October 1, 2025 • 47 mins
What does it truly take to lead with integrity, build trust, and inspire a culture that lasts?
This week, we dive deep into leadership lessons with Lee Cokerell: Former Executive Vice President of Operations at Walt Disney World and author of Creating Magic.
Lee shares how values always trump victories, the importance of practicing what you preach, and why authentic empathy and discipline are foundational to leadership success.
Drawing on decades of experience, he explores:
Whether you’re a new leader or an executive guiding thousands, this episode offers powerful insights to lead with heart, clarity, and impact.
Learn more about Lee and connect: https://www.leecockerell.com/
His book, Creating Magic: https://www.amazon.com/Creating-Magic-Common-Leadership-Strategies/dp/0385523866
This week, we dive deep into leadership lessons with Lee Cokerell: Former Executive Vice President of Operations at Walt Disney World and author of Creating Magic.
Lee shares how values always trump victories, the importance of practicing what you preach, and why authentic empathy and discipline are foundational to leadership success.
Drawing on decades of experience, he explores:
- The critical role of trust built through consistent words and actions
- Creating psychological safety that fosters belonging and engagement
- Leading diverse, global teams with a servant leader mindset
- Handling hard conversations with courage and clarity
- Building cultures that value every individual and honor shared purpose
- Leadership lessons from his unconventional upbringing to overseeing Disney’s vast team
Whether you’re a new leader or an executive guiding thousands, this episode offers powerful insights to lead with heart, clarity, and impact.
Learn more about Lee and connect: https://www.leecockerell.com/
His book, Creating Magic: https://www.amazon.com/Creating-Magic-Common-Leadership-Strategies/dp/0385523866
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This podcast is a proud member of the Teach Better
podcast network, Better Today, Better Tomorrow, and the podcast to
get you there.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
You can find out.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
More at Teachbetter dot com slash podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
If you cannot make hard decisions and have hard conversations
with people, number one, don't have children, and number two,
don't get into a leadership job where you're responsible for
people's future. We have one purpose at Disney that every
cast member gets drilled into them as Our purpose is
(00:32):
to make sure every guest who comes to Disney World
has the most favorous time of their life period. I
don't care whether they're eating French fries or at the
Haunted Mansion. It's got to be a good experience, and
that's your job to make sure it is unbelievable. Because
why because we want you back.
Speaker 4 (00:49):
Do you want to be a leader in a constantly
changing world? Our emerging leaders look different, come from various
backgrounds and from all different age groups. Leadership is changing.
It's hard to keep up. But the good news you
can be a leader too. You can be an a
merging leader. Welcome to the Limitless Leadership Lounge. Try generational
(01:10):
conversation for emerging leaders. Come spend some time with us
to discuss leadership from three angles. The coach Jim Johnson,
the professor, doctor Renumah Kareem, the host, John Gering, a
monthly guest, and you get in on the conversation on
Facebook and Instagram, and be sure to follow us on
Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Speaker. So come on in and
(01:34):
make yourself comfortable.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Well, our conversation today on the Limitless Leadership Lounge is
going to be all about creating magic.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
We'll get to that in a moment here. I'm Don Garren.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Youros reminding you that if you're enjoying the podcast so far,
make sure to leave us a review upon wherever you're listening,
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Speaker 3 (01:54):
On Spotify you can rate us. We'd appreciate that. It's
always good feedback.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
And if you're checking us out, up on you to
remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel because we would
love to see you back here for more try generational conversations.
Like I said, I'm John Gerring, joined us always by
doctor and Numa Kareem and coach Jim Johnson. And coach
has brought along another guest today who's going to talk
a lot about creating magic, time management and so much more.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Coach, what's welcome in our guest this morning.
Speaker 5 (02:22):
Yeah, I'm really excited to have Lee Cockroll and to
share a little bit. The blessing was I've become good
friends with a guy named rhin Hart Donger and Reinhart
has been in leadership for many years, including three stints
at what we call the Genesee Valley Club in Rochester.
But Reinhardt is traveled all over the country working in
(02:44):
various hospitality and one of the people he worked under.
Reinhardt brought up at one of our lunches his name
was Lee Cockroll, and he says, you know, we want
to see you reach out to Lee, and he introduced us,
and let me share just a little bit about Lee,
because he's got quite an extensive resume. Lee cock was
the executive vice president of Operations for Walt Disney World
for over ten years. He continues to speak and teach
(03:07):
in leadership and professional development on the behalf of the
Disney Institute. A poppy or keynote speaker, he frankly frequently
addressed his fortune five hundred corporations government agencies, educational institutions,
and nonprofits and across the country. He lives in Orlando
with his wife, Priscilla. He's written a few books, including
(03:28):
a great book that I had the pleasure to read
called Crazy Magic. So, without any further Ado, Lee, welcome
to the Limitless Leadership Lounge.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Thanks sir, be with it great, So Lee, let's talk.
Speaker 5 (03:41):
I went through your book. I took a lot of notes.
It was really well done. And can you talk a
little bit about in building relationships. You had an aircor
and I really enjoyed called Rave. Can you tell them
to that a little bit for.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Us a relationship At the end of the day, I
needed to have good relationships with people, and I do
that by having a really good attitude of being reliable.
And that's because I don't have a college degree, so
I figure out, at least I better be reliable, have
a good attitude. So at least that why people give
you a chance. And frankly, that's all they can see
at first is your attitude and you're reliable. And yeah,
(04:17):
I grew up in Oklahoma my parents, so we were
in that era when you had to say yes sir
and yes ma'am. Be nice to everybody, and so we
learned that and respect him. The rave is clear, respect,
appreciate value everybody. And I can tell you from Bygladesh
point of view. When I lived in Oklahoma and grew
(04:39):
up there, Oklahoma was very racist and very big. It
died and I went to a segregated school, one for whites,
one for blacks, and a third one no doubt for
American in American Native Indians, the Americans. And I look
back on that as what and literally I grew up
forties and fifties and I thought that was that's because
(05:02):
that's the problem. When you're in an environment and you
don't know any better, you think it's right. And I
didn't know anything, but I escaped. I dropped out of
college after two years because I wasn't smart enough staying
in college, and then went in the army. That was
a awakening. I didn't meet a black person until I
was twenty years old. Can you imagine? And then I
(05:24):
went to Washington, d C. And I got a job
as a waiter at the Washington Hilton, a banquet waiter.
And I say, if you don't like people from other places,
don't go to Washington. Everybody is from somewhere else. You
work with them in the hospitality business, they become your friends,
they go to the picnic swamm and you might even
marry one. It was that I really preached today. You
(05:45):
got educations great, but exposure and experience is what really
makes you who you are. And so when I left Oklahoma,
i'd been nowhere. I never been out of the state.
And that today I do work and travel to the
forty eight countries around the world. I've been everywhere, and
(06:06):
I don't think I have a discomintary bone in my
body anymore because every country I go there they have
little babies and little carriages, and they love them. And
as they have, mothers only worry about the safety and education.
And I think that's all we need to worry about.
We don't need to be worrying about all this other stuff,
or who you sleep with and who you go to
church with and where you go to I tell everybody
at Disney, it's none of your business. They don't even
(06:27):
talk about it. No, it was. My kind of change
is changing my environment and getting more bosure to the world,
because you're pretty ignorant when you are not exposed. When
you don't know you don't know you actually believe your parents.
I tell people have stuff in your brain not even true,
(06:48):
and most of which parastats is not true. So and
there you go out and find out what's up there.
I even tell a lot of stuff in your brain
you don't even know it's up there. Somebody put it
up there by saying something telling the job being a
bad perer. And so I'm always thinking about what's in
my brain, what triggers me, and why what happened, And
(07:11):
you eventually can cleanse.
Speaker 6 (07:12):
It, and it's wonderful and it's a perfect segue to
our next question. I just want to thank you for
your leadership because it shows you are embodying one of
the characteristics of an open minded leader. But nowadays we
see so many leaders they are closed to their own
beliefs and thoughts and would not open up to create
(07:36):
that zone of conversation and inclusion. So it is so
refreshing to see you today and this time we need
to have this kind of discussion where and you have
embodied the idea of inclusion into your leadership and it's
amazing to see, Like I was going through your podcast
(07:58):
and also your book, and you are leading more than
forty thousand cast members in Disney, and it's interesting to
see that they're forty thousand cast members with so many
different unique characteristic They have their own values, they have
their own vision. But at one example, you gave that
(08:19):
during the crisis of Charlie hitting the storm hitting Disney,
while everybody was rallying to find a solution. So if
you could share that sense of inclusion and leadership that
you promoted, how did this happen?
Speaker 3 (08:37):
Like?
Speaker 6 (08:37):
How did you brought everybody under this one umbrella?
Speaker 3 (08:41):
I think one thing you got to remember is that
the person who is leading the organization should not underestimate
the influence they can have over time by setting the
role model, setting the example. Certainly, I tell people, if
you just manage like a mother, you'll be a great
(09:02):
leader because mother's care and when you care, you make
the right decisions. And mothers could only care about two things,
safety and education, and they care about everybody. They care
about older kids. And by the time I got to Disney,
I was very wired that way. I understand clearly, I've
worked with people from everywhere. I've been everywhere. If my mother,
(09:24):
I'll just give background, I had a very dysfunctional family.
And my mother was married five times. I've been adopted twice.
I got my name Cockrel when I was sixteen, my
husband number four. I grew up on a farm, very poor.
We had nothing. We had the old outhouse. My grandkids
have a hard time believing it. They think I'm lying,
but it's true. And I grew up that way. And
(09:47):
then that exposure just triggered me to make sure that
I understood the people have problems. Everybody has a problem
you don't know about. Everybody's got issues, worries, and that's
slowly but surely. I just felt that, and I felt, Okay,
what is a leader? I was the leader of Disney World.
But I didn't I'd never worked in a park. I'd
(10:09):
never worked I'd been I'd worked for Hill and Maria,
but when I came to Disney, they weren't too excited
to see me. This guy's going to be in charge.
He never worked at a park. And I don't worry
so much about the technical knowledge. People asked me what
I did at Disney. I said nothing. I hired great people,
and I made sure we were doing three things. That
(10:31):
we were hiring the right people, we were training them,
and we were treating them right. And at the end
of the day, that meant getting rid of the wrong people.
And over time, and luckily I was their tenure. I
had time because so often today companies and organizations are
changing leadership every two or three years or every year,
(10:51):
over and over and here comes another idea, another dude.
And I was just there, and I spent my time
out with the employees. I walk the parks four or
five hours every week, talking to people, seeing what's going on,
checking the bathrooms, making sure that I and the other
thing I probably I had good experience. I'd done it all.
(11:11):
I'd been a cook in the army, I had been
a waiter, I had been in the accounting department. I
had been washing dishes, housekeeping, and everybody knows if you
know what you're doing, and they know. If people think
well people don't know, they know it. They know. And
when you work in those jobs again, you appreciate them.
(11:33):
You find out they're good people and it's life's good
and there's nothing to complain about. And when you're in
a position like I was, I had the ability to
help people have a better life. So when I make
sure they get training and development, and then we treat
them right to build their self esteem and self confidence
and make them understand they can achieve something. And I
(11:57):
tell them all to start out like good at it reliability.
You'll be noticed. You'll probably get promoted, and then you'll
get promoted, and you'll get promoted and you'll get promoted.
And people ask me all the time leave what were
your goals? I said, I don't have any goals. I've
never had any goal. My goal was to keep my job,
and then I didn't. My boss, by the way, said
when he was seventeen, he knew he would be president
(12:18):
of Disney World, and he did. I didn't know any goal.
I was figure I'd lucky for I got dinner. So
it's about your it's about behavior, and it's about car
I think it's about carrying. I always talk about that
if you care, you'll do the right things. And you
know what's the most the hardest thing to do in life,
the right thing, that's the hardest thing we all have
(12:41):
to do, is the right thing. And I think about
that now. When you do the right thing all the time,
you don't have a lot of friends, But I don't
care any friends. My wife has been with me fifty
seven years, so she said she's going to stay. I
think I'll be okay. My grandkids adore me if they
like me than their parents, so I'm happy somebody asked
(13:04):
me to leave. How would you say about but your life?
How would you rate it? I say complete. You got
to live with yourself. You've got to be who you are,
and that makes tough decisions sometimes. I even tell young
managers and leaders if you can't, if you cannot make
hard decisions and have hard conversations with people, number one,
(13:25):
don't have children, and number two, don't get into a
leadership job where you're responsible for people's future, because hard
conversations are That's why mothers are great. Mothers are the
best leaders. They don't play around. Mothers are clear. Mothers
get to the point. Mothers use empathy and discipline. That's
(13:46):
the only two tools they need. And they'll tell you
they love you and then kick your buck. So that's
it's just a strategy. It's a simple way. I think
it's so simple. The only question you have how much
empathy and how much discipline on each situation? A little
more than the little list of that little more of
that little list of debt. And when you manage people
(14:08):
to be fair and firm and had that reputation, he's
fair and hes sperm. So they help you. They go
out and tell everybody, Hey, you know the guy, he
was okay, he did the right thing. And then all
you a sudden, you have all these people telling other
people about you. And that's how you that's how you
get a I guess that's how you lead forty thousand
people and over, and that's what happens. Cultures get better
(14:32):
or worse slowly, and leader leadership, everything starts at the
top and rolls downhill good and and so I tried
every day to make sure good stuff was rolling down
the hill, and eventually even a good We have a
lot of Hispanic housekeepers clean rooms, and we provide two
(14:53):
hours a week with a doctor with professors from colleges
to come in and teach them English. And they've become
three and four years later and they get you know,
our last one president at Disney President Disney was gay,
one was a woman, one was This is like when
I got there, every one ninety three, I think ninety
two percent of all leadership or white males over those years.
(15:19):
We changed that because you can't do that. You cannot
have commitment when you're in that kind of when you
got so many people that are not having opportunity, they urged.
In fact, eventually they work against you. People go from
getting mistreated to violence. And we see it all over
the world. Yeah, people don't know they matter, don't know
you matter. You don't have anything to lose. And I
(15:42):
understand those things deeply and well, and only because of experience.
I've worked all over New York, La, Boston, France, Franklink.
You learn. If you haven't learned with all that experience,
there's something wrong with you. Yeah, yes, does. And so
(16:03):
even kids that don't want to go to college today,
I tell them, Okay, go join a good company, take
any job you can get, and be better than everybody else,
and you will have a good career. They'll notice you,
they may put you through college that they may Lots
of good things happen when people want to work with
you and trust you trust trust, And there's very little
(16:26):
trust today in the world. I mean literally, you know
what what reason is? People don't have psychological safety. They're
afraid to do the right thing, they're afraid to speak up.
And I think it's the biggest problem psychological safety. If
I do this, I'm just trying to stay low key,
try to get the retirement alive. That is that last
(16:48):
fifteen to twenty percent. The leader doesn't know. That's what
gets everything screwed up. And psychological safety, I think about that.
I'd rather have psychological safety almost of the physical safety.
I mean, at least you can see the problem. If
it's physical safety. Psychologically you don't know who's working against
you and not doing it and not doing the right
thing and making you, intimidating you and being audio ratic.
(17:13):
And the old brain just knows one thing's important to
take care of yourself. So maybe I better not speak
up today. This couldn't get me in trouble. It's survival.
And I tell you organizations, I don't know any that
do it well, but they better be working on it
because that's why they have turnover. That's why service is
so bad. That's why nobody wants to stay with you.
(17:36):
Why would I stay with a place where I don't
feel safe and trusted a better opportunity comes along, Hey,
I'm out of here. I want organization, a disney where
people don't want to be out of here. They want
to stay, and so I think a lot of leaders
got to go through this process of thinking about it
is it them or is it you? Crean problem? And
(17:59):
I just suppect if you had a bad situation, you
are the proverb. If you have bad kids, you are
the buck. And if you could interview the parents, you
know what kind of kids you're going to get. So
it's just a it's so simple that it's frightened me. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
One way you did this too, was through your servant leadership.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
You talked about walking around the park and also talking
to these people. The servant leadership is such a step
outside of so many leaders comfort zones. I don't know
if it's the title or the ego or what it is.
How do you become that servant leader that is impactful?
Speaker 3 (18:35):
Well, I think for me it was easy because I'd
been out there in every job. I was comfortable in
the kitchen, I was comfortable with people that were immigrants.
I was comfortable with people that had a tough life
living on the edge. So that was easy for me.
I think that's what part of the problem. I think
a lot of leaders had no exposure, but they grew
up in a wealthy or well to do family, they
(18:58):
go off to college, they ever had a job when
they were growing up, they didn't work in the summers,
they did, and we replicated that. My son, he didn't
have to work by the time I was so successful,
but we sent him to Oklahoma. Every summer he worked
on a cattle rants, digging fence post holes. And then
his kids didn't have to work for sure, and they
(19:21):
all worked in horticulture in the summer. I had to
be to work at six o'clock in the morning, pulling weeds,
spreading malts and all and just we just kept replicating
that early responsibility, because you work with adults, you have
to be to work on time.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
And next, all three of them are right now graduated
from college. Wants a biomedical engineer once in marketing in
New York City, and one is finishing up his internship.
He just graduated from his bachelor's degree in hospitality management
from in France. And his mother's friend. And it's the
leader has can make this happen, and the leader at
(19:56):
home it is probably the one that gets it where
it starts. It's under your work, it starts at home.
And then people who don't raise their kids properly, then
they send them to us. We got to deal with
this mess. Teach them to come to work on time
and take a shower, and it'd be nice and say yes.
(20:17):
And so it's a big circle. And it starts with
poverty and education. That's the problems. But there it's a
simple problem that we are not addressing. Obviously. It's certainly
a capitalistic society like America. We're not addressing it at all.
So much corruption around the world and in countries that
(20:38):
they just can't get it together. So I think any
young person who wants to do well want to get
out of your environment. Get out of the place, leave home,
go somewhere. You'll survive. Somebody said, when I was sleeping
on park benches, I knew I was going to be
successful and go somewhere and take any job, washed it
(21:00):
to make beds. You got to get started. It's not
going to get out of your village. It's not going
to change. Nothing in the village is going to change.
You've got to go. And your mother won't like it.
She wants you to stay. And you've got to know
you got to get away because your brain is infected.
(21:21):
Physical attention. So that's how I think about it. And
everybody I know, and we made sure our grandkid's men
they're all over the place they go and they've traveled
all over the world. They understand they're best friends. Or
I say to people, listen, I have friends in nick Quota.
Their name Mohammad. People in Kama look at me. Really,
(21:46):
So we dove it into that.
Speaker 5 (21:48):
As far as a leader, and you had this opportunity,
and certainly a number of leaders do give us some
advice on how you pick the right people to bring
on for your team, and maybe given example of a
couple interview questions you've used to help in that process.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
Yeah, for me a hurst, it depends where you're getting
them from. If you're getting them from where you work,
and at Disney, we pick a lot because we get
a chance to watch them when they're in the lower
level jobs. Their reliability, their attitude, how well they do,
how they treat each other, theyn't get in trouble. But
when you're comeing hiring somebody from the outside, I would say,
(22:25):
certainly we want to have the ability to do the
job because of the technical knowledge they have. But then
that's a given. We don't even if we know that,
then we're looking for literally again, we're looking for this
attitude and reliability and ability to work with teams. And
(22:47):
we're looking for people who know who have can prove
to us they've overcome obstacles in their life and show us.
So we asked questions. Tell me about a time when
you had a manager that was not doing well and
he was a son of the owner, and how did
you handle that and what you're looking for. Everybody has
obstacles every day. That's all we're here for, frankly. But
(23:10):
first obstacles getting up and the seconds gratifict. The third
one's running into some idiot, and then your boss and
then customers. Life is just obstacles. And once you understand
when you're ready for something here, you handl it better.
I know I have obstacles all day long. That's fine.
I'm not going to overreact. I'm just go Okay, here's
another person doesn't know what's going and I'll just be nice.
(23:32):
Lady yesterday gave me a bad face at the grocery
store out in the parking lot because I parked crooked,
couldn't get out very well, and she was going making
this face, and I rolled the window down. I said, excuse,
what's good? Can I help it? And she said, you
parked funny. Sorry, this was a very hard parking space
(23:56):
to get into, and I hope you have a good day.
I could have said, hey, lady, shove it. I try
not to make anybody's life worse than it already is,
because most people wake up and more in their life
is a mess already, and so obstacles. Tell me about
a time when you were a behind budget and it
was you had two months left to the end of
the year. Tell me, and what you want to listen
(24:18):
for is what did they do? And what was the
final outcome? Now an automated but what did they do?
What actions did they take? Can they take the hard actions?
Can they? And that's overcoming obstacles, because frankly, that's all
you do every day. I don't care who you are.
Every problem you have in your life will be a person.
(24:39):
I guarantee you it will never be the equipment. It'll
be a person. And you'll try every problem in your
life to a person.
Speaker 6 (24:50):
And the obstacles you face makes you empathetic as well,
because when you know that these are the obstacles. I
had to face what I went through. When you look
into other people, then you find that empathetic point of view.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
You do and most people, a lot of people think
obstacles cannot be fixed, of course, but they're hard. It's
like exercise. Why don't people exercise because it's hard? Why
people eat three more meatballs at dinner? Because it's hard
not to? Hard things are hard, you do then life
gets easier. When you do the hard things, life gets
(25:29):
easier for everybody around you too, because if you stay
on this easy route, your life gets don't discipine your kids,
then you'll get to go visit them and rehab, or
you'll get a divorce, or you'll you got to take
care of those hard things. And the other problem with
hard things that people don't really they pile up. So
you start with one you don't deal, and then another
and another, And the first one obviously is education and
(25:51):
poverty and you can't get out of there. You don't
leave home and you get somewhere else you don't have
any education. Caick the job, bah bah bah. And next thing,
this is what happens to me, peop they end U
was a stack of obstacles and problems in their life.
Now they don't have any where, they don't even know
where to turn, so they end up with anxiety, depression,
whatever else causes when we feel out of control. Life
(26:12):
is staying in control. That's why I wrote that time
mentioned book, not about time managements, about keeping your life
under control, your health, your family relationships. You're in knowledge,
you're is your life under control, right, and the discipline.
Speaker 6 (26:31):
You've been an army, so you have that experience of
discipline as well, so you can you're embodying that aspect
of discipline. And I could see you like you have
the shirt you're not you are respecting the podcast as well.
There are so many people we are all like we
are wearing T shirts and things like that. So you
(26:52):
were talking about first impression. That was that I really
feel that strongly about it. And that's what I teach
to my volunteers and my team, that your first impression
will last the longest. And many of us nowadays are
not paying attention to it. So why did you feel
that it is important to keep that to make that
(27:13):
first impression, and especially for leaders.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
Because that's all you that's the only evaluation you have
of a version and you don't forget it. Unfortunately, you
can't get it out of your mind no long You
wonder what else it's a To me, it's a judgment issue.
If they have bad judgment, what else are you going
to have bad judgement? Are? It looks like you don't
make good decisions. And everybody's in the situation they're in
(27:38):
because the decisions they make along the way. If you know,
made a different decision, you wouldn't be where you are.
And the problem is they make easy decisions. It's easy.
But on T shirt it's actually I never wear T
shirts and I never I have no orch leeve shirts,
and I don't wear Bermuda shorts and I don't ever,
(27:59):
not only because I don't like to. But got any problem?
Everybody in Orlando words for me to sure, I don't.
I'll just stay normal.
Speaker 6 (28:09):
But in one of those podcasts, it was interesting when
you said that you never you prepare yourself for meeting anybody.
You never know who you will be meeting or how
you will be putting your impression in. So it was
interesting when you mentioned that, like you're always ready to
face the face the situation.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
I think it's two things you don't know who you're
going to run into, and you don't know who you
might just have a conversation or coffee with and they
are impressed. Then they end up hiring you because they
that first tiank, that first impression got the conversation going.
It's all connected, It's all connected. And that's what we
forget is to make better decisions. You have a better life.
(28:48):
And how many times and I say, I tell people
in the morning, there's two ways to make better decisions.
One is reflection, what you do yesterday you could have
done better? And anticipation. What's going to happen if you
don't do so. You don't get that college degree, you
don't have a good attitude, you don't are not reliable,
you don't have any knowledge about something. What's going to
(29:09):
anticipate anticipate And that's hard for young people to anticipate
because they get into that nineteen to twenty, twenty two,
twenty three. They just want to have fun. And I
tell life catches up pretty quick. I tell people you're born,
you're twenty one, you're sixty five, and you did.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Hey least, speaking of hiring, that's one thing that you
couldn't create magic on your own right. But it was
the hiring that made the difference in bringing the right
people on the team and the example that you set.
What do you look for bringing the right team members
onto a team?
Speaker 3 (29:43):
Yeah, Disney, we have a system. We work with the
Gallup organization to create a profile and today, if you
want to work for Disney, you apply online and if
they like the looks of your technical and everything's right,
then they have a phone call with you. And if
that goes well, then you have to go online and
answer one hundred and thirty six questions about yourself. Niney
(30:05):
of them are graded forty five or fifty louplicates, just
to see if you're telling the truth and that they're
very accurate. And then if you get through that, then
you get a telephone interview and then you get hired.
And we're looking for people same thing. Can you talk
about this, talk about this ability to take care of
(30:27):
things consistently? Can you sell ice cream cones for nine
dollars when it is ninety five degrees in Florida and
the customers are already not happy because their kids spent
too much money? Creating Magic's not easy, and so we
are looking for people that can go with the flow.
And I'll just tell you what we said that you
(30:48):
don't have to be happy to work at Disney. You
just have to act happy for eight hours. And that's
clarity of what we're looking for. Clarity. And I tell
everybody make sure if you're a leader and you're hiring
somebody and just say, look now, let me tell you
how we work around here. If you ever must treat
a customer or don't take care, you will be fared.
(31:12):
Clarity just like mothers. Good mothers are clear and you
better not to get them riled up. Clarity is for
your own good clarity because I can't figure out what
all the problems are with your psychologically, but I can
make sure you don't show them to our customers and
(31:34):
do each other. This is a business. We have a business,
and what are we selling? Happiness? That's pretty hard and
how do you create happiness with the right people that
take care of you? And that's just I think clarity
is one of the biggest problems in the world. People
are not clear, and then they don't when somebody doesn't
do what you told them to do and taught them
(31:56):
to do and train them to do. The leader should
immediately excuse Like your mother, she doesn't wait for your
annual review that you by the ear, takes you in there.
Do you understand that you don't understand what I told you?
And then she takes your phone away for a month. Yeah.
I can vouch for the Disney's cast.
Speaker 6 (32:16):
Member creating happiness and helping because I've been to Disney World,
Disney World twice and there was a guy who was
like cleaning near the trash can and I was looking
for the Haunting Castle, Haunted Castle, and I was asking like,
do you know the way to the Haunted Castle?
Speaker 3 (32:34):
And he just put his work there and said that
let me take you there. I'm no, no, I don't
want to bother you, but you know I can walk
you there.
Speaker 6 (32:42):
And he walked like ten minutes with us to the
Haunted Castle and then and I still remember that, like
how he helped us to reach that place, and there
was that sense of belongingness, like he could make those decisions.
That means Disney empowered him to make the decision that
(33:03):
he could take that time off to the walk us
to the Haunted Castle. So I think that was an
amazing another example of Disney's leadership.
Speaker 3 (33:13):
And it's we have one purpose at Disney that every
cast member gets drilled into them is that our purpose
is to make sure that every guest who comes to
Disney World has the most fabulous time of their life period.
I don't care whether they're eating French fries or at
the Haunted Mansion. It's got to be a good experience.
And that's your job to make sure it is unbelievable.
(33:33):
Because why because we want you back, We want your
credit card. Mickey likes credit cards, and cast they will
more and they give you more. And they don't go
to they don't go to Hawaii next year. They come
back to Disney and come back. And if they go
to somewhere else, they're not happy because they are comparing it.
(33:56):
All we do in the world is compare. We all
do it. We all compare. And I tell people in
the hospital, treat those patients right, because they've been to Disney,
well what this looks like, and so be nice to them.
They're already feeling unsafe, they feel scared. Our job is
(34:18):
to make sure that And when you think about it,
I'm going to leave and after this call and I'm
going to go to my coffee here I'm going to
make a lot of people happy today just for fun
and not going to go who is that guy? It's
more fun than people yelling at you. And I think
it's just a matter of we've got to we've got
to have a conversation with ourselves. And frankly, a lot
(34:39):
of people are too far down the path sometimes they
need That's why they need good leadership to get turned around.
Their attitude is not good. They don't they've been mistreated,
they don't have any hope, they don't see a future
of me. This is it's that relationship with people. Is
I can make a life better or worse to do?
And why there's no upside to be a mean to people? None? Zero?
(35:03):
In fact, it's dangerous. There's no upside. There's no upside
to have it a big fight with your wife. If
you think there is, try it. And I had stress
of my marriage and over the years and all I
was insecure because of growing up with no degree in
my family and blah blah blah. And I overcame that
(35:24):
my wife, Sure she still annoys me, but I let
it go. Oh, And that's what you gotta do. And
when you let it go, it's over in your brain
in ten sentents. Well, you got to delve into a
little bit deeper. First, I appreciate your wonderful insights.
Speaker 5 (35:43):
So my last question for you, I have to delve
in because we try to help young leaders, and one
of the things of young leaders is starting their family.
You could call it work life balance, work life integration.
I'm curious, what are a couple keys to being married.
It's fifty seven years.
Speaker 3 (36:01):
Obviously I was working a lot. I work six days
a week when I worked for Hilton, and my day
off was Thursday. Marriott is very demanding, and I think
the key you got to remember is the time you
spend with your family. I'll put it this way. On
my days off, I spend it with my fan. I
don't play golf, I don't go off. I lose. When
I get home at night, I put my phone down
(36:24):
and I'm there. I will tell you your children, it's
not about spending a lot of time with them. It's
how you spend that time and that you're available for them.
Because by the time there thirteen, they don't like you anywhere.
You've only got a few years to nail that down.
That love and appreciation and confidence and just be available.
And so that's how I did it. I have a
(36:46):
very I work on routine. My life is routine. I
get up and go to work six thirty in mone
but we'll do a job five o'clock. I stop. My
boss knows that I go to the gym, I work out.
I get home at six thirty seven. I spend a
couple hours of my wife. I go to bed early.
On the weekend, we spend time together. I'm there for
my son. I schedule every event to go to his
When he was growing up, I never missed a football game.
(37:07):
I never missed a play. I never missed anything. And
I had that agreement with my bosses that I just
want you to know before I accept this job. That's
one of the non negotiables I will have to be.
I'm not going to stay at work because and miss
my son's a Christmas party. You got to make sure,
and you've got to put your life together, and you've
got to manage your life. You got to manage it.
(37:29):
And that's what I mean, keep it under control, and
don't let people direct your life in a place that
you're going to be unhappy about. I happen to marry
a saint because she behind being alone. Actually, if I
stay home too much, sometimes she says, why don't you
take a business trip this week? We got through it
(37:50):
fifty seven years actually coming up in August, and after
my mother was married five times, my brother four times,
I figure I better get the family average down. My
son's been married thirty one years, so you know, can
change it. A leader made the game. It's the game,
(38:10):
and the leader is the key. And you don't even
have to be a big, loud, out the face leader.
Just people are watching you. My wife gave me good advice.
Was said, be careful what you say to say him
do to daily. Everyone's watching you and judging you all
the time. Two you're always being judged, and so if
(38:31):
you have a bad reputation, it's probably your fault. And
so it's just be more aware of you, think about
yourself and how you're affecting people. And literally every week
this week I got like ryin hard danger. I heard
from him. I actually heard from yesterday. He's on his
(38:52):
way in vacation de Grease or somewhere or Germany or
maybe than that, maybe is he going home to Part
of it is that he's going home I think as well. Yeah,
and I heard from three other people this week. One
was a guy he said, I wonder Wright and tell
you thank you for I called you fourteen years ago
(39:14):
and you took the call and you gave me some
great advice. And now I'm the head of HR for
a major cruise line. And then I did a program
for Penn State University recently and the lady came up, Oh, yeah,
they have two hundred HR people there, twenty thousand employees
Spenn State. I did an all day program for them,
and when I had the call to arrange it, the
(39:37):
lady comes on the zoom call and she says, Lee,
you know me. I said what I do? She said,
I went to your time management class thirty years ago
when I worked at Disney.
Speaker 6 (39:47):
Oh.
Speaker 3 (39:48):
Everything comes around. Yeah, how many times do you travel
run into somebody? So that's how you have to think
about it. And we've got to try to raise our
kids that way so that they become the good role models.
And it's just something we all can be better. You
can be better, you could be worse every day. Yeah,
and it's a choice, yeah, the choice.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
We can't thank you enough for your time in our
final moments here. Just tell us what you've been up
to lately, what you're planning on here in the future,
because we want to know more about We know your past,
but what does the future, Lee Cocker look like.
Speaker 3 (40:27):
I'm old, so what I pretty much know what the
real future is. I'm working on another book on some things,
and I'm giving a lot of keynote speeches and I
make myself available to work. I talked to I like
to talk to schools, high schools, college students because they
really appreciate it and sometimes don't hear it from their
(40:48):
homes because of the situation, and gives them some sell.
That's kind of stuff I do. I like giving seminars, workshops,
speeches because people say, why do you do this, Lee,
Why don't you just retire? Well, why don't you sit
on the couch? And I said, because people clap, and
I'm insecure they clap, and when I play golf, nobody claps,
(41:08):
so I don't. And so it's just a matter of Hey,
you do what turns you on that turns me in.
It's like what he's saying, I love you, as my
wife said, if you love me, tell me help yourself.
And we all want to matter. We all want to
be somebody, we all want to and we all have
the opportunity to do that. And so how many people
(41:31):
are you going to make feel better today? Out?
Speaker 2 (41:34):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (41:34):
And Lee, could you just what your academy?
Speaker 6 (41:37):
Could you talk about? Like how do people connect with
your academy or is it like just institutions that can
connect you go.
Speaker 3 (41:44):
To Leek, copper roll dot com and everything is there.
I started the academy during the pandemic because I had
nothing better to do, sit at home for two years.
And it's really ten courses in there now and always
added more. There's one on time manager, there's one on
a great leadership, there's one on that we had one.
We just did fifty one videos which are three minutes
(42:07):
apiece for young people to know how to work in retail,
how to deal with angry customers, how to deal with
employees that are misbehaving. So we're I'm doing more of
three four minute videos because the young people seem to
really be attracted to those people joined the Cocker Academy
and all that stuff's in there. It's four hundred dollars
a year or thirty nine dollars a month. We have
(42:30):
a community call every month. Anybody can come on the call.
We talk about issues, things they have problems with, and frankly,
it is it's really been. It teaches you more about
how to be than what to do. Are you sending
the right message to people so that you have they
trust you and they believe in you, and teaching you
the basics. A lot of young people had no idea professionalism.
(42:55):
Here's what it looks like, as you said, first impressions,
here's what it looks time management. It's it's not you
weren't born disorganized, learned how to be organized. You were
not born a bigot, you were not born a racist.
You can overcome this and we did. Yeah, you can
(43:16):
learn if you want to learn. Keep the learns, I said,
Foreigner bucks cheap in college, yeah, just definitely.
Speaker 6 (43:24):
And internationally also, people can have access to your to
your academy, right, yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:30):
Sure absolutely, and the books are on there. I've written
six books, I said, But I didn't do well in college,
so I wrote six books. But I don't know where
the commas go or the My goal in lies to
use a semicolon and know why somebody. But I hire
people to put the karmas in and the paragraphs right,
So it makes me.
Speaker 6 (43:51):
It's the idea that batters, not those small dramatical Now
chat GPT and other other things can do that for us.
Speaker 3 (43:59):
Direct that for a couple of things, which is interesting.
When you talk to people, you don't need commerce, you
can think about that, but chat GPT I've been running that.
I enjoyed and I wrote one yesterday for a friend
who wrote called me and was worried about his nineteen
year old daughter. Why she's not really interested in going
(44:20):
to college. She goes, but she doesn't really study, she's
not committed, she wants nineteen. I get it. I was there.
I did the same thing. So I put check in
chet GPT. Why do young women nineteen twenty twenty one
years old not have the discipline to excel in college
(44:41):
and understand the future? And bingo boy, it printed it
out and there's a from psychological problems to parents pusher
to not understanding what they really want to do, to
how they grew up where they grew up. It was
amazing and yeah, I got a lot of those. I
did an opening check list for a retail store. Give
(45:02):
me a good opening checklist for a retail store? Burt
and it does. You come in, you check the sidewalk,
then you open the door, you check the alarm system
and you you're right. And then you can take what
it tells you and you can add whatever customization you
want to put in from your own personal point of views.
So it's worth it. And then quite it's quite revealing
(45:24):
the things you would have forgotten, even though you might
be sparked. It goes out talks to everybody in the world. Right,
you don't have to agree with what it tells you,
that you can take that out. It's great and I
really we got to it. Maybe even help you understand yourself.
Say you can put in there, why do I argue
with my wife? And why do oh what it says?
(45:47):
Because when you were a little boy, your mother used
to yell at you. You know, oh you can be
your own psychiatrist. Yeah, but the Copper Academy is great.
People really learn a lot from it that they're not
going to learn in college. I guarantee, I guarantee. And
the things they learned the cogro kat of, they're gonna
need a lot more and they're gonna need what learning
(46:08):
what they learn in college because that education changes so rapidly,
but how you treat people doesn't and simple and you
people need it.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
Lee Cockrell dot com for all that leaks down to
the show notes, Lee, let's go make some people's days today.
You're in enthusiasm is inspiring and we really appreciate your
work and your time coming on and sharing with our
audience today is very valuable. So thank you so much.
Speaker 4 (46:36):
Lee.
Speaker 3 (46:37):
Thanks, it's a great subject. We ought to think about
it more.
Speaker 4 (46:40):
Thank you for joining us this week at the Limitless
Leadership Lounge. To listen to this episode again and to
find previous episodes, check us out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
and Spreaker. You can also get in on the conversation
find us on Facebook and Instagram. Then tell three of
your friends to join it as well. Coach Branuma and John.
We'll be back again next week for another try generational
(47:02):
leadership discussion. We'll talk to you then on The Limitless
Leadership Lounge
This podcast is a proud member of the Teach Better
podcast network, Better Today, Better Tomorrow, and the podcast to
get you there.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
You can find out.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
More at Teachbetter dot com slash podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
If you cannot make hard decisions and have hard conversations
with people, number one, don't have children, and number two,
don't get into a leadership job where you're responsible for
people's future. We have one purpose at Disney that every
cast member gets drilled into them as Our purpose is
(00:32):
to make sure every guest who comes to Disney World
has the most favorous time of their life period. I
don't care whether they're eating French fries or at the
Haunted Mansion. It's got to be a good experience, and
that's your job to make sure it is unbelievable. Because
why because we want you back.
Speaker 4 (00:49):
Do you want to be a leader in a constantly
changing world? Our emerging leaders look different, come from various
backgrounds and from all different age groups. Leadership is changing.
It's hard to keep up. But the good news you
can be a leader too. You can be an a
merging leader. Welcome to the Limitless Leadership Lounge. Try generational
(01:10):
conversation for emerging leaders. Come spend some time with us
to discuss leadership from three angles. The coach Jim Johnson,
the professor, doctor Renumah Kareem, the host, John Gering, a
monthly guest, and you get in on the conversation on
Facebook and Instagram, and be sure to follow us on
Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Speaker. So come on in and
(01:34):
make yourself comfortable.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Well, our conversation today on the Limitless Leadership Lounge is
going to be all about creating magic.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
We'll get to that in a moment here. I'm Don Garren.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Youros reminding you that if you're enjoying the podcast so far,
make sure to leave us a review upon wherever you're listening,
whether that be Apple Podcasts, you can review us and
write us at actual review.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
On Spotify you can rate us. We'd appreciate that. It's
always good feedback.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
And if you're checking us out, up on you to
remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel because we would
love to see you back here for more try generational conversations.
Like I said, I'm John Gerring, joined us always by
doctor and Numa Kareem and coach Jim Johnson. And coach
has brought along another guest today who's going to talk
a lot about creating magic, time management and so much more.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Coach, what's welcome in our guest this morning.
Speaker 5 (02:22):
Yeah, I'm really excited to have Lee Cockroll and to
share a little bit. The blessing was I've become good
friends with a guy named rhin Hart Donger and Reinhart
has been in leadership for many years, including three stints
at what we call the Genesee Valley Club in Rochester.
But Reinhardt is traveled all over the country working in
(02:44):
various hospitality and one of the people he worked under.
Reinhardt brought up at one of our lunches his name
was Lee Cockroll, and he says, you know, we want
to see you reach out to Lee, and he introduced us,
and let me share just a little bit about Lee,
because he's got quite an extensive resume. Lee cock was
the executive vice president of Operations for Walt Disney World
for over ten years. He continues to speak and teach
(03:07):
in leadership and professional development on the behalf of the
Disney Institute. A poppy or keynote speaker, he frankly frequently
addressed his fortune five hundred corporations government agencies, educational institutions,
and nonprofits and across the country. He lives in Orlando
with his wife, Priscilla. He's written a few books, including
(03:28):
a great book that I had the pleasure to read
called Crazy Magic. So, without any further Ado, Lee, welcome
to the Limitless Leadership Lounge.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Thanks sir, be with it great, So Lee, let's talk.
Speaker 5 (03:41):
I went through your book. I took a lot of notes.
It was really well done. And can you talk a
little bit about in building relationships. You had an aircor
and I really enjoyed called Rave. Can you tell them
to that a little bit for.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Us a relationship At the end of the day, I
needed to have good relationships with people, and I do
that by having a really good attitude of being reliable.
And that's because I don't have a college degree, so
I figure out, at least I better be reliable, have
a good attitude. So at least that why people give
you a chance. And frankly, that's all they can see
at first is your attitude and you're reliable. And yeah,
(04:17):
I grew up in Oklahoma my parents, so we were
in that era when you had to say yes sir
and yes ma'am. Be nice to everybody, and so we
learned that and respect him. The rave is clear, respect,
appreciate value everybody. And I can tell you from Bygladesh
point of view. When I lived in Oklahoma and grew
(04:39):
up there, Oklahoma was very racist and very big. It
died and I went to a segregated school, one for whites,
one for blacks, and a third one no doubt for
American in American Native Indians, the Americans. And I look
back on that as what and literally I grew up
forties and fifties and I thought that was that's because
(05:02):
that's the problem. When you're in an environment and you
don't know any better, you think it's right. And I
didn't know anything, but I escaped. I dropped out of
college after two years because I wasn't smart enough staying
in college, and then went in the army. That was
a awakening. I didn't meet a black person until I
was twenty years old. Can you imagine? And then I
(05:24):
went to Washington, d C. And I got a job
as a waiter at the Washington Hilton, a banquet waiter.
And I say, if you don't like people from other places,
don't go to Washington. Everybody is from somewhere else. You
work with them in the hospitality business, they become your friends,
they go to the picnic swamm and you might even
marry one. It was that I really preached today. You
(05:45):
got educations great, but exposure and experience is what really
makes you who you are. And so when I left Oklahoma,
i'd been nowhere. I never been out of the state.
And that today I do work and travel to the
forty eight countries around the world. I've been everywhere, and
(06:06):
I don't think I have a discomintary bone in my
body anymore because every country I go there they have
little babies and little carriages, and they love them. And
as they have, mothers only worry about the safety and education.
And I think that's all we need to worry about.
We don't need to be worrying about all this other stuff,
or who you sleep with and who you go to
church with and where you go to I tell everybody
at Disney, it's none of your business. They don't even
(06:27):
talk about it. No, it was. My kind of change
is changing my environment and getting more bosure to the world,
because you're pretty ignorant when you are not exposed. When
you don't know you don't know you actually believe your parents.
I tell people have stuff in your brain not even true,
(06:48):
and most of which parastats is not true. So and
there you go out and find out what's up there.
I even tell a lot of stuff in your brain
you don't even know it's up there. Somebody put it
up there by saying something telling the job being a
bad perer. And so I'm always thinking about what's in
my brain, what triggers me, and why what happened, And
(07:11):
you eventually can cleanse.
Speaker 6 (07:12):
It, and it's wonderful and it's a perfect segue to
our next question. I just want to thank you for
your leadership because it shows you are embodying one of
the characteristics of an open minded leader. But nowadays we
see so many leaders they are closed to their own
beliefs and thoughts and would not open up to create
(07:36):
that zone of conversation and inclusion. So it is so
refreshing to see you today and this time we need
to have this kind of discussion where and you have
embodied the idea of inclusion into your leadership and it's
amazing to see, Like I was going through your podcast
(07:58):
and also your book, and you are leading more than
forty thousand cast members in Disney, and it's interesting to
see that they're forty thousand cast members with so many
different unique characteristic They have their own values, they have
their own vision. But at one example, you gave that
(08:19):
during the crisis of Charlie hitting the storm hitting Disney,
while everybody was rallying to find a solution. So if
you could share that sense of inclusion and leadership that
you promoted, how did this happen?
Speaker 3 (08:37):
Like?
Speaker 6 (08:37):
How did you brought everybody under this one umbrella?
Speaker 3 (08:41):
I think one thing you got to remember is that
the person who is leading the organization should not underestimate
the influence they can have over time by setting the
role model, setting the example. Certainly, I tell people, if
you just manage like a mother, you'll be a great
(09:02):
leader because mother's care and when you care, you make
the right decisions. And mothers could only care about two things,
safety and education, and they care about everybody. They care
about older kids. And by the time I got to Disney,
I was very wired that way. I understand clearly, I've
worked with people from everywhere. I've been everywhere. If my mother,
(09:24):
I'll just give background, I had a very dysfunctional family.
And my mother was married five times. I've been adopted twice.
I got my name Cockrel when I was sixteen, my
husband number four. I grew up on a farm, very poor.
We had nothing. We had the old outhouse. My grandkids
have a hard time believing it. They think I'm lying,
but it's true. And I grew up that way. And
(09:47):
then that exposure just triggered me to make sure that
I understood the people have problems. Everybody has a problem
you don't know about. Everybody's got issues, worries, and that's
slowly but surely. I just felt that, and I felt, Okay,
what is a leader? I was the leader of Disney World.
But I didn't I'd never worked in a park. I'd
(10:09):
never worked I'd been I'd worked for Hill and Maria,
but when I came to Disney, they weren't too excited
to see me. This guy's going to be in charge.
He never worked at a park. And I don't worry
so much about the technical knowledge. People asked me what
I did at Disney. I said nothing. I hired great people,
and I made sure we were doing three things. That
(10:31):
we were hiring the right people, we were training them,
and we were treating them right. And at the end
of the day, that meant getting rid of the wrong people.
And over time, and luckily I was their tenure. I
had time because so often today companies and organizations are
changing leadership every two or three years or every year,
(10:51):
over and over and here comes another idea, another dude.
And I was just there, and I spent my time
out with the employees. I walk the parks four or
five hours every week, talking to people, seeing what's going on,
checking the bathrooms, making sure that I and the other
thing I probably I had good experience. I'd done it all.
(11:11):
I'd been a cook in the army, I had been
a waiter, I had been in the accounting department. I
had been washing dishes, housekeeping, and everybody knows if you
know what you're doing, and they know. If people think
well people don't know, they know it. They know. And
when you work in those jobs again, you appreciate them.
(11:33):
You find out they're good people and it's life's good
and there's nothing to complain about. And when you're in
a position like I was, I had the ability to
help people have a better life. So when I make
sure they get training and development, and then we treat
them right to build their self esteem and self confidence
and make them understand they can achieve something. And I
(11:57):
tell them all to start out like good at it reliability.
You'll be noticed. You'll probably get promoted, and then you'll
get promoted, and you'll get promoted and you'll get promoted.
And people ask me all the time leave what were
your goals? I said, I don't have any goals. I've
never had any goal. My goal was to keep my job,
and then I didn't. My boss, by the way, said
when he was seventeen, he knew he would be president
(12:18):
of Disney World, and he did. I didn't know any goal.
I was figure I'd lucky for I got dinner. So
it's about your it's about behavior, and it's about car
I think it's about carrying. I always talk about that
if you care, you'll do the right things. And you
know what's the most the hardest thing to do in life,
the right thing, that's the hardest thing we all have
(12:41):
to do, is the right thing. And I think about
that now. When you do the right thing all the time,
you don't have a lot of friends, But I don't
care any friends. My wife has been with me fifty
seven years, so she said she's going to stay. I
think I'll be okay. My grandkids adore me if they
like me than their parents, so I'm happy somebody asked
(13:04):
me to leave. How would you say about but your life?
How would you rate it? I say complete. You got
to live with yourself. You've got to be who you are,
and that makes tough decisions sometimes. I even tell young
managers and leaders if you can't, if you cannot make
hard decisions and have hard conversations with people, number one,
(13:25):
don't have children, and number two, don't get into a
leadership job where you're responsible for people's future, because hard
conversations are That's why mothers are great. Mothers are the
best leaders. They don't play around. Mothers are clear. Mothers
get to the point. Mothers use empathy and discipline. That's
(13:46):
the only two tools they need. And they'll tell you
they love you and then kick your buck. So that's
it's just a strategy. It's a simple way. I think
it's so simple. The only question you have how much
empathy and how much discipline on each situation? A little
more than the little list of that little more of
that little list of debt. And when you manage people
(14:08):
to be fair and firm and had that reputation, he's
fair and hes sperm. So they help you. They go
out and tell everybody, Hey, you know the guy, he
was okay, he did the right thing. And then all
you a sudden, you have all these people telling other
people about you. And that's how you that's how you
get a I guess that's how you lead forty thousand
people and over, and that's what happens. Cultures get better
(14:32):
or worse slowly, and leader leadership, everything starts at the
top and rolls downhill good and and so I tried
every day to make sure good stuff was rolling down
the hill, and eventually even a good We have a
lot of Hispanic housekeepers clean rooms, and we provide two
(14:53):
hours a week with a doctor with professors from colleges
to come in and teach them English. And they've become
three and four years later and they get you know,
our last one president at Disney President Disney was gay,
one was a woman, one was This is like when
I got there, every one ninety three, I think ninety
two percent of all leadership or white males over those years.
(15:19):
We changed that because you can't do that. You cannot
have commitment when you're in that kind of when you
got so many people that are not having opportunity, they urged.
In fact, eventually they work against you. People go from
getting mistreated to violence. And we see it all over
the world. Yeah, people don't know they matter, don't know
you matter. You don't have anything to lose. And I
(15:42):
understand those things deeply and well, and only because of experience.
I've worked all over New York, La, Boston, France, Franklink.
You learn. If you haven't learned with all that experience,
there's something wrong with you. Yeah, yes, does. And so
(16:03):
even kids that don't want to go to college today,
I tell them, Okay, go join a good company, take
any job you can get, and be better than everybody else,
and you will have a good career. They'll notice you,
they may put you through college that they may Lots
of good things happen when people want to work with
you and trust you trust trust, And there's very little
(16:26):
trust today in the world. I mean literally, you know
what what reason is? People don't have psychological safety. They're
afraid to do the right thing, they're afraid to speak up.
And I think it's the biggest problem psychological safety. If
I do this, I'm just trying to stay low key,
try to get the retirement alive. That is that last
(16:48):
fifteen to twenty percent. The leader doesn't know. That's what
gets everything screwed up. And psychological safety, I think about that.
I'd rather have psychological safety almost of the physical safety.
I mean, at least you can see the problem. If
it's physical safety. Psychologically you don't know who's working against
you and not doing it and not doing the right
thing and making you, intimidating you and being audio ratic.
(17:13):
And the old brain just knows one thing's important to
take care of yourself. So maybe I better not speak
up today. This couldn't get me in trouble. It's survival.
And I tell you organizations, I don't know any that
do it well, but they better be working on it
because that's why they have turnover. That's why service is
so bad. That's why nobody wants to stay with you.
(17:36):
Why would I stay with a place where I don't
feel safe and trusted a better opportunity comes along, Hey,
I'm out of here. I want organization, a disney where
people don't want to be out of here. They want
to stay, and so I think a lot of leaders
got to go through this process of thinking about it
is it them or is it you? Crean problem? And
(17:59):
I just suppect if you had a bad situation, you
are the proverb. If you have bad kids, you are
the buck. And if you could interview the parents, you
know what kind of kids you're going to get. So
it's just a it's so simple that it's frightened me. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
One way you did this too, was through your servant leadership.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
You talked about walking around the park and also talking
to these people. The servant leadership is such a step
outside of so many leaders comfort zones. I don't know
if it's the title or the ego or what it is.
How do you become that servant leader that is impactful?
Speaker 3 (18:35):
Well, I think for me it was easy because I'd
been out there in every job. I was comfortable in
the kitchen, I was comfortable with people that were immigrants.
I was comfortable with people that had a tough life
living on the edge. So that was easy for me.
I think that's what part of the problem. I think
a lot of leaders had no exposure, but they grew
up in a wealthy or well to do family, they
(18:58):
go off to college, they ever had a job when
they were growing up, they didn't work in the summers,
they did, and we replicated that. My son, he didn't
have to work by the time I was so successful,
but we sent him to Oklahoma. Every summer he worked
on a cattle rants, digging fence post holes. And then
his kids didn't have to work for sure, and they
(19:21):
all worked in horticulture in the summer. I had to
be to work at six o'clock in the morning, pulling weeds,
spreading malts and all and just we just kept replicating
that early responsibility, because you work with adults, you have
to be to work on time.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
And next, all three of them are right now graduated
from college. Wants a biomedical engineer once in marketing in
New York City, and one is finishing up his internship.
He just graduated from his bachelor's degree in hospitality management
from in France. And his mother's friend. And it's the
leader has can make this happen, and the leader at
(19:56):
home it is probably the one that gets it where
it starts. It's under your work, it starts at home.
And then people who don't raise their kids properly, then
they send them to us. We got to deal with
this mess. Teach them to come to work on time
and take a shower, and it'd be nice and say yes.
(20:17):
And so it's a big circle. And it starts with
poverty and education. That's the problems. But there it's a
simple problem that we are not addressing. Obviously. It's certainly
a capitalistic society like America. We're not addressing it at all.
So much corruption around the world and in countries that
(20:38):
they just can't get it together. So I think any
young person who wants to do well want to get
out of your environment. Get out of the place, leave home,
go somewhere. You'll survive. Somebody said, when I was sleeping
on park benches, I knew I was going to be
successful and go somewhere and take any job, washed it
(21:00):
to make beds. You got to get started. It's not
going to get out of your village. It's not going
to change. Nothing in the village is going to change.
You've got to go. And your mother won't like it.
She wants you to stay. And you've got to know
you got to get away because your brain is infected.
(21:21):
Physical attention. So that's how I think about it. And
everybody I know, and we made sure our grandkid's men
they're all over the place they go and they've traveled
all over the world. They understand they're best friends. Or
I say to people, listen, I have friends in nick Quota.
Their name Mohammad. People in Kama look at me. Really,
(21:46):
So we dove it into that.
Speaker 5 (21:48):
As far as a leader, and you had this opportunity,
and certainly a number of leaders do give us some
advice on how you pick the right people to bring
on for your team, and maybe given example of a
couple interview questions you've used to help in that process.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
Yeah, for me a hurst, it depends where you're getting
them from. If you're getting them from where you work,
and at Disney, we pick a lot because we get
a chance to watch them when they're in the lower
level jobs. Their reliability, their attitude, how well they do,
how they treat each other, theyn't get in trouble. But
when you're comeing hiring somebody from the outside, I would say,
(22:25):
certainly we want to have the ability to do the
job because of the technical knowledge they have. But then
that's a given. We don't even if we know that,
then we're looking for literally again, we're looking for this
attitude and reliability and ability to work with teams. And
(22:47):
we're looking for people who know who have can prove
to us they've overcome obstacles in their life and show us.
So we asked questions. Tell me about a time when
you had a manager that was not doing well and
he was a son of the owner, and how did
you handle that and what you're looking for. Everybody has
obstacles every day. That's all we're here for, frankly. But
(23:10):
first obstacles getting up and the seconds gratifict. The third
one's running into some idiot, and then your boss and
then customers. Life is just obstacles. And once you understand
when you're ready for something here, you handl it better.
I know I have obstacles all day long. That's fine.
I'm not going to overreact. I'm just go Okay, here's
another person doesn't know what's going and I'll just be nice.
(23:32):
Lady yesterday gave me a bad face at the grocery
store out in the parking lot because I parked crooked,
couldn't get out very well, and she was going making
this face, and I rolled the window down. I said, excuse,
what's good? Can I help it? And she said, you
parked funny. Sorry, this was a very hard parking space
(23:56):
to get into, and I hope you have a good day.
I could have said, hey, lady, shove it. I try
not to make anybody's life worse than it already is,
because most people wake up and more in their life
is a mess already, and so obstacles. Tell me about
a time when you were a behind budget and it
was you had two months left to the end of
the year. Tell me, and what you want to listen
(24:18):
for is what did they do? And what was the
final outcome? Now an automated but what did they do?
What actions did they take? Can they take the hard actions?
Can they? And that's overcoming obstacles, because frankly, that's all
you do every day. I don't care who you are.
Every problem you have in your life will be a person.
(24:39):
I guarantee you it will never be the equipment. It'll
be a person. And you'll try every problem in your
life to a person.
Speaker 6 (24:50):
And the obstacles you face makes you empathetic as well,
because when you know that these are the obstacles. I
had to face what I went through. When you look
into other people, then you find that empathetic point of view.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
You do and most people, a lot of people think
obstacles cannot be fixed, of course, but they're hard. It's
like exercise. Why don't people exercise because it's hard? Why
people eat three more meatballs at dinner? Because it's hard
not to? Hard things are hard, you do then life
gets easier. When you do the hard things, life gets
(25:29):
easier for everybody around you too, because if you stay
on this easy route, your life gets don't discipine your kids,
then you'll get to go visit them and rehab, or
you'll get a divorce, or you'll you got to take
care of those hard things. And the other problem with
hard things that people don't really they pile up. So
you start with one you don't deal, and then another
and another, And the first one obviously is education and
(25:51):
poverty and you can't get out of there. You don't
leave home and you get somewhere else you don't have
any education. Caick the job, bah bah bah. And next thing,
this is what happens to me, peop they end U
was a stack of obstacles and problems in their life.
Now they don't have any where, they don't even know
where to turn, so they end up with anxiety, depression,
whatever else causes when we feel out of control. Life
(26:12):
is staying in control. That's why I wrote that time
mentioned book, not about time managements, about keeping your life
under control, your health, your family relationships. You're in knowledge,
you're is your life under control, right, and the discipline.
Speaker 6 (26:31):
You've been an army, so you have that experience of
discipline as well, so you can you're embodying that aspect
of discipline. And I could see you like you have
the shirt you're not you are respecting the podcast as well.
There are so many people we are all like we
are wearing T shirts and things like that. So you
(26:52):
were talking about first impression. That was that I really
feel that strongly about it. And that's what I teach
to my volunteers and my team, that your first impression
will last the longest. And many of us nowadays are
not paying attention to it. So why did you feel
that it is important to keep that to make that
(27:13):
first impression, and especially for leaders.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
Because that's all you that's the only evaluation you have
of a version and you don't forget it. Unfortunately, you
can't get it out of your mind no long You
wonder what else it's a To me, it's a judgment issue.
If they have bad judgment, what else are you going
to have bad judgement? Are? It looks like you don't
make good decisions. And everybody's in the situation they're in
(27:38):
because the decisions they make along the way. If you know,
made a different decision, you wouldn't be where you are.
And the problem is they make easy decisions. It's easy.
But on T shirt it's actually I never wear T
shirts and I never I have no orch leeve shirts,
and I don't wear Bermuda shorts and I don't ever,
(27:59):
not only because I don't like to. But got any problem?
Everybody in Orlando words for me to sure, I don't.
I'll just stay normal.
Speaker 6 (28:09):
But in one of those podcasts, it was interesting when
you said that you never you prepare yourself for meeting anybody.
You never know who you will be meeting or how
you will be putting your impression in. So it was
interesting when you mentioned that, like you're always ready to
face the face the situation.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
I think it's two things you don't know who you're
going to run into, and you don't know who you
might just have a conversation or coffee with and they
are impressed. Then they end up hiring you because they
that first tiank, that first impression got the conversation going.
It's all connected, It's all connected. And that's what we
forget is to make better decisions. You have a better life.
(28:48):
And how many times and I say, I tell people
in the morning, there's two ways to make better decisions.
One is reflection, what you do yesterday you could have
done better? And anticipation. What's going to happen if you
don't do so. You don't get that college degree, you
don't have a good attitude, you don't are not reliable,
you don't have any knowledge about something. What's going to
(29:09):
anticipate anticipate And that's hard for young people to anticipate
because they get into that nineteen to twenty, twenty two,
twenty three. They just want to have fun. And I
tell life catches up pretty quick. I tell people you're born,
you're twenty one, you're sixty five, and you did.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Hey least, speaking of hiring, that's one thing that you
couldn't create magic on your own right. But it was
the hiring that made the difference in bringing the right
people on the team and the example that you set.
What do you look for bringing the right team members
onto a team?
Speaker 3 (29:43):
Yeah, Disney, we have a system. We work with the
Gallup organization to create a profile and today, if you
want to work for Disney, you apply online and if
they like the looks of your technical and everything's right,
then they have a phone call with you. And if
that goes well, then you have to go online and
answer one hundred and thirty six questions about yourself. Niney
(30:05):
of them are graded forty five or fifty louplicates, just
to see if you're telling the truth and that they're
very accurate. And then if you get through that, then
you get a telephone interview and then you get hired.
And we're looking for people same thing. Can you talk
about this, talk about this ability to take care of
(30:27):
things consistently? Can you sell ice cream cones for nine
dollars when it is ninety five degrees in Florida and
the customers are already not happy because their kids spent
too much money? Creating Magic's not easy, and so we
are looking for people that can go with the flow.
And I'll just tell you what we said that you
(30:48):
don't have to be happy to work at Disney. You
just have to act happy for eight hours. And that's
clarity of what we're looking for. Clarity. And I tell
everybody make sure if you're a leader and you're hiring
somebody and just say, look now, let me tell you
how we work around here. If you ever must treat
a customer or don't take care, you will be fared.
(31:12):
Clarity just like mothers. Good mothers are clear and you
better not to get them riled up. Clarity is for
your own good clarity because I can't figure out what
all the problems are with your psychologically, but I can
make sure you don't show them to our customers and
(31:34):
do each other. This is a business. We have a business,
and what are we selling? Happiness? That's pretty hard and
how do you create happiness with the right people that
take care of you? And that's just I think clarity
is one of the biggest problems in the world. People
are not clear, and then they don't when somebody doesn't
do what you told them to do and taught them
(31:56):
to do and train them to do. The leader should
immediately excuse Like your mother, she doesn't wait for your
annual review that you by the ear, takes you in there.
Do you understand that you don't understand what I told you?
And then she takes your phone away for a month. Yeah.
I can vouch for the Disney's cast.
Speaker 6 (32:16):
Member creating happiness and helping because I've been to Disney World,
Disney World twice and there was a guy who was
like cleaning near the trash can and I was looking
for the Haunting Castle, Haunted Castle, and I was asking like,
do you know the way to the Haunted Castle?
Speaker 3 (32:34):
And he just put his work there and said that
let me take you there. I'm no, no, I don't
want to bother you, but you know I can walk
you there.
Speaker 6 (32:42):
And he walked like ten minutes with us to the
Haunted Castle and then and I still remember that, like
how he helped us to reach that place, and there
was that sense of belongingness, like he could make those decisions.
That means Disney empowered him to make the decision that
(33:03):
he could take that time off to the walk us
to the Haunted Castle. So I think that was an
amazing another example of Disney's leadership.
Speaker 3 (33:13):
And it's we have one purpose at Disney that every
cast member gets drilled into them is that our purpose
is to make sure that every guest who comes to
Disney World has the most fabulous time of their life period.
I don't care whether they're eating French fries or at
the Haunted Mansion. It's got to be a good experience.
And that's your job to make sure it is unbelievable.
(33:33):
Because why because we want you back, We want your
credit card. Mickey likes credit cards, and cast they will
more and they give you more. And they don't go
to they don't go to Hawaii next year. They come
back to Disney and come back. And if they go
to somewhere else, they're not happy because they are comparing it.
(33:56):
All we do in the world is compare. We all
do it. We all compare. And I tell people in
the hospital, treat those patients right, because they've been to Disney,
well what this looks like, and so be nice to them.
They're already feeling unsafe, they feel scared. Our job is
(34:18):
to make sure that And when you think about it,
I'm going to leave and after this call and I'm
going to go to my coffee here I'm going to
make a lot of people happy today just for fun
and not going to go who is that guy? It's
more fun than people yelling at you. And I think
it's just a matter of we've got to we've got
to have a conversation with ourselves. And frankly, a lot
(34:39):
of people are too far down the path sometimes they
need That's why they need good leadership to get turned around.
Their attitude is not good. They don't they've been mistreated,
they don't have any hope, they don't see a future
of me. This is it's that relationship with people. Is
I can make a life better or worse to do?
And why there's no upside to be a mean to people? None? Zero?
(35:03):
In fact, it's dangerous. There's no upside. There's no upside
to have it a big fight with your wife. If
you think there is, try it. And I had stress
of my marriage and over the years and all I
was insecure because of growing up with no degree in
my family and blah blah blah. And I overcame that
(35:24):
my wife, Sure she still annoys me, but I let
it go. Oh, And that's what you gotta do. And
when you let it go, it's over in your brain
in ten sentents. Well, you got to delve into a
little bit deeper. First, I appreciate your wonderful insights.
Speaker 5 (35:43):
So my last question for you, I have to delve
in because we try to help young leaders, and one
of the things of young leaders is starting their family.
You could call it work life balance, work life integration.
I'm curious, what are a couple keys to being married.
It's fifty seven years.
Speaker 3 (36:01):
Obviously I was working a lot. I work six days
a week when I worked for Hilton, and my day
off was Thursday. Marriott is very demanding, and I think
the key you got to remember is the time you
spend with your family. I'll put it this way. On
my days off, I spend it with my fan. I
don't play golf, I don't go off. I lose. When
I get home at night, I put my phone down
(36:24):
and I'm there. I will tell you your children, it's
not about spending a lot of time with them. It's
how you spend that time and that you're available for them.
Because by the time there thirteen, they don't like you anywhere.
You've only got a few years to nail that down.
That love and appreciation and confidence and just be available.
And so that's how I did it. I have a
(36:46):
very I work on routine. My life is routine. I
get up and go to work six thirty in mone
but we'll do a job five o'clock. I stop. My
boss knows that I go to the gym, I work out.
I get home at six thirty seven. I spend a
couple hours of my wife. I go to bed early.
On the weekend, we spend time together. I'm there for
my son. I schedule every event to go to his
When he was growing up, I never missed a football game.
(37:07):
I never missed a play. I never missed anything. And
I had that agreement with my bosses that I just
want you to know before I accept this job. That's
one of the non negotiables I will have to be.
I'm not going to stay at work because and miss
my son's a Christmas party. You got to make sure,
and you've got to put your life together, and you've
got to manage your life. You got to manage it.
(37:29):
And that's what I mean, keep it under control, and
don't let people direct your life in a place that
you're going to be unhappy about. I happen to marry
a saint because she behind being alone. Actually, if I
stay home too much, sometimes she says, why don't you
take a business trip this week? We got through it
(37:50):
fifty seven years actually coming up in August, and after
my mother was married five times, my brother four times,
I figure I better get the family average down. My
son's been married thirty one years, so you know, can
change it. A leader made the game. It's the game,
(38:10):
and the leader is the key. And you don't even
have to be a big, loud, out the face leader.
Just people are watching you. My wife gave me good advice.
Was said, be careful what you say to say him
do to daily. Everyone's watching you and judging you all
the time. Two you're always being judged, and so if
(38:31):
you have a bad reputation, it's probably your fault. And
so it's just be more aware of you, think about
yourself and how you're affecting people. And literally every week
this week I got like ryin hard danger. I heard
from him. I actually heard from yesterday. He's on his
(38:52):
way in vacation de Grease or somewhere or Germany or
maybe than that, maybe is he going home to Part
of it is that he's going home I think as well. Yeah,
and I heard from three other people this week. One
was a guy he said, I wonder Wright and tell
you thank you for I called you fourteen years ago
(39:14):
and you took the call and you gave me some
great advice. And now I'm the head of HR for
a major cruise line. And then I did a program
for Penn State University recently and the lady came up, Oh, yeah,
they have two hundred HR people there, twenty thousand employees
Spenn State. I did an all day program for them,
and when I had the call to arrange it, the
(39:37):
lady comes on the zoom call and she says, Lee,
you know me. I said what I do? She said,
I went to your time management class thirty years ago
when I worked at Disney.
Speaker 6 (39:47):
Oh.
Speaker 3 (39:48):
Everything comes around. Yeah, how many times do you travel
run into somebody? So that's how you have to think
about it. And we've got to try to raise our
kids that way so that they become the good role models.
And it's just something we all can be better. You
can be better, you could be worse every day. Yeah,
and it's a choice, yeah, the choice.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
We can't thank you enough for your time in our
final moments here. Just tell us what you've been up
to lately, what you're planning on here in the future,
because we want to know more about We know your past,
but what does the future, Lee Cocker look like.
Speaker 3 (40:27):
I'm old, so what I pretty much know what the
real future is. I'm working on another book on some things,
and I'm giving a lot of keynote speeches and I
make myself available to work. I talked to I like
to talk to schools, high schools, college students because they
really appreciate it and sometimes don't hear it from their
(40:48):
homes because of the situation, and gives them some sell.
That's kind of stuff I do. I like giving seminars, workshops,
speeches because people say, why do you do this, Lee,
Why don't you just retire? Well, why don't you sit
on the couch? And I said, because people clap, and
I'm insecure they clap, and when I play golf, nobody claps,
(41:08):
so I don't. And so it's just a matter of Hey,
you do what turns you on that turns me in.
It's like what he's saying, I love you, as my
wife said, if you love me, tell me help yourself.
And we all want to matter. We all want to
be somebody, we all want to and we all have
the opportunity to do that. And so how many people
(41:31):
are you going to make feel better today? Out?
Speaker 2 (41:34):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (41:34):
And Lee, could you just what your academy?
Speaker 6 (41:37):
Could you talk about? Like how do people connect with
your academy or is it like just institutions that can
connect you go.
Speaker 3 (41:44):
To Leek, copper roll dot com and everything is there.
I started the academy during the pandemic because I had
nothing better to do, sit at home for two years.
And it's really ten courses in there now and always
added more. There's one on time manager, there's one on
a great leadership, there's one on that we had one.
We just did fifty one videos which are three minutes
(42:07):
apiece for young people to know how to work in retail,
how to deal with angry customers, how to deal with
employees that are misbehaving. So we're I'm doing more of
three four minute videos because the young people seem to
really be attracted to those people joined the Cocker Academy
and all that stuff's in there. It's four hundred dollars
a year or thirty nine dollars a month. We have
(42:30):
a community call every month. Anybody can come on the call.
We talk about issues, things they have problems with, and frankly,
it is it's really been. It teaches you more about
how to be than what to do. Are you sending
the right message to people so that you have they
trust you and they believe in you, and teaching you
the basics. A lot of young people had no idea professionalism.
(42:55):
Here's what it looks like, as you said, first impressions,
here's what it looks time management. It's it's not you
weren't born disorganized, learned how to be organized. You were
not born a bigot, you were not born a racist.
You can overcome this and we did. Yeah, you can
(43:16):
learn if you want to learn. Keep the learns, I said,
Foreigner bucks cheap in college, yeah, just definitely.
Speaker 6 (43:24):
And internationally also, people can have access to your to
your academy, right, yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:30):
Sure absolutely, and the books are on there. I've written
six books, I said, But I didn't do well in college,
so I wrote six books. But I don't know where
the commas go or the My goal in lies to
use a semicolon and know why somebody. But I hire
people to put the karmas in and the paragraphs right,
So it makes me.
Speaker 6 (43:51):
It's the idea that batters, not those small dramatical Now
chat GPT and other other things can do that for us.
Speaker 3 (43:59):
Direct that for a couple of things, which is interesting.
When you talk to people, you don't need commerce, you
can think about that, but chat GPT I've been running that.
I enjoyed and I wrote one yesterday for a friend
who wrote called me and was worried about his nineteen
year old daughter. Why she's not really interested in going
(44:20):
to college. She goes, but she doesn't really study, she's
not committed, she wants nineteen. I get it. I was there.
I did the same thing. So I put check in
chet GPT. Why do young women nineteen twenty twenty one
years old not have the discipline to excel in college
(44:41):
and understand the future? And bingo boy, it printed it
out and there's a from psychological problems to parents pusher
to not understanding what they really want to do, to
how they grew up where they grew up. It was
amazing and yeah, I got a lot of those. I
did an opening check list for a retail store. Give
(45:02):
me a good opening checklist for a retail store? Burt
and it does. You come in, you check the sidewalk,
then you open the door, you check the alarm system
and you you're right. And then you can take what
it tells you and you can add whatever customization you
want to put in from your own personal point of views.
So it's worth it. And then quite it's quite revealing
(45:24):
the things you would have forgotten, even though you might
be sparked. It goes out talks to everybody in the world. Right,
you don't have to agree with what it tells you,
that you can take that out. It's great and I
really we got to it. Maybe even help you understand yourself.
Say you can put in there, why do I argue
with my wife? And why do oh what it says?
(45:47):
Because when you were a little boy, your mother used
to yell at you. You know, oh you can be
your own psychiatrist. Yeah, but the Copper Academy is great.
People really learn a lot from it that they're not
going to learn in college. I guarantee, I guarantee. And
the things they learned the cogro kat of, they're gonna
need a lot more and they're gonna need what learning
(46:08):
what they learn in college because that education changes so rapidly,
but how you treat people doesn't and simple and you
people need it.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
Lee Cockrell dot com for all that leaks down to
the show notes, Lee, let's go make some people's days today.
You're in enthusiasm is inspiring and we really appreciate your
work and your time coming on and sharing with our
audience today is very valuable. So thank you so much.
Speaker 4 (46:36):
Lee.
Speaker 3 (46:37):
Thanks, it's a great subject. We ought to think about
it more.
Speaker 4 (46:40):
Thank you for joining us this week at the Limitless
Leadership Lounge. To listen to this episode again and to
find previous episodes, check us out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
and Spreaker. You can also get in on the conversation
find us on Facebook and Instagram. Then tell three of
your friends to join it as well. Coach Branuma and John.
We'll be back again next week for another try generational
(47:02):
leadership discussion. We'll talk to you then on The Limitless
Leadership Lounge
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