Dave Sanderson: From Turmoil to Triumph, Lessons in Resilience and Sales Leadership

I was involved with something called the miracle in the Hudson, the plane that went down in the Hudson River, the 208 second flight. And then all the fun began trying to get out of a sinking plane in the Hudson River. And I was the last passenger out of the plane that day, which turned my life around, not only physically, but in a direction that I never thought that I would take. Most trade leaders are working harder than ever and still stuck. There's a better way to compete, and it starts with people. This is Blue Collar Smart, hosted by Hugh Hornsby, 40-year trade executive, industry award winner, and the only media voice built for leadership on both sides of the trade. Every episode, one truth, one action, one step forward. Welcome to Blue Collar Smart. Hello, this is Hugh Hornsby, introducing a brand new podcast, Blue Collar Smart. Built different. Underdog proven. Trade tested. When I started putting this podcast together, I wanted to make sure that I talked about blue collar smart. And bringing people in that have come through that blue collar mindset, that underdog mindset, and have come through so much. One of my really good friends is Dave Sanderson. and Dave Sanderson has a story that we want to listen to today, but more than anything else, Dave Sanderson has a message that he wants to send everybody out there. Dave, introduce yourself a little bit. Tell the audience who you are. You've got some special stories to tell. Well, thank you for having me. I appreciate the opportunity to be on with everybody. I started as a second assistant restaurant manager, so I started in that world. I started from the bottom up and I try to let my kids and other young people tell you sometimes you gotta start at the bottom right and there's nothing wrong with that I mean sometimes you have to put the hard work in but through that experience I started my career in sales about two and a half three years after that and for 38 years I was in sales and sales leadership primarily in technology and that kind of world okay I was also during that time I was also had the honor and blessing to be a head security for a guy named Tony Robbins, the motivational person, the gentleman who had the big teeth, as they would say, the big hands. But I was very blessed to be around somebody because one of the things that I learned, you and I talked about is, you know, proximity is power and putting yourself in the areas of where people who have accomplished something, so they can give you some insight and be able to help you. But then January 15, 2009 comes and as I wasn't expecting it, you know, trying to get home early to my kids and my family, a three-day business trip in New York City. And I was involved with something called the Miracle on the Hudson, the plane that went down in the Hudson River. And it was a, like I said, a 208 second flight. And then all the fun began trying to get out of a sinking plane in the Hudson River. And I was the last passenger out of the plane that day, which turned my life around, not only physically, but in a direction that I never thought that I would take. Over the next several years as I was sunsetting my career in sales, I always started speaking and I started writing my books. I've personally written three books, co-authored one book, and now I have the opportunity to go out and help organizations and small businesses that need some some strategy and frameworks on how to be able to not only build their sales organizations but they basically be able to give them resilience and being able to use this disruption and turn that into a competitive advantage just a little bit about me when i your story your story is amazing and i just so that you guys know that you know dave and i have been friends for three years or so but when i went through the my cancer diagnosis what two and a and a half years ago, Dave lives what he talks about. He was one of those people that would reach out to me about once a week just to check out, check me out and see how things are going. Sometimes proximity is power, right Dave? But sometimes, you know, we find people that really do care. And Dave, I wanna take you back because your story is so amazing, But I don't want to jump over the hard part of your story. Working in a restaurant, I think you graduated from JMU, but working in a restaurant, doing the grunt work, because we're talking to a lot of people in the trades today that they're starting out at that same place that you are. Do you have something that you can share with them that maybe could help? I'll take you back even a couple years before that year because my first job was actually making brake shoes for cars in a factory in Winchester, Virginia. I was working third shift. Primarily, I think it was 10 until 6 at that point in time, 11 until 7, I forget exactly. But I was working graveyard, making brake shoes. And then went and started working for a company named Rubbermaid and making trash cans and spatulas and the manufacturing floor. So I started out in that world, which was one of the greatest educations I've ever had. Because one of the things that taught me is people really have to work hard for their money. And my dad gave me that appreciation because he said he wanted me to work in that environment. And I can't believe I did not want to work in that environment. I would be very candid. But he was giving me a lesson that, you know, if you're going to be anything in this world, you have to work for it. And nothing's too good for you. Nothing is too good for you. And we talked about that time when I was in a restaurant. I started a second assistant restaurant manager. I had to start bussing tables and cooking for people, right? Just cleaning dishes and just mopping floors. Just things that you have to do to learn the basics. I recently shared a story out on social media about a time that really drove this lesson home to me. It was in 1986 when I was the restaurant manager for what they call Bob's Big Boy. It was, you know, the old Big Boy restaurant. I used to think of Shoney's. Yep. Well, Bob's Big Boy was up in the Northern Virginia and Maryland area. And I was in charge of the Vienna, Virginia store, which is actually right across the street from the big mall right there, right off Tyson's Court. So it was Christmas Eve and all of a sudden the restaurant gets hit about lunchtime. I mean, it just gets slammed. And I'm running back and forth from front to back doing anything I could to help. And then what happens? Bill Marion and his entourage come in because they were out checking out stores and their facilities, right? Their hotels and restaurants. And here he sees my store, my restaurant, his restaurant, but the one I'm responsible for going in chaos. And he came up to me and said, what can I do to help? And I'm thinking, do I tell him I can't handle it? I need help. Or do I say, hey, I need some help. I said, you know what? I can do some help dropping fries. And Bill Marriott went to the back of that restaurant and started dropping fries. And all of his non-churches started buzzing. That is a great story, Dave. I mean, for all these founders out there. That's a lesson that you're not too good for anything. You're not too good to do anything. Well, I'm going to let you finish the story. But I just want to say for all those founders that we're talking to, you know, it's that says a lot about Bill Marriott, doesn't it? So I cut you off and I don't I want to hear the rest of the story. But that's to me, if we're talking about people based businesses, that to me had to be a learning experience for you. I wrote an article on LinkedIn this last week about it because it just reminded me, sometimes you have to go back to your roots, right? And you're a founder of a company. I'm a founder of a little company. But, you know, not too good to do anything. And one of the things that actually got all settled down and everything, Mr. Marriott came out and he asked me if I learned anything. And I said, you know, I learned that I'm not too good to do anything. He goes, remember one thing, when your name's on that wall, you're responsible for everything. His name was on the wall, right? He owned that restaurant. And that also taught me another lesson, right? That, you know, even when I was ever going to have my own little company like I do now, it's my responsibility for how we treat the customers, how we go about treating our associates and employees. So what's intriguing about this, you know, Hugh, is I wrote this article on LinkedIn. And one of the first people that responded was David Marriott, the chairman of the board of Marriott. That's incredible. And he told me that's exactly what my dad said. I was exactly like my dad. He said I wasn't there that day. But all of a sudden, I'm getting other people saying he did the same thing at the hotels and restaurants. Well, and that's the core that we all learn. And sometimes it's those little things that we learn along the way that have some of the largest impact. and and what's great is that you know you you kind of always say from digging ditches to you know being in the corporate boardroom sometimes you got to dig those ditches and to kind of figure that out so you went from there dave and from there you ran a restaurant what what helped and next because there's things that that you have gone through in your life that made that have really made an impact what was the next impact that that you kind of felt well i'd say the next one was i what happened was is i got engaged to my wife future wife she was living in surrey north carolina here i was in vienna virginia as i was just mentioning right and i got offered a promotion which would be a bigger store right which is great and but it was It would be either Baltimore or Philadelphia. And my future wife said, I'm not going north. If you want to marry me, you got to come back here, right? So I gave that job up and I started selling copiers door to door. Oh, wow. I had no idea. Every day I would go and pick up a copier, put it in the back of the van, and go walking up and down streets in southwest Charlotte, North Carolina. In the middle of the summer, knocking on doors, selling copiers. and that told me a big lesson too how to handle rejection right how to how to go about you know how about how to sell effectively but more how to handle rejection and it was a great learning experience because you know when as you know you were in sales for thousands of years like i was you're gonna get a lot of rejection there's some people are just not going to buy or like you even like you So I was very lucky and early in my life early in my business life to learn is not personal right And how to really be able to engage people and help them make a good decision for themselves And what happened to me then is I actually came the runner-up that year in the National Demorama for Canon Copiers because I could present really well. I could present really well. So that took me over to my next position, which was a company by the name of EEP, Automatic Data Processing. So it was, it was, I was, every time I got a little bit more refined, but you know, I tell you one, you, I think everybody needs to go door to door selling at least once in their life. So they can see, you know, you think you got a tough, right? There are tough jobs out there, but go out and get rejected nine times out of 10 and on a hundred degree day in Southwest North Carolina, see what happens. Yeah, mine was selling insurance. And, you know, it was it was quite an experience. But you had another experience. You had a mentor. You're always talking about proximity that met you, I think, while you were before you went into selling copiers, met you in a restaurant. Can you can you share a little bit about that? Yes, that's why I was the second assistant restaurant manager here at Sherwood for Howell Johnson. You know, and I tell people, and founders appreciate this, and people in the world, you know, when you're a second assistant, you're not working nine to five. You're working second or third shift. I mean, that's your princess start. That turned out to be the real blessing for me because I worked the evening, you know, basically from 2 to 11 at night. And a gentleman would come in with his wife. Her name was Bill. Her name was Bonnie. And Bill, and this was 1983. And Bill at that point was 77 years old. And, you know, he drove up and he'd drive up every night. He was a pickup truck. And he always wore a flannel shirt hanging out. You know, he never tucked it in. He'd come in and have a wine and a cigarette and have a coffee, and we'd talk. We'd talk every night, right? I was learning things from Bill you know, we had some great stories but what I found out one night that I was there and he was there and I was dating my future wife, as I've already mentioned my wife too, my future wife and I had no money I was making $13,000 a year and I told Bill I said, well I want to take my girl out but I don't have any money to take her out he goes, here, here's a couple of women passes, take her out on me he said when you come back tomorrow just let me know how the guys went i said yeah that's great thank you right granted for someone who did basically nearly a little bit to help me out right you're a good guy right so you know don't get a memory here you're in charlotte and i walk up these little passes and guys just tell mr bill hey i'm like okay sure right don't literally go back the next day work and don't well go come to the howdy dogs alone it was a great experience thank you so much and said but some guy told me to tell you hey he goes yeah i own that movie i said why are they why he goes and yeah since the 20s i've owned over 80 movie theaters and restaurants in the carolinas if we're talking blue collar smart it did what's howdy howdy start with that because old pickup truck kind of almost sounds like a blue collar guy that just kind of figured it all out old boy good old boy from north carolina right i mean if you look at his backstory which I wrote about in my book, From Turmoil to Triumph, his backstory. He lived on a farm outside of Charlotte, somewhere outside of Charlotte. And he lived on a farm, and he just ran into somebody, I think it was in 1915 or 1916, that was coming through Charlotte, and he had a little bit of money, and Bill wanted to find out how he could do that himself. And this guy basically was teaching him a little bit about what money meant. This was back in the late 1910s and early 1920s. 1920s that's that's that's such a great story because you're always talking about proximity and i'm always talking about being in the right room and uh that's right and now you yeah now you can see where those core a lot of those cores came from by putting yourself around bill yeah and bill bill is like i said he was a farmer he's a farmer's son he worked crops right and uh This is rural North Carolina, primarily, in the 1910s and 1920s. But, you know, you ran into this gentleman, and over the next couple of years, several years, this gentleman, when he would come through town, he and Bill, he would talk to Bill. And Bill, now this is on 1925, 1926 time now, okay? This is right after the war, right? And we're still in prosperity in the United States. And Bill was fascinated with the movie pictures. thought it was cool right those old movie pictures with no talking right before talkies and he said he wanted he wanted to get into that and the guy said well to get into that you got to have a little bit of money and bill didn't have any money so bill had to figure out how to get get some money to make his first investment which was in 1929 into his first theater here in charlotte and he probably just bought it but 1929 was the year of the depression so bill got into business at the wrong time right but what he figured out he was this and this is a part of the story that i just love you know 1929 october right depression hits the united states he owns a little movie house here in charlotte little movie house right and he figured out the you know people couldn't afford to go to the movies but they needed to eat so he was selling popcorn to get him to come to the movies Wow. Give you the movie free for popcorn. That is a great story. That's how I started his first theater here, right? Movie free for popcorn. What do you mean? And during the Depression. During the Depression where, you know, nobody could afford to go to the movies, right? But he got in there because he could give them cheap popcorn, right? And you know what? I always say that business is built during disruption. and it sounds it was the depression and that's resourceful resourceful, innovating things that we take for granted now back then when you put your whole and founders will appreciate this when you put your whole thing on the line you put all your money and savings into this thing but all of a sudden something hits where you have no control. How many times has that happened in business? Where almost under a war breaks out and you have all of a sudden supply chain issues. You hear me talk a lot. Stop following the followers. If you hear Napoleon Hill or you hear Earl Nightingale, which that's an Earl Nightingale quote, is that the Depression was a time where people started to really figure that out. And I just want to say to all of you out there is that the businesses I've been able to build have always been through a downturn or always been through some type of disruption. And so that is just a great story. So you went on and you went to ADT and you started that and then eventually you went to Oracle, right? I had a couple of different stops in between, right? back in the 90s and early 2000s. But I finally eventually got to Oracle, which was one of the biggest, at that point, I think it was the second or third largest technology company in the world, behind Microsoft and SAP. So I was one of the biggest organizations in the world. So I had to learn a different mindset. I had to learn more of an enterprise mindset, how to really market a different way. And what happened, Hugh, is back in, I'll go back to 1991 when I was with ADP. I had a comeuppance, but it taught me a great lesson. And one of the things that I teach right now, a framework that I actually teach. In 1991, I was relatively new with ADP a couple years in, and they gave me the state of South Carolina. They said, here it is, go find something and sell something. Had no infrastructure, nothing. I had to drive to Columbia or Florence or Greenville, South Carolina or Charleston every day and back. No hotel money, right? So every morning I was up at 5 o'clock in the morning driving to South Carolina. And I can tell you, I know that you do that today. I still get up every day. But what happened was I began my first relationship. And then I talked about finding wormholes and what a wormhole is and somebody can expand their business quickly. And I found one. It's called South Carolina National Bank. And the city executive in Columbia's name was Michael Kapp. I remember he and Michael and I became great friends. He had a relationship with SCA and had a relationship with the state of South Carolina. So he said, we want to meet the person in charge of human resources, which was all selling, right? At that point. I said, hell, heck yeah, right? So he arranges a meeting with me and Michael and with the state comptroller of South Carolina. Now, what I learned about that from that is the state comptroller is the one in South Carolina that controls all the money. He's got the finances. He's a budget. So I was the right guy, right? I'm the right person. You know how many times we want to get with the right person in sales, right? Who can actually make a call. So I go in and now, if you're not from South Carolina, you don't know. the first thing you have to talk about is South Carolina and closing football. You have to talk about football first. You just have to. So we get done with that, and I asked a real brilliant question to you. How do you do your payroll? This guy was probably 50, 60 years old. Looks at me in the eye and goes, son, I'm fixing to get ready to start thinking about doing something like that. I said, I'm fixing to get ready to start thinking about doing something? I'm like I'm 10 years away from your son you have no clue what you're involved with and all of a sudden I realized I got access right I didn't have any connection or anything and I said that was the greatest lesson because number one I was just somebody of influence he taught me a great lesson and I wasn't somebody who staked his reputation on me to introduce me to somebody so I had I did not live up to that You know, can we stop right there for a second? Because it's such a great point. You said somebody staked their reputation on you and to introduce you to the guy. And I just think that's so important because I think so many people lose that. And that you know if you really want to make it in sales or in life you need to make sure that you deliver for that person and you don you know you don go in there and embarrass them I, you know, it was a great lesson for a couple of reasons. Number one, currently, because in my world, when I go out to speak, is when I tell people, I'm making sure that meeting planner looks good, right? Because they're taking their job on me. but that day you when i came back i said i've got to figure this out because i was i embarrassed myself hopefully i didn't embarrass michael right and i came up with a strategy i said okay from now on so i've got i didn't take it as you embarrassed yourself but what do you mean by that because uh it was that something that was internal from you you think yeah it was internal because i you I felt pretty confident in my skill sets. And here I go in. I thought I prepared, right? But you realize you really don't know the background, the backstory, what's really going on. You haven't done your homework yet. I did not deserve to be in that room. I didn't earn the right to be in that room. Well said. So that's where my A to I framework came out, how I started selling differently, which got me to the top levels of every company I was ever with. And it's access to influence. And when I teach, I work with founders and sales teams of smaller companies. I teach them this strategy because what I find is a lot of sales people, and you've been with more sales people probably than I have in this world, is they can get access to somebody, right? They can get access, right? and when I find a lot of these younger especially the younger sales people the younger sales people to me mean they haven't been in the business long enough okay somebody's new in the business I've got access or I've got influence no you've got access right that's all you have you haven't built a connection yet right how can I connect with you and once you have that connection and once you finally get that then you think okay now I've got influence no you don't you haven't built a relationship with that person, which means trust. And Dave, you've coached a couple of my salespeople, and I've seen them progress over the years. And there's a big difference between a transaction and being transformational. And transformational, I think, is a long-term, being there for the long-term. Transactional, it's like it makes it a commodity. And sometimes we've got to learn that the hard way, don't we? We do have to. I learned it the hard way with that day in South Carolina. And that was a great pivot point for me because I had to pivot the way I was doing business. So I had this strategy, which was working over and over. And then last November, I saw you last November here in Charlotte, a gentleman at Danavitz. His name was Chad Jenkins. And I think you named him. Yeah, I did. I did name Chad. Chad came up to you and said, Dan, you got to name it. Chad's whole thing was he always called name the baby. anything that you have a repeatable frameworks that works you said you gotta name it so i named a to i equals and i where now no finish it you know because that's a framework that you have it is is that up on your website is that something that you yeah very nice exactly on my website something in my new book that i'm writing about is i built frameworks yeah work together but I find that a lot of salespeople skip steps. They think they've got access. They think they're ready to close the sale, but they haven't put the time in to build the trust, to get to the influence, and build that relationship where you're part of the family. I'll give you a perfect example of how this played out right during the Miracle in the Hudson situation. As you know my story, I was up in New York for a client, the potential client right where it got done early came back of the plane crash and i want you i want you to tell that story um i want you to tell that story but go ahead and tell what you're telling now because i think this framework it's almost like an operating system a dave sanderson operating system which is so important for the people that are going to be listening to we uh we've we've we've We put the copyright on it because it's not unique, but it's a framework that's operating systems that gives people, salespeople, the steps on how to get an affinity relationship. And I was talking about the miracle in the Hudson of Middleton. After I came back, I was in Charlotte, and that Saturday, which was two days after the plane crash, I get this big box. It was on our doorstep from Federal Express. It was probably five feet tall by three feet wide, right? And I didn't know what it was. I'm like, what is this big box? So my kids and I go out to the porch, and they're ripping it open. They know how to open presents, right? They're ripping this box open, and it was presents from Boar's Head, which was my client who I was with, meats, cheeses. And they thought so much of me in that relationship. So what happened was eventually we secured the sale, which is great. but I built the affinity relationship where I was on basically they were a part I was part of their family at that point they would call me about questions on things that I could help them with not only with when I was doing but that's that's where it happens when you build that relationship to the influence where you're part of now you're part of their family and so many companies just want to get to their transactions you mentioned earlier and they'll skip the steps and sometimes it works right sometimes it'll work but if you want a long-term client you've got to build you got to go through the steps and sequence because you have that affinity relationship so when at two o'clock in the morning when they have a problem they're calling you and you're fixing the problem well i love it because i think when i went through all my you know the the diagnosis and cancer and stress and whatever whatever took care of it you know i started really thinking about my operating system that I had put together. And we all have that. And yours is one that you've had a tremendous amount of success with. I'm glad that you've got that written down and you've named it and everything else. I can't wait to take a look at it. And for everybody that's on here, we'll figure out a way that you can get a hold of Dave and be a part of that system. And Dave, you know, most people put you on and they want to talk about the miracle in the Hudson because that's an amazing part of your life. The other part of your life is that that's a part that I think is amazing. But let's tell the audience a little bit about what you did on being on the miracle in the Hudson and how you went about that. And then maybe a little bit about the story that when you came back and we talk about people based businesses, what happened to you that you can share that maybe makes these founders and entrepreneurs and everybody else realize that the most important thing that we do is people. It was definitely. Thank you. So a long story short, as I mentioned earlier, I was in New York City, end of a three-day business trip. And we got done early because I was working in a distribution center with that company, Boar's Head, a company with Boar's Head Meats. And, you know, people who work in factories like I used to and manufacturing organizations, you know, three shift, four shift sometimes, right? and we wanted to see how the distribution organization worked because the trucks would start coming in like at five o'clock in the morning right to pick it up and all the logistics because we were designing a system so we were there early at five o'clock in the morning so we got done at 10 o'clock so i i get to go home early so i was like this is great get to go early call the travel agent she puts me on a plane uh 237 so i'm gonna get home three hours earlier than anticipated outstanding get to the airport early get on the plane no big deal right didn't pay attention because, hey, I've done this a lot. And then 60 seconds after we take off, you're an explosion. And all of a sudden, you're playing incapacitated. And all of a sudden, you're heading straight for the Hudson River. And this is something where I wasn't planning on it and I had not prepared for it. So all the things that I learned, and one of the reasons my first book was called Moments Matters was because all those moments in my life all of a sudden had to come back and help serve me at that moment. It helped me. But as you know the story, the captain did an amazing job. The offense was forever grateful. Got it down. Now the big problem is this. All right, he gets it down in the river, 36th and Green River, and it's sinking in the river. And he got 155 people that got to get out of this plane in the middle of the river frozen. And so I was just playing my game plan with ILF out. I just said, get up and get out because I had to have a game plan. I played sports like you did. Yeah. Don't go in a game plan. So I said, if I survive this thing, I better be able to get out of here. So I'll help out. So I got to the aisle, maybe, okay, got there and started going up. And all of a sudden I heard my mom start talking to me in my head. And when something she would tell me when I was a child just popped into my head at that moment, it was, if you do the right thing, God will take care of you. And my mom passed away in 1997, but I think she was the wisest person I was ever around. Because she was teaching her kids these little lessons, these moments, right? That you never think you're going to need it. And all of a sudden, you need it. And one of the greatest things, I'm sure your mom was the same way. She did for her kids. She made her kids make decisions when they were young. My mom used to call them yellow pad moments. Go up and write on a yellow pad on how you're going to change. Yeah. So my mom was, she made us make, and she also told us there are consequences to every decision, right? So as a youth, you made a lot of poor choices, right? Yeah, I'm surprised I'm here today sometimes. Yeah, but your mom, you know, my mom, I tell people, my mom didn't tell me what to do. She said, if you do this, right? So she made me make a call, and the call was, I went to the back of the plane to see if anybody needed help, because I knew that I was okay, but you got people in the back of my plane trying to get out, and they're chest deep in 36 degree water and you don't know what's going on and so i at least had had enough energy to get back there to help and i just got behind the last person and started making my way out and you know it was dark in the back of the plane because it was late afternoon new york in the winter and it's already submerged under water as you see the picture and i got to the door like it's time to go right i did my part and all of a sudden you look out there's no room on the wing of the boat so there's no way for me to get out of the place that's why i was inside to playing waist deep in 36 degree water for over seven minutes yeah i'm still i have surprise you're still alive um i shouldn be alive all the medics and pm emts and paramedics told me there no reason except for adrenaline they they attribute me being alive to adrenaline well and you you you know you pretty fit so that helps too i would think you're physically fit um but you know there's another part of that story that you tell uh that you came home and you got the phone call from from your boss saying, so I'll let you tell that story. So I came back the next day and, you know, got to the airport, did some media stuff because media was every place. And I was going to drive home because my car was at the airport, right? I didn't want to leave my car at the airport another night, right? I mean, U.S. Airways was paying for that. If I said no, then I'd have to pay for it, right? So my wife said, take a couple of the kids with you. He said, you don't want me to drive alone, which that was actually a really good call. I shouldn't have been driving alone or shouldn't have been driving at all, candidly. But I stopped by the office, an Oracle office, just because I hadn't heard from anybody. I didn't know if anybody knew that I'd been in a plane crash. They didn't call my wife or me, so I didn't know, so I went by the office. When I walked in, I had the sweats on that they gave me because I lost all my clothes. They had to cut them off for me because they were frozen in my body. So they gave me some sweats to wear on the plane. that I walked in and said, I just wanted to let you know I'm okay. And the first thing my manager said was, you're going to Michigan next week, right? And that's the moment he knew I had to do something. You know, all he cared about was my number. Now, it wasn't Oracle, it was my manager, right? But I tell people, if he would just have a little bit of, you know, grace with me, say, what do you need? How can I help you? Take some time off. I may still be with Oracle, you know? but that was the one that drove me to say I gotta do something different because I'm not valued here so I talk to founders and executives of companies I tell them well you have you have you have associates going through challenges every day and you know have some act and I I I wanted to to highlight that story because there's more of that that goes on than most people know and as we're talking to the founders and we're talking to entrepreneurs and we're talking to people that are leaders out there. The industry and the trades and the wholesale side, it's just a really great place. But the bottom line is, you know what? I always say that the worst thing that ever happened to this world was report cards, maybe because my report card was always terrible. But we start to measure people for all the wrong things. And Keith Heim, who I had on here, the Inspirational Operating System, I'll do an introduction. Dave, you're going to love him. We had that conversation as well. And it's it's you know, it's it's not just about the numbers. The numbers are important. I mean, you've always put the numbers up. So have I. But the people are the most important. And when we take a look at what's going on in our industry today, it's a lot of P.E. coming in and they're they're putting in systems. but it's important that they make sure that they're taking care of the people. I just wanted to mention that because it's near and dear to my heart. Dave, we've got a few minutes, but I want them to know, these people out there, to know how they can get a hold of Dave Sanderson. You've got a business going on that you've been working on, and you obviously have an operating system and some frameworks. Can you share where you are and how the industry can get a hold of you? Well, thank you. And I'm honored to be with you. Thank you. So, yes, over the last several years, I've re-engineered and gone back through those experiences and basically built these frameworks. And the overall framework I call Resilience Framework, what's really underlying it, it's called VCR, Revision, Keep, Build, and Reach. and what you just talked about is the people or the resource that's the capabilities people have right in the company and some people don't value that i i just i would just beg the people who are listening to founders and entrepreneurs you know when your associates are going through something tragic you know understand give them some give them some space give them some some love because they will be your biggest champions but if you just dismiss them and say you know don't give them the time of day you will lose a valued associate so i just want to leave with that but Yeah, I tell people my frameworks, I built three frameworks. I just re-engineered what happened that day. And I went through my career. And my next book's coming out. And it's really based on these frameworks. I want to lead founders and leaders of companies with a strategy and a framework. So if they need to make a decision, I'll give them a six-step decision process called assess, a framework. And it's the same framework that I used that day on the plane. The A to I framework is how to reach people, how to really get a connection and relationship. I have what's called a resilience execution system. How do you execute your vision and values? And this is how all the frameworks I've built in re-engineering. So connect with me on LinkedIn. I think that's probably the easiest. I drop, as you know, new content every day on LinkedIn. Or you go to my website, resiliencepartnersgroup.com. Connect with me. I'd love for you to check that out. The frameworks, I've shared some of the frameworks on that website so you can sort of test it. I would just say there's a free diagnostic. Go out and take a diagnostic on there, and you'll sort of see where you find, and you're as a founder and leader, where you sort of land in and your leadership and how we can potentially help you take that next step. So it's www. You're on LinkedIn a lot, so you can look up Dave Sanderson on that, but you're also, it's www.what? Firstgroup.com. Listen, everybody out there, I just want you to know, I know Dave really well. We've become friends over the years. It's, you know, I had a sales team with Everflow and, uh, I did not let anybody touch my sales team, but Dave was the first one in what he did with those, those two gentlemen is pretty amazing. It's just absolutely amazing. So make sure that you reach out to Dave. Um, you know, there's, there's people in our industry that, uh, is they're great at telling you what to do. I'm going to tell you, Dave Sanderson lives what he tells you. And it's one of the reasons we're a good friend. Dave, we have a thing called the yellow pad moments, which my mom used to send me upstairs with a yellow pad. And it's usually something that you can share with the people out there that maybe we didn't share along the way. Do you have a yellow pad moment that you can share with our group that you know that if they did this, it's going to really help them move forward? Yeah, that's a great question. And I'm not prepared for that. So what I would probably say is a yellow pad moment, and this is something I learned probably in 1993. It was probably the time frame that I learned this. If you can manage your state of mind, you can accomplish anything. And there's three ways to manage your state of mind. The way you move your body, the questions you ask yourself, and what you focus on. and if you can remember that whether you're a founder or somebody in the trades it doesn't matter when something happens in your business something happens in your personal life if you can just get your state of mind correct you either have to move your body change the questions you ask yourself or focus on the most important thing you put yourself in the proper state to be able to make the right judgment that would probably be my yellow pad moment I love it I love that So I have one question because usually I try to ask a question that I haven't asked that maybe somebody who's listening to this is saying, man, I wish you would ask this question. You know, you went down in the Hudson and you've been able to turn what a lot of people on that plane turned into negatives into positives. And we've and I've heard that story a few times. You know, the subconscious mind is something that is so important. uh do you does it ever do you ever flash back to those moments i know you know like when the planes went down and in uh washington and do you ever flash back to those moments and if you do what does that feel like and how do you deal with that uh thanks every day something comes up you so i get and i think this happens to a lot of people i call it a trigger right you may see something or hear something or smell something right and all of a sudden this triggers you back to a moment. So something every day triggers me back to some part of that day. And you know, the way my TED talk was called post-traumatic growth, how do you grow out of a traumatic life experience? Because I think a lot of people go a different direction. When I got the opportunity to share the strategies I did to not go to PTSD or even worse, and this is why I help Navy SEALs, work with Navy SEALs in special office today, because all those people who are coming out of the military are all having a few challenging experiences. I share with him a couple of different strategies on how to do that. I would say there are going to be challenging times. There's going to be times when you get depressed. But there's two things you can do. Just two quick things. I talked about state management before. Change your body. Change your question. Change your focus. Or change the meaning you attach to it. The meaning you attach to something produces the emotion in your head. And emotion is your life. so most people attach a negative meaning to most things, why can't I get it done I can only get this far instead of asking if they didn't, how would I be able to do this change the meaning reframe the meaning and that's the fastest way to go from restate to a gratitude love it Dave you're such a good friend and every time I talk to you you bring such incredible wisdom I want to tell you thank you for being my third person on the podcast. But we're doing something really special here. And you're a huge part of that. Just want to say thanks for the friendship. And everybody out there, reach out to Dave. I can tell you he's got an incredible business. And, you know, our industry needs more of Dave Sanderson. And I just want to say thank you. And once again, Dave, thank you very much.