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The Power of Collaboration and Creativity with Terry Weaver · The Daily Writer

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Daily Rider Podcast, where we bring you tips and inspiration each day to help you build habits for writing success.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: For more resources, including your free Daily Rider starter kit, visit DailyRiderLife.com.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: In our lives, there are certain people who have the rare gift of inspiring us to creativity with a simple conversation.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: And it seems like they have creativity baked into everything they do, and they can't help but have a positive effect on people simply because of who they are.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: One such person is Terry Weaver, who is my guest today.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Terry is a speaker, author, and ideapreneur whose passion is to see others live life alive, whether through helping others see their dreams become reality, traveling around the world, challenging students to change the world, leading teams of people to do more together than they could do alone, or just hanging out with Mickey Mouse at Disney World.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Terry and his wife Leslie live outside of Nashville, Tennessee.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: He's also host of the Making Elephants Fly podcast, as well as the author of a book by the same title, Making Elephants Fly.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Terry and I have a lot of friends in common, but strangely enough, I had never had him as a guest on this podcast.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Well, today I've corrected this grievous error, and I'm thrilled to bring you this fun and inspiring conversation.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Terry shares the creative process behind developing his successful conference called The Thing, and you'll get insights into the awesome power of collaboration and how to bring people together to create something magical.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, we also geek out over Star Wars and Disney, two things that both of us love.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: So here's my very fun and very enlightening conversation with Mr.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Terry Weaver.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Terry, it is great to connect with you.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Finally, I have been sort of in your orbit online for a couple years now.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but today is actually the first time we've we've had a I'm gonna not gonna say a face-to-face conversation, but an actual real life conversation.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: So thanks for making the time to do this.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm excited.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it and within just like days of the planets actually alighting.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: I know, I know.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: That was one of my favorite snarky social media posts I've made.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: Because everybody always talks about they need the planets to a lot.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, well, they did, so what are you gonna do about it?
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: They they literally did, I think.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Was it like five planets or something?
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: I think like Pluto, Pluto sat it out, Uranus sat it out, whichever.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, all my youth pastor friends pointed out the that Uranus didn't make it.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: So, like, yeah.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and Pluto's like, hey, peace out, guys, I'm on my own.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: Traditionally, you guys tried to fire me a couple of years anyway.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: So Pluto's off in the corner, you know, just pouting.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, just a couple of years we said it wasn't a planet.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Then we saw the pictures come back, and Pluto's like, you know what?
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: I have the coolest looking like uh tattoo.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I have a heart tattoo basically, so it's like thumbing it, thumbing it to like Saturn, you know.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Saturn's just this ugly brown planet.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: You just have this ring.
• 3:01
  unknown: Yeah.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: This podcast went real nerdy really fast.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's okay.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Nerds rule the world.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's my theory.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: And they actually do.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: So all right.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, um, for our listeners too now, just by the way, before listeners will be checking out this portion of this episode, I will have already done an intro, so I'll get that from you later and I'll record that separately.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: But the thing that speaking of, now this is not a not a pun necessarily, but the thing, quote unquote, that I think you are you may be most well known for, or at least the thing that is is on social media the most is literally something called the thing, which is this really cool event that you do.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Tell us what that is and where that came from and what that is all about, because it's something that to me is a wholly unique kind of a thing.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I'd love that you're doing this, and I'm hoping to attend at some point in the near future.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, man.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: The thing is a conference that I started back in 2017.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I originally started with a business partner that actually went sideways.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because it's funny because you and I sort of said, hey, let's talk a lot about collaboration.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: And it was one of those things that, you know, collaboration for me is one of the best things in my life.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: But when you collaborate with someone that doesn't share a vision with you, things can go sideways really quick.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: True.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: And and when I mean share a vision, I don't just mean actually share it, like, but they actually believe it because people will tell you anything they want it, they want you to hear to get to do something with you.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's really clear that uh that you know what your core values are and you get those things really clear when you're gonna collaborate with anybody.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, so the thing is, you know, it's an event.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um originally, um my my background is I moved my wife, my wife and I, Leslie, and we moved here to Nashville in 2001.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: And when I in 2001, I was traveling the country speaking at school assemblies, um, Christian music festivals.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: I was doing a lot of work with Compassion International and World Vision, um, speaking on their behalf, helping them get child sponsorships.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: And um we were we were at the time also had a management and booking agency where we were working with artists.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so during all that season, I was traveling, I was doing literally all of these things, if you will, that word can't stop coming up.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: And somehow in that process, um, we sort of evolved where school assemblies really became kind of our biggest passion.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so we started to do that.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: And in that process, I kind of realized, like, hey, I need to write a book.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so I started writing my book, Making Elephants Fly.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, mainly because I read a book called The Traveler's Gift by Andy Andrews that you and I were just talking about in the pre-show.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: And Andy just kind of showed me, hey, man, there's a new way.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's funny, I've had Andy on on my podcast several times.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: He's an amazing human being, um, and oddly, oddly kind of a fan, like, which is fun that he really supports what I do.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it's always um kind of humbling when people who you deeply respect um look at the work that you do and go, thank you for doing the work that you do.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: And um I found that I was having all of these amazing conversations through my podcast, which I started a podcast because I was having all these amazing conversations because I wrote a book and I wanted to talk to interesting people.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: And then I found out, wow, and it's a lot easier to talk to them if you had a podcast.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so, like, let's record these conversations.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: So that's really how I got into podcasting as a as a as a as a genre.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, um, back in 2017, as I said, um, we started this event.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: I had been a part of another conference with a friend that I had helped him start.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought, man, I need to do my it's time for me to do something.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: And we were messing around with ideas, and we were gonna call it the assemble conference, kind of like, you know, based off of that like moment that you have when you come home from IKEA and that you have this pile of screws and strange um Swedish figures.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: Except your conference is gonna be in English, though.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: I well, well, I began to think like, how many times do you go to events that are amazing, but yet you have no idea how to put it all together?
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: What if we did that as an event?
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so I I knew kind of back to my uh my inner youth pastor roots.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: I knew that, like, man, that's such a cheesy name, like Assemble, the Avengers, you know, we got to do better than this.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so one of the people that I knew that I wanted to be a part of the event was my friend Nickinair Wilson, who was an imagineer for the Walt Disney Company.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, man, we've got to come up with a better name for this thing.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: And he's like, that's it.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's the thing.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody has a thing.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody describes every event that they go to as yeah, I'm gonna go to Terry Weaver's thing.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever that what is that thing he does in Orlando?
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so, and then we started talking about all our friends, and we realized that they all had a thing.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so we wanted to create a place um that was an event for kind of the people that were the kind of the for lack of a better, a better words, that they were the square pegs and round holes, that they kind of didn't, you know, they did a lot, they did different um, they did different things.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: They did interesting work and they needed a place to assemble and and a kind of a a tribe to join.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: And um so I kind of asked myself, you know, like, hey, what what do other conferences have um that that I want and don't want?
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: One of the things we decided we didn't want was a green room.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, all of our speakers are just kind of in the room with us.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: We decided we didn't want a thousand and two breakout sessions.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: Everything is kind of in one room, so everyone's together.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we're making a little slide change on this.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: We do what's called a VIP ticket.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um we're kind of letting those people have a choice if they want kind of the I'm I'm just starting on my thing or I've already got a thing and I want to take it to the next level.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's kind of a you know, an advanced thing, if you will.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um just because we're getting people who have come all five years and are like, hey, let's, let's, let's kind of we want to stay a part of it.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: And that's kind of when what's the most interesting about of it is kind of accidentally.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I actually posted about social media on this yesterday.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: Paul Klein came up to me, who's a at the time was a pricing strategist, and um he did a lot of work in California with uh his day job was he owned a company that that helped corporate corporate America become um ADA compliant.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: And he kind of discovered our community and showed up.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, hey man, I want to come back and speak.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: Next year I was like, well, sure, no one's ever asked me that.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: Let's do it.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: And he's like, I'll need some help.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so we, you know, we connected and in the process he of that, he actually moved here.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: But we actually a lot, a lot of our a lot of our speakers have come from our community as they have kind of come into our community, maybe not knowing what their thing was.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and they've grown and they've literally come from the back road of the stage.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: And that's one of the fun things that that that is a part of what we do.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's um I wish I would say that that was a you know, that that happened on purpose.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: We just we kind of created uh an ethos or a culture that just allows for um for things to kind of happen differently.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: I love that though, because every time you go to a conference, not every time, but most of the time, it's kind of the same type of deal.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of people there, there's main speakers, there's breakout sessions, yada yada, and those can be very good.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: But just having seen the posts that you've done on social media and and knowing a lot of people who post about the events whenever they are there, and knowing the quality and the caliber of those people that are in your circle, you're just doing some really, really cool stuff.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I really respect and admire the creative touch and the heart that you really seem to put in things.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's different because a lot of times with with the stuff when the in the online entrepreneur creative type of world, there's a bit of cynicism that's involved in it.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like we're gonna do this conference, but you can tell there's not a lot of heart in it.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: And that is the main thing.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: When I think of you, Terry, I just think of somebody who seems to put a lot of heart and love into what they do.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: I hope that doesn't sound cheesy.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: No at all.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and it kind of makes me think about that uh What's that Dr.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: Seuss quote?
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: You know, unless somebody like you cares.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um I hate when people butcher my quotes, so I'm gonna I'm gonna get off the Googles.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: Dr.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I know this is captivating, captivating radio right here.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: When that's all right, it's it's real life radio.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, and we and I do a Disney podcast and we do this all the time.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like we need to get like music that plays when we do this.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um but unfortunately, I don't there's only so much uh so much mental capacity that I have between my earlobes.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's not.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I I think as a as a creator and um as anyone that's making anything, you have to decide if you really care about what you do or not.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: Whether it's starting a company, writing a book, running a blog, hosting a podcast, doing, you know, creating art, whether that's art that hangs on a canvas or the art that of the work that we do, like Seth Godin talks about.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you have to choose if you're going to care.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, I appreciate you saying that because I genuinely it is genuinely something that I that that that I'm all hard on, man.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like we're we are I'm all in on this community, I'm all in on creating um spaces and environments for people to thrive and for people to rise.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um I actually just watched an amazing uh movie last night on uh Disney Plus called Rise.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I'm not even gonna attempt to pronounce the basketball player's last name, but it's a basketball player from Nigeria that moved to Greece and how he moved here place with the Milwaukee Bucks, won the uh NVP of the NBA in 2017.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's his story and his family of like the challenges of immigration and the challenges of just like rising and the challenges of like living your dreams, and like you know, I know we hear all these gurus talk about accomplishing, you know, all of this stuff and that you can do it and it's possible.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: And they're right, you can do it, but it's definitely a lot of hard work.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: That you have to genuinely um no one is ever gonna care about your calling more than you do.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so as you're choosing work and choosing to do things and choosing to create, man, make sure it's something you genuinely care about.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because you know, I mean, there's going to be times and seasons that just require us to invest at such a high level, not just financially, but like with our time and sacrifice.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um and in this movie Rise, it was it was a it was an entire family that had to sacrifice, you know, and it you know, it's it's a real story, so I'm not spoiling anything, but you know, there was I think five brothers, and three or four of them ended up in the NBA.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: But it started with one um from from Nigeria through via Greece, actually from Nigeria through Turkey via Greece, the entire time fleeing immigration and trying to legally become residents of a country and um yeah.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's just we talk a lot about what we see modeled online from a lot of people is ease.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, it can there is ease, but that doesn't mean that it's easy.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't mean that there's not a lot of just ridiculous intentionality that has to go into doing meaningful work.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: What would you say is the is the hardest thing about putting together an event like the thing?
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: Because a lot of people listening, including myself, we are interested in doing events or retreats, those kinds of things, but I've never actually well actually that's not true.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: When I was a pastor, I did a couple of worship retreats.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: That was that's been many, many years ago.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: But what is the most challenging thing about putting together an event like the thing from an or from an event organization perspective?
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know that it's the hardest thing, but I'll tell you it's the hardest thing for me right now.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: And that is knowing when to get really stubborn on vision.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: Andy Stanley has this great um kind of rant about that the leaders need to be flexible on the details with stubborn on vision.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: And that's good.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: It there's a lot of people that are gonna have opinions about how your event should be from the from down to how many breaks you should have, um, what kind of snacks you should serve, um, how many emails people should get before they arrive at the event.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and they and they genuinely deeply care that like they want you to see you succeed.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: You know, normally the people, especially the people in your community, are rooting for you, they're cheering from you, they're trying to help you actually win at this thing that you do.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: And um, but you knowing what to trust and what to what to do and and what to stick to.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, at some point, um, I mean, I guess that's a lot of life, man.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's a lot of the creation processes everyone has an opinion about what book you should write or what um true content you should create.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: And at the end of the day, you have to do, you know, the algorithm is gonna change, the public opinion's gonna change.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we're we're in a we're in a cult time in our culture, I think, when even just the idea of truth is up for debate.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and I think that there are some things that just don't change.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I'm all for evolving and I'm all for shifting and getting better and and pursuing excellence.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: But there are some things that I'm just that I'm gonna stick to my guns on and I'm gonna put my stake deeply into the ground on some a few foundational things.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: One one of those is we won't we won't ever have a a green room.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: Now we've we we're doing something this year.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: Most of my speakers don't even know this.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: I'm doing a speaker dinner, which I've always hesitated doing because it takes them away from like actually hanging with people that are at the conference.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: But so um I'm flexible on some things, but I'm not um I'm not going to change on others.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's just you really have to know what it is you're trying to create.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes you mentioned retreat as which is really interesting, is sometimes what you need to know when you're creating something is know that you maybe need to create something else to meet a need, because one something that you create can't encompass everything that everyone in the world wants or needs.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um we we've just started um we're doing this.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: This we haven't even like like the logo is being worked on as we're talking.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: But in February, I'm taking a group of entrepreneurs to Jamaica um called the Jamaica Mastermind.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: And it's for people who who are who are leaning at a really high level and who really want to go and do big things, but maybe you know, attending a conference in Orlando might not necessarily be the best thing for them.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's not specific enough to their needs, it's not you're right, and um and so you know, I have this theory about mastermind groups that masterminds are like potlocks that they're great because people bring great things to them.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: And when you have people who show up with greatness, not just a great need of something to take, but they show up, they bring their best dishes, if you will.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's how we're doing that's literally the format of the entire format of the event.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's in Jamaica, it's three hours a day because that's the now, granted, it's more than three hours a day because we're going to be having meals together and stuff, but three hours of basically conference a day.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: And during that three hours, we're kind of giving uh a very small group of entrepreneurs a chance for everyone to do like um, hey, here's your best big idea.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: 20 minutes.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: Give us your your your Fred talk, if you will, um, and your best thing that's like working in your business.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: And then if you have something that you need fixed, we'll work together as like in mastermind together on whatever your biggest like area of struggle in your business is right now.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: So um, and then obviously those conversations and those kind of moments are gonna kind of be what um happens in all the margins of the events, whether it's during a dinner or sitting by the pool at a you know, a five-star all-inclusive resort, you know.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so um part part of part of the thinking behind doing something different like that is I really think the environments in which things happen have deep effect over what the possibilities people like, why in the world would you do an event in Disney World?
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: Why do you go to a children's theme park, which I would argue it's not a children's theme park?
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so would our friend, uh, I think our mutual friend David Dollar would probably argue as well.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: I was just there two weeks ago for vacation.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: So I would argue with that as well, right?
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I I would say that because your mind shifts when you walk through those those those gates.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: It does something that wasn't possible before becomes possible when you go through that tunnel.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so it's been super fun over the years um to take grown people to Walt Disney World with other adults, and like I remember our friend, our our friend Karen Anderson from Morgan James Publishing, you know, standing there on the train in Walt in the Magic Kingdom, and it's just like wow, this is great.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: This is what we're doing on a Thursday for work.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: So, how does that work functionally?
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: So you have and you're doing that again in December, right?
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: For November, yes.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: For November, okay.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: So, how does that work?
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: People sign up to do for for the thing in Orlando.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: Do you go as a group to Disney World and you have off-site stuff, or like how does that work out schedule-wise and logistics?
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: So the week kind of starts we have three tickets the main thing, VIP, and V VIP.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: And V VIP starts Tuesday night um with dinner, and it typically goes until people start just throwing in the towel.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: Last year we started at Art Art Smith's homecoming restaurant um and ended up at Winebor Wine Bar, George, until they kicked us out.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: And did did you have the fried gator at uh Art Smith's?
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, did he have fried gator?
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we ate that's one of the places we ate at a couple weeks ago.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I don't think I've ever had the fried gator.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: I recommend it.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: I've had literally uh I I know Chef Art um through some mutual.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Friends.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: Hopefully, if Chef can stop traveling long enough, he's launching two or three new restaurants right now.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna have him on my podcast, but he's he's a really great guy.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um amazing stories.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: But uh and that's fried chicken is really good too.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I guess.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I judge I judge people by their fried chicken.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um does my doctor, but that's a different conversation.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and then um we Tuesday we spend a day kind of in a in a suite in the passing this year it'll be at a suite um at the presidential suite at the hotel, and kind of just the whole day is kind of just you know brainstorming and masterminding and working with people on their business.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: This is at a Disney hotel or a totally different one.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: We this year we're at the Windham.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: The Wyndham Disney Springs is literally the closest you can be to it to a Disney property without actually being in the parks.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um the only hotel that's closer to it is in California, and that's the Grand Californian that's literally in the theme park.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so um it's right there, literally.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: If you were to it's about a four-minute walk to Disney Springs.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's closer to get there from the the hotel lobby than it is from the back of the parking garage.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: Half of the Disney Springs parking.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because it's in the old Hotel Plaza Boulevard, um, which used to be called uh Hotel Plaza Boulevard and when it was called Downtown Disney.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then Thursday is our VIP day where we go on a um tour with McNair and a few other folks, kind of in the theme parks.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um each year we kind of pick a different park.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: We we may have something that I can't, something really, really special we're working on for this year.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but we spend the day in the parks and hanging out and learning.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um and really just kind of, I mean, sure, we'll we'll ride some rides and do some stuff, but it's really just to kind of listen and hear kind of the the backstory behind the how the magic is created, the Disney creative process, why there's a trash can in this place.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then when Friday morning, the VIP folks have a that seminar that I mentioned, they're kind of those bonus workshops.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: And then the conference gets started kind of in earnest um on Friday afternoon and goes through Sunday.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: And because we're literally in close proximity, such close proximity to Disney Springs, I'm sure people will be in and out throughout the weekend.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: That was one of the things our people asked for.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I was like, I was like, no skipping sessions, but uh you guys um we try to do intentionally create some margin where people can, you know, kind of come and go and um get to know each other and have some space.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_01: But for the most part, it it's really um for the people, is you know, there have been people coming coming the whole time.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so um, and then a lot of these people are in my coaching program.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: So it becomes more and more just like a family gathering.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it's really just a um a huge range of folks for people in their 20s.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: To Linda, Linda registered this morning.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: Linda's been the last three years, including our 2020 pandemic year that we did it at a luxury home, just to keep to try to find a way to keep people serving people at a really high level during the pandemic.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: And um she is uh she does like you know corporate training, and then she's also like a pyrotechnic expert, you know, and she's you know in her 60s, and so we have this vast range of like of diverse folks from all kinds of walks and backgrounds, and um candle makers, fireworks makers, um funeral directors, um, writers, authors, speakers, marketers.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um so when people sign up to to do the event, is there a Disney ticket included in that or is that a whole separate thing?
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's included in the VIP, the VIP and the V VIP.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: So they actually do get a park ticket as part of their admission.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: So then how does that work logistically with you and your business?
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have an assistant who handles logistics of booking and hotels and stuff, or is that all you or how does that work?
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: Oh man, I have a team in the Philippines that I use for some things that I don't necessarily use to my fullest.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um if it's Disney related, I typically get involved or have one of my travel agent friends kind of handle it.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, like we we buy tickets through kind of through them in bulk.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then we we we negotiate with a hotel.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, to be right, you know, we we intentionally tried to get as close to week on property this year as we could if we could find a decent option.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I'm interested in all this because um I'm gonna do my first retreat for so obviously this podcast is called the Daily Writer.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: I have a membership community called the Daily Writer Club, and we're doing a small retreat this fall.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: Probably will be just like 15 or 20 people.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: I've never done an event before, but I would love at some point to offer something like this, specifically for writers and creatives, a Disney thing, but the logistics of that sound really, really overwhelming.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I dude, I mean when people tell me they want to do a live event, I'm like, do you though?
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: And and that's kind of my I'm like, I know the power of live events.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: I've been to a lot of them, but and dude, that's and that's honestly why um they can change your life.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: I would be much more profitable and actually make a ton of money doing what I do virtually.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: But the transformation power that happens in a live room.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: I say this constantly and I believe it, and I and it's something I live by, it's a core value.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: That everyone is just one relationship away from a different life.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that everyone is just one relationship and knowing one person, and it's not even the fact that you know someone who could get you a book deal, right?
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: That's not even what I'm talking about.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: What I'm really talking about is that you see someone else that is actually doing what you want to do, and you discover that that's possible.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, no, sure.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: Relationships and people that open the doors, and I know lots of cool people and they know lots of cool people.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, and it's sometimes unexpected.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: I had a friend that was like, hey, I'm gonna bring somebody um to the Nashville event.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: Is that okay?
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, man, whoever, I trust you.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, Do you know, do you need any details?
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, No, I don't need details, just whatever.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: That you're my friend and you're coming as my guest.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so I looked down and I'm like, speaking, you know, we were talking a lot of us have been talking about Obi-Wan Kenobi, and I looked in, and there's the voice of Obi-Wan Kenobi from the Star Wars Clone Wars, uh, James Arnold Taylor, who now lives here in Nashville.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: But he's literally, I'm I'm up here giving this my opening talk to the Nashville event a few weeks ago.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I was gonna do a Jedi thing, and I'm like, I am not doing that with him in the front row.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: We'll save that for Orlando.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I was actually literally talking about this conversation my wife and I had.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and she was, you know, my kind of opening talk was sort of riffed around this idea that, and it's actually gonna be a principle in my new book, that so many of us hunt unicorns.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: We're looking for these perfect scenarios, these perfect things.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: When in the the reality to success in life and business is being a unicorn, is embracing your uniqueness, embracing that thing that you bring that nobody else has.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so, you know, when you start to talk about things like that, you you start to research fun things and you discover, well, there is an animal.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I can't speak, I can't, I can I can't pronounce their Latin name, but they're known as the Siberian unicorn.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it was basically the woolly mammoth version of the rhino uh of of the rhino.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um there was this thing called the Siberian Unicorn.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's like a rhino with like that looks like a woolly mammoth.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: I came out, I don't know how else to describe it.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so it it it led me down kind of this fun little, you know, and and rhinos are a huge part of, you know, my book is called Making Elephants Fly.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the next book is something to do with Pacaderms.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, my my um membership that I'm about to launch is called the Pacaderm Flight Society.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: So anytime I can bring the Pacaderms conversation into people's lives, I I do.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because I think they're fascinating creatures, and I there's a lot we can learn as leaders from the wild, from the savannah.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the way that elephants live together, the way that's that rhinos are um often, you know, how rhinos act and and how hippopotamuses are just ridiculously underestimated, but yet they're the most deadly, they're more deadly than the lion.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: And um so yeah, that welcome, welcome to the inside of my crazy head.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I want to throw a question out there if I can, um, related to conferences, but then you mentioned Obi-Wan, and I'm glad you you mentioned that because I'd if it's okay with you, I'd love to go down a little a little side star tide trade.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: Speaking of nerds, let's go.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: So, my my my first question though is I'm wondering how do you deal with this as a person who puts on conferences?
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: You have things that people can invest in.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: How do you personally handle it whenever you offer something, but you have somebody who would come to you and say, Terry, I would love to come to like the Disney thing.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I can't afford it.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like we're on a budget, da-da-da-da.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: How do you as somebody who offers things at different levels?
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: What do you feel like is the best way for those of us who do offer things?
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: How do we how do we help people who can't afford to maybe come to an event or join a membership?
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: What's the best way that we can serve those people?
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, snap, man.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's the million-dollar question.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm gonna answer this from two different angles.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm an Andy Stanley fan.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_01: I think he's one of the greatest communicators alive.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_01: But he has this principle, and it's one that I live by as well that do for one what you wish you could do for everyone.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so from time to time, I'm able to do things for someone that I can't do for someone else.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I do the same thing.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, from time to time, someone calls and says, Let's I'd like to pick your brain.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um most of the time, like that's how people pick my brain for a living.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a coach.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_01: That's what one of the things I do.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a consultant.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: Companies pay thousands and thousands of dollars for that access.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: But sometimes I hear your story and I lean in.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: I can't do that with everybody, or I would be homeless.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so I I I also allow the community, in our case, to help as well.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I'm thinking of um a couple people last year, and I'm you know, there was a youth pastor that lost their job that wanted to make the transition entrepreneurship.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_01: I put one post up in our Facebook group, and I had all of their expenses in their hotel cover.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, if you have a community, let your community help.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: You're doing a disservice if you don't let them um do that.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_01: Now, the third thing I would say on the subject is a little a little darker and a little sadder.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um don't steal the opportunity for someone to invest in themselves.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um at some level.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: And you you have to be the judge of what that looks like.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um there was a guy this year that like he was gonna his company was gonna sponsor the the thing.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_01: And um the company kind of you know downsized and like he got left out.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, dude, I want you to be there, and I'll happily like give you a discount, but I think you need to invest it yourself so you could say that you pick yours picked yourself.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think I think it's finding, you know, once again that goes back to trusting your gut, man, and knowing what um, you know, these events are expensive as I'll get out to put on.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you've just been to Walt Disney World.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know how I'm still the the husband and dad part of me, I'm like just breathe, it'll be okay.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and so I I just take it at restaurants at Disney.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I'm gonna do a medication to help calm myself.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm I just told you I'm gonna take people to Art Smiths and places like that and then put them all on my Disney credit card.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I hope it has a uh has a high limit.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, don't tell Dave Ramsey.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: That'll be our secret.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_01: But uh, you know, I think it's it's it's it's interesting that you know, I mean, everything's I mean, everything's expensive now.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um and you know, we've had a we've had some conversations about that internally of like how do we make sure this is affordable?
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the things we've actually done this year is our lower, we've actually dropped the price of our lower ticket and kind of changed some of the things that you get just to make it even more accessible.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: One of our speakers, you know, we've had several speakers come that, you know, later on I found out like dude, the first year I came to the thing, I didn't know where I was gonna sleep when I came to the thing.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, in fact, there's one person that that's their story.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they just knew that they had to bet on themselves, they got a ticket.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they didn't even have they didn't have a hotel room.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: They walked out of the thing and made um forty thousand dollars in the next couple weeks based on a couple of conversations they had with speakers, you know, and you know, this year their business is well on their way to being a um eight-figure business, you know, and they that way they came to the thing in 2018.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so um, you know, I mean the work is hard, man.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, as as you create events that you know that are gonna be expensive, you're still looking at doing a a retreat, you know, in a house or that kind of thing, you know, that's expensive too.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, you know, I mean, the house we rented in 2020, um, what it cost me to pay for it every night we were there is more than my mortgage payment on my house.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_01: Every night, you know, like, and we were there four nights.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so, but it was it was a you know, it was a 23-bedroom house or whatever.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_00: So um, when you're starting out with these events for somebody like me who is just on the beginning side of of doing events, would you say, you know, financially the primary goal is like you don't want to lose money, at least.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: Because, you know, event, unless you're doing a lot of events, you know, for me, events will probably never be like a large part of my overall income.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_00: But I value them so much and I know I know the life change that can happen in those, so I I want to do them.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: But at the very least, you know, when you're doing your first couple, well, like like for you, when you did your first couple, was your goal just like, I just got to break even and have a good event?
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you're gonna learn things you're gonna improve as you go along, but you just have to do it at some point and make some mistakes and then learn from those, I guess.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_01: I can say, luckily, we've never lost money on these events.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_01: We've come real close.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um the first year, because of just the way the whole partnership went down, we might have lost a little bit, but I've never lost more than I would have paid to attend my own event.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_01: So let's put it that way.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um that's a good perspective.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_01: And that's kind of how I've had to explain it to my wife.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I understand that too.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um but man.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_01: Now then again, like one of the questions you have to ask yourself when you're creating anything is what's for sale?
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: Something has got to be a profit.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: Something has got to.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_01: If the event's not making money, that's okay.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_01: I know people who do events that lose hundreds of thousands of dollars doing an event, but then that event sells millions of dollars worth of products.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: So you gotta figure out where your profit margin is going to be.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, where what what business are you actually in?
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_01: Like what's the actual business?
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: And once you know what that is, um, you know, I tend to prefer, you know, Jeff Goyne's old podcast was called the portfolio life.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_01: I love the idea of having a portfolio of ideas and streams.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'm I you know, I I tend to bootstrap things.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that's a strength and a weakness.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because sometimes you just have to go all in.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like, yeah.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, we're really, you know, we're taking some pretty big swings with the thing this year.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um and man, you know, it's hard to get people to commit.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_01: I have someone that just bought a ticket for this year's thing.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_01: They messaged me and was like, hey man, I've told you for five years I'm coming to this event.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I know you said tickets aren't on sale, but I've got money and I want to pay you right now.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so they're finally coming after saying, Hey, I'm coming, you know, like, and so you know, you start you you there are a lot of good things about doing live events, and then there's some things that you just question all of humanity and its existence.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so you know, it's it's a tough balance, man.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you gotta really know what you want and know what you're trying to accomplish and know how you're trying to serve people and really the why behind it.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_01: What are you really trying to do?
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um and as much as much as you're like, man, I'm doing this because I want to see, I know how powerful live events, but on the flip side is how is this powerful for you and your business?
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what is what is this doing?
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_01: Is it is it is it bringing um, you know, I'll tell you something we're up against right now.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_01: We're in this point of like creating community.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, our community is awesome and amazing.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_01: But I have to, as a leader, I have to balance the fact of like I want the community to serve each other, but I'm actually this is actually my business, right?
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so I I you have to kind of think and create processes and systems and agreements with people and arrangements with people that allow everyone to thrive in that business, you know, and so um those are great thoughts.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_00: Those are really great thoughts.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate you sharing all that because some people listening may be considering doing events for their business or doing a retreat or some type of live gathering, which is a whole different ball of wax than you know doing a podcast or something that's just you in your office doing something.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I would think I would not think of the traditional places that people do events to start with.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_01: I would not try to start at a hotel.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_01: A hotel comes with food and beverage minimums, it comes with room night minimums, attrition.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I would start with an experience that you can rent a venue in your local community or a city that you know really well.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like for me, Orlando is like my second home.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not a problem.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's not a big deal for me to be able to go to Orlando because I know I can look, I can pull up Google Maps and go, oh, that place, that place, that place.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I'm able to make phone calls or send someone around the corner to find things.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, we have two or three people we know that are always we're always shipping things back and forth.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_01: I have a storage unit in Orlando now.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, we've had to get real intentional about Orlando.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um but you know, there are, you know, you can you you can you can you know find like a a smaller, like um, you know, Hampton Inn kind of hotel that'll rent you their mall room, their meeting room, and they don't have catering, so they'll let you bring in Chick-fil-A or whatever, and that'll charge you$500.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_01: That that might be a great place to start for a lot of people.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_01: Or, you know, go somewhere, you know, that has like vacation homes, beach houses, the mountains, um or an Airbnb beach or something like that.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_01: Huh?
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_01: Or an Airbnb, yeah, big Airbnb.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but try to find one that's got you know meaning space and start there.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know I do want to throw out one final thing here as we kind of wind this down, and I appreciate your time so much.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_00: This has been awesome.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_00: So you mentioned Obi Wan a minute ago, and that reminded me of a now I'm I don't want to misquote you or misattribute anything to you, but the the gist of what I remember you posting a week or a week or so ago on Facebook.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_00: And correct me if I'm wrong, by the way, but I remember look and see what I posted.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_00: It was something about Obi-Wan, but you were basically saying, why can't we just what I remember you saying is why do we have to be so critical about everything?
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_00: Why can't we just enjoy the series?
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I don't know if you loved Obi-Wan or or any of the Disney Plus series.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_00: Seems to me like as a as a Star Wars and Disney person that you really did.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_00: But I was struck by that because it really loved this Disney series, this Star Wars series.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_01: Go ahead and admit to yourself, you don't like Star Wars.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_01: It was great.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_01: It was great.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and here's I work in fandoms, man.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_01: I get it.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_01: I help people create fandoms.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_01: I worked in the music industry for years.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_01: The two communities that I'm the closest to are the Disney community and the Star Wars community.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_01: And most of those people are pretty brutal about what other people are creating on their behalf.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and it's really easy to keep a critic's hat on.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um man, just learn to enjoy things.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you don't need to go, and I know you're a writer, like like like we create stuff.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like, don't go to the movie theater looking for a plot hole.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_01: You will find one.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's that's that's the but one of the best advices that I kind of like started giving myself during the pandemic.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I really discovered this just by watching how people I was like, wow, people will find what they're looking for.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_01: Totally.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to find hope, you'll find hope.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to find fear, you'll Find fear.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to find something wrong with the new Obi-Wan series on Disney Plus, you will find a lot wrong with it.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um the way that it ended, the whole thing, man.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_01: I I loved every moment of it.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_01: I I called my mother because I went to go see the Star Wars in the theater with her.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, for the I feel like I'm seven years old hanging on your hanging on ear on watching Empire Strikes Back and you know in the movie theater in Fairfax, Virginia.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, like um yeah, this I'm not one of these guys, you know, like you know, I love Transformers too.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like everybody's like, oh man, Michael Bay, whatever.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_01: Man, I'm just excited to see these characters that I grew up loving.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you're getting the benefit of the video.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, my office is basically a giant, a toy box that exploded, you know, from Jiminy Cricket to Obi-Wan to um Yoda to Dumbo to um a stuffed Jeffrey from Toys R Us, because I'm a Toys R Us kid.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um when they closed Toys R Us, I was like, I'm getting one of these.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_01: I need some like moment to have of like, right.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, man, I think especially as people who create and people who write and people who make, we have to do better about just letting ourselves go enjoy stuff.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I agree.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_00: I kind of feel bad for these I feel bad for these, you know, 40-some-year-old Star Wars fans, and I'm a 40-some-year-old Star Wars fan, by the way.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_00: Same.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, especially the, and I'm not trying to pick on anybody, but I guess I kind of am.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you are.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_00: Please do.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we have we have developed this whole culture of people who they have developed platforms and YouTube channels and podcasts based on tearing down everybody else's stuff.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, that that to me as a writer and as a creative, that really irritates me sometimes because I'm like, dude, you're not adding anything of value.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_00: You're you're basically your whole creative activity is tearing down other people's creative work and critiquing it.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_00: When you are just a critic and you are just uh you're just a movie critic or you're you're just a YouTube movie commentator, like you're not really adding any value.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_00: You're just there trying to comment on everybody else's creative work.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_00: So why don't you get busy like creating your own thing instead of just commenting on everybody else's thing?
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's now that being said, I am a guy who watches a lot of that stuff.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I guess I'm kind of invalidating my own point because I watch a lot of those people too, and I'm and some of them actually do a great job.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_00: But I just I guess increasingly I I sort of have an issue with people who their whole thing is they just comment on other people's creative work, you know.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_00: There's always been a place in society for those people.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_00: I do think they add some value.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, I'm like, why don't you create your own stuff and then then actually add something of value instead of just sort of giving your opinion about everything?
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, that's that's basically what social media is.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um there's an entire chapter in my book, Making Elephants Fly, that you can get on Terryweaver.com.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, not on Amazon, as we were talking about earlier.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but there's a chapter called Elephants in the Movies.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I write about the critics.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I went to a preview screening which was literally just filled with critics one time.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_01: And at the you know, and I went to it at the same season that some friends of mine and had I'd helped some friends make a movie called As Dreamers 2, which was the story of a young Walt Disney.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it's on Amazon Prime, it might be one of the worst reviewed movies ever on Amazon Prime.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um because you still made something, you know.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_01: Well, here's we made it with our friends.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_01: We made that movie for less than most movies spend on their premiere.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, um, a couple of the guys from the band audio adrenaline are in the movie.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Travis Tritt narrates the movie.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um and what most people got upset about was the we used some child actors in the very beginning who are probably now high school or college kids at this point, um to portray a young Walton Roy.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, they weren't professional actors, they were just friends.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, had we done it all over again, we probably would have, you know.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but having stood in the bathroom, uh I forget what movie it was, I probably even talk about there.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but you know, we're standing in, you know, you're you always after the movie, the first thing I always do, and maybe it's just because I am a 40-something-year-old man, and you know, you typically consume some liquid during the movie, and if you've managed to power all the way through the two hours of the movie, you have to go empty your bladder immediately following the film.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so there's always that moment in the bathroom where everyone's just like talking about the movie and talking about what's wrong with it, you know, and um it's so much harder to actually make something than it is to critique it.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_01: And if you don't like what's being made, go make something of yourself.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_01: I love what Ricky Gervais says.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_01: The best way to avoid criticism is to never do anything ever, or do what you love, have a great life and let others people let others spend their time criticizing.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, and you know, we all know Theodore Roosevelt's famous, you know, Citizen in the Republic speech where he's like, you know, it's not the critic who counts.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, it's really easy to be critical of everything we see and everything we consume.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, you know, in fact, one of our attendees was just texting me about, can you explain this plot hole?
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, man, I can't.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_01: I I wasn't in the writing room.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_01: They probably edited that part out.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and we like to talk about these things, and I'm like, you know what I saw?
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_01: Darth Vader again in in exactly sure.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_01: James Earl Jones had to have his voice digitally altered a little bit because the dude in his like mid-90s.
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um but who cares?
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's still Darth Vader.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_01: We got James Earl Jones, probably for the last time breathing in a Star Wars universe.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we got to see uh Young Princess Leia and Young Luke, which I kind of hope there's a whole series that I hope there's more of this.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um I loved the the girl that played Young Princess Leia in this movie.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um and if you do come to the thing, there's a scene in episode two.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_01: The same thing also happens in the end of um in the end of this the Star Wars 9 movie trilogy.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um I've I'm already ordering lightsabers for November.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, spoiler alert.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they may be chopstick lightsabers.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um but yeah, man, we you know I I'm I'm I'm deeply moved by story.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_01: I try to teach their story all the time, and there's something that happens in this in this series that like I almost I literally almost fell off the couch over about when I think about my friends and what they do.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so we're definitely going to be talking about that in November.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I'd love to have you and your listeners join us at the thing.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_01: They can go to the thing.live, use the code podcast, they save 10%.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_01: So awesome.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, and uh man, I'm I'm just I'm super excited just about the opportunity to to I think if we learned anything through 2020, it's just I don't take for granted the opportunity to get together with my friends and create and help leaders achieve their dreams and actually get their ideas made.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we our our last event was focused on authors and speakers, and so it's super cool.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we're getting you know, we're getting messages of like, hey, I've written two 2200 words this week.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, people are people are taking swings at accomplishing the things that that most people just talk about.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the reality of the critic, man, is most people who are being critics are never gonna make anything.
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um and what they do make is just gonna be to tear something that someone else made down.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, you know, I'm I'm I'm all for, you know, I could give you a list of all the things that I think are wrong right now in Walt Disney World, but I would also like to just go and enjoy it.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly, exactly.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, when I and it, you know, it's easy to be cynical as we get older, but then you know, when when you do something like ride, the new Guardians of the Galaxy ride, then you're like, man, which I have not done, but I have I have not heard anyone the only complaint I've heard about that are some motion sickness issues, and one person's like, wow, the angle at which the camera takes your photo is not very becoming.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's probably true.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's a cool ride, though.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'm severely impressed.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they're very much pushing the envelope, and um innovation in the Disney environment is very hard right now.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Disney's sort of kind of um I actually keep Jiminy Cricket right behind me just because um there was a guy that I respected a lot named Marty Scalar that worked at the Walt Disney Company.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_01: He was the head of Disney Imagineering, and in a lot of ways he he was the creative conscious of the company.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um and he passed away um I think in 2019.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_01: And um actually did a whole episode kind of with a couple of the guys that worked for Marty and just got a tribute to him.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um but I think Disney sort of lost a little bit of their creative um drive and some of their, you know, they've obviously remade a lot of, you know, as we're sitting here not talking about being critics.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, and I think what's what's what's what's hard about being a company like Disney is they get to the point where they're so big and the story's so big, um, that a lot of that it be that it those stories become our own.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I see myself in Yoda and Luke Skywalker and in the work that I do every day.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so we become possessive of these things, and that's not a bad thing.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but we just have we have to learn how to enjoy them again.
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so yeah, um totally if you watched Obi-Wan, the series, and went, oh man, I'm not sure.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I'd encourage people just to go back and enjoy it and try to find themselves in the story.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and there's what's interesting about truth in stories is there's things to learn in everything we experience if we allow ourselves to find it.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so um, I become a student of looking for those things.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I think it's just the the narrative of Obi-Wan and um Iwan McGregor was absolutely stunning in that um series, and so I don't want to fanboy anymore on it, but um I I'm excited that we live in a time that these stories that we thought would never get made again that were such an integral part.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_01: If you grew up in the 80s or 90s, Star Wars was life, you know?
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, almost every kid that I know had like an adat or a millennium falcon, or you know, we we they were just part of our Luke and Leah were like kinfolk, you know, and so because they were kind of the for a lot of us, then when we we got them on VHS and watched them with our friends, um my friend Joel Reynolds and I.
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then they moved from VHS to like TBS or TNT or wherever they moved to, you know, and anytime they come on now, we all still kind of stop and watch and like remember those stories.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_01: And now, thanks to Disney, you can go and like step into those, you know, stories and go to Galaxy's Edge and um Rise the Resistance.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that was impressive.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_00: Galaxy's Edge.
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_01: And in in Rise the Resistance is absolutely holy cow, what an experience! Yeah, and that's literally three different ride architectures.
• 55:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's three different rides kind of mixed together to make I mean, but like in that one breaks down a lot because it's literally three rides trying to run together.
• 55:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's some from the tower there, there's the Star Tours piece, um, there's the Ratatouille's adventure piece, and then there's the Tower of Terror piece.
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then kind of one that kind of takes those ride vehicles and combines them in the because your ride vehicle actually gets in another ride vehicle at one point.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's I don't want to spoil it for anybody who's never been on it, but yeah, I mean and and I think you know, as we were talking about collaboration in the creative process, that happens because high-level creative thinkers got in the room and said, What's possible?
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, people ask me, why do you bother with live events?
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_01: That's why.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_01: Because when the right people get in the right room, amazing things happen.
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, live events are a lot of work, they're expensive.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's expensive for people to get there.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_01: It takes great sacrifice for people to give up a few days out of office and away from their family.
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_01: But I've seen the results and it's worth it.
• 56:47
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, you have to find the things that you believe that are worth it, and then you go and chase them and don't let anybody don't let anybody else talk you out of doing it.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_00: What a great cherry on top of this conversation.
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_00: Terry, it's been an absolute pleasure.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_00: You have expanded my thinking about what's possible, honestly, with this conversation.
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_00: I just I really appreciate you and what you bring to the world, what you bring to creatives and the cool stuff that you're doing.
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I just I can't wait to see how your business and your influence continues to expand over the next few years with all the interesting things you're doing.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I just I appreciate it, and I'm so thankful that we've had this chance to have this amazing conversation.
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Kent, I appreciate it.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_01: We had a lot of fun.
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_01: So this was fun.
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_01: It was a fun, a fun way to spend a uh summer afternoon.
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not blazingly hot here in St.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_01: Louis today, so it is not here in uh in Nashville.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm I'm thankful, which is a good thing.
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_00: All right, well, thanks again.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_00: This has been a blast.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_00: All right, man.
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_00: Have a good one.
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_00: Hope you enjoyed that conversation.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_00: I had a blast talking with Terry, and I know I say that every time I do one of these interviews, but I like to think that I have really cool guests on the show.
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I wouldn't be talking to them if I didn't think they were cool or didn't have something of value to offer.
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I love having guests on this podcast, and I learned so much from every one of them, and this was true in this case as well.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_00: Terry is such a cool guy and so creative and so thoughtful.
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I would say my biggest takeaway from this interview is simply the value of collaboration, especially if you're introverted.
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know, as introverts like to have our time alone, but it's really vital that we spend time with other people and collaborate with them and figure out new and exciting ways to do that.
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_00: So, my question for you is who can you collaborate with today?
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_00: Is there somebody in your circle or your network or a friend that you can work together on something with?
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_00: Think about that.
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_00: And if you can't think of anybody, call up a friend and and say, hey, what can we find together that we can work on?
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_00: Figure out some way to collaborate because when you put two heads together, it's almost always better than just one.
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I want to thank Terry for taking the time to be a guest today and lending his wisdom to the Daily Rider podcast.
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I also want to encourage you to check out his conference, The Thing, which is happening in November in Orlando.
• 59:00
  SPEAKER_00: And you can find more info at the thingorlando.com.
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_00: So make sure and check that out.
• 59:06
  SPEAKER_00: Also make sure and check out Terry's website, which is terryweaver.com.
• 59:10
  SPEAKER_00: And there you will find more info on his book and his podcast, both called Making Elephants Fly.
• 59:14
  SPEAKER_00: So thanks so much for listening.
• 59:16
  SPEAKER_00: This has been a blast, and I appreciate you joining me for this episode, and I will see you tomorrow.