We are starting back to work soon and there’s some anxiety around our “New Normal” and exactly what that means, but first a question we must ask and answer for ourselves. A question that holds the answer to how we plan to live the rest of lives, it’s simply this - How has this crisis changed us? We explore this topic from a man who has lived his life in 2 distinct parts – BEFORE the plane went down on January 15th, 2009, and AFTER.
In this episode, you’ll meet Dave Sanderson, the last passenger on US Airways flight 1549 that ditched into the Hudson River. Dave made many interesting personal leadership choices during that experience but perhaps, more importantly, he made a personal choice on HOW to live his LIFE after the incident. Dave is an inspirational survivor, speaker, and author of the book “Moments Matter”. His thoughts on leadership have made him an internationally sought-out speaker. The last passenger off the back of the plane on that fateful day, he was largely responsible for the well-being and safety of others, risking his own life in frigid water to help other passengers off the plane. Despite the hazards to himself, Sanderson thought only of helping others and emerged from the wreckage with a mission: to encourage others to do the right thing. Today, he travels the globe sharing his inspirational and motivational leadership messages to help people make a difference in how they do business and live their lives.
https://davesandersonspeaks.com/
You can reach Dave on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/hiredavesanderson/
03:00 Dave’s story
11:45 Throw the baby! / when people freeze
14:33 It’s not always the person with the title
17:12 You asked General Norman Schwarzkopf - what?
21:42 Life Before and after January 15
36:19 No one dies today
42:17 Challenging bureaucracy
51:31 The morning routine
1:00:03 I made a choice
[Transcript]
[00:00:00] Welcome to the finding gravitas podcast brought to you by gravitas Detroit, looking to become a more authentic leader. Finding gravitas is the podcast for you. Gravitas is the ultimate leadership quality that draws people in it's an irresistible force encompassing all the traits of authentic leadership junior podcast, host Jan Griffis, that passionate rebellious farmer's daughter from Wales entrepreneur leadership, coach keynote speaker, one of the top 100 leading women in the automotive industry.
[00:00:39] As she interviews some of the finest leadership minds in the quest for gravitas
[00:00:49] Jan: [00:00:49] with going back to work. That's right. Many of the States are lifting the stay at home orders. And we're starting to think about what life in the new [00:01:00] normal could look like and feel like the question is this, what have we learned from this crisis? We've learned to live from home with the whole family being home.
[00:01:15] At the same time, we've learned to work from home. We've learned many different ways of doing things because of our lives have been turned inside out and upside down. But what have we really learned about how we lead our own lives and how we lead others moving forward? I could think of no better person to help us explore this topic than a man who has lived his life in two parts before a crisis.
[00:01:45] And after a crisis that crisis. Was the plane that landed in the Hudson known as the miracle on the Hudson. And that guy is Dave Sanderson. The last [00:02:00] passenger on that plane. Dave was your typical corporate sales manager going home after a business trip. We'll talk about his life before and after January the 15th, 2009.
[00:02:16] And what that has done to him, how that has changed him, we'll explore the leadership experiences that he went through on the plane that day. And then after. Dave was the director of security for Tony Robbins. And he now runs his own business. Dave Sanderson enterprises. He is a global well-known leadership speaker, a true inspiration and definitely a survivor.
[00:02:47] So please welcome to the show, Dave Sam.
[00:02:51] Dave: [00:02:51] Well, thank you so much for having me
[00:02:56] Jan: [00:02:56] more question to the guests is simply this what's your [00:03:00] story, but I have to ask you that question in a slightly different way, because it is quite a story indeed. So my question is this Dave Sanderson. What is your story before and after January 15th, 2009.
[00:03:22] Dave: [00:03:22] Well, there are definitely two different versions of what happened for me in my life. So before January 15, 2009, I had a 25 year career in sales, top producer wise for kids trying to do the right thing. I actually was modeling my dad, right. I'd go out, earn the income, bring it home. And my family have a better life for themselves.
[00:03:47] Um, travel was consistent. I was on the road probably three nights a week, sometimes four nights a week, trying to do what I saw was the right thing to do. Um, [00:04:00] and so for the 25 years, I did that. I missed a lot of things with my kids because I was focused on truly driving income so they could have what they needed.
[00:04:10] And that was pretty much my Mo since about 1986. So in 2009, um, you know, got married, right. And did the whole thing that was for kids, but then January 15, 2009, that sort of flipping a lot of things were coming to light that generally, um, I should have seen earlier in my life, but I think sometimes you need some sort of give you a perspective when I survived the plane crash and I wasn't supposed to be on, I was scheduled to be on the farm.
[00:04:50] I had a first class seat cause I travel so much. I gave up the first class seat was Janice. I know I can relate. [00:05:00] Yeah, I'm a big guy. I sort of get used to the first class, but you don't want to get home early
[00:05:09] so I can even negotiate my way up on that flight. Seeds, because basically
[00:05:19] nothing unusual. If you look in New York city, it's 11 degrees that day it was snowing. No big deal is right. You know? And why was the late twenties were backed up? No big deal, nothing extraordinary. Even to the point where I was on the plane until about 60, 70 seconds after noon, the whole life shifted that's that's.
[00:05:45] That was the second. And the actual moment when things started to shift, because that's when you heard the explosion, they knew something had happened, but
[00:05:57] I was like, okay, [00:06:00] Know, we'll go back to the airport, don't get your knickers all over, right? Because some things happen, but then all of a sudden you start banking in different ways.
[00:06:12] And all of a sudden you see something happened, no big deal, but I think don't be you. I think that was one of the most extraordinary parts of the story that doesn't get torn along because both engines got hit simultaneously. And I think I truly believe Jack and I send this on many, many interviews. I'll take, if we want to hurt bang, bang,
[00:06:40] you're in New York plane going up, going towards Manhattan, but you heard bang. So be with, okay, we have other engines, same grace. It doesn't get talked about a lot, but even after that, as you were banking,
[00:06:58] the New York skyline [00:07:00] and all of a sudden you're seeing a bridge, never seen it and it's getting big. It's getting big in the window. Rising things are getting big. All of a sudden things that things have to take place. And all of a sudden they get over the bridge without your heading straight for the water, because there was no other option.
[00:07:21] I mean, the cruise in a fabulous job that day, I give them all the credit, but now we're heading to the water and that's the moment you're thinking. I may not come back. And I think most people on that plane had that initial thought, like, you know what? You don't ever see a plane crash. It ends up well, especially when it goes into the water, because I remember when they hit the tip of the wing and he started topical and somebody told me, in fact, Tony Robbins, shortly afterwards, he was even talking about, you know, this could have been a bigger city
[00:08:02] [00:08:00] or just the opposite toppling into Newark in Russia. Now you have something that's bigger than anything that's ever really happened like that. But fortunately, that didn't happen. But now you're in the water. We talked about two parts, there's two parts we got down and we survived. But now you're in a stinking plate in 36 degree water.
[00:08:26] Which means odd towards the back of the plane. I'm not in the front of the plane. Like I was scheduled to be I'm in the back of the plane. So if you ever saw these sides, photo of planes, most you don't see the photo because that's the famous picture. Picture was a head picture. I show people the side picture in the water and about just leaving water.
[00:08:48] So that's when your leadership really starts stepping up because now you have to think of your personal leadership skills. Now you mean on the way down, generally control anything, but now you can control yourself. Right? So now [00:09:00] I tell people, this is one personal leadership comes to the forefront because now you have to make decisions to take action quickly, but you don't have that many resources to make decisions on.
[00:09:09] So we're like we're in now. There's a lot of information coming up and we got to make decisions pretty quick.
[00:09:17] That day was changing every minute. So I had to make the decisions on basically a minute to minute basis. Do I do this? Do I do this such as you know, when I got to the aisle, my decision initially was just to get out of the plane, get out. But then I heard my mom start talking to me in my head. What she said to me is if you do the right thing, God will take care of you, which made you make another decision.
[00:09:37] And after that's last three or four, you'll start thinking about what she said. And then I was like, she doesn't do the right thing. She said, if you do the right thing, which gives you the compensation you make, the decision and leaders have to make decisions to the two key tenants. As you know, leadership, especially personal leadership is being resourceful and the ability to make decisions quick.
[00:10:01] [00:10:00] So I had to make decisions. So that's when I decided to go towards the back of the plane to see if anybody needed help, because that one jet, my thought process was okay, I'm alive. I'm alive. Does anybody else need help? Josh with, towards the back of the plane, he got behind everybody else and back in the plane.
[00:10:25] So now you're just, the water is 36 degree water and you're making it out to come left and right. Do I go all the way up here? So decisions were being made to be made a different decision, and that is now I'm just going to get out of the plane. You get on the way. There's no room on the boat in the way.
[00:10:46] So what decision do you make now? Do you force yourself out or do you sort of hang back? And the reason I hang back with two different reasons, number one, the second thing was Lisa, the plane I had leverage [00:11:00] because there was a picture taken of me. I had the leverage to hold on to that inside the plane.
[00:11:08] So I have leverage at that point, at least I was waist deep in the water, so I can at least. Have asked functions, my hands and the boat was floating out into the river and they were yelling. Hold on, hold on. So part of leadership is you got to step up and just, you know, think controls that, you know what?
[00:11:27] I gotta do it at 36 degree water for seven minutes.
[00:11:35] So that decision was intentional once I heard, hold on, hold on. But it wasn't didn't even come to my mind, but now, all right, you're in the plane that you've seen the business meetings before we're in a business meeting. All of a sudden someone asks somebody a question, any fruits, they don't know what to do.
[00:11:53] And that's what happened. I saw a lady who didn't know what to do. If she was standing in the middle, the way she didn't know what to do. And I [00:12:00] tell people, one of the things you realize and learn is sometimes you do nothing. It's a very dangerous situation because now you've got people trying to get around you.
[00:12:07] Right? You gotta make a decision, right? So that's when I yelled at him, because one of the things I've learned in my time with is how to break people's States and how you do that as do something radical because it gets her attention. So I just started yelling at this lady and she looked at me like, who's this old guy yelling.
[00:12:29] And all of a sudden, somebody else took her hand and got her off. So that was intentional.
[00:12:39] She had the moods. I mean, this note, I'm very candid. Sometimes there's no time to be really nice if you just got to go, especially when it's life and death. And right now it's life and death, this world, this thing was going on now. So some people were in that state that you got to catch it, right? And there's no room for people to wait [00:13:00] 14 days to figure things out.
[00:13:04] Sometimes you just got to go. And that was a golden moment for me that got done. But now I'm still in the plane. So, what
[00:13:16] I said was hold onto the boat until I felt the point shifts. I found out later, it says the ride from the plane, as you were backing out with shook the plane. That's not on my back. I'm like Titanic. I got you that this thing's going down, man. I got to get out of here. And fortunately for me, my parents gave me between lessons and I jumped in so swimming to the closest boats
[00:13:46] because I realized later on all those moments in my life.
[00:13:54] And more importantly, when I was in boy Scouts [00:14:00] and camping
[00:14:05] in across a river and we swim and that was a river in the hot. That's a, maybe that was the moment that gave me the certainty to be able to do this go because I made the decision to go and I probably would have made that decision unless I had certainty in myself that I could do it. There's one thing you worry about leadership.
[00:14:25] And I think this is true. And Tony said this and he taught me this person with the most certainty at certain times, I don't care if you're the CEO.
[00:14:41] If you get people certainty, you become a leader. And right now people who are in social uncertainty. So the people who are leaders now they're gonna be holding new, proper leaders are gonna be able to get certainty to people will step up and rise to the leaders because we will look to them for certainty.
[00:14:58] And that's what happened. You know, when you, [00:15:00] and I think in situations like this, sometimes your skill sets, not the best skillset. Sometimes you got to check your own ego. It's a door. I think great leaders. One of the things I talked about leadership leaders, have they got a backup, let somebody else take the lead.
[00:15:17] And there was a guy on the other side, he was a Marine.
[00:15:25] He said he was in the Marines.
[00:15:30] That's probably exactly what people need. If it was a total, total fear, that's what's going on right now because people right now, people who are getting leadership right now, or people stepping up doing the zoom calls, giving people the positivity that we aren't going to get through this. This is how we're going to get through it.
[00:15:48] And that's part of leadership
[00:15:50] Jan: [00:15:50] that it's not always the person with the big title and that's a misconception and this is [00:16:00] very much an opportunity. Whereas some people may sit back and wait for the people with the titles to step up and lead. But that's not always the case and your situation, albeit a more extreme version, but there's a classic situation.
[00:16:15] You could not expect the captain, for example, the one who had the title, if you will. Right? Well, that situation to call all the shots, it took several different people on that plane to step up and lead in different areas.
[00:16:31] Dave: [00:16:31] Most definitely
[00:16:37] so many different leaders, no matter if you're the CEO. Excellent. It does. Everybody's saying why black gain straight garbage guy. It doesn't matter. Everybody's the same when you're going down and when you get now, so that's the last time you find out how leaders step up, right? Cause you're you take, what happens is, is [00:17:00] a crisis.
[00:17:02] This is six minute flight, seven to 10 minutes out. I mean, we're still in the 15 to 30 minutes. And that's when all of a sudden leaders have to step up. Because one of the things that I learned years ago when I had the option that I had, when I was with Tony and had a security, I had the opportunity.
[00:17:21] He was, he was a gentleman that he was in charge of central command. He was in charge of the first order to escort him. When he came to speak at one of Tony's events. Unbelievable. I've never been around a four star general for my life. Just the presence is amazing. I asked him a question and this is a stuck will be now for over 20 years.
[00:17:45] And I asked him, if I ask you a question, he goes, Oh, you just ask him. You really want to know, like, he was just cut to the chase. Right. I said, I really want to just go ahead and ask him, how did you win the war in Iraq? So quick, as you said, [00:18:00] gave me this Pat answer. I've heard that before. Right? So may I ask you another question because no one ever asked a general second question got really intense.
[00:18:12] I said, how did you really want it? He looked me in the eyes. He's like some thinking, no one's ever asked me that question. I'm going to answer it. He said, every day theater people will come to me with problems.
[00:18:28] They had to pray five times a day. I kept reminding the troops. How does this contribute to kicking Saddam? I had to remind people of the mission. It wasn't going to Baghdad. It wasn't Joni is keeping them as
[00:18:48] leaders focused on the mission. If you can keep that focused on that focus and remind shrimps, remind your teams, this is our outcome. I'll help you get there. Sometimes I'll step back. [00:19:00] Sometimes I'll step up. I'll talk about leadership. I talk about baseball. I love baseball, but the manager steps in
[00:19:10] strike out.
[00:19:16] So he I've remembered Jan for over 20 years. So, yeah,
[00:19:21] Jan: [00:19:21] and it you're right. It's about painting this picture of call it the mission, the future, the vision, whatever you want to say, right. It's it's and it's delivering it with this bone deep commitment and certainty that it's going to happen. And knowing that you don't have all the information at that point, but you just know that you're going in a certain direction and it's going to happen.
[00:19:48] And I think that that is maybe the ultimate leadership quality that people have the. The fear and paralysis that people are feeling [00:20:00] now. And obviously the, the same situation. When you describe the woman on the plane, what advice would you give people who are feeling that fear and paralysis right now?
[00:20:13] Because we've all gone through different variations of the grief cycle. And we've all had those moments where we've been sitting in front of the TV and watching the death counter and CNN and being gripped by fear. I think anybody who hasn't had at least a moment of that probably doesn't have a pulse, but how do you, how do you push through that?
[00:20:34] Get over that so you can get into this positive leadership mindset.
[00:20:40] Dave: [00:20:40] Well, one of the things I learned years ago, and I tried it, I do every single day is focused on gratitude. Because when you have gratitude, there is no fear because you're giving it to yourself. A few minutes ago, we were talking about something.
[00:20:54] I did a couple of weeks and I didn't even think about right, but I did just a little video and that was a direct cross giving [00:21:00] platelets. And I do a lot with the red cross because of my experience. So I was there. They asked me to do a little PSA. I did that, but the guy that was probably one of the most important things that people needed to see, because you were showing, even in times of crisis, they're telling you to stay home.
[00:21:18] You can still go out and give blood and give gratitude to somebody else. You can still give out a different way. Right. But this was all about, I'm just going to give today. Right. And somebody is going to get my surviving cancer because of me. So how can I ask fear when I'm giving gratitude?
[00:21:42] Jan: [00:21:42] I think, uh, yeah, that's it, that's a really good point.
[00:21:45] The guy that I see sitting before me today is not the guy that lived in that corporate mold prior to January 15th. We've all lived that corporate [00:22:00] life. And there are many people out there today living that corporate life that you described. Prior to the incident, we'll call it the incident right there.
[00:22:09] They're doing what they can. They want to increase their income so that they can provide for more and more for their family. You know, many of the, not, not just men, but men and women in corporate America today are on planes. You know, and we're all proud of our platinum status or whatever it is so that we can get all the upgrades and, uh, we're just charging, right.
[00:22:31] And we're doing, doing, doing, and we're doing more. There's an ego part of that with this corporate mold where we want to get more responsibility and maybe a bigger and better title. And I can relate to this because that was the person that I was, uh, several years ago. So, but that's not the guy that's sitting here today.
[00:22:51] So how did that incident change you? And if you will break you out of that mold.
[00:22:59] Dave: [00:22:59] Um, there are [00:23:00] a lot of little things that happen. There's lost small miracles. And I think I know the one thing has sort of shifted my mindset. There's a lot of things have shifted, but I think there's one thing that sort of got my mindset and I need to start thinking a different way.
[00:23:15] What happened? I was in the green room. We just got off good morning America. And there was a bunch of passengers and the crew and we were back in the green room, but there was one passenger who's
[00:23:31] now being around Tony. I've seen this happen. I've seen the pattern. I've seen it play out. Right. Where's the thing I never want to see you all over again. Now what's wrong with this guy, right? I mean, we survived national TV and I started thinking like, that's interesting. I asked a different question, but what I did is I found out something about it.
[00:23:58] He just [00:24:00] lost his job. And then all of a sudden I realized, I didn't know this guy's backstory, no wondering why he associated that situation.
[00:24:14] And I started thinking, Jason, how many times in my life, if I thought made a judgment on somebody, maybe cost me a relationship, a job, a love relationship money I made so quickly. So I understood the back story of how it got there. And I said, if I could change that one worldview. Mark has become less judgmental.
[00:24:37] It's just shifted. I don't judge people so quickly. Maybe I should ask some questions or at least understand the situation that changed the entire direction of my life. Because all of a sudden I sort of started rolling off my back and my job and I started a job. I started thinking I'm much more than this now.
[00:24:53] I mean, I've survived something. That's very few people in the world have ever survived, but now it's like, you know, [00:25:00] if I, I start driving, judge my company all the time, stuff's up, right? I mean, I'll say start back and say, you know what, maybe I don't know the whole story. And all of a sudden I now speak against the Supreme court, justice Kennedy.
[00:25:14] I'm doing the things that I've never
[00:25:18] become less judgmental. And that's I tell people when you, when you start making that shift and you start getting that burn, that you're in the corporate world for your license, you're not adding a value. You need to add, know how to do it. Maybe I start thinking that
[00:25:38] there's a reason behind everything. Let me sit back and not be judgmental. That's exactly what happened. So when I tell
[00:25:52] some things in your job, and yes, it's, it's tough enough to report to somebody every day,
[00:26:02] [00:26:00] but there are all sorts of benefits to them. And right now there's more people would want to have a job.
[00:26:13] That's going to shift those people now realize, you know what? I can do this. I can do this. And it's all about giving first, before you add value to yourself. That's okay.
[00:26:29] Jan: [00:26:29] This idea of judgment, I think is very important right now, as we're in the middle of this pandemic, because people's very basic needs are being threatened, right?
[00:26:41] We're fighting over toilet paper at Costco, right? Where we're afraid that we're not going to have enough food. The, some of our very basic needs that we've taken for granted all this time. Now there's a question Mark and add on top of that, the fear of unemployment or reduced [00:27:00] income, and then the pressure of perhaps two spouses working at home with small children, everybody's in a confined space.
[00:27:08] So people are a bit more aggressive and jumpy. On calls with their interaction. And I think your message is a powerful one. We all need to take a moment and understand the backstory as you put it. What's going on in somebody's life before we judge or interact or try to sort of punch back, right. It's uh, take a moment just like you did in the green room, let it play out and recognize that there's an awful lot of pressure and tension that people are working with right now.
[00:27:44] And it is the leader that will take their teams through this crisis. And beyond that will really take a moment to understand that and connect with people on a deeply human level, which I think is, is an opportunity for a lot of leaders to [00:28:00] learn. If they have not connected at a human level before that are going to now, what are your thoughts around, around that in terms of an opportunity for a leader now during this pandemic?
[00:28:13] Dave: [00:28:13] USC leaders shine because one of the things on an interview in Sydney Australia, a few weeks ago, I shared something and Katelyn just sort of came out, seemed very apropos. We were talking about this, the pandemic there, it was just getting geared up and Sydney. I said right now, I said, what are you going to find out leadership right now is great leaders.
[00:28:35] I just take it to a term of aviation sort of metaphor. And if you can navigate me to communicate, I say, great leaders can do those three things. And he said, what do you mean? You're a great leader. Focused execution means keep your plane up in the year. As long as you possibly can. Right now, what people's perceptions, lousy questions are asking themselves, [00:29:00] but I don't have enough money.
[00:29:01] How am I going to eat? Instead of asking more questions, how am I going to keep my plane personal plane in the air? So it's all about focused execution. You can't miss steps. You got can't miss details right now. If you need a loan from the SBA, you better be smart on there's things you have to do in order to get it done.
[00:29:18] The second thing is navigate. You've kept your personal planes in the air now. Right. You kept it up. We're fine. We got it over the bridge and how he got navigate. You got to get to a place
[00:29:31] it's all about resourcefulness because people's perceptions are we have a lack of resources, right? I don't have the money, the income I have. I don't have the food. I've got lack of resources that are being resourceful, which means resources that day on the plane. I had to go into resourceful mode. It's all about resourcefulness, even to the point where,
[00:29:57] so there's one resource that I always have is my head. [00:30:00] If I can manage that and not lose it, I can get so great news of how to navigate
[00:30:09] in great leaders. Now are learning how to communicate effectively. What do you mean by that? Well, you know, people communicate basically three different ways.
[00:30:24] So the first thing that I do,
[00:30:30] and I'm a visual communication, I'm using visual words. I'll give you a perfect example. My wife can talk for 30 minutes and not take a breath. She could just talk and talk and talk. I got it. I got it. Right. I got the answer. I don't need the detail. Well, that doesn't work really well in a relationship when you have a visual person, I got it.
[00:30:57] All right. And there's a lot of, and [00:31:00] female, male, male, male, female. It doesn't matter. So once I started playing, because I knew it, but I wasn't doing it. All of a sudden our relationship grew to a different level because now I'm communicating more the business all the time. Jane, I go, no, this has meaning identified visual arts work and stuff.
[00:31:19] Now, all of a sudden you're seeing me saying, I see what you're saying. I see what you're saying, or I hear what you're saying. And all of a sudden I'm connecting it through level. Now, communicating as a leader communicates, right? So age that's a great
[00:31:33] Jan: [00:31:33] point. Communication starts with how we. Communicate with ourselves.
[00:31:40] The story that we tell ourselves, see, I was paying attention at the Tony Robbins seminar.
[00:31:47] Dave: [00:31:47] It's a story over their heads,
[00:31:49] Jan: [00:31:49] right? The meaning that you associate to things. And now, honestly, that was probably one of the biggest things that I got out of the sessions that I went to with Tony and that's [00:32:00] happening right now.
[00:32:01] And that's probably one of the biggest breakthroughs for me too, is this, it's the meaning that you associate to things. So you can look at this situation, this pandemic and think this is the worst thing ever that's ever going to happen in my lifetime. And you can tell yourself it's awful. And you can validate that with a whole bunch of things and activities that are happening or not happening, or you can say this is happening.
[00:32:26] It's not pretty. Yes, it's awful. However, this is how I'm going to show up in this moment. And you, you told yourself a story in that plane, right? When, when you stepped up. So what do you remember? What was that? What was the, what was going on in your head?
[00:32:44] Dave: [00:32:44] Well, you hit a very key point because I did a Ted talk about how to grow from traumatic loss experiences, TGS post-traumatic growth,
[00:32:55] especially towards the end. I would say, go, go, go. [00:33:00] But towards the end. So how to play with the emotions of your life and emotion, right? So emotion is your why's meaning your tasks, lousy meanings. You're attached to, how do you, you got to reframe the meaning. Right. So I'll give you a perfect example.
[00:33:18] Shortly after the play, I was doing a mock interviews and some people were saying, I don't know why this happened to me. I've never been a plane crash. Things happen like this all the time to me,
[00:33:31] I survived. This gave me a whole to give me a whole new reason to have the meaning. Same as how to grow from a traumatic loss is attached to a different meaning and restraint. This is an unbelievable time to reconnect with people and start a new business right now, finding your business. I mean, even home, right.
[00:33:59] A blueprint, [00:34:00] right? I mean, you're given the opportunity to be with our families.
[00:34:08] And I understand that I got it.
[00:34:15] Sort of connect with my daughter. Who's now in college right
[00:34:24] now. And my goal is to help them restrain her meetings, maybe a different perspective.
[00:34:32] Jan: [00:34:32] Yes. And then once you have, once you've got that thing straight, you got the story straight in your head and you know how you're going to look at this pandemic and you're going to see a way out and you're going to inspire others, the energy that you bring to that engagement.
[00:34:48] When I'm talking about this during my keynotes, I tell people you have the power to change the room. So use it, and you can use that power. And we all have it, as you will [00:35:00] know, and you can use that power on zoom on a video call when the cameras are on, because people can feel that energy coming through the screen, they can feel that level of commitment.
[00:35:12] They can, they can see the authenticity. You know, you'll get tells you when you're talking to somebody who's authentic or not. And I have to believe that. In that plane. I don't know whether people were thinking about whether you were authentic or not, but they were, you know, they, they were, they were doing it.
[00:35:30] They were stepping up and they were doing it.
[00:35:33] Dave: [00:35:33] Yeah. I think you see the wrong when you're going through something like that. You see it, that you seen the bare bones of people
[00:35:43] everybody's got to their primary need. And when you're in survival mode, some people are now, they go to the primary need. Some people need, certainly some people need significance, some people need contribution. So that's one of the things, your mindset you're going, [00:36:00] you know,
[00:36:04] there's probably a lot more certainly significance, but that contribution. It connection because if you watch the movies and I tell people the salt, that's it, there's one part in that movie that resonates with stories that no one dies. And that was like an unspoken mantra. So it's all about contribution.
[00:36:30] We're going to give to each other, we're going to connect with each other and all of a sudden people's moods and primaries shifted instead of survival. We're going to make sure everybody's taken care of, which is a whole different level of connection. Now,
[00:36:42] Jan: [00:36:42] when you say, when you say that, you know that somebody actually verbalized it, somebody said with certainty, nobody's going to die today.
[00:36:48] Right? And that's what leaders need to do now in this pandemic is to say, we're going to get through this. We're going to get through this. I don't have all the answers, some level of vulnerability there, but I am certain that [00:37:00] we're going to get through this. Um, Yeah,
[00:37:02] Dave: [00:37:02] it's all about safety. So I had that question the other day, Jan, and I said, you know what?
[00:37:09] I said, one thing I've hung my hat on right now. Maybe I'm hanging your hat on something that God the same Daniel, that pit. So there's one thing to certain. I believe there's a greater being. And that's certainly because that being has been there for thousands, thousands, millions of years. There's no more certainty than that.
[00:37:28] So if you believe you believe what's I do, there's a greater being. The same one was there is the same one is here and there's a reason behind this. And he will, if you believe and have faith in something, you don't see, you will get through this, but you gotta be smart because I had a kid the other day. I, one of the things I'm doing today, everyday, just checking on five feet.
[00:37:48] I just call him. I call him young man. Last week, he's in Canada. He saw me speak last year and I was just checking in on a dude. And he didn't 20. He didn't remember. [00:38:00] So I start talking to them and I said, what are you doing right now? He goes, Mr. Sanders and get real. I don't know what I'm doing. I said that was not the time to get real.
[00:38:11] Now's the time to get intelligent,
[00:38:17] but I had to speak. I was like, no, getting real. It's not time. You can't miss details. Right. People picked up on this, people picked up on, are you calling with autism, vulnerability and authenticity and congruency, are you calling to get something from
[00:38:38] Jan: [00:38:38] me? Yeah. And people can see that you can, you can sense that.
[00:38:42] I think those people that think that they're fooling others, you know, you're only fooling yourself because people can see right through that.
[00:38:52] Dave: [00:38:52] And now's not the time to be selling this, put yourself with now's the time to go into that mode.
[00:39:02] [00:39:00] Totally. And that's what I was telling the young man. He was so taken aback to him, but some guy like not blowing my own horn, but I've been in the media. This guy calls me out of the blue. And I remembered this young man from, to the gig in Toronto. And when he said, that's your problem, you think everything's gotta be real, but you gotta be smart.
[00:39:30] You gotta pull that intelligence resource out right. In everything you do is like, is this a smart move? And how am I gonna invest my money? I just went out of style.
[00:39:43] I said, I said, you got to cut this off, right. Or you got to be broke. Right. So you don't have any options left, right, Tom, to get smart right now,
[00:39:55] Jan: [00:39:55] let's talk about control. We all thought that we had control over our [00:40:00] lives before the pandemic hit and then it hit. And then we all thought that we had lost control, but in reality, we never really had control to begin with.
[00:40:10] It was just an illusion. What are your thoughts on that? Uh,
[00:40:15] Dave: [00:40:15] I would say that you give the example back on the plane because when you're in a plane, uh, you think you've got control, but you realize there's you have no control whatsoever. I mean, you know, you're not flying the plane controls your mind. So learn, especially when he goes, he goes on a plane in a challenging situation.
[00:40:37] The only thing you control your mind because you can't find the plane, you can't get up to get. So I would agree right now our lives right now, we have no control. There's no certainty.
[00:40:51] It gets flustered because I always thought they had control, but reality, there's so many other forces. [00:41:00] So you better go with the mindset of variety right now because you know, this is, this is a great learning experience. You know, I, to learn things and I'd never thought that I learned. So I would say my coaching to people, especially leaders, leaders will be able to shift.
[00:41:17] This is a great learning experience. Now I have no control over. What's going to happen. Check my check. I have no control how I react to things right now. If I react positively, things will work out. I'm going to be positive.
[00:41:35] Jan: [00:41:35] Yeah. You know where I see this playing out, Dave is, uh, perhaps micromanagers, right?
[00:41:41] So you get the more of the, not necessarily command and control, but the micromanagers and the people that have resisted this flexible work from home kind of situation. Right. And they've resisted it because they need to see their people. They want to see their people in the office and they want to make sure that they're working because they have this [00:42:00] fear of letting go of delegating.
[00:42:02] And there's so many, so many issues behind that, but now they have no choice. So they have to deal with this. So they have to deal with that fear, whether they like it or not. And I'd kind of like that.
[00:42:17] Dave: [00:42:17] Yeah, I'll give you a real life experiences. I've realized a couple of weeks ago, because one of the things I've been really focused on is helping people get mad because I have a network now that I have no people who can make that happen.
[00:42:30] So I put myself out there to just make the connections for helping hospitals get masks. That's great. They all need masks, right? And because an average hospital may have 10,000 nurses saying three shifts. That's 10,000 masks a day, seven days a week of 70,000 masters for nurses a week. That's a lot of mass.
[00:42:51] So you make that happen, right? So you get to that bridge and you've been in supply chain. You know this, you get to that bridge. I got it. [00:43:00] We're good to go. And now I got two 50 layers of paper, but you got an entrepreneur on the side and just figured it out. Now I've got mass and I'll get you the mask in 48 hours.
[00:43:12] You can have them, but you got to you the paperwork. Right. So all of a sudden you got this, you can make it happen. And they want control of the supply chain people, and they won't control the process. It's a process. It's a wild, wild West, the process and the play right now, which is a really uncertain for a lot of people in business.
[00:43:30] Like you said,
[00:43:36] so right now, one of the things you're learning, because if you have a need and hospitals have a need for people, but if you need five, 10 layers of love, sign off, we're all going to the government or by the way, give you an example. So you have a celebrity over here, somebody who says, you know what I want to buy mastering the children's hospitals, all write a [00:44:00] check for $500,000 and we'll get them 250,000 masks kind of like how they do it because they made it happen.
[00:44:10] They took action. You understand wild, wild West this year. And if you're a supplier, you to go through all the different levels, right? And you have people dying.
[00:44:30] Jan: [00:44:30] And that's why this is again, an opportunity. So to your 15 levels of paperwork, when it's a life and death situation, which it really is, and you decide to lead and step up and make a decision to either, to either say, you know what, no more 15 layers of paperwork.
[00:44:48] We're going to do this, this, this, and this, because you have a sense of the real business needs of what you need to satisfy. And you can cut through all of that. Then after this crisis is over, you can [00:45:00] say, huh? You know what we did that in a crisis mode. So why can't we do that on a normal day to day basis?
[00:45:08] This could be an enormous opportunity to reduce a lot of the waste in corporate America today. It's, it's very important what we do today during the crisis. Of course it is, but it's equally important what we do with the information that we learn and how we apply it after the crisis.
[00:45:27] Dave: [00:45:27] Most definitely. I mean, you look at these, the ventilators are going on right now.
[00:45:30] Right? All of a sudden New York, these 14,000 family, they didn't, but they did. So what happens? People re-engineer their soft processes, right? And when it's a Ford and GM and some of these other plants, and now they're making ventilators or the government process, right. Process break broken right now, process is important.
[00:45:53] I'm not discounting, but. You're going to learn exactly. [00:46:00] We cut through all the red sand. We got the supplies, we handle it very quickly and we probably saved the whole cause you don't have to do all this stuff, right. Maybe we should maybe look a different way to do business. And all of a sudden we can speed up our, how would you,
[00:46:17] Jan: [00:46:17] those processes were put in place because somebody had a problem way back when, so they put a bandaid fix in there and then it became the way of life and the way of doing business and everybody adopted it.
[00:46:28] And very few people challenged it until now.
[00:46:35] Dave: [00:46:35] And entrepreneur who's got the mask is okay, you got a problem.
[00:46:42] What we'll do this, all you gotta do now is with the money to escrow, we don't touch until it's delivered. So it gives you time to do your 15 layers of paperwork, right?
[00:46:56] Well, I can't do it that way. It's like, [00:47:00] you're sitting there going, you're pulling your hair and it's like, you're going, I fixed your problem for you. I got you. The product that you've got total coverage that you're not, you don't have any, any risk at all. You put it in escrow. I'm not going to touch it.
[00:47:15] And you still can't do it. You're costing peoples lives.
[00:47:19] Jan: [00:47:19] Yeah. That's a different way of thinking,
[00:47:23] Dave: [00:47:23] trying to different ways of thinking. So go back to question a couple of minutes ago, coming out of this with different mindsets, they're going to see this and you know what I've figured out ways to fix things ways.
[00:47:35] I never thought I could fix it
[00:47:41] or staying with staying with the hospital. I can fix it and I'm gonna fix it. Cause I know both.
[00:47:49] Good. They really figured out the problem. Now
[00:47:52] Jan: [00:47:52] I love that you're seeing people rise up to this, whether it's an entrepreneur, whether it's a leader within an [00:48:00] organization. And I was on a call yesterday as a young woman who was pretty good at her job, you know, but maybe not at the forefront of the activity in the, in the company.
[00:48:11] And she was receiving all kinds of accolades from other people on the team, because in this time of crisis, she stepped up and you saw what this woman had in terms of leadership ability. And that might not have come out or might've taken years to come out. So that's why my message has been over the last several weeks.
[00:48:33] Get into step up and lead. Now, now is the time to do it. And don't, don't look to the corporate rule book because it's not there. There is no corporate robot. It is out the window. This is the perfect time.
[00:48:50] Dave: [00:48:50] I think
[00:48:53] are so focused on the situation and the process of, okay, I've got to do this, this, this, this, and this
[00:49:03] [00:49:00] thing about millennials I'm learning,
[00:49:09] but they don't understand. They don't understand what you're going for. So that's the gap right now, millennials. Right? So these are our next leaders coming in. So we gotta get them focused on teachers, some process. Well, I like what you're doing on this side too, because
[00:49:32] you know, when I grew up, you know, 40 years ago, you would never ever think about calling maybe a vice-president and now these kids are calling. I need two weeks off. Why don't you talk to him? Talk to you. They just cut through all the crap, right? They
[00:49:48] Jan: [00:49:48] do. And I've seen that. In fact, um, I have a reverse mentoring relationship with a young woman, Danielle Leoni, and she did that to me.
[00:49:58] And at the beginning of our [00:50:00] relationship, it was not a reverse mentoring relationship. It was a traditional mentoring relationship where the more senior person, you know, is supposed to impart wisdom to the younger person. Well, that's, that's not, that's not an equal relationship. Right? So we, we flattened that out and we made it an equal relationship where I opened up the communication channels.
[00:50:22] And I learned probably more from her than she's actually learned from me. But she would question me and, and you can tell when people are coming from a good place, right. She just genuinely wanted to know and wondered why we were doing things a certain way, but you're right. Dave, when we grew up in the corporate world, I would never.
[00:50:43] Have done that. And I love, love, love that about this generation. That's in the workplace right now.
[00:50:50] Dave: [00:50:50] Yep. I agree. I, I seen that a couple of times and the companies, but the world has got such a [00:51:00] young base of employees. They're just used to it. They don't care. I got an idea and some dude just came up with an idea on how to get the software test and all the testing for this stuff very quickly on your, on your, on your eyes, but not something that would never come somebody my age, right?
[00:51:20] Some kid is 25 years old, figured it out. So I agree. It's the wild, wild West. Now it's different. If you don't open in your mind, you're going to be left way
[00:51:31] Jan: [00:51:31] about opening your mind. I'd like to get inside your head a little bit more, perhaps on a more personal level. After the incident. When do you wake up every day?
[00:51:45] Every morning? What are some of the thoughts that go through your head and how do you start your day? And I really want to take this into the, how do you lead yourself? Because you and I both know that you can't lead [00:52:00] others until you know how to lead yourself. So how does Dave Sanderson lead himself?
[00:52:05] Let's start with how you wake up in the morning. Could you share some of that with us?
[00:52:12] Dave: [00:52:12] Thank you for the next day. I mean, once you go through something like this, you just realize you're just lucky to wake up the next day. But you know, one thing that happened to me, which I actually wrote this book and I talked about this, um, it's, I've never really revealed before, but one of the things that came out of this situation, and this is going to answer your question is I had high blood pressure.
[00:52:36] I actually realized that in the hospital on blood pressure. Um, and I had to promise to go back and get my doctor, check it out. So I got checked out. She goes, yeah, she's like, you gotta go fix this. Right. I didn't have it all. You know, if I don't get this under [00:53:00] control, I'm not, it doesn't matter.
[00:53:05] The long answers. I did go on blood pressure meds, but I had stopped taking my body, my mindset. I gotta start taking care of me first. So first thing in the morning is I always work out first and it feels for me every morning because I got, gotta get my money's right. I got to get my body, right. If I don't, if I'm not right.
[00:53:27] When I walk in the DuPont business than not, I'm not being able to serve anybody because one of the things that I want to tell these people, I sat down one day, sat down and get your mind. Right. She said, I value even more financially, emotionally, spiritually. And I started, since we wrote this down, I said, put this in your brain.
[00:53:53] First thing in the morning, even more was pre-supposes. [00:54:00] So that's why I sort of go in the morning. That's what I say myself. So I got to value myself first. I do that for a second, whether it's money wise, physically emotional relationships. And that's how I start my day every day. And my wife thinks I'm crazy, right?
[00:54:17] She's still in bed gets up. I'm already got it all done. I'm rocking and rolling. Because as you know, the supply chain, we're, especially in a corporate environment, everybody just doesn't work at Eastern time. The people in Europe, people in Australia, in California. So the people you serve when I served were all over the world, we're a global world.
[00:54:40] So I've got to be ready to go for those functions. I'll show you
[00:54:46] going to lunch. I've got to be able to serve. Is
[00:54:50] Jan: [00:54:50] that a change Dave, from how you would start your day before the incident, what was, how would you normally start your day before the incident, your normal in your corporate job?
[00:55:04] [00:55:00] Dave: [00:55:04] Right. And I did that for years. I didn't move, I didn't move. Right. So I had to change the mindset and I think leaders have to be because you have to lead yourself first, like you said, you have to lead yourself first because one of the big things I focused on this year, which is really
[00:55:29] I'm healthy, I'm shit. I got my finances, which is now so suspect. So I want to show people when I go on stage, whenever I say I'm living right now, you, you can go for it.
[00:55:51] Well, how'd you get to be on stage like you are. Is it because you put the time, right? You do all these things, you know, is this doesn't happen overnight? [00:56:00] Zig, Zig Ziglar read this stuff. It's like he did his first 75 of his for nothing. So we get home and his technique. There's one thing he taught me right after the plane incident is when you go on stage, you gotta speak from the heart.
[00:56:15] He said, you've never seen him on stage with notes. I don't go on stage with notes. I come from the heart and if I'm not, I have knocked and grown. I can't come from the heart.
[00:56:28] Jan: [00:56:28] Dots with how you start your day. And I couldn't agree more. I'm a huge supporter of getting your mind in the right place in the morning. And I didn't use to be because much like you I've spent a large portion of my life get up in the morning. I mean, I remember years ago I would get up in the morning and have a cup of coffee and a cigarette.
[00:56:48] Oh, how awful is that right? I mean, that's terrible. We think about that now we cringe at my daughter. Isn't listening to that, but, um, that's, that's what I did. And I worked in manufacturing and I would go [00:57:00] straight to the plant and off you go, right? And you'd work 12, 14 hours, whatever you needed to do. And it took a while for me to understand the magic in the morning that early morning, And prior to the pandemic, I get up at four 30 and I like a 5:00 AM workout class.
[00:57:17] And then I spend a little bit of time. I don't know that I would call it meditation, but really thinking about my mindset and getting my mindset in the right place. And then I need food. And then I, then I'm often running and I've been asking a lot of my guests lately, that same question. And I will tell you that there's a, I, I see a thread running through here that successful people are doing, that they get up in the morning, they get their head in the right place.
[00:57:43] Everybody's got a slightly different version of how they do that with a mix of exercise. And, uh, one thing that I learned that I enjoyed from Tony was the priming exercise, because I think that, you know, that does a lot of things, right? Because you cover gratitude, you cover intention, you get your [00:58:00] body moving, you get the blood flow going.
[00:58:02] So I think there is a lot to that. And people have an opportunity now that their routine has been broken. Right. It's gone. It's broken. So you can look at that and go my routines broken, or you can say, Hey, my routines broken. Guess what? I get a chance to develop a new one. And you can start to push all these new habits in to a routine that works for you.
[00:58:26] It takes 66 days, right. To form a new habit. So start, start it. Now, this is a great opportunity to do something like that.
[00:58:35] Dave: [00:58:35] I agree. I'll even go with maybe the opposite direction. Why do you get up in the morning when
[00:58:44] it's discipline? Right. I, I believe in discipline. If you got a discipline and you're serving you as serving the greater good stay with the discipline, mine is getting up and getting myself in that mode because you know, when this thing starts coming back,
[00:59:02] [00:59:00] he did walk his talk. He got through this, here's a model because one of the things I talk about is references or references in our lives. And that's one of the things I talk about when people coming out here. So one of the things I'll share with people,
[00:59:19] how you handle problems and people give you a story. It happened exactly where I'm sitting right here. I got a phone call from some neighbors down the street that needed help working. And you know what? You older ladies. And, you know, I grew up in here and we took care of neighbors, especially when they're.
[00:59:42] Two older ladies, right? Just take care of your neighbors. So I went down there and help fix your TV. And, and they said, would you stay?
[00:59:52] And especially from two older ladies, you could probably get
[01:00:00] [01:00:00] pictures of world war two, a lot more work to, I love history. So I'm like, this is really cool. Hey, what'd you get this? This is unbelievable. They said we were there
[01:00:16] and they were, they survived the concentration camp. They survived, their family died. And the next door neighbor, miss Joanne, I had this discussion after he passed on. And
[01:00:32] please let me record your story. They said, no concentration. So I came back.
[01:00:48] I said, they survive well, the most horrific situations in the history of the world and survive and thrive. They lived young, the rest of the lot and realized
[01:01:01] [01:01:00] how many people complained about somebody happens to make complaint like right now in the history of the world easily survive. So what I've been doing lately is if you're in a situation or you find somebody situation, give me a sec. I know somebody needs you.
[01:01:28] Tell me about your day.
[01:01:33] Right? Right. You know, I had this happen to a lady who survived. She didn't want to force her. I got this phone call out of the blue. They said, you gotta talk to this lady because she won't, she won't come out of his cabin.
[01:01:55] That was your mindset. I said, I told her, I said, listen, [01:02:00] one of the first interviews I had after I got home was a TV station in Montreal. There was other people, Buffalo died. I said, well,
[01:02:13] let me talk, let you talk to somebody who survived something worse, nine 11. And I got her on the phone talking to somebody. Cause I knew a lot of people in New York. Right. So I haven't talked to, this is Mike, his name's Mike. He was in New York city. If I get somebody in that situation, let me tell you something, getting your proper perspective right now.
[01:02:34] If I was in the leadership position,
[01:02:39] we will survive. This is how we're going to survive,
[01:02:47] right?
[01:02:55] So when you get out
[01:03:00] Jan: [01:03:00] too, shall pass, learn from a guy like my friend, Dave Sanderson, and really take your experience to heart and have it change your life or not. The choice is yours.
[01:03:16] Dave: [01:03:16] Exactly. Right? Some of the passengers came to me later and said, why are you doing this? Why are you not speaking opportunities? Tony teaches at all.
[01:03:29] I made a choice for greater good. We help people see my story, like experience of leadership to help them times leaders, leadership. So he chose not to, I don't judge you for that. You can, but I encouraged there was 155 people in that plane. I said, there's 155 stories of leadership. This
[01:03:54] all
[01:03:54] Jan: [01:03:54] comes down to choices. Very glad that you made the choice to do what you're doing [01:04:00] and to share your knowledge and your leadership, guidance and wisdom with others. It's truly remarkable. And I would like to say Dave Sanderson, it has been an absolute pleasure having you on the podcast, and I wish you all the very best.
[01:04:16] Dave: [01:04:16] Thank you very much. I'm honored to be here and
[01:04:22] take their lives and create their own plans.
[01:04:24] Jan: [01:04:24] Excellent. Thank you very much, Dave,
[01:04:30] if you enjoyed listening to this podcast and you found something of value that will help you on your quest for your gravitas, then please share with your friends and colleagues and subscribe. Visit us@gravitasdetroit.com to find out more. [01:05:00] .