Helping Others Go From Insight to Action with Billy Saleebey
Episode Overview
In this milestone 50th episode, we're joined by the insightful Billy Saleebey, who will unpack the art of creating memorable experiences from disruptive organizations to the podcasting world.
As a leader in experience-driven training, Billy reveals how vulnerability can forge stronger connections, and he lays out his approach to crafting trainings that leave a lasting impact through engaging activities and a strategically strong finish.
We'll look at lessons from interviewing success stories, explore decision-making insights from heavy-hitters like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, and discuss the importance of fostering relationships and team dynamics for long-term success.
About Billy Saleebey
Billy has led learning and development organizations for some of the most disruptive companies in the world, including Tesla, where he was Head of Global Sales & Product Training. He is currently CEO and Co-Founder of Podify, a production company that produces podcasts, and is the host of the business podcast Insight Out.
Full Transcript
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Billy Saleebey [00:00:00]:
You're a human right or as a facilitator, anyone that's in front of a room. People want to relate to you. They want to feel a connection to you. And when you can just open up a little bit and show some of your humanity, it's such a valuable way to facilitate and to lead groups. They then feel a connection to you that they other guys wouldn't feel. So I'm a huge proponent of that. I think when you do that, the rest of the event, whether it's a day or a week long, they're more inclined to want to listen and be a part of the journey that you're taking them down.
Matt Gjertsen [00:00:40]:
Hello and welcome to the Making Better podcast, where we talk about making ourselves, our teams, and our organizations better. My name is Matt Jurtson, the founder of Better Everyday Studios, and I promise you, whether you are a business leader, a talent development professional, or an individual contributor, this show will give you actionable insights to help improve your own performance and the performance of those around you. Billy has led learning and development at some incredibly disruptive organizations, including Tesla, where he was the head of global sales and product training. Let me say that again, he was the head of global sales and product training at Tesla. He is currently CEO and co founder of Podify, a podcast production company, and is the host of the business podcast Insight Out. Before we get into the discussion, I want to remind you that if this is the first time you've listened to this show, make sure you subscribe so you never miss a future episode. And if you're already subscribed, I would just ask that you share this show with one other person because that is how we grow. I can't tell you how much it means to me.
Matt Gjertsen [00:01:46]:
And so with that, let's get into the discussion. Billy, how are you doing today?
Billy Saleebey [00:01:51]:
I'm doing awesome after that intro, man. Thanks. You're making me blush over here. But a beautiful day. Great talking with you. As always. I enjoy our conversations. So excited to have this one.
Matt Gjertsen [00:02:02]:
Yes, I'm really excited too. And I have to say, you and I have known each other for quite a number of years now. But I feel like in getting ready for this episode, doing kind of research for the show, a lot of things really clicked with me of thinking about kind of your life. Because, amazingly, I had no idea that the first thing you did kind of in your professional life is that you made an award winning movie about psychedelics, of all things. And when I kind of look at your career from there till now, I get a sense that there is a real through line kind of a consistent thing that goes along with all the different roles that you've have. Do you see that?
Billy Saleebey [00:02:44]:
Yeah, I do. And it's funny you say that you noticed a thread because it took a whole lifetime for me to notice it. And the word that I came back to was experience. It's the experience and whether it be a training or a movie or even a party, I used to do big, elaborate New Year's Eve parties. I always care about what the experience is of others. And I'm a detail guy. I do think about all the little nuance. I like to surprise people.
Billy Saleebey [00:03:17]:
I like to make something that is memorable that people will tell other people about it. And that type of mindset and principle is what I've done with. No matter what I've done, whether it be the training or a movie or all those things, that's the way I've processed and the way in which I built those was with that kind of mindset.
Matt Gjertsen [00:03:42]:
Yeah. It's so interesting that it's kind of like you start from that experience point of view because I think when you think about traditional people in talent development, very often it's people who start from kind of the knowledge perspective. Right. They were a subject matter expert or they were a teacher. Given the background that I had, there's a little bit more of like that behavioral element. I don't think there's a lot of people that start from that point of view of what is this experience going to look like? So when you're thinking about training engagements, is that truly where you start of like, what's the experience I want to have and then kind of like back into everything else?
Billy Saleebey [00:04:19]:
Yeah, it's interesting because I kind of fell into training. I came from sales, and as you mentioned, I was in entertainment, so made a movie, realized that making movies doesn't necessarily pay the bill. Okay, what am I going to do next? By complete chance, found myself in the renewable energy space doing sales and had a knack for sales. So they're like, okay, you should train people. Okay, sure. And so I didn't know what I didn't know. And I think sometimes having that rookie smarts helps. To answer your question, I think I naturally approached it with, if I were the student, what kind of experience would I want? And this idea in psychology known as the peak end rule, I didn't actually know this rule at the time, but I discovered it and realized that that was a big part of the training success, which is you need highlights and you need a strong ending.
Billy Saleebey [00:05:18]:
And that could be for the day, that could be for the entire training event, that could even be for the first part of the day, is that you want anything that's separated. You want it to have a moment or a few moments that stand out and you want to end really strong. And so when I would instruct the training experience, I would try to make that happen with every segment and with the training as a whole. While, of course, remembering that there needs to be some outcomes that are going to allow us to get the result that we're looking for. So for me, it was like, okay, I could do role playing, or I could do American idol style of role playing where we have Randy, Simon, and Paula and we're giving real time feedback with those judges. Or I could give people a knowledge check test, or I could do family feud where I divide the room into two. And so I don't want to do a boring training. I want to do something that people are going to tell their friends about.
Billy Saleebey [00:06:16]:
And that's the type of trainings we created.
Matt Gjertsen [00:06:19]:
Interesting. I've heard of other people doing things like this. Where did you kind of have a grab bag of potential exercises and interactions that you'd done before that, you know, just you know how to set them up, you know how to fit them, and that you'd kind of like, pull from those to match them to different training experiences.
Billy Saleebey [00:06:38]:
Yeah, definitely. Over time, we developed sort of a core group. There were some staples that we did almost every time, but then we'd get creative and bring new ones in. I mean, for a modeling exercise, we had a dance that we taught everybody. So we're teaching people, this is for leadership development, modeling the right behaviors. We wanted to implant that concept in a really meaningful and memorable way. So we actually did if you've seen Napoleon Dynamite, we did the dance from Napoleon Dynamite, and we had people model, and we actually did it in different ways. And so we could teach people about the different learning styles.
Billy Saleebey [00:07:14]:
You could teach them by modeling. You could teach them by showing them. You could teach them by writing out the instructions. And the goal was to really show them that when you physically model something, that's going to leave the best impression because it does a lot of the learning mechanisms all in one, and it visually shows people what to do, and then you get the best results.
Matt Gjertsen [00:07:35]:
Yeah, it's interesting just to kind of double click on this peak end rule and how important this is because I was just having a conversation with a friend of mine who does a lot of pretty emotional training. Like, they really get into a lot of deep stuff to try to help uncover, just to help people be their best selves, and there's a lot of emotional exposure that happens in it. And when I was asking her how she did that, she talked about how she just starts right out of the gate being incredibly open herself and kind of sets the tone for the whole event. And I think there's one thing that it's easy for us to fall into in talent development, in instructional design is there's these rules of standard best practices where kind of if you do it this way, it'll at least be okay. It won't totally fall in its face where you introduce yourself, you introduce the objectives and it's just a very slow way to get into stuff and it sets the expectation in the learner, oh, I've seen this before, I know where this is going. And so I got to believe that starting out strong just really helps you set the tone for the whole rest of the event.
Billy Saleebey [00:08:49]:
You have to, right? We did a big all hands meeting when SolarCity was acquired by tesla, and I could not figure out how to start it. I was like, this is right. Like it's got to be good. So I said, okay, I'm going to think, what would elon do? I literally got a model s and figured out a way to craft a ramp up to a stage. And I was the played like it was like AC DC or something like that rolled up. This is at a big warehouse, rolled up the warehouse gate and all of a sudden you see the model s. The model s comes onto stage and then I come out and do my best elon impression. But it was memorable, man.
Billy Saleebey [00:09:38]:
It was like I could have just walked up, but I was like, okay, how can I flip this on its head? But you're right, you got to start strong. And the other thing that I loved what you said is this vulnerability. I think as trainers, you're a human, right, or as a facilitator, anyone that's in front of a room, people want to relate to you. They want to feel a connection to you. And when you can just open up a little bit and show some of your humanity, it's such a valuable way to facilitate and to lead groups. They then feel a connection to you that they otherwise wouldn't feel. So I'm a huge proponent of that. I think when you do that the rest of the event, whether it's a day or a week long, they're more inclined to want to listen and be a part of the journey that you're taking them down.
Matt Gjertsen [00:10:30]:
Yeah, well, I love that you went there because that was kind of the next thing that I mentioned. Because when you say you're having people do kind of american idol style stuff or learning dances, I can hear listeners being like, well, that would never fly in my company. I'm never going to get people to dance. How do you get people to engage? Is it just that eventually over time now maybe tesla has a different energy know, there's certain energy that different companies you cause talking about like there's nothing worse than creating a learning experience and then it takes two to tango and so the other people don't show up. How do you make it sure it's successful?
Billy Saleebey [00:11:12]:
Well, listen, I think humans are humans. And so, yeah, there might be some companies that might initially resist or frown or boohoo, an unorthodox approach. And so I would try start small. You don't need to do a dance to start something that's going to allow you to win over not only the learner, but of course your customer, which is the company. Right. Whether or not you're a full time employee or if you're a contractor, the company is the client, right? So you want to make sure that they support you. And then it's like anything stakeholder management, you got to walk them through this. You got to be able to explain to them, what's the value? Why are you doing it? What results have you seen in the past? So the reason why we do it is we believe that experiences, they last, they touch you.
Billy Saleebey [00:12:08]:
So when we did a big change management initiative where we were teaching the Tesla team and transferring a bunch of people from SolarCity to a new sales process, we did a full day event where it had everything from teaching people how to make paper airplanes, to going to a bowling alley, to doing all these crazy what you would think are completely unrelated things. But because we created an experience, people remembered those things and to this day they remembered it. And so we're trying to change the neural pathway that exists. And if you do the same or if you do what's expected, people tune that out for the same reason. If you were to drive from point A to point B on a daily basis, somebody asks you at point B, like, do you remember the drive? You don't remember it because you've done it over and over and over again. But if you had to take a detour or if there was an accident or if something happened that was not normal, you're going to pay more attention. Like if you go on a vacation, you remember your vacation more than you remember your day to day. And so what we want to do is we want to put people in a type of environment, an atmosphere, and an experience that will challenge the status quo and give them a unique experience that they won't forget.
Matt Gjertsen [00:13:27]:
Yeah, 100%. And I would also say that if people are a little bit uncomfortable, that's actually a good thing too, because that's going to help with the learning. We are hardwired to remember emotional experiences because 10,000 years ago, emotional experiences weren't coming from a movie. They were coming from a situation that was life and death. Right. That's where emotional experiences came from. And so we will remember those things a lot more. Awesome.
Matt Gjertsen [00:14:00]:
Yeah, I think there's a lot of things that could be said about pushing learning and development and especially facilitation. There's a lot of room in a lot of organizations to push facilitation to a new level. And starting with those small steps, I'm sure is the most sure way to get there. So you spent all this time building these amazing experiences at Tesla, then you left Tesla, went to the podcast, started a podcasting company, and started a podcast. How did that transition happen? It was still around this idea of experiences, I'm guessing. But how did that transition know?
Billy Saleebey [00:14:40]:
When I left, I was okay, I I wanted to get off my corporate surfboard for a while. But it's hard to leave a disruptive mean, you know, it's like to leave a SpaceX or to leave a Tesla or to leave Apple or Disney or any of these game changer companies. You got to have a really good reason. And when you leave, what next? How do you outdo Tesla? How do you outdo SpaceX? And so I wasn't looking to outdo it, but I did want to think about how do I continue to make an impact and how do I expand my impact, and then how do I scratch that creative itch that I've always had and that deep curiosity that I have had my whole life? I mean, when I was an eight year old, I was going around at family reunions with a little tape recorder dates me and interviewing everybody. The podcast medium made sense. It's got intimate, right? I'm talking to somebody literally, like, whispering in their ear, right?
Matt Gjertsen [00:15:41]:
Yeah.
Billy Saleebey [00:15:43]:
The vibration of a human being's voice is incredibly it captures your emotion. So you got the intimacy. Then you have frequency, because you release a podcast every month, every week, every other week, whatever that may be. You have that going on on a frequent basis, and then you have duration, right? Like, podcasts can be 30, 40 minutes long or an hour long, and so you get to know people really well. So I thought, okay, I already inherently am naturally curious. I like creating experiences. The podcast seemed like a nice fit. And then when I created my own show, I realized, okay, this is a lot of work.
Billy Saleebey [00:16:23]:
I mean, I had made movies. Movies take hundreds of people literally. So I learned how to make something creative with hundreds of people. Luckily, a podcast, you don't need that many, but you still do need 510 people to make a show, especially if you're going to try to get it out there and do all those things. So it's like, I found an Editor Audio, I found a video editor, I found a Show Notes person, I found a social media person. It's like, okay, if I need help, surely others do as well. Which then led to the formation of Spotify. And so now we do a ton of different shows and different genres and all kind of with the same idea, which is helping people with thought leadership get their message out.
Matt Gjertsen [00:17:07]:
There a lot of sense. Then you were looking to start a podcast because of that connection you were getting with folks. And then in your search for help, you kind of created the rest of the company because you realized, I need help. Other people need help. Other people probably need help specifically with the podcast. So your podcast is called Insight Out, which I love. I've listened to many episodes, think it's really great how you're talking to these really successful people to come up with these kind of key moments of insight that they've had. In your discussions, have you found that when it comes to some of these people who are really successful, are there common key moments of insight that really move them forward in their lives?
Billy Saleebey [00:17:48]:
Yeah, there really are. I mean, there are a lot of different ones, but I would say some of the more universal ones. I heard this today, as a matter of fact. I interviewed Kevin Harrington. He was one of the first guys on Shark Tank. It's don't wait for perfect. I see this all the time. You got to be quick to act.
Billy Saleebey [00:18:09]:
And so he's a great example. What he did is he basically invented the infomercial. So he didn't wait for a perfect business plan to invent the infomercial. He found that when he had cable, there was 6 hours of cable that was not playing anything. So he called the cable company kind of complaining like, oh yeah, that's because they don't have enough this is in the 80s, they don't have enough content to show. So he's like, well, can I put something there? And that was what led to the infomercial. But he didn't wait for perfect. So I think that's one key thing that I think a lot of us, especially those who have perfectionist tendencies, we kind of are our own worst enemy, where we put barriers in front of us that prevent us from doing what we're capable of doing because we're waiting for something to be perfect.
Billy Saleebey [00:19:01]:
And a great workaround for this, and I learned this on one of my shows, is Think Inversions. So your version one is your version one. It doesn't need to be a version ten. And if you do this and you really mentally compartmentalize your control, because that's what it comes down to, is you're trying to control, allow yourself to release something before you think it's ready. Even if it's only 60, 70% of the way there, chances are it's much further along than you think. You're just trying to control it too much. And you won't get that feedback if you wait for version ten and release that as your one. And so, same versions.
Matt Gjertsen [00:19:42]:
Interesting. I mean, that's really one of the key things that Elon has done at both Tesla and SpaceX that we've experienced. It makes a lot of sense. It's something that and I think there's a big lesson for that specifically inside of learning as well, where it can be really easy to get in a development cycle of a course and just keep digging down and trying again and trying again, and you never really get true feedback from your customer. And so the more we can think of things in versions, I'm sure the better any course would be. Did you have something like that at all? When you were at Tesla of versioning a lot of your content.
Billy Saleebey [00:20:21]:
Yeah, I think we had to because some things there was such a quick turnaround. And as you right, like if Elon says, it happens. So there's no delay, there's no room for excuses, there's no possibility for that. So in some cases, because of the short timeline, we were forced to do that. And that's a great thing. One of my bosses there, he taught me this great metaphor. It says you got to land the plane. And as people who likely put a lot of planes in the air in the form of projects, we got to land them.
Billy Saleebey [00:21:01]:
And if you don't do what's necessary to land them, whether that be do a crash landing and just abort the mission or find a copilot to help somebody land the plane or replace the pilot. Right. Get somebody else to land the plane. You got to land the plane. And the more planes you have in the air, psychologically, mentally, it's exhausting. And even if you're not the one sort of controlling all the planes, being that you have so many in the air, you're going to get sidetracked. You're not going to be able to through the task switching and all the things that go into starting and stopping whatever it is you're doing, you got to land some of them, which is another insight, by the way. It's like prioritization is probably one of the most crucial tasks that any leader can do for themselves and for their team because people don't know what the priority is unless you implicitly guide them to what that priority is.
Billy Saleebey [00:21:55]:
And that's a theme that I see with a lot of these high level leaders. It's like, where are they spending their time? They're spending their time on the most crucial activities that they can and that they should I mean, not in all cases. Some of them mismanage their time, but that's the goal at least, right? Like spend your time doing the things that only you should be doing and then the other things outsource delegate right. Or eliminate and have somebody else either do it or completely get it off your yeah.
Matt Gjertsen [00:22:25]:
I remember hearing a way that Jeff Bezos liked to think about this with Amazon, where when he thinks about leadership hierarchies. He basically thinks about the timeline for impact of your decisions, where if you are a frontline worker, then your decisions are having an impact in that moment. That is the level of your decisions. And as you go higher and higher, your decisions should be farther and farther in the future. So by the time Jeff Bezos was leading Amazon, the decisions that he was making day to day shouldn't really have an impact for like five years. That's the kind of time horizon he should be looking at. And exactly like you said, anything below that, if it's going to have an effect this year or this month or this week, somebody else should be making that decision because that's not something that he should be spending his time on.
Matt Gjertsen [00:23:18]:
That's interesting.
Billy Saleebey [00:23:19]:
I love that. But to your point and I think that's his timeline, somebody else's timeline of where they're thinking of the point of impact will be very different. And you need both, right?
Matt Gjertsen [00:23:34]:
Yes.
Billy Saleebey [00:23:34]:
Not everybody can be the visionary CEO of one of the biggest companies in the history of mankind. Not everyone's going to be that person. But you do need the team. Right, and same thing with Elon. Elon, you and I both know he surrounds himself with so many talented people and yes, he's going to have the big picture vision and will think ten years or even 100 years or many hundreds of years into the future. I mean, that's where he's at, which is crazy. But you do need other people to balance that out that are going to think in the more short term things.
Matt Gjertsen [00:24:05]:
Yeah, in fact, I think he's a great example. This is at least just like my opinion of what I've seen. I think when his organizations are the most successful, it is when he does have those key leaders underneath him and around him who can take on some of those other responsibilities. And when there's struggles is when he doesn't have at least all the ones that he needs. And he's starting to get into the day to day a little bit more.
Billy Saleebey [00:24:31]:
That's such a great point, man. I didn't work at SpaceX, but from what I can tell the CEO, I forget her name, but she seems like that person.
Matt Gjertsen [00:24:40]:
Exactly.
Billy Saleebey [00:24:41]:
Conversely, I'm not going to mention anybody by name, but I've seen firsthand where he needed to embed himself, call it in sales, for example. I'm not saying that's what it is, but let's just if he needs to embed himself in sales or in marketing or in finance or whatever it may be, that's then detracting from the big picture thing that he needs to be working on. And so this is a great case for you got to build your team. You got to find the team that allows you to thrive in the areas where you thrive best.
Matt Gjertsen [00:25:12]:
Yeah, exactly. So we have these insights that you've seen it's thinking in versions and making sure you maintain your priority. I think one of the things that's so often said about common sense, it's not that common. Right. And we can all have these insights. What makes a difference you've talked to these really successful people. What makes the difference between somebody who has an insight and doesn't do anything versus has an insight and it leads to action? What commonly causes that to happen?
Billy Saleebey [00:25:40]:
Well, yeah, and I think the other piece to insights that we can't forget and we need to think about is putting ourselves in position to have them. And one of the things that I learned while at Tesla was a moment of insight is more often happening when you quiet your prefrontal cortex. And so this little part of your brain that's right past your forehead, it's the decision making CEO of your mind, of your brain, and it's overworked. And David Rock, who has a great book called Your Brain at Work, and he says that your prefrontal cortex is about the size of a quarter or maybe fifty cents. The rest of your brain, the subconscious part of your brain is like the entire US. Economy. And yet this small part controls so much of our decision making, strategizing all those things, right? But it's overworked. It's constantly thinking.
Billy Saleebey [00:26:36]:
And so if you go for a run or go to the gym or take a walk or even go to the bathroom or take a shower, all of a sudden these insights, they happen. And so I think put yourself in a position to have more insights by quieting your mind. So that's one as far as how to implement, I think because you put yourself in a position to quiet your mind, I think reflection matters to a point not only to have the insight, but also to think about how you can apply that insight. Because we have so many thoughts throughout the day, but if we don't take the time to again quiet our mind, even an insight of how to leverage an insight will happen when your mind is quiet. So I think it plays in both cases both to have the insight but also to think about implementation. And then the other thing I think is that what I see very common amongst high achievers is speed to implementation so they don't delay. And often what happens for those that perhaps are not quick to implement, it gets forgotten, and then it gets pushed aside because it's forgotten. And it's not something that you're actively doing.
Billy Saleebey [00:27:53]:
But when you act quickly, even if it's not perfect, you do something to allow yourself to implement an insight or a perspective or a new approach, all of a sudden things start to happen. But you got to implement.
Matt Gjertsen [00:28:08]:
Know it's interesting. Tony Robbins talks a lot about this, where he talks about taking massive action whenever you have a goal or some idea that you want to do it's. Like if you say, I want to lose weight, you're on the couch, you're sitting there, I really need to lose some weight. Get up immediately and go clean out your fridge. It's like right in that take that first step, go outside and go for a walk, go for a run. It's all about the faster you can do it. But it really comes back to what you were saying about the insights themselves as well. Is it's about prioritization? It's about versioning.
Matt Gjertsen [00:28:39]:
In order to get that speed, you have to first prioritize in a way that gives you the space to have the insight to think about how to act on it and. Then when you are going to act, be willing to do a version one action and knowing that there will be a version two and a version three. So that's probably how people can speed up their time to action, I would imagine.
Billy Saleebey [00:29:01]:
100%, man. I love how you tied everything together. They all kind of work in harmony if you're able to do something quickly and also realize that it doesn't need to be perfect. Atomic Habits is a great example. If you want to go for a run more, put your shoes by the door. Like little tiny minute things that you might not think anything of puts you in a better position to start to build the behaviors and habits that you want that are the long term things that will help you in the areas where you need most help.
Matt Gjertsen [00:29:36]:
Yeah. Awesome. That's fantastic. Well, I want to respect your time. So as we close out here, we have a couple of kind of rapid fire questions that we tend to end with. The first one is, what is one book or podcast that everyone should read or listen to other than your own? We're definitely going to tell everybody to.
Billy Saleebey [00:29:57]:
Listen to your sure, yeah. No, I appreciate that, man. Well, my favorite business book is The Emyth, and the reason it's my favorite business book is I'm a big believer in systems, big believer in creating process that allows you to duplicate. When you develop a process, it takes the burden off the person. It doesn't mean the person is not important. The person is important. But you get to have both. You get to have really high quality, high achieving, talented people and also have the systems and process for the same reason.
Billy Saleebey [00:30:32]:
That another great book, checklist Manifesto. When you create a checklist, you obviously know this as well as anyone. If you're in the military, if you're in the Air Force, if you're a pilot, you have a checklist. When a doctor, a surgeon, they have a checklist. So why then, as a business owner, do you not have a checklist? Right? Having that dialed in, having that process dialed in, I think is crucial. And what The Emyth teaches is that the McDonald's of the world and the subways and all these different companies, I don't know if they reference subway because it's pretty old, but point being is that they duplicate so well. So that a McDonald's here and a McDonald's in Australia and McDonald's in Italy all serves basically the same food because of the systems. And the E Myth really clearly outlines that philosophy.
Matt Gjertsen [00:31:28]:
Yeah, that makes a lot of I love I love both of those books. I think those are great recommendations. When it comes to reflecting on your own life, what one skill do you think has most helped you be successful?
Billy Saleebey [00:31:42]:
Without a doubt, it's connecting who not how, right. It's who you know is always going to trump. How do you do it right, you'll figure out the how if you find the who. And so life is a series of opportunity to connect with people who could change your life. And if you treat it like that, you'll be able to have a very rich and fulfilling and purpose filled life because of the human beings in your life. And my dad, who luckily is still here with us, and I got to see him last week for lunch, he modeled what that looks like. And if I could give two tips. One is the power of laughter.
Billy Saleebey [00:32:29]:
When you laugh and share humor with people, it connects you. It's like a super strength bond between you and other human beings. That's one thing. The other thing is most people are really bad at keeping in contact with old friends. So here's a little trick. I learned this from Jordan Harbinger, although I kind of did it before he taught me this. But it's looking at your text messages, going back in time, going back to like, I don't know, a year, two years, three years ago, and engaging in conversation and make sure that you are clear that it's not, hey, I got an MLM that I'm sharing with you, or something like that. Because people's guards these days kind of go hi.
Matt Gjertsen [00:33:10]:
Yeah.
Billy Saleebey [00:33:10]:
So just like, hey, I was thinking about you, saw this text, wanted to reach out and say, hi, it's been a while. How are you doing? Maybe give an update on yourself. What this does is it makes you top of mind and you never know what that could end up being. It might be that you help them, which is what's more rewarding than helping other people. It might be that they say, oh, I have somebody. I was thinking about you and I want to refer you business. It might be that you meet up with them for lunch or a coffee or whatever. But point being is nurture those old relationships, those loose ties, those dormant ties that maybe have fallen off, and then all of a sudden your reservoir of connections is always full.
Billy Saleebey [00:33:53]:
And I think people who do this effectively have a really rich life. And they say the number one contributing factor to happiness is connection.
Matt Gjertsen [00:34:03]:
Yeah, 100%. And there's a lot of studies now, even from primate groups and stuff, talking about how it's not the most powerful chimp, it's the most connected chimp. It's the one that it's interesting.
Billy Saleebey [00:34:18]:
Really? I had not heard that. But that's fascinating.
Matt Gjertsen [00:34:23]:
It might have been like a study of bonobos where they were basically looking at different they were looking at different alpha males and which ones lasted the longest and the strongest, most violent males had the shortest and most violent times in power. Right? And the ones who lasted the longest were the ones who were basically it was like the people who or the bonobos that exhibited the most grooming behavior, where they had the most grooming partners of checking each other for insects and stuff.
Billy Saleebey [00:34:57]:
Well, I think Bonobos, I think, are like the closest relatives, right?
Matt Gjertsen [00:35:01]:
Yeah.
Billy Saleebey [00:35:02]:
I think from a genetic standpoint, yeah. That's nuts.
Matt Gjertsen [00:35:06]:
Crazy. Okay, so then final question. Given all of your experience working in different organizations, what do you see as the most common opportunity for organizations to improve their talent development?
Billy Saleebey [00:35:19]:
I think this goes beyond I mean, it goes beyond talent development. I think in general we do too much of iterative processing and trying to make things slightly better than the thing before. And just because things that exist, exist doesn't mean it was existing in the right way. And you know where I'm going with this, it's first principles thinking. And so I think part one is remembering who you're doing it for and why they would be who you're doing it for, what it will take for it to have the impact and the outcome that you want over the long term. And so if you're going to build something from the ground up where you're not just looking at is it slightly better than what was before? But no, let's reimagine this. And then the second part, and this is as important, is you got to get clear on deliverable outcomes of implementation. Because theory is great, concepts are great, knowledge is great.
Billy Saleebey [00:36:29]:
Are people actually taking action? And so I would over index on outcome effectiveness. How is what we're doing and teaching actually being applied in the field? So if it's sales training, for example, how is it changing the behaviors of the salespeople to yield the outcomes that you want either from close rate or customer experience or follow up or whatever the things are that you're working on, is it actually moving the needle? And then get real with why it is or is not? If it is great, keep doing more of that. If it is not, determine what the is not cause is and then make the adjustment from there. So again, first principles thinking. Don't reason by analogy. Think about building it from the ground up with the outcome in mind. And then check those outcomes by being laser focused at what are the actionable things that need to happen and the ultimate outcomes, how do we check for those and make sure they're really happening?
Matt Gjertsen [00:37:30]:
Yeah, there's a lot of brutal honesty in there that you need to really look at if something's going to be.
Billy Saleebey [00:37:35]:
Effective which doesn't happen enough. I mean, that's the thing. It's so common where you do a training and then that's it. And it's like you just kind of think, okay, well, the training happened, so it's what I call check the box. You check the box. But did it do what you wanted it to do? And if it didn't, what's the point? It's just a waste. Wasted your time, wasted the money, wasted the time of the student. Figure out how to make it so it's not check the box.
Matt Gjertsen [00:38:03]:
Yeah, no, that's perfect. Awesome. Well, Billy, it is always such a pleasure to chat with you. I thought this was great. I'm sure our listeners got a lot out of it. Thank you so much. We'll make sure to share your podcast in the notes below so people can check out inside out. They can check out Spotify.
Matt Gjertsen [00:38:22]:
I hope you have a great rest of your day, rest of your week, and we're coming up on Thanksgiving as we're recording. Anyway, so I hope you and your family have a really happy Thanksgiving.
Billy Saleebey [00:38:29]:
Likewise, Matt, and happy Thanksgiving to you, to your family, it's a pleasure. I'm super grateful for our friendship and looking forward to continuing all the things that you're doing and that I'm doing. And hopefully we can continue to work together, collaborate and enjoy each other's company. Man, it's been an honor.
Matt Gjertsen [00:38:49]:
Awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for tuning in today. If you liked the discussion, make sure to hit like and subscribe so you never miss an episode. As a reminder, if your team is struggling keeping up with the training development demands of your organization, we want to help. Better Everyday Studios is a full service instructional design team that can help you with everything from ideation to actual content creation and delivery. Please reach out to us using the link in the episode notes below. Have a great day.
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