with me so I literally flew over and the bike was attached to
my feet and it didn't unclip yeah right and I landed on my head and I and I could hear the my neck crack three times
like click click click I'm like oh that's not good like a seatbelt yeah there was like mud in my helmet so
um but you know you get up and you keep going and um I don't know the metaphor there is you gotta wipe out you know if
you want to have the good experience you also have to plan that there's going to be some bad stuff in there you just got
to be careful and you know be be safe but also have fun yeah with the Wipeout
had you not been wearing a helmet that could have been bad right oh absolutely absolutely yeah I always wear a helmet
um I learned that the hard way when I um went to the Mrs T's Triathlon in Chicago I trained all summer and I lived
downtown Chicago for this Triathlon and I biked and lifted weights and I swam and I was so ready to go but I showed up
race day and I didn't have helmet oh wow and they're like you can't race so I went to uh the bike shops that were
there that you know they do like little pop-up things and I'm like hey I need a helmet man I don't have a helmet they're
like well it's race day man 250 bucks I'm like what come on man and this was
like 20 years ago so I mean by today's standards that's egregious so I learned
a few valuable lessons there that there are some terrible people out there that are capitalistic monsters and
um also to be prepared and just think things through so I didn't do the triathlon
um maybe someday I don't know I don't think I could do it the swimming was really hard I probably would have failed anyway yeah swimming's the hardest part
in my opinion what's the function of toe Clips why do they have toe Clips on bikes so it gives you
um a lot of biking is pushing down and but there's also a pull-up Factor so
when you're on toe Clips it just optimizes it helps to pull up so um it really gets a better workout
better for your legs and it also is you can get faster you can accelerate faster as well your feet
don't slip off so it's when they work it's awesome right when you wipe out it and you're stuck like a snowboard well
not necessarily they're supposed to unclip but sometimes you stay clipped in but this particular time
uh I stay clipped in yeah so growing up I had an older brother and he was a
skateboarder okay and I always wanted to do what my older brother did in skateboard and he got really good and he
had the YouTube videos up and they travel around and go to different skate parks oh nice but I could I figured out
how to do Ollie so like before in the air and then I was working on a cake flip and I could do it whenever I was in
the grass and I wasn't moving yeah but as soon as I got on my concrete then I started doing it I wiped out not like a
bad Wipeout but I ended up BMXing that's what I got into
okay how am I going to BMX and I never got into mountain biking but I
did wipe out in BMX a few times and it wasn't fun so did you wear helmet I did wear a
helmet good for you yeah but like my wife this podcast is brought by you by the future of helmet wearers yeah like I
didn't have toe clips and one of the big issues with BMX is that you'll land hard
and then the pedals will go and they'll whack your shins yes yeah and so
whenever you talk about toe Clips I'm like yeah that would have been nice um to have toe clips and then whenever
you're going downhill you can only move as fast as you can push the pedals down yes right but and then toe Clips will
help you uh move quicker like yeah yeah I don't want to get into scars but
I I literally have a scar that looks like a bear carved a chunk out of my uh
the back of my calf from my BMX pedal metal pedal I still have it to this day
yeah toe Clips how many siblings did you have uh three siblings three siblings I
need the baby or the oldest I was the second line my sister Amy was first then myself my brother Kevin and then my
sister Mary okay so you're the oldest boy the oldest boy yep nice did that come with uh pressure to
I'm a leader I don't I don't think so I mean my parents had so many kids that I
mean four is a lot and we lived in a pretty small house so it was uh we were on top of each other so it was just kind
of figuring it out yeah um you know I think that they were just you know we're
about two years apart each one of us so I think we're all kind of um I think we're all leaders my sister
Amy my brother Kevin my sister Mary they're all very strong uh confident
leaders in their respective careers strong-willed oh yeah and then where was
that where'd you grow up at I grew up in Chicago land northwest suburbs up in McHenry County it was probably about 25
miles I would say from the Wisconsin borders so we're kind of out there so I say Chicagoland and people are like oh
you're from the city but really I was you know way out in like the rural part
um about 13 000 people in the town Cary Illinois wow so carry Illinois and then was it kind
of like in the cards with your family to go to college or was that no actually
um it's it's strange because my sister Amy was actually the first in our family to go to college she was the oldest
and she went to Western Illinois and I experienced it I went down there to you
know unload her stuff in the dorm and I looked around I'm like wow this is really cool yeah so for me I'm like well
you know maybe I should do that I had no plans to do that and actually decided my senior year in high school unfortunately
when I decided I I ranked 132 out of 200 students I was okay I have a bottom yes
I was not about I'm 25 I think and um so they wouldn't accept me and to Western
Illinois which is a state school and I'm like how is that even possible Right but I applied anyway and they called me they
had this special program called the office of academic Services which is basically we're going to accept you on
conditional probation so if you get anything less than a b you're out oh wow so I got accepted and I showed up
freshman year and I'm like I gotta make this work because if I don't get grades yeah this is going to be short-lived so
I did win any other creative person would do I tried to put the odds in my
favor and I selected all the classes that I thought I would do awesome at so I picked art I picked public speaking I
picked um you know all the things that I I felt pretty confident about no hard sciences
no no I saved biology and math I put that off as long as I can when you were
off probation but what's funny is that most people actually excel at those things and it was interesting because I
was the only freshman in my public speaking class they were all seniors because they keep putting it on they
keep putting up because everybody is so fearful of speaking public even today I mean grown adults this is one of the
things people hate to do so I'm there as a freshman and I didn't realize how strategic it was at the time
because not only did I befriend all these seniors and get invited to all
these amazing parties nice but I helped them develop their speeches because it just came natural to me right and um I
really got to help people out I discovered hey I want to do this I want to do um you know public speaking and
Leadership and developing of others in my career and that's when I decided to become a communication manager and
that's uh ironically four years later I was teaching that class as a teaching
assistant in grad school wow that's cool so you did grad school question yeah yeah I stayed on that's where the
professors there speaking in your ear like getting you to apply to the grad program no not really it was kind of a
happy accident um I had a girlfriend at the time and she was a year younger than me so
um you know I just stayed along because I'm like oh you know might as well go apply to grad school I'm not going to get in uh and I did and and they're like
oh my gosh we'd love to have you in this program because your story is amazing about how you started in our department
as a probably not going to make it freshman and you wind up teaching the class you know four years later and
graduated our master's you know program or applied for our master's program so
let's do this and uh yeah that's awesome what would have been the alternative was
your family into a certain trade had you not gone yeah all my family are in the trade so which I I love and respect
because to this day I can still do my own stuff because I learned about you know Woodworking and Lawn Care and
electrician and just you know how to run a household how to um you know how to
build a fire I mean I mean I know that sounds weird but a lot of people have no exposure to these things you know
um so yeah I've been I'm able to do a lot of things myself which is cool but I will say it comes down to time so now
it's I'm gladly willing to call somebody and say hey can you help me with this because I don't want to take apart the
toilet and spend half of my Saturday try to figure out what's going on the liberal arts if you study that it's
cool due to the public speaking and I remember I did exercise science going in and then I talked to an advisor and
they're like hey you know you could do communication as a major and I'm and I'm like is it major like because you have
your uh undergrad and yeah we both went we both went that route and
I remember just thinking like when you graduate with a bachelor's degree in communication it's cool like you're a
degree holder but you can't fix anything around the house yeah yeah there's a lot of those things so it's it's that blend
it's that blend for sure and you know and just because you're good at communications doesn't mean you're good at everything related to communication
so for me you know I graduated and I thought I was going to get hired by
everybody but it was hard because people were just like what is a communication that's very non-specific yeah and we
already do that yeah yeah we're communicating all the time yeah you know it's like why do we need to hire someone
who has a communication degree yeah so I got into sales um out of the gate and I loved it but I
was terrible at it I love the conversations I love talking to people I love building the relationships but I
couldn't close the sale to save my life what were you selling I was selling uh phone lines to old ladies nice well now
entirely business but it makes the story more dramatic but it was pretty much true I mean I would cold call these
people and I would try and get them to buy more phone lines really small businesses but it was also residential
and um and you know I just had a hard time doing it I'm like this person doesn't need another phone line like you
knew that yeah I knew that but that was my job but I'm like I can't do this but
uh anyway it was it was a great experience though I mean working on the phones I mean I give so much credit to
people that our customer service reps or phone numbers it was actually very humbling to me and interestingly
um fast forward in my career I've worked in call centers and customer service customer experience that's what I do now
and so much of that starts right when somebody calls and that first voice so
I'm glad I had the experience because I have an appreciation for that skill set and it's not for everybody it's I think
it's one of the hardest jobs me too whenever you get a call from a telemarketer now do you have
a advanced perspective on that yeah I do I I definitely give them uh an
opportunity within 30 seconds to give the pitch to well to identify their value prop so one of the I'll never
forget this call um when I called somebody the person they told me they said you have 15
seconds to tell me what your point is if you fail I hang up and it was like was
this like a hostage situation or something but it was really powerful I remember that because I'm like you're
right so many people say nothing for minutes but if you could get to the point
um that is that is pure gold get to the point and do it in a way that makes people want to care and then I thought
okay well asking questions and you're great at this Chris I think that's Colleen I were just talking about this she's like Chris that's the best
questions he's like like you you know walking the dog and you know like calling your dog gone for 30 minutes
like yeah I ran into Chris which is awesome there goes that plan right yeah so good we got to scratch the
plans the funny thing about doing like asking the
questions and doing the telemarketing is whenever you're on the line and you don't feel it like you didn't feel this
person needs another phone line it's really hard to make the sale if you don't actually like if it's not
authentic yeah yeah it is I think that's a great segue you have to believe in what you're doing and you know a lot of
the jobs I put my all into them but I if you if you don't believe it you're only going to go so success it could be so
successful right and that's probably why I've been in health insurance for the last decade is because I really believe
in the industry the problem um and that's what's exciting to me I
mean here it is a a product that is the probably the second or third most
expensive thing you pay for after your house your car and it's something you
hope you never have to use but when you do use it it has to work really well and it has to make sure you feel safe
protected and covered so you can focus on the most important important thing which is your health or that of a loved
one and that's a lot to sell yeah and to
Market and to engage people and so that challenge really inspires me and it
still does to this day yeah that's a big challenge whenever I first learned about health insurance it's hard to even like
the word deductible and premium for a long time was like in another world to me and then someone explained it to me
and I was like oh okay and even today I'm still learning about insurance it's
really hard to understand insurance policy how do you educate yourself on insurance whenever you transitioned into
that space well it's interesting because when I was looking at the other jobs
I've had I couldn't even tell you what insurance company I had right um and and I'm not
um you know I'm very similar actually to most people and
if you don't have to use it you sign up annually with your employer and it's kind of set it and forget it unless
something happens and you know not all the time but usually when you're younger you don't engage in the health system as
much um so you don't have to really experience it so you know how do you educate people and
there's no class in college for health insurance there's they're they're starting to have classes for financial
services but how to run a household I mean right you know here here we are you know here I was you know with a master's
degree and I had no clue about uh Financial Services uh health insurance
and there's a reason why I went and had got to pursued those careers because we
tend to study things that we don't understand and when I went to a tabling
effort and got a Discover card when I was at Western Hall University and I had this really cool experience with this
with this card not only because they gave me a free t-shirt but they gave me this access to these finances to do
really creative things boom and I was I was hooked right I was like oh man
um but there was part of it it was like you know they're charging me all this interest for that so I know credit cards have a negative connotation with him as
well but if you right way they're incredibly powerful I mean I built all of my credit score and enabled me to buy
my first condo and use the profits from that to pay for my wedding and you know if you know what you're doing you know
you can use these tools to be really smart with it health insurance is the same way um I'm not going to get too nerdy on you
but right now I'm doing a high deductible health plan with a health
savings account so last year I was able to sock away four thousand bucks into
this account and it'll grow and every year I could put more money into it and I'm 47 so in 10 years you know I'll
probably have 25 30 000 bucks in there and that's a big deal I can use that to
pay for anything else related so a lot of people work for a long time but and
one of the main reasons is because they can't afford health insurance right um so anyway I think if you can take a step
back and think about okay a health insurance is a financial element in your
life and how does it fit in and how can you manage those costs but how do you do it in a bigger picture with your other
finances and so it's all connected yeah the HSA saved our tail oh yeah good I
had one at Cerner and then whenever I left Cerner we had an insurance lapse for like 20 days and
I've never broken a bone in my life and you broke a bone and I broke my hand oh my gosh two days off insurance and I it
was during basketball I thought it was a sprain so I was like I'm just gonna rest I come home I'm icing it 10 days I go
back and I'm like all right I'm gonna get back into playing I didn't want to leave too much and I throw a
ball and my hand is just radiating paint I'm like okay there's something else going oh yeah so I'm going to all these
places and I'm like okay how much does it cost without insurance and they give me these different prices and I finally
pick one long story short I had medical expenses but thankfully I had that HSA that I'd
been contributing to so we used that and then I got a nose surgery because I had a deviated septum
yeah then we got to use the HSA so that's so cool having that HSA and getting that education you have a grad
degree do you immediately go from grad school to that sales role for phones I did so
um I I got out of grad school I was feeling pretty good about myself I'm like I have a master's degree were you the first in your family to get an
advanced degree yeah yeah absolutely and um so yeah I thought I was I was you
know a shot yeah hot shot right me too but nobody wanted to hire me because they're like Okay
um or or it was 100 commission I'm like well I I didn't feel comfortable at that
point you know with no experience working on 100 percent commission but I knew friends that did really well
um and were making a lot of money and launching their careers right out of college doing some of that stuff so I'm
like well it seems like sales I could probably do that then I went there and I only lasted about a year and that's what
I really wanted to do was uh advertising I really wanted to get into marketing and advertising I had under undergrad
co-degree and marketing so I knew that I loved to talk about the story talk about the product and I knew that that you
know to assisting sales folks to actually close the deal that that is where I really excelled in even when I
was at Ameritech SBC you know doing the trainings and pulling together explaining these products to people
helping my co-workers that was kind of like my Niche so I'm like I need to do that for a company so Discover card I
talked to you about that positive experience I had and one of my best friends sister worked there there and
she didn't give me the job she definitely put my resume on top of the pile and I got called in and you know
went through a pretty rigorous interview process I'll never forget the final question it was from their Chief marketing
officer and she asked me one question and she she said no pressure but how you answer this question will determine
whether we're going to hire you or not no Russian all right and I'll never forget the question I'd
give her credit to it to this day for it because it was It was kind of cut into the chase get to the point and she said
name a brand that's doing it well right now and why and name a brand that's doing it poorly right now and why
that was like and immediately I'm aging myself but at the time these were two
really big Brands it was Gap and Abercrombie and finch and it was right in that controversial time where they
were using like younger models uh in the Abercrombie event it was more risque it was very risque right and GAP it was
rolling out this more kind of family approach and kind of a Rebrand and a refresh of their logo and some other
things and I said that at the time I said look abercrombie's going for the
quick sale and the pr value but it's long term probably not advantageous to
their brand it's not sustainable because you can't keep doing that and it's very polarizing so you're gonna attract some
clients but you know who's buying these products I mean who's the parents and are they gonna be comfortable that
they're going to go into those stores are you going to push them away and then I said you know the Gap is you know multi-generational I mean they're
marketing to babies and also to people's parents and everything in between and at
the time and she's just like that was pretty good and then she walked out and then two days later I got a job offer so
okay so you switch over you're doing marketing for discover yeah yeah
advertising strategic alliances actually it was a new group that partnered with these big companies so we would go out
and try and do these like custom promotions so think about think about like Shields we would partner with
shields so we would develop like a a campaign if you use your Discover card at Shields you would get an extra 10 off
so these kind of strategic Alliance to incent people to to buy more things and to use Discover Card wow yeah it was a
lot of fun got to see a lot in retail what was your favorite strategic Alliance uh well this is a little little
off book no actually Shields wasn't one I just used that because that's more of a modern brand yeah this is back at
night oh yeah exactly the brand was Oldsmobile yeah yeah
what's funny what actually I did work with Oldsmobile which is ironic they
don't even exist anymore but um we one of the coolest experiences was the Hard
Rock um we partnered with them and they have an annual Rock Fest where they have like
20 headline bands and we were the premier sponsor so I got to manage all
that that's awesome which is really cool so a lot of the Bands I grew up with I got to did you interact with them not
really I mean you were in the same project same project behind the scenes VIP I felt like Wayne's World like
showing everybody my VIP badge getting backs access to like where all the Vans are and stuff they'd walk by and I
didn't really have the courage to get um autographs at the time but I did get a guitar pick from Kurt Hammett from
Metallica so that was pretty cool that's legit did you see it yeah yeah he gave it he gave me one so I was like oh man
this is so cool I wanted giving it away to one my boss's nephews who was a huge
Metallica fan so anyway it was a cool experience it taught me a ton about Brands and businesses and I'll never
forget one of the bands who will remain nameless I learned about legal I learned
about brand protection I learned about compliance all in this you think that I'm just out there hosting this event
and driving around Executives and their families yeah but there was so much more to those
events and someone had the great idea again dating myself that people gave out
mouse pads a lot back in the day and they decided to give out these these uh
Oldsmobile mouse pads because they just launched the Alero I don't know if you remember that car
so anyway they've given up these mouse pads and all of a sudden you have you know 50 000 people throwing these mouse
pads like Frisbees turned into total chaos it was a multi-day event so they didn't do that
after day one but one of the Bands you know made a joke about the Oldsmobile
and said you know something this your father's Oldsmobile which is their old tagline and they were just kind of ripping on you know how out of touch
this particular thing was and as they were trying to like refresh their brand
and that they were they were at not asked to come back and finish the show and yeah it was kind of a big deal
yeah before going to a live band member ragging on one of the sponsors it's like
come on guys could you imagine their agent in the back room it's like you know it's like all right guys don't say
anything bad about the brands out there all right I don't know why the guy sounds like he's like no they typically are though yes like a
city guy yeah because the people on the stage of the people with
the Personality yeah that agent is the one who's like dampening it to make sure
they make the biggest impact they can but it was interesting though because at the time I mean that was it was a good
lesson in branding and advertising when you think about marketing and sponsorships and who you align with with
celebrities and I mean we've all heard about the horror stories of We're Not Gonna even get into that but it's really
important like who is your spokesperson and everything talks when you think about it it's not just you know your
product it's not just your call center people it's not your physical location but who you give to what you donate and
what you invest your time and money in what companies you invest in what people you allow as your spokesperson you know
for years I got pressure to get a spokesperson at my previous company and they're like why don't we have a
spokesperson like the Maytag Man or something and I'm like well uh look for
what reason for for what what is your goal and I think that that's really important you have to think about what
is your strategic goal and then think about tactics don't think about tactics tactics don't dress strategy strategy
drives tactics and I will say though for a lot of Brands they're using that uh
celebrity endorsement stuff very successfully so it does get people's attention but you just gotta be really careful yeah like with discover Capital
card or credit cards I think of Jennifer Garner with capital pun yeah
what's in your wallet yeah and seeing those commercials people be like oh I love Jennifer Garner
oh I need a credit card I guess I'll get Capital One do you think that's the reason why they're pick Jennifer Garner
yeah I mean well if you think about her brand um and I don't know her a ton but I know her as a really smart responsible person
that is very confident and when you think about like hey that's something I want to be and you have this person up
there that is smart and confident you're like oh and they use Capital One so there's that subliminal Association
stuff I think they also um use Samuel Jackson the same way it's
like okay here's somebody who is direct and funny and somebody that I love so
they use that like oh this is has personality too you know this is like somebody I can relate to this is
somebody that um you know has been in everything and it's kind of every you know wherever you
want to be type of thing to steal off of another credit card tagline but no but I
think how you use celebrities is you just got to be careful you just got to be really really careful with it because
you know we're all humans and no one's perfect and you know those associations
Run Deep but that goes for employees too you know where you work how you work for who you work for how you represent them
in the community even when you're not working I mean all that stuff yeah it makes me wonder when you talk about that
how important it is it makes me wonder the decision-making process of those companies choosing who they're working
with for instance Sprite working with LeBron James or a t working with LeBron James I wonder how many other names they
had on the board and then they're like let's go with LeBron yeah well LeBron
um he's pretty special I mean what he's done not only for his teams but also his
community not everybody does that so yeah he's definitely probably the number one tooth and three on their list but um
some of these brands have big dollars to throw at these these folks and you know part of it is oversaturation too so when
you think about I won't name names but you know I could watch TV today and I
could probably see the same celebrity uh no less than six commercials within a
two-hour span right and is that okay I mean maybe but
what does that do for those Brands what does that do for that person I mean it it makes me think I'm closer to it I'm a
marketer and communicator and brand person so I think okay it's kind of like if you if you don't stand for something
you fall for anything saying or if you represent everything yeah yeah if you
stand for everything then what it just kind of turns into wallpaper where's the
uniqueness of it right um and I think that that's what you got to struggle with not only as a brand but
also as um the purse the talent that is in that is how do you manage that brand for
yourself and your personal brand when I have the whole thing on personal brand we could talk about but you know that was interesting segue to my current job
you know we saw the same Talent showing up in a lot of these commercials regionally so we're like well this is
weird and I'm a big fan of supporting actors and um The Screen Actors Guild and all that
other stuff because I'm an artist and I appreciate that craft but I was also thinking what's the authentic part of
Kansas so we literally wrapped a van and put Blue Cross and Blue Shield all over
it and hit the road and we went to all these different locations across Kansas with camera with you know a crew and we
interviewed people and you know said hey you know can we videotape this can we take your picture and all this stuff so
our last commercial was a collection of real people real kansans rather than
spending the hundreds of thousands of dollars on celebrities and stuff which probably a place for that we probably
get more attention if we did that but um we're just trying to be more creative with something we can uniquely own and
what is that unique story and I'll send you the video it's you know you could see like the real parts of Kansas we
call the Kansas City parts of Kansas it's so awesome it's not just Kansas City um actually our service area is
everything but Kansas City uh area so yeah to show you know Garden City and
Wichita and Mankato and some of these other towns that you've never heard of
it's pretty cool seeing um yeah we won a tour yeah it was called
the our home our heart tour oh that's perfect and it was to celebrate our 80
year anniversary and a lot of companies they give you like a cool plaque or something they have this big like
birthday cake and you know we thought that was a little uh a little tone deaf
it's like nobody really cares that you're 80 years old what are you gonna do for me and uh why should I continue
to work with you it was kind of we went into it with like say thinking about what's the worst thing someone could say
and and then that's how he came up with the idea it's like let's get on the road and actually see your customers and say
thank you for letting us do this for 80 years you know the first health insurance company in Kansas and we want
to keep the history so it was more of a Heritage and pride than a history yeah
that's cool like it was we called it the future A Better Health like we want to be here
for 80 more years or more so what can we do differently and we got some pretty good feedback like really positive stuff
in a weird way it was like we had a note on our windshield and someone said I love you you totally helped my family
which was cool on the flip side we've had people that weren't so happy but
those are few far between I mean you know when I'm at a dinner party or I'm a
an event I always prepare myself for like someone to come up to me and tell me about this terrible experience they
had because I do experience stuff for a living and I usually hear about it through a letter or a voicemail or an
email or something never face to face really well I prepare for it all the time but most the time it's it's
extremely positive I mean people like I said earlier we show up when it matters the most in a really big way so they
don't have to worry about financial ruin when something happens so it's it's really rewarding um with
that but we still have a lot of work to do I mean this is an industry that is so far behind in so many ways I mean the
fact that you can order a pizza Chris and they know exactly what you ordered last month and uh and how much you paid
and what you'd like on the side and health insurance companies every time you call them it's like they've met them
for the first time I mean that's that's not right it's got to change what's the deal there why is that why is Domino's
they have greater memory than the health insurance company well I think it's because they've made an investment in
um the customer experience and I just use them as an example because I mean you think about it
they're an incredibly competitive environment I mean Pizza is one of the
um every year there's more pizza companies and properties I I believe it's one of
the top five uh top grossing food items in the U.S wow you have to fact check me
on that it's no secret it's a pizza everybody loves pizza yeah so so the steaks are really high and the
competition size so if you're if you're Domino's or anybody else you got to think to yourself what can I do to to
make that experience a little bit better than everybody else and you know I've got kids you've met them and the fact
that I can have them order their own food as you know teenagers and they can
track it and I can see when it's delivered it's on my device so my wife and I are out to dinner and the kids are at home and I can kind of see that
they're doing this stuff I mean so you got to think about the story like what what what are they providing you that
someone else isn't and you know we like to shop local I mean we're big fans of supporting local businesses but when you
think about you know the Domino story a lot of those dominoes are personal franchises so they are local businesses
and they're using technology to make my life easier and when it comes down to it
price is definitely the first variable most of us consider but we all buy based
on emotion and what is easiest for us to consume and they just have an easy process the Pizza Tracker
and now they have their Pizza Insurance like if we drop the pizza yes then we'll get you another one
and those really unique almost zany marketing campaigns to separate
themselves from the hot or Papa John's yeah but that's experience
because everybody's had that experience where they get the pizza they set it down their dog you know is excited sunny
sunny always sunny jumps up and next thing you know the pizza flops over and it's it all the
cheeses on one side you can't fix that I mean it's just it's done it's ruined
right um it happens so yeah it's smart and you know what it's thinking about the
experience so what they're doing what we're doing um Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas is we're thinking about the journey so we
think about those micro moments so when somebody each step along the experience and they did the same thing they found
out oh this happens to like 10 of the people and it's a huge pain what if we
could make that we're they're selling peace of mind is what they're selling because I I would Hazard a guess they
don't get a whole lot of returns but they're selling peace of mind that's my thought as well with your
discover strategic Alliance when do you find yourself transitioning into
a leadership role after discovered do you transition into a role
to where you're managing no I was actually given a leadership role very early in my career and it was probably
too early uh frankly but it was good because I learned the hard way you know not to hire people you
like um that shouldn't be the first criteria of course you should hire people that you like but you shouldn't use
um likability is not the same as capability and I think that those are hard lessons to learn every leader has
hired wrong in their career and if if they say to you that they haven't then
they're probably not being honest with you or themselves but you know people it's hard to read out of an interview
even working with them for a while I mean to get somebody that's really going
to develop themselves and your business you have to have both of those together and unfortunately getting that formula
right takes a lot of time behind the wheel as a leader to kind of get right I'm still working on it and I've been
leading people for 20 years what makes you say you were too early for your leadership position well I didn't have
any experience or formal training so I was just kind of uh said hey you're individually talented Mike good for you
you're rewarded by now leading others and that's such a mistake so many
companies make and and leaders make and it really wasn't the company it was the leader and I give credit to the leader
who gave me the opportunity because they believed in me more than I believed in in my own capabilities and they knew
that it I needed to get that experience and I don't know how many of your listeners are going to say that it's like I'd love to be a leader but
nobody's going to give me a chance and if I just had a chance then I could get to that next level but nobody will give
me a chance so I'm never going to become a leader and I'm so frustrated and um you got to find a leader that's willing
to give you a chance but you also have to be prepared to learn some really tough lessons how to coach somebody
how to let somebody go on to something else how to meet people as a human being
first and know that everybody's going through something and just because they
might not be performing at work it has nothing to do with you or your willingness to lead them it's a lot of
it is on them so how do you push some of that power back to them and I was really
naive to say oh they came in with a problem I got to fix it and it's like now I've realized that that's not how it
is people got to fix their own problems you're there to guide them you're a coach you're not a authoritarian go do
this and it takes a long time for people to realize that and you know ironically
I took a lot of leadership classes in grad school but nothing is a better teacher than than real experience and
for those that are listening that want to be a leader of others my advice is to get creative and have people report to
you or directly look to you for that coaching without formal so ask for an
intern ask for to work with a consultant anybody at any level even if you're a
year into your job you'd be surprised at how much management needs something done but doesn't have the capability to just
hire a bunch of people and there are creative ways to not only get more resources but also give you the
experience to lead others emerge into it yeah you mentioned a whole bunch of things
there I know it's it's my problem it's good stuff in there if you can siphon through it's kind of like talking to me
is kind of like a junk drawer there's a whole bunch of cool stuff in there but you gotta really dig around and find
what you're looking there's a lot more gold there's a lot more gold Than Dirt right and we're going to sift the gold
because you mentioned don't give someone the job based off like ability solely right of course you
want people to be likable sure but you want to make sure that they have the Acumen and they can do the job well now
you mentioned it's hard to get to the point though to know who's going to do the job well particularly in an
interview you know the 30 minutes the hour the two hours that's hard to judge competence or fit or
character so how do you judge who's going to be good for a
leader what's that process like for you what does that look like to know this person's the person for the job
well I I think that um you know you can fake things pretty well you can rehearse you can have a
friend or a colleague or spouse ask you all the tough questions and you can research it how other people did it and
you can come in there and you can put on a good show but the best way to really cut to the
chase is to have somebody tell you a story uh because you can't really make those
up or if you do you're going to tell it's inauthentic and it's kind of like the whole you can
pay somebody for their hands but also paying them for their mind or you know people can do the technical stuff but
you're looking for help people think and that's been like the guiding principle for me it's like tell me a story tell me
about and it's not this stereotypical what's your biggest strength what's your biggest weakness because you can
fabricate that stuff or you can say the right thing and oh really my my weaknesses my strength it's like no it's
not come on let's let's talk about tell me a real story yeah you know you can't
do math yeah exactly yeah yeah I just it's just not um it's how
you talk about it right so it's and I think that was a big learning to me and and I didn't unfortunately get that type
of training and coaching and mentorship in my professors until I got to grad school
um but really helping me understand how to take some of these principles and how they can apply in real life and and I
think that that's the biggest thing as a teacher as a coach is like how can you make something fun for people so take a
daunting concept and how do you put into application and that's how people learn people learn when they can put something
in the application so much like health insurance that's what we're trying to tell these stories so our latest
campaign is called Partners For Life and it is it opens up on a couple
sitting on a blue couch Blue Cross Blue Shield and all they're doing is telling their love story that's all they're
doing they're not selling insurance through the camera to the camera and they're talking about their
partnership and then as you get further down the website you can see
how does this stuff even work um and oh by the way most people have Blue Cross and Blue Shield their whole
life and you can have it when you're 65 years or older because we have all these
products and a lot of people don't know we have these products so we're part we can be your part your health insurance partner for life but anyway we've had a
lot of success with that we just launched it but it's because we everybody's out there with the green
screen background with the zero premium stuff if you've seen one you've seen them all so what we try to do is try and
be different and and be more emotive and tell a story and no accident that the people that
were filmed were real people they weren't actors and they shared that story and that link with all their friends and you know it
just kind of going on from there so I'm really been more focused on marketing and that's selling people stuff but
um really content content strategy so you know what I'm selling more is experiences and ideas and feelings that
I am actual products we'll get to the products but trying to get to that
storytelling space is is my big Focus so when you are thinking about we need a
good story what does this process of generating a good story look like how do you even
start that what do you have a template you use or a frame well there's definitely a formula
and if you think about it one of my best friends Aaron summel he's a producer in
Hollywood and he's talked to me a lot over the years about storytelling and
you know the hero and the villain and you know the crescendo and the resolve and there are principles I mean there
there's formulas to movie making and I don't say that I follow that verbatim but who you hang out with actually has
an impact on how you think about problems and how you think about things and most of my best friends are people
that don't work in my industry and that's by Design I mean I want different
perspectives you don't know how many campaigns that I've pitched to some of my great friends and they said that's
the dumbest thing I've ever heard um don't do that but they I've also pitched these other ideas and they said
that's pretty cool and that's amazing actually it was my friend Aaron that said get a crew and film that stuff
because that is content that will pay dividends for years because you're going
to own your content you're going to be able to reuse that you're going to be able to be more authentic and you're
going to be able to tell a story with it not just for your 80 year anniversary but beyond so actually he was really one
of The Inspirations that helped me uh come up with that idea and shout out to Aaron shout out
what makes a good story a good story I think it has to be inspiring it has to
make someone stop and think if I can tell a story and someone goes huh that's when I know it's successful
that's pretty simple that's it I mean to me it's Gotta Move You It's gotta be inspiring in some way inspiring and
thought inspiring in action make you feel good about yourself make you question yourself maybe maybe make you
think about your life and how it applies to you I mean we all we all it comes
back to our own person and it's not selfish it's part of the process it's
part of being human is we want to hear these stories because stories teach us
more than principles or Frameworks it's this the stories that make it relevant
so you want your story to be thought provoking yes absolutely absolutely
everything I do I try and make it kind of a line back to my personal and
professional mission statement which is a little cheesy but um it's a reminder
and and my it's very simple it's um you know six words make things better bring
the joy so when I think about that at work I'm there to make things better
and I'm also there to bring joy and those sound pretty pretty intuitive like
well what wouldn't it be if if you weren't going to make things better does anybody out there have a statement that
says make things worse and bring the hate probably not but when you have
something I mean if you go around and ask people like hey what are you all about what do you stand for what can
they tell you and what I found out is most people have never thought about it and I'm going to send you a link so you
can do this there's actually an online um a little kind of quiz thing that you can take you put in your strengths what
you're good at what you love what inspires you and it kind of spits out these keywords that's how I came up with this it's kind of a cool little thing
um did you find that online I did yeah I did and uh hopefully it still works because I put this guy together like you
know 15 years ago but um you know I I think when I when I think about your personal brand and your
brand blueprint it starts with your story and that's your past so the unique
things that you've done to become you everyone's path is totally different
there's not one that's the same and if somebody says oh no you know my brother and I grew up in the same house well my
brother and I couldn't be more different and we had the same ingredients I mean literally I mean we
have the same DNA right so I mean it's uh but his story is amazing and as well
but he has this unique story and then it's once you figure out your past whether it's fantastic whether it's bad
whether it's filled with trauma that is who you are right today and then you have to capture what you are today and
how you live your life what you spend your time doing and why you're doing it and be really honest with yourself and
then and only then can you think about the future which is your focus and I've got a little trick for you to help
people think about that too you said you did that 15 years ago yeah
do you go back maybe 10 maybe 10 10 or 15 something like that
you're not that old so 10 years yeah probably 10 it was probably it was 10 actually because I was 37 35 37 so do
you go back and think is this still me or do I need to adjust this you know what's what's cool about it is that it's
held up and I think that that is really cool when you think about Brands and the
brands that do it right that spend the time to do the research and what is their true value they should hold up
over time now they will adapt to the environment so how I bring the joy today
is probably a little bit different how I brought the joy you know 10 years ago but the core is there because it went
through the process and it was founded in who I am that foundation so it really shouldn't change it what's interesting
if you've done any work with Gallup you know they do strength finders a lot of people do strength finders and they will
tell you that your strengths whether you're 25 45 or 65 pretty much stay the same they'll change
a little bit but not much and they have a whole category of 34 key strengths and they'll tell you that those are going to
stay the same that's part of Who You Are who's the Michael Jordan of Storytelling in your opinion oh my goodness
um well I think the Bible is the to Michael Jordan of Storytelling and I just went way up who's gonna compete with that
answer but you think about that is the best story in the world and when you think
about everything that's in there from Faith to love to hate to Crime
guilt Grace Redemption sacrifice I mean it's every single
emotion is in that story and that story
um still to this day provides context for everything that we're doing and you know if more people
just took a step back and they're like well I can't read the Bible it's too long and you don't have to I mean
there's a lot of tools make it easier for yourself I mean I have a daily uh
affirmation I went to the the dusty bookshelf down in Lawrence and I found a
1975 book from Billy Graham where he had one paragraph
daily devotionals and every every day I just pick up the book and I just read this little paragraph and it usually
cites a Bible verse that was the source of his uh interpretation
and when I get really into it and if it hits me the right way I will pick up the Bible and then thumb
to the actual passage and read the actual passage but it's an easier way to approach it and it only you know this
only came to me in the last you know I would say decade where I've I've realized that these stories are here and
it's been amazing because you know I'm a musician as well and you know I'm reading this passage and all of a sudden
it's a song by The Birds uh and I'm like this is ripped off from the
Bible they made millions of dollars off of this and it was in the Bible so um it's just really cool a great story a
mark of a great story is it's been ripped off a million times absolutely everybody's copying it right and there's
something in this story that could apply to anything and I think that's a really cool part about
a lot of faiths in general and like particularly familiar for us is the
Bible because people always pull a verse and be like hey this could apply to the situation you're like hey it could you
know and seeing the applicability and the relevance of the Bible
Billy Graham like people like that who are great public speakers who
can go around and cast Vision who have that energy and that moxie
we view them as these incredible leaders in history how much of that do you think is nurture and nature
yeah I think some people are just called to it and they've made an enormous sacrifices to do that I think about our
previous Pastor in Iowa Mike householder and he reminded me so much of Billy
Graham and just the way he's just so magnetic and how he could tell a story and how we can modernize the story so
I'll never forget one of his talks about breaking bad which
you know showed a video clip of Breaking Bad it at church and you know for those of you watch Breaking video like really
I mean that's that's not the first thing you think of yeah you would never think about that but the parallels he drew to Breaking
Bad to what the story is of sacrifice for your family and you know higher
order and and how much there was a lot of religious undertones in there if you look for him and I think it was just a
really interesting uh talk so I do think it takes a certain type of person but I
do feel like that they're called to do that type of work you know and it's amazing and I respect that I mean he went door to door in Iowa and introduced
himself and now he built this church that is the fastest growing Lutheran
Church in the in North America and um it's packed every Sunday I mean
everybody wants to watch Breaking Bad yeah exactly but but when you can relate somebody again it's another story it's a
story telling a story and people like oh man I didn't look at that it's like a whole other level and it's you know some
people argue that you know you're just trying to entertain people that are more and more distracted and you know what they're not wrong we're incredibly
distracted I mean we've been sitting here for an hour I mean how many times have you wanted to look at your phone I
mean you're very interesting yeah actually I haven't I haven't wanted to look at my phone I just looked at the
clock I'm like wow we've been talking a while but no I think you need to we're in such a distracted world like how many
people are going to listen to this get to this point in this podcast you know I mean you tell me about your marketing we
need a higher education we do we do marketing analytics here we got like click through rates we got conversion
retention yes and I one of the questions I want to ask you and you but do you think leaders in
general do you think leadership is a trait that everybody's born with and they need to just find how to tap into
it or do you think there are some people who are just leaders I think everybody can be a leader I really do
um and you know I've learned that the hard way because you know I was brought
up in a more hierarchical kind of structure at corporate life
but what I found is that you know the best leaders are you know all around you they just they need to be
brought out of their shell so my previous leaders did that to me so I had a leader who told me at a very young age
she said you could be the next CEO you could be a CEO here or somewhere else
and I was like what I I didn't even think about this I had never let others like how could I be a CEO let alone you
know be a leader of others but you know when someone sees that in you and gives you that confidence then watch out but I
think that my message to everybody else is you need if you are a leader you need to inspire someone else and say you're a
leader step it up let's go and and if you're not a leader and you a spider
bear leader you need to find someone that's going to help push you whenever she said you could be the next
CEO did that put a lot of wind in your sails oh yeah it was it was great because you
know when someone sees more than you than you've seen yourself that's that's really motivating because you're like oh
it kind of opens up your eyes to the art of the possible you know it it's like
you've heard that if you can dream it you can do it type thing but there's a lot of Truth in that visualization you
talked about skateboarding and how you could do the ollie on the grass and the reason why you could do it is because it
was my brother you saw your brother but you also it was safer because you you put yourself in an environment that
increased your odds of success exponentially because you mitigated your
risk of hurting yourself by putting yourself on a softer surface so you performed better on the graph than you
did on the cement because as soon as you went on the cement you internally told yourself holy crap if I fall this is
gonna hurt I'll break my neck so you didn't perform at a high of level
because you psyched yourself out and we all do Ollie's and in the grass well but
it's how do you inspire others to make them feel like they're doing an ollie in
the grass when they're on the concrete that's what I try and do in leadership yeah do people know what Ollies are yeah
that's when you jump your skateboard yeah your Escape board leaves the ground yes in a controlled manner yes and you
land with it you're not kicking I was a terrible skater yeah man I had all those people are yeah it's tough our bipedal
nature as humans a piece of wood with wheels on it is not a natural affinity
for there's few people who are really good at it I think a lot of people we really psych
ourselves out whenever we think of this idea of being a leader in a large company all the decision making
all of the people that we need to satisfy the quote quotas we need to meet like
all this stuff seems so overwhelming so how do you maintain
Serenity like how do you keep yourself calm whenever you have a lot of pressure to perform
well I think pressure is really good and I think it's something that people need to lean
into not away from I will tell you that the best work I've done is when the stakes were the highest
and if you don't have pressure and you don't feel that pit in your stomach
before presenting to your board or going out and seeing a customer and and
getting anxious because they may say something that you're not prepared to answer or getting rejected on the phone
or whatever you know you're not you're not going to learn and grow unless you go through
those things and um yeah I think that I just try and tell
myself that you know growth and comfort cannot coexist so if you want to be comfortable you can make a great living
doing something comfortable but if you really want to excel you're going to have to get uncomfortable and
that's what I tell myself and others and it's hard but the more you do it the
better you get at it and not only the better you get at it but your recovery time when you fail miserably shortens
significantly which is important it's super important getting back up and being resilient in that nature yeah
because Mountain biking's cool so just because I fell on my head doesn't mean I'm not gonna mountain bike anymore yeah
right and be a little bit more careful like this one experience doesn't mean that mountain biking sucks right it just
means I sucked temporarily I did no business going down a Rocky
Hill at 20 miles an hour I mean it's like come on but you do it and sometimes it works and that's the thrilling part
about it is like wow that just happened what has been the hardest part about
your role what gives the pressure well the the industry the product that's all
complex but the hardest thing that continues to be hard regardless of this industry or others is people
you know as a leader you try and develop people as much as you can but sometimes
there's nothing you can do to make them better and that's the hardest part is when you've given it your all and you
just can't evolve somebody where you know that they could be but they refuse to do it
themselves and it gets really frustrating I mean you can't fix everybody is kind of the the thing that's the toughest part for me because
I like I like a challenge and I like to develop myself and others and to kind of
fold the cards and say hey this is not going to work that's the toughest thing because I hate to quit how do you know
when to let someone go you know I never let anybody go really
yeah I pretty much just have a conversation with them and say what do you want to do and then I just give them
the brutal honesty about whether they can achieve that here or not and that
lately the last five years seems to have worked really well because then it's doing stuff with people not two people I
think a lot of leaders make the mistake of like oh I had to fire somebody it's like well you should never have to do
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