And no, broadcasting from the center of the universe and the Thrive 15 dot com world headquarters, it's the Thrive time show.

All right, Thrive Nation. Welcome back to the conversation of today, I have an opportunity to sit down with the former executive vice president of Walt Disney World of Resorts, a man by the

name of Lee Cockrell, who once managed over 40,000 people as the executive vice president of Walt Disney World Resorts. So you talk about managing people. I see it all the time in small business that managing people is a very hard thing for most people to do. And so I had a chance to sit down with Lee in Orlando, Florida, to just ask him all the questions that I think almost every small business owner or every manager, I was always asking me as a business coach.

People are always asking, do you talk to the people or do the paperwork first? Do you do what role do people have when making your brand? How do you develop relationship? Should the customers have relationships with your people? How do you create the magic through training? How do you with customer complaints? How do you eliminate bad policies? How do you make decisions? It's just there's just so many great aspects to this part two of a three part series with Lee Cockrell on management,

and the masteries. So without a further ado, my exclusive interview with Lee Cockrell, the former executive vice president of Walt Disney World Resorts.

And I think a lot of these companies do come, but don't they become really small families? Yes, they work together over and over and even some of my family members don't just don't get to the work too quick in the morning until you get to the people.

Why don't you get the people feeling good and anything to do for you? Your dad's in the hospital. Do you need to leave early today to go? What can we do? I don't know, you've mentioned before you make sure that you get to the people before the paperwork.

Yeah, always touch the people before you touch the paper. Paper doesn't care. Touch them. Paper has no emotion. It's like I always tell people when you set priorities like if I told you, you're a busy man and your wife's busy at home with five kids. What's more important for your wife?

To wash the dishes or read a story to the children before they go to bed. If she has to make a decision, which is more important? We'll read it to the kids because the dishes don't care. If you break a dish, they don't even care. If you break a child.

With five kids, we're going with a lot of paper plates right now. The kids really care if it's paper plates? No. You could eat on the floor with a blanket and say it's a picnic. They'd love it. Actually, they'd love it even more.

That's it at the table. A picnic on Thursday night. Now, this brings up kind of a, in chapter five of your book, you'd mention that you need to make people your brand. What does that mean? And how do I do that if I'm a small business?

I think of companies, you know, but so many things are commodities today. At the end of the day, I can go to Lowe's or I can go to Home Depot or I can go to a little local store.

What's the difference? The little local store. You know me, they'll hear me, they'll bring it out, they'll call me back, they'll deliver the people. How do the people treat me? They know me. You go to the big box stores?

The odds of them knowing you is about as low as it can go. And when you have relationships with people, they do business with you. Even you charge a little more, they still do relationships matter. And people create relationships. That's the end of the game. That's why I paid $32 for Erica. I could get it for $12.

And it seems like the big brands too. If somebody's watching this who has a huge, huge company, the big brands that are successful have found a way to build relationships on a big level. Like so Starbucks, each one feels like it's own local, it's like a little coffee shop. That's what they did. And they heard all the little coffee shops because they created that same environment.

When I walk in Starbucks in the morning, every morning, league, good morning, league. Good morning. They know me. And actually they have my coffee ready when I walk in there and see me coming out of the parking lot. They've already got it filled.

Oh boom, that's awesome. I don't know if I told you one. I used to eat oatmeal every morning. One wanted to decide on a scone, but when I got in there they already had the oatmeal mate because they saw me coming.

Next morning I said, go on like a scone, don't like the oatmeal when you see me get out of my car.

You're transitioning from oatmeal to scone face. Okay. Now let me ask you this here. In your book, you do talk a lot about creating magic through training.

And I know this because I've been guilty of this. I mean years ago when I started the DJ company, one thing I would do is you spend a get up early, make my to do the list.

I was trying to think of how many weddings can we book to pay the bills? Like I did, we have to provide entertainment for brides and grooms on the weekends.

And I'm going, we've got a book two or three weddings this week for me to pay the bills. So I focus on bookings, bookings, bookings. And then it became taken care of the customer.

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