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Making a Tough Decision · Effective Communication

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  Speaker 1: And now, effective communication with Phil Zeller, CEO, Dale Carnegie,
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  Speaker 1: Southwest Michigan. So there I was, my friend, making a
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  Speaker 1: tough decision. Face-to-face with a decision that would change my
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  Speaker 1: life forever. Forever! Have you been there? Have you been
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  Speaker 1: in that situation where you had a decision to make?
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  Speaker 1: What are you going to do? How are you going
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  Speaker 1: to get through it? How are you going to handle that?
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  Speaker 1: How's it going to turn out? You don't know, right?
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  Speaker 1: How do you successfully navigate a situation and come to
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  Speaker 1: the right decision so you don't have regrets? Jeez, that's difficult.
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  Speaker 1: Phil Zeller, Effective Communication. Honor and privilege to be with
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  Speaker 1: you here today, as always, my friend. Think about that situation.
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  Speaker 1: It's challenging. So there I was. I'll never forget it.
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  Speaker 1: The year was 2000. I had been 10 years in
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  Speaker 1: a successful IT career path. IT, information technology. Yes, I
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  Speaker 1: was an IT nerd, a geek, all those kinds of things.
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  Speaker 1: Proud to be. Nerds, nerds, nerds. Yeah, I'm dating myself there.
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  Speaker 1: I get it. Some of you get that. That's a
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  Speaker 1: good joke for you guys to know. They've been around
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  Speaker 1: the horn a couple times. Got some wear on the
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  Speaker 1: tires there, right? So there I was in the world
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  Speaker 1: of information technology and life was amazing. Holy cats. You know,
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  Speaker 1: we look at the 1990s and that was my decade
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  Speaker 1: in information technology. And what amazing decade. You know, we
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  Speaker 1: look at it in the world, stuff was going on
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  Speaker 1: and what was moving, what was grooving, what was really
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  Speaker 1: happening in the 90s. It was tech. It was tech.
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  Speaker 1: I know here just in where I live in the
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  Speaker 1: state of Michigan, the United States of America, We started
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  Speaker 1: out the 90s with one in 10 homes having a
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  Speaker 1: personal computer. And within that 10-year time period, it came
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  Speaker 1: up to be like eight or nine out of 10
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  Speaker 1: homes had a personal computer, one if not more in
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  Speaker 1: their household. And so it's amazing what drove the 90s.
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  Speaker 1: And I was in the middle of all of it.
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  Speaker 1: It was awesome. Man, I was selling PCs. I was
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  Speaker 1: a sales manager for a Fortune 100 company with a
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  Speaker 1: huge sales team making a lot of beautiful things happen.
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  Speaker 1: And just having a really good time. And then as
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  Speaker 1: a transition, I grew in the industry. I started to
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  Speaker 1: go from PCs, personal computers, to building out infrastructures, network infrastructures.
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  Speaker 1: And it was really exciting because the times were changing
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  Speaker 1: and we're constantly rapidly evolving. And we constantly had to
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  Speaker 1: study and stay on top of our game to keep
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  Speaker 1: up to speed with it. But then all of a sudden,
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  Speaker 1: I realized going through that, I was keeping up my game,
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  Speaker 1: but my people game wasn't where I needed it to be.
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  Speaker 1: My ability to work with and communicate as we talk
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  Speaker 1: about on the show was not where it needed to be,
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  Speaker 1: and I had to get better at it. So I
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  Speaker 1: started reading more, studying more. I took a Dale Carnegie course. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: I took a Dale Carnegie course, just like Warren Buffett,
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  Speaker 1: so many other famous people, more famous than I am.
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  Speaker 1: But the reality was I took a Dale Carnegie course.
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  Speaker 1: If it worked for people like that and they talk
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  Speaker 1: about it, I should do the same thing. And it did.
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  Speaker 1: It had a profound impact on my life. And I
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  Speaker 1: started reexamining how I looked at things and how I
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  Speaker 1: wanted my life to be. And the course impacted me
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  Speaker 1: so deeply that I got engaged with it. And I
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  Speaker 1: started going back and volunteering my time with Dale Carnegie
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  Speaker 1: and being part of programs to help people figure these
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  Speaker 1: things out. And All of a sudden, it's amazing when
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  Speaker 1: you start to go after these things, how things open
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  Speaker 1: up in those areas for you. And I was faced
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  Speaker 1: with this difficult challenge for me, but it was a
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  Speaker 1: huge opportunity. Do I shift careers? Do I go from
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  Speaker 1: IT to full-time human behavior and communication and developing people?
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  Speaker 1: And so what did I do? What do you do
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  Speaker 1: in that situation? I got a tool for you, a
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  Speaker 1: tool that I've used throughout my life that's going to
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  Speaker 1: work for you in that situation to help you make
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  Speaker 1: that decision. It's called the Ben Franklin T. It's a
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  Speaker 1: very simple tool, the Ben Franklin T. You basically put
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  Speaker 1: together on a piece of paper, just put a cross
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  Speaker 1: on the paper, one line down the middle, and then
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  Speaker 1: a line toward a quarter of a page down at
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  Speaker 1: the cross at the top. So it looks like a
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  Speaker 1: big cross on the piece of paper. On the left,
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  Speaker 1: you put the pros. On the right, you put the cons.
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  Speaker 1: So the pros are the good things. The cons are
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  Speaker 1: the bad things. And so what I did was I
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  Speaker 1: took my current career and I put the pros and
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  Speaker 1: cons of what was going really well. And then I
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  Speaker 1: took the change to a new career in human behavior
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  Speaker 1: and developing human beings. And what were the pros and cons?
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  Speaker 1: And I'll never forget because I was going through this
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  Speaker 1: exercise with my wife and we're sitting there at the
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  Speaker 1: coffee table in our living room. And I did the
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  Speaker 1: pros and cons. And the first sheet of having been
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  Speaker 1: in IT for 10 years was full. But on the
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  Speaker 1: other sheet, there was one thing in the pro sign
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  Speaker 1: my wife said, you got to go there because of
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  Speaker 1: that one thing. And I said, which one is it?
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  Speaker 1: And she said, passion. Follow your passion. You know how
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  Speaker 1: to do all the rest and the money will come.
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  Speaker 1: But follow your passion. She was so right. And I
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  Speaker 1: went after it. And here I am. I won't be
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  Speaker 1: here with you today if I didn't do that. So
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  Speaker 1: use the Ben Franklin T next time you got a
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  Speaker 1: decision and you'll come to a conclusion that could change
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  Speaker 1: your life. Go make it happen. Thank you.