Stop living on autopilot with Antonio Neves

Antonio Neves: Stop Living on Autopilot

Andy

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Narrator:

Welcome to The Talent Development Hot Seat with your host Andy Storch. The show is dedicated to helping you develop the most important part of your organization--the people. If you are in HR or talent development, or you just want to learn how to get the best out of your people, then you are in the right place. Each week, Andy shares interviews with talent development professionals, thought leaders, and experts to share best practices, learn about the latest trends, and find out what has been successful in the world of talent development. This podcast is designed to give you what you need to be successful in the world of talent development. Now here's your host, Andy Storch.

Andy:

Welcome to The Talent Development Hot Seat. I am your host, Andy Storch, and I'm excited that you're joining me for another fantastic interview. Today, we're talking all about career development and how to stop living on autopilot and take ownership of your career. My guest today is Antonio Neves, who is the author of four books, including the book, Stop Living on Autopilot: Take Responsibility for Your Life and Rediscover a Bolder, Happier You. He also is the host of the podcast The Best Thing, where he talks with leaders about the best thing to happen to them that would never appear on a résumé. Antonio and I have hosted Clubhouse rooms together after being introduced recently, and I'm really impressed with his story and everything that he has to share. And in this interview, we dive into how people can take more ownership of their career, how you can stop living on autopilot, the things that hold people back, and how they can move past those.

We also talk a lot about how you can move forward and the importance of surrounding yourself with the right people, setting the right goals, and making the right moves in your career. I think you're gonna find a lot of inspiration in this interview, and I'm excited to share it with you. Quick note about this interview, we recorded it live on LinkedIn. The audio quality might be not quite as good as some of our interviews, although I'll let you be the judge of that. And we did have a few comments that came in, and I read those throughout the interview. We do like to do this from time to time to engage with more people. So if you're on LinkedIn, look out for us to do more live interviews in the future.

Quick note, before we get started to remind you, of course, about the Talent Development Think Tank community that I run. If you work in talent development, you want to come check us out because it is the number one place to go where you can connect, learn, grow, and share with others in talent development. We have live calls every week as well as an online platform where we can share content and support each other. If you're interested in joining, go ahead over to tdtt.us to find out the information. That's tdtt.us. And if you're lucky, we're still running a promotion where you can join for only $1 to experience a couple of calls before you commit to the long-term, although there really are no commitments. You can join month-to-month or pay for the year. It's completely up to you. There's a lot of flexibility, no commitments, and yet we have very few people ever leave because people love it so much.

All right, without further ado, let me take you now to my interview with Antonio Neves, author of the book Stop Living on Autopilot. Enjoy.

Welcome to the podcast. I am your host, Andy Storch, and I'm excited that you are joining me for a really great interview today. Our guest today is the author of four books, including Stop Living on Autopilot: Take Responsibility for Your Life and Rediscover a Bolder, Happier You. On his podcast The Best Thing, Antonio talks with leaders about the best thing to happen to them that would never appear on a résumé. Our guest today, of course, is Antonio Neves. Antonio, welcome to the show.

Antonio

Hey, I'm happy to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

Andy:

Yes, so excited to be able to do this. And, of course, we are recording this live on LinkedIn and Facebook, so if you happen to be watching live, feel free to throw some comments, questions in the chat, and we'll be happy to answer those. And I've got a lot of great questions for you, Antonio.

First of all, I just want to say, I'm grateful to our friend Lindsey Pollak for introducing us recently. We've done some Clubhouse chats together, and this is our first chance to really talk live one-on-one on video, and I figured why not do it live in front of anybody and everybody who wants to jump in and join us? So before we get into some of the questions I have about your book and everything going on in the world, especially with career and talent development I'd love to start with a little bit of background. How did you get into what you're doing today?

Antonio:

Yeah. Well, again, first thank you for having me. And when you reached out and said, Hey, do you want to do live? I was like, yeah, why not? You know, I think a year ago I'd be like, no, let's, pre-tape this thing. Let's not do it live, and I'm all into doing it live.

To get me to where I am today, my career, you know, if you do a Google search of me, you'll see that I'm a speaker. I'm the author of four books. I have a podcast, as you mentioned, and prior to that, I worked in the television industry for over 12 years in New York City as a reporter and correspondent with major networks like NBC, PBS, BET Networks, etc.

About how I got here, I'm from a small town in Michigan. I’m from one of those towns that, frankly, people really don't leave. I was fortunate enough to be a first-generation college student. I did go get my education, undergrad at Western Michigan University. And it's amazing when I think about the journeys because after my freshman year of college, I went back home, and I worked at a factory in my small hometown. And then I got back to college and I heard about these things called internships. I'm like, what are these things called internships?

I got an internship after my sophomore year in Detroit, Michigan, which for me was like, that was as big as it gets--Detroit. And instead, I heard, heard about this thing called the Walt Disney World College Program, not far from where you are right now, and I did that after my junior year. That led to then studying abroad in Spain afterward, so it's amazing how sometimes these small decisions, you go back for a factory, you get that first internship, that second one. It creates momentum, and slowly but surely the small-town kid, you know, build up his confidence. People always got to say it, you’ve got to take that big jump, and I've always learned that breakthroughs kind of come in small steps, and by me making those steps in college, it gave me the courage to move to New York City with less than $1,000 in my bank account with dreams of breaking in the TV industry, and here we are today after that career and transitioning to leadership and development work.

Andy:

Oh, that's amazing. And the internship program sounds fantastic. I wish I would have discovered something like that when I was in college because I had no idea what I was doing, and it took me a lot longer to figure things out. But I also, after college, moved out to Los Angeles with pretty much no money and no idea what we're going to do because my then-girlfriend, now-wife wanted to get into TV production as a writer, and so that started us on our journey, and I know you're out in LA, I know now. I saw that you ran track in college. I was wondering what your event was. I ran in high school. I didn't quite make it to the college level.

Antonio:

Yeah. I was a long jumper and triple jumper, so I played in the sand. I did other events as well, but primarily I earned my scholarship after my … I walked on the team, actually. I had to walk on the team to earn a roster spot. After two years, I finally earned a partial scholarship as a long jumper and triple jumper. And I tell you, that collegiate experience of being an athlete, I learned a lot because A) just competition every single day. Learn how to structure and balance my time because you have the full-time class schedule, but then you have to be in class, and then you have traveling and all that kind of stuff. So the student-athlete experience for me was something I wouldn't trade, and I was never an Olympian or never a national champion. But I got so much out of that experience to really test me, and I think being an athlete always helped me in my life and in my career as well.

Andy:

Oh yeah, absolutely. I still consider myself an athlete, and I ran the 110 hurdles and the 300 hurdles in high school. And I'd gotten pretty good, pretty fast by my senior year, but I'd already committed to going to the University of Florida, where there was no chance of me making any of the athletic teams with the talent that was on there. But I played a lot of intramural sports, and I have a funny story about running the instrumental track meet I'll share more about one day. I also saw that early in your career, you worked at Nickelodeon writing content for teens. Curious. What was that like? That had to be a really interesting experience.

Antonio:

Yeah. Nickelodeon was first--my big break in the television industry. That's where I was on live TV every single day as a co-host of a show called U-Pick Live from 2002 to 2004, 2005. And that was a blast and an experience. One of those things, the dream come true where your family back in Michigan could turn on the television every single day and see you attracting the big star celebrities, etc., and the cool thing about that experience is it also provided me the opportunity to become a writer as well, behind the scenes, where I wrote about the sketches and wrote a lot of the content for the show. And I was a production assistant initially, then became an associate producer, and it was fun because my head couldn't get too big because yes, I was on camera doing these things, but then also be after the show is over, I was doing the work behind the scenes as well. And that was a wild experience. It was my first big gig in TV. I don't know if I'd tell someone, maybe, for your first big television job be on national television for Nickelodeon. Maybe you should start in local TV first. There are a lot of challenges, a lot of opportunities, setbacks from that experience, but it was pretty, pretty cool. Nickelodeon was a network that I loved, I still love to this day, and I wouldn't trade that experience for anything.

Andy:

Yeah. Cool network. I watched a lot of Nickelodeon when I was a kid, and I know it's still around. My kids watch some shows on there. They do a pretty good job with their content. Also, just looking at your profile, I saw you are a Myers-Briggs administrator. Wondering what your MBTI type is.

Antonio:

Yeah. When I started doing this leadership and development work, it was funny. I was like, how am I going to get people to take me seriously? This guy, that's a journalist and that came from TV. So I started, of course, getting different accreditations and etc, and one that I was really into was the Myers-Briggs. It's funny. It depends on the day of the week. Sometimes, I'm an ENTJ, other times, I'm an INTJ. I think I really confused people because they've seen me on TV for so many years, or they'll see me on stages in front of hundreds, if not thousands, of people, and you come out and you can light people up, and you have this energy, and you can connect with strangers, etc. But then they reach you and meet you in real life, you can be quiet, reserved even a little bit shy, and that's a great picture of who I am. I think people will meet me behind the scenes, and they're like, is everything okay? I'm like, yeah, I'm great. I'm just a quiet dude, believe it or not.

Andy:

Yeah. It just like to listen first until you're on, and then when you need to be on, you can be on, right?

Antonio:

How about you? Do you know your Myers-Briggs type?

Andy:

Yeah. Well, I got into it when I was in business school. I did my MBA out at USC, and we had a great communications professor that was big on it. And at the time I thought I was an ENTJ, and I'm a very strong extrovert. There's no question on the E. But later in life, I realized that I'm really disorganized, and I'm definitely not a J. I'm an ENTP for sure. I like to kind of live life by the seat of my pants. Do things at the last minute. I do like a little organization here and there. I'm not against it, of course. We can all benefit from that, but I think I like to live life a little more flexibly, so ENTP. And I always like talking to people about what their types are, helps me kind of understand, you know, who they are, what gives them energy, what their strengths are, development opportunities, that kind of thing.

So speaking of that, getting to know yourself and you've gone through your career, you've written a few books, but this last one--Stop Living on Autopilot--you and I met, and we're like, Oh my gosh, our books are, are so aligned, right? We're writing about similar things, and I love the content that you put out there and some of the things you wrote about in your book, but why did you write this book?

Antonio:

I reached an interesting point in my career where I think a lot of professionals reach where on paper, everything looks good. You've set out what you set out to do. People look at your LinkedIn profile. You look successful. You look at your Instagram. Maybe you look happy. Maybe you have everything that society told you to go after and the American dream, the home, the marriage, the kids, etc. But I reached this interesting point where I felt like that the manual if you will, the blueprint for life, had kind of come to an end back in 2016, and I was truly struggling. I was a year into my marriage. My wife and I had twins, right off of the bat. From a professional perspective though, things were going good. I kind of felt myself coasting in many ways, on cruise control, going through the motions in my work.

And I was just really stressed. I reached this point of like, I know this is good. Technically, on paper, everything is good, but this isn't it for me. I found myself developing some interesting habits.

One of those was I became a secret cigarette smoker, and I'll never forget that in the midst of all this stress of the career, being a business owner, being a new husband, being a new father of twins, one day I was smoking cigarettes. I would wear this bright green gardening glove when I smoked cigarettes, and I wore the bright green gardening glove because my wife didn't know that I smoked, and I didn't want her to smell the smoke on me when I came home. But one day, I was in an alley in Los Angeles, smoking cigarettes, and what I perceived to be a homeless man came up to me, and he asked me if he could borrow some cigarettes. And I was like, absolutely. It seems like he had seen better days. And then he asked me about my bright green gardening glove, and I was like, Oh, my wife doesn't know that I smoke. And he looked at me, man, like I committed a crime. And then he said something I'll never forget. He says, Hey man, you have to figure that out.

You can imagine what word went there. You have to figure that out. And that really was the moment where I really had to course correct my life, and long story short, what I realized was that in many ways, I stopped being bold and courageous in my pursuits and how I showed up. That kid that moved to New York City with less than $1,000 in his bank account really no longer existed. He was coasting. And again, on paper, that's the irony, on paper, everything was good.

And I can tell you firsthand as a coach that coaches, top professionals, these men and women with the titles of director and vice president and senior vice president--nd you probably know this in your work--there are many people who on paper are ridiculously successful, but internally, they're feeling lost and they're not feeling excited about what they're doing anymore. It's because they've got on this rollercoaster that life has you get on, and it tells you what you're supposed to do. But at times you're like, is this actually what I want to be doing?

So that's a long-winded way of where the genesis of the book ... To be clear, though, it's not a memoir. It's a self-development, personal development book, and the feedback has been amazing so far.

Andy:

Oh, that's fantastic, and it’s interesting where those wake-up calls, they can come from anywhere, anybody, right? That homeless person you talk to in the alley. And I’ve certainly been there. I was drifting through most of my twenties, I feel like, and as I got into my mid-thirties, I had that. Everything looked great on paper, making six figures, wife, and a kid., and the second one on the way, but something definitely felt like it was missing until I really got into the world of personal development a few years ago, back in 2016. It changed everything for me, so for you, was it that moment? And then was there something that you started doing to live life more intentionally and get out of autopilot?

Antonio:

Yeah, it was that moment. I mean, don't get me wrong. As a coach, as a speaker, a guy that's done the “work,” who loves personal development, who’s done the workshops, I was aware of these different things that were going on. The big thing, and in my experience, no one who has accomplished anything of significance did it alone, and neither should we, so of course therapy was extremely helpful. Reaching out to friends. I worked with a coach. I'm always blown away by how many people are coaches out there that don't have their own coach. And that led me on a pretty amazing path to getting back on track, if you will. And there are some more practical things I could talk about if you like, but I think something for people who are watching this right now to ask themselves if they are on autopilot, there are a few things that they can do.

First, I like to do this metric called the last 30 days, and I invite people to think about if they're in a job right now, they're employed to think back over the last 30 days, and ask themselves this question. If their boss, their manager, had to make a decision to rehire them based on the last 30 days, would the answer immediately be yes, or would there maybe be some hesitation? If there's some hesitation on your manager or your boss’s part, odds are you could be on autopilot or going through the motions.

Another way we can look at this is in our relationships, if you happen to be married, if you happen to have a spouse partner, etc., same 30-day metric. If your wife, if your husband, your spouse, had to make a decision to recommit to you based on the last 30 days, would they immediately say yes or say, you know what, maybe we should keep dating based on how you showed up?

The amazing thing is this last 30-day metric, we can look at it with our career. We can look at it with our relationships. We can look at it with parenting. We can look at it with our personal finances, with our health, our diet, etc. And the cool thing is that if you don't like what you see over the past 30 days, of course, we can always make a brand new decision. I don't want you to beat yourself up if you don't like it, but we can make new decisions.

And my last point on this, since we work in the career field so much, for those folks that say, I don't know if my boss would hire me or not, I just invite you to think back to when you were interviewing for the job that you were in right now. And think about when you got the second interview and how fired up, how excited you were. Think back to when you found out you were a finalist. Think back to receiving the phone call that you got the job, and think back to that first week on the job, that first month, those first six months, you name it, and how much of that person still exists. You remember that day one energy, which you show up with that job. How much of that person still exists? Many people made some commitment early on, but they haven’t recommitted to what they're doing right now, so that's a great way to think about it.

Andy:

Yeah. I mean, it reminds me of that whole idea of you should continue to date your spouse. And obviously, a lot of relationships get kind of stale over the years, and I've been there and the same thing with jobs, right? It's always really exciting when you first interview. You first get that job or you first start that business, and after a while, you get into the daily grind and things get a little bit old and stale, and you don't quite put in the same effort, and that's an interesting question. Would your boss still hire you based on the last 30 days, or would they pass? I was going to ask you how can people take stock of their lives and figure out if they're on autopilot, and so you just talked about looking at what have your actions been? What has your life and career looked like over the last 30 days or so? So if people are looking at that and thinking, wow, maybe I have been on autopilot, what's the next step? What do we do to get out of that and start living more intentionally?

Antonio:

Yeah. Well, first and foremost, just awareness. I think it's just to know and just to remind ourselves I like to have fun with--and by the way, I also want to say, don't beat yourself up. This is all just data. This is all just information. A lot of people beat themselves up, but this is all just data. This is all just information, so I want you to identify that that could be the case. I like to have fun with this stuff, right? We don't have to be so serious. I'm not sure if you're old enough to remember those choose-your-own-adventure books from our childhood, but I like to think about our life as a movie and with you being the lead character. And the question I have for folks that are watching right now, or who are listening to this, is if your life was a movie, would the lead characters start doing right now to turn things around?

What a simple, powerful question. If your life was a movie, what would the lead character start doing to turn things around in your career, in your marriage, in your health, and your personal finances, as a parent, etc. And I guarantee you right now, everyone who's listening to this or watching this, they know one thing that they can do to improve things in their life. You’re just one decision away from making our life better. And we have to remind ourselves alo we’re all just one really bad decision away from going to prison as well. The point I'm really trying to get across right now is that we treat our lives sometimes like we're the supporting character, like we're on the sidelines, like we're wearing our practice jersey, but our game jersey has been on for a really, really long time. We've also reached this point where it seems like, and this is in the workplace as well, as if we expect other people to care more about our lives or more about our careers than we do.

And I want to remind people that people care, and no one can care more than you. Yes. Your employer cares. Yes. Your boss cares. Yes. Your manager cares. Yes. Your spouse cares. Yes. Your friends care. Yes. Your parents care. And something is wrong if you're looking for these individuals that care more than you. What I'm inviting people to do in this book and in the work that I do is to take personal accountability for their experience, personal accountability for the life is that I'm tired of the things that are just pointing at everyone else for being idiots and messing things up. The fresh opportunity we have right now is point the finger at ourselves and ask ourselves, what role have I played in getting where I am right now? And what shifts can I make to go a different direction?

One thing about this book, when you read it is you realize it's not your standard personal development self-help book. This is a direct, real, raw, in-your-face book. It is not a book that's giving you a pat on the back saying, everything's going to be okay. No, this is the book that kind of flicks you in your esophagus to get your attention, to make sure you're awake, because we reached this interesting place where we have friends who are keeping it real. I think we can talk about relationships here in a second. That's a critical component of not living on autopilot, but we have friends who aren't keeping it real with us because when things don't work out, you know what people will say to us, Andy? They'll say things like, Oh, well maybe it wasn't meant to be, but I'm that person that likes to say, was it not meant to be, or did you give up? Did you throw in the towel?

And we have friends school that will say things like, if we have something that we've always wanted to pursue, but we haven't done it yet, we'll have friends that will say things like that, Oh, you know, it's never too late. And I’m the dude that says it may indeed never be too late, and the longer you wait, the harder it is going to get. We need people to keep it real with us.

The last thing I'll say, as you can tell, I like to talk and I'm a speaker, is today, a lot of people talk to me about this book. They talk to me about, Oh, it must be nice to have your book come out with a major publishing house here in 2021 with Penguin Random House. What I have to remind people is that long before Stop Living on Autopilot came out, I self-published three books. The first one came out 10 years ago, so I had to invest in myself. I could have waited for a publisher, but I decided to invest in myself, over the course of three books, build my own momentum, bet on myself. And 10 years after self-publishing that first book, then this book deal came about. So again, this book just keeps it honest with readers.

Andy:

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Yeah. You're not sitting around waiting for that promotion or that book deal or that success or whatever it is to come to you. You've got to go out and get it. You've got to set those goals. And I love what you mentioned about the importance of the relationships, the people you surround yourself with. I'm curious, we had a comment that came in from Paul Zamora, who said, I've also learned it's okay not to be embarrassed of your success either. So for going out and owning and finding success, we want to be able to own that ‘cause sometimes we will play that down so we don't separate ourselves from our colleagues or our friends. Curious what you think about that, and what is your definition of success, Antonio?

Antonio:

Yeah. Well, first Paul brings up a really great point. I agree 100%. I'm a firm believer that our success and our happiness hinders absolutely no one. Let me say that one more time. My success, your success hinders absolutely no one. But we reach this interesting point sometimes when we get successful, when we get new titles. We earn a certain income and like he said, we try to play it down. I'm okay with people shining their light. I think there's a kind way to do that. I think there are some people that maybe go about that the wrong way, but I also believe that our success hurts no one. Don't get me wrong. I know firsthand coming from a small town in Michigan, being a first-generation college student, as I found more and more success, as I found my income increasing, as I found myself experiencing things across the world I never thought I would experience, I found myself feeling guilty, as if I was leaving people behind.

But again, I've learned through the work that I've done over the years that my success doesn't hurt anyone. If anything, it can actually encourage people, but it's critical to talk about something right now, as well because as we grow, we develop, as we move forward, as we experience success, I want people to pay close attention to who's around them and what's happening because, as you will find sometimes, as you experience success and you do things that others aren't doing, sometimes you're going to get resistance from them. Let me tell you something that's really hard to deal with. That is it can threaten people when you grow. It can scare people when you grow. And you know why? Because your success, your growth, you're going outside of your comfort zone, what it does is it holds up a mirror to others, to what they are not doing in their own lives.

So what they try to do is pull you back down or they'll say some things like, Oh, so you think you're special now because you have a podcast or because you have a book or because you got that new title or you went on vacation to that really amazing location. It holds up a mirror to what they are not doing in their lives, so my invitation always is to find people and surround yourself with friends that are excited to see you win. Surround yourself with people who are excited to see you win, and as I've experienced, “success” in my career, I've had to pay really, really close attention to that.

And the last thing, and you're one of these people I'm going to talk about right now, I've also found in my career--and I'm curious your perspective on this--that sometimes the people who end up supporting you the most actually know you the least. The people you thought were gonna be the first people to buy your book or to make introductions or to connect you with this person or do X, Y, and Z, sometimes they're not the ones that do. It's that person you meet via a mutual friend on LinkedIn, and next thing you know, he's inviting you to join his Clubhouse that he's hosting every Wednesday at 10:00 AM Pacific, right? Again, so those people--that's amazing by the way. How beautiful is that? That doesn't beat up on all these other folks, but I think it's a beautiful point as well that sometimes the people who support us the most actually know us the least.

Andy:

I appreciate that. And I've experienced that as well, Antonio, and you and I have gotten to know each other just recently, but we're so aligned on things, and I love supporting people who are on a mission like you're on. So I was excited to get you on here, but it begs the question for a lot of people out there who could be listening to this and thinking, well I've heard this advice. It sounds simple. Just surround yourself with people who are going to support you and prop you up and cheer you on. But I've got all these long-time friends and colleagues who are often negative or critical or complaining or bringing me down, and I can't just leave them behind. How do we set ourselves up for success here? How do we surround ourselves more often with the right people?

Antonio:

Yeah. Well, a couple of things. First, those people who are in your life, whether they're family members or colleagues, that are bringing you down on giving you a hard time, I'm going to invite you to do what most people will not do. Be willing to have a conversation. Be willing to look that person in the eyes and say, Hey, I've known you for a long time. You're my colleague. You're my cousin. You're my sister. You're my family, whatever. And I’ve noticed when we spend time together that we tend to have negative conversations, or we're not talking about uplifting things or we can--you can name whatever's happening--and I'm in a place in my life right now where I'm trying to do some new things, and I want encouragement. I want to talk about positivity, etc. My hope is that we could recalibrate our relationship to do that type of thing. Would you be open to that?

Most people will never be willing to have that conversation. They're afraid to have that conversation. And guess what? If you're open to have that conversation and ask someone, can we change what our relationship looks like? Sometimes, you might get resistance. People may say no, and that's okay. But what I want you to know is that you actually attempted to improve that relationship, and you had the courage and the confidence to have that conversation, regardless of the outcome. And if things don't go the way you plan, they don't want to change things, that's when you have to set those intentional boundaries.

Some people you can't escape from. Colleagues. You can't escape from family sometimes, but guess what? If you're at a party and then all of a sudden, some substances are coming up that you don't want to be around, guess what? That's when you leave. You're hanging out with people at lunch and they're having some destructive, negative conversations about gossip or something like that. That's when you say, Hey, everyone, I've had a great time. I have to get back to the office to finish a project. You don't necessarily have to call people out, but you set your boundaries of what you're going to stand for and what you're not going to be privy to. In terms of who we can surround ourselves with, in the book, I talk about the difference between allies and thieves. And I learned this when I was in undergrad on the track and field team.

Do a quick story. After two years of being on the track and field team in college, I was doing absolutely horrible. And the reason why I knew I was doing absolutely horrible was because one day, my head coach came up to me and said, Antonio, you're doing absolutely horrible. But he did something to change my life. He said, Hey, man, I don't know if you know this, but we have two All-Americans on our team. And he pointed at them. One would go on to compete in multiple world championships. Another one would go on to compete in the Olympics. He said, we have two All-Americans on our team, yet in the two years that you've been on this team as a walk-on with the opportunity to earn a scholarship, not once have I seen you spend any time with them. He said, instead, you're hanging out with those guys--and you're gonna laugh at this--and he pointed over to the high jump mat. Now, if you know anything about high school or collegiate track and field, the high jump mat is where your teammates like to lay back, laugh, and have a good time. Not bad people, not people committing crimes, but not All-Americans.

And he said, you're hanging out with them, and on that day, Coach Shaw introduced me to what allies are. Well, thieves and allies. Thieves are people that don't encourage you, that don't inspire you, that don't challenge you, that don't push you, and don't hold you accountable. That's the big one like we talked about earlier. They don't hold you accountable to be the absolute best version of yourself. Thieves always have drama going on in their lives. You call them, and the first thing they say is, you're not going to believe what just happened to me. You're like, why are things always happening to you and no one else? These are people that my friend John Gordon, the author, calls energy vampires. You spend time with them, and they wear you out.

But on the flip side, we can spend time with allies, those All-Americans that I talk about. Those people that do, we encourage you that do inspire you, that do challenge you, that do push you, that do hold you accountable to be the absolute best version of yourself. Allies don't have drama going on in their lives. They have great things going on in their lives. Allies don't take away your energy. They actually give you energy. And here's a beautiful thing. Allies don't have to be your best friends. We think that the allies are our personal board of directors, or whatever you want to call it, have to be our best friends. These are just men and women that we have relationships with that we can reach out to because they're people that can be part of church groups, be part of Facebook groups, part of group coaching programs, colleagues at work in your organization but in another department or another division. You're not stuck only dealing with people who work in your division or your department.

In our communities, there are so many amazing meetups that are taking place. Local institutions, cultural places, right? These men and women exist. The challenge is we have to be willing to do the work to be implicit about creating these relationships. The older we get, it's  harder ,to make friends sometimes, but that's why you have to commit to doing it and having those events, whether they're virtual or in-person on your schedule.

Last thing I'll say to this point is I want everyone listening to this or watching this just to shut their eyes and think about the five people they spend the most time with, and ask yourself a simple question. Do the five people you spend the most time with, do they make you better, or do they keep you standing still where you are settling for the status quo--mediocrit--in this day and age? Another thing you can do is pull out your cell phone. Pull out your smartphone and look at the last five conversations that you had on your smartphone, and ask yourself, are those conversations uplifting you? Are they taking you further, or are they negative gossip, or are they draining you? You have a say in this. We have a say in this. Never forget that.

Andy:

Oh, man. So true. Amen. I agree with everything you said. And I am very, very fortunate that I've done some of that work, and I am surrounded all the time by wonderful people who are supporting me and lifting me up. That's partly because I have gone out and sought those people out. I've joined masterminds and membership communities and paid to join those communities where I can meet people who are doing great things, and then get introductions from great people like Lindsey introduced us to be around and spend time with ambitious people who are, again, like you said, supporting you, promoting you, challenging you, holding you accountable.

And coincidentally, on that note, got a comment in the chat from my friend, Aaron Hunt, who said, Agree to the threatening, Antonio. Sometimes we do have to leave people behind if they are different aspirations and can't let us pursue our dreams.

And Aaron is a guy I met through a mutual friend through a community we belong to, equally ambitious guy, and we were both hosting virtual summits at the same time last year on different topics. We would message each other every day to check in and hold each other accountable. How are you doing with promoting your summit? How many people you have registered? What are you doing? Aaron would always be coming up with these ideas, and then I would just borrow them from him to use for my summit, so we learned and helped each other a lot, which I really appreciate.

So this is fantastic. It's such a critical factor, and going back to getting off autopilot, finding this success, surrounding ourselves with the right people, I think are really critical aspect of this is helping people find true happiness and fulfillment. Because there's really nothing else. Like what else can we really be shooting for that's going to be really rewarding at the end of the day? So how can people find more fulfillment and happiness in the work that they do?

Antonio:

Yeah. One thing my book doesn't do--and something I don't advocate--I'm not the dude that's like, quit your job and move to Bali. I'm not that person. That's your thing, go for it. I'm a firm believer that we can find happiness and fulfillment exactly where we are. One thing, again, as I mentioned earlier, no one who's accomplished anything of significance did it alone, so I don't invite you to sit down and think really hard about how do I become more happy? How do I become more fulfilled? No, you can buy books. You can take courses. You can join group coaching programs, or even work one-on-one with a coach. So first and foremost, I invite you to figure out that you're not going to do this on your own.

Second, I want people to get clear on what they want in their life. In my experience, right now, people are trying to do everything, which means--we were talking about this earlier--like social media, where do I put my energy? Do I put it on Clubhouse, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram? I like to think about how people are living life right now, kind of like a computer operating system. People have so many apps running. And as you know, if you have a computer and you have a lot of apps running at the same time, what happens? Your processor speeds those down and worst-case scenario, it can lead to a crash. So right now, people are trying to do too much to figure out what fulfills them. I like to think about Jim Collins and the book Good to Great. He has a quote, and I'm paraphrasing right now, but he says if you have more than three priorities, you don't have any.

So what I want people to do is to spend some time and get a piece of paper out and write down 25 things that they want in their life. Twenty-five things that they want in their life, and really think about that. But these are things they can have a direct impact on, right? So if you put, I want to go to Mars, that may happen one day, but it's probably not going to happen tomorrow, but write down 25 things that you truly want in your life. And then what I'm going to invite you to do is strip back those 25 down to five, or even down to three, if you're courageous enough, and start pursuing some of those things. And most people, in my experience, are trying to do all 25 things at once or all 10 things at once, which leads to a whole bunch of stuff not getting done.

One of the most powerful things that we can do on a regular basis is finish something. I think a lot of people have a lot of products in their life, whether they want to write a book or the one that hosts their own virtual summit, or they want to get a promotion at their company, and the things that are going to make those things happen, they’ve got 20% complete here, 80% complete here, 62% complete here, etc., but nothing's getting done, so my challenge to everyone is to finish something. I don't care if this weekend you finish a puzzle or that home improvement project, or you fight for 500 words every single day. You name it. But the problem we have right now is people ,have too many apps open in their life and they're unwilling to fully commit to something and even dare I say, finish it.

Andy:

Money. And I've been there. I've been guilty of starting way too many things and not finishing enough and having too many tabs open in my brain and on my browser. And I agree. That's one of my biggest things is trying to get back to focusing on the one or two things that are most important to get things done. We've been talking a lot about how we as individuals can get off autopilot, live more intentionally, have a more fulfilling work life and career, surround ourselves with the right people. What do you think organizations can do to support their employees to have more fulfilled careers and help them with this stuff?

Antonio:

Talk to their employees. I speak at organizations all across the globe. Prior to the pandemic, I was traveling sometimes 5,000-10,000 miles a month on the different continents to give talks and facilitate workshops. And a lot of organizations, in my experience, get large and small, make a lot of assumptions that they know what people want, that they truly know what's going on. One of the things I love to do when I go to organizations, I get large or small, ask the question, whether it's to a department division or a whole company, and a simple question that I'll ask is, first of all, ask the stakeholders like, Hey do your employees know what's most important right now about this year or this quarter? And they're like, absolutely. And then they will survey the team or the division or the whole company and say, Hey, what's most important for our organization right now?

And guess what? Every answer is different. They assume that everyone knows what's important, that they are in alignment, and they are not. The challenge that I see right now is that so many of these conversations to determine employee engagement and employee wellbeing, employee health, etc., are being held in back rooms with just a few key people. They're not talking to everyone. If you go out and you truly talk to people, and I think my approach is really unique because I'm a journalist by trade, and I did that for many years, truly go in and have deep conversations with people, with organizations to uncover things that sometimes that 10-question survey where there's no nuance--you can't hear what's not said, you can't start to connect dots--will never reveal. So we have some real deep conversations with your employees where you ask them a question, and instead of them giving you just the answer and you saying, okay, you follow up with a question like, tell me more about that.

What the organizations are getting from their employees of these surveys and the things that they do, what they're getting is the leaf on the tree. But if you're great about your question asking--a lot of that has to be face-to-face if possible, or even through online trainings--you won't get the leaf on the tree. You'll ask great questions that then lead to the twig that then lead to the branch that then lead to the trunk. And if you're awesome, it'll lead to the roots of the tree where the real answers are. But most organizations are focusing just on the leaf, just on the surface. Well, that requires for people to get rid of their egos and to be willing to have conversations with everyone and to encourage and allow people to share.

People get afraid. Senior leadership gets afraid when people share because they think there's going to be rumblings and all of that. But invite these organizations to be open, to get curious, to let people know you really want to hear what they have to say. Does that mean you're going to do everything that they want or agree with everything they say or do everything they suggest? Absolutely not. But let me tell you something. If people want anything nowadays, they want to feel like they are being heard, and a five-question survey doesn't do that. A 10-question survey doesn't do that. That annual review is not enough. Like really? Really?

You know, most people walk out of annual reviews. It's as if they're running out of gas, and they're stuck on the side of the road and they just ran out. Those reviews--it's like it takes the gas out of everyone, right? The opportunity that we have is to regularly refuel our teams, refuel our people to provide that ongoing preventative maintenance, and not be afraid of what they're going to say. So I'm not sure if I gave you a clear answer there, but I'm inviting people to go a little bit deeper than the surface and to pull back from the leaf.

Andy:

No, absolutely. It's all about curiosity, asking questions, being willing to follow up, and find out what your employees truly want. What's going to allow them to be more engaged, more productive, to be happier, more fulfilled? Do you think this has become more difficult under COVID with a lot of people working remotely and virtually, or is that just an excuse as there's still plenty of opportunity there to have those conversations and to create a great work experience for your employees?

Antonio:

No, I think it's a legitimate concern ‘cause we're not seeing people. If anything good has come out of this, and I don't think this is happening nearly enough, is that it's required us to be more intentional about our communication and more intentional about our outreach to people, which isn't happening enough. As you know, if there's something that employees crave regardless of age, I'm not going to say just Millennials, one thing that employees crave is more feedback. There's more ongoing communication and sadly, with COVID, this has actually caused a lot of managers and leaders to disappear behind chats, behind instant messages. When people truly want to hear a voice, do you have to have another Zoom meeting to see someone's face? No, but people do want to hear voices. They do want to be heard. They want to hear what's going on.

Something I do in all my trainings to organizations is I have a moment, and I remind them that the most important thing that you can give to someone is your attention. Now I'll say that one more time. The most important thing that you can give to someone is your attention, and right now in the workplace, especially with COVID, with remote working, there's a paucity of that taking place.

So I can invite people right now, if you're an employer or if you lead a team, if you're a leader, shut your eyes. I bet there's one person right now, if you shut your eyes and you think really hard, you can probably say, you know what? I bet she would benefit from me giving her a quick call. I bet I haven't touched base with him in a while and touch base. There's someone right now that if you really think for a quick second, you're like, ah, I probably should give them a call. I know they're doing good. I know there's no fires. I know there haven't been any alarms, but maybe because of that, I haven't checked in with them. And who knows? They could be interviewing for another job right now because you're like, Oh, they're doing good. They're hitting our numbers. Yeah, they may be hitting all of the numbers while they're also getting some other telephone numbers, talking to some potential employers.

Because I think people assume that during this time people, haven't left jobs. No, we can live in the stats. People are leaving jobs. People are getting brand new jobs during this time because COVID--the pandemic--remote working has exposed a lot of things that aren't happening in organizations that have been hidden, that have been hidden when we show up face-to-face every single day. So for you guys right now, think about someone you know you probably should give a call to. Hell for somebody in your personal life. There's a friend. Forget work. There's a friend you probably, you know what? I haven't talked to her in a long time. I haven't talked to him. Call that person. Does it need to be a two-hour conversation? No. A five-minute call can change the course of someone's day, week, or month.

Speaker 1 (46:41):

Amen. I do it all the time, and I always appreciate when people reach out. Antonio, is there, when you think about talent development, career development, is there a trend, something we didn't talk about already that you're following or noticing out there in the working world that you think is interesting right now?

Antonio:

Yeah. It's been fascinating to me as a coach, and I primarily work with the senior leaders, what I'm noticing is how many young people--and I say young people, those folks who are just entering the workforce straight out of college now just to put an age on it--from what I'm seeing. My example, at 22 to 27, 28-year-old category, I'm blown away. How many of these folks right now are saying, okay, it doesn't seem like our organization is going to provide leadership and development opportunities for me, or personal development opportunities, professional development opportunities, so I'm going to take the onus upon myself to do that. So I've been really blown away over the course of this past year to see how many people have been willing to invest in themselves and hire coaches, join group coaching programs. Many of them, these are young professionals that I used to specialize on, I don't anymore, but they're reaching out to me saying, Hey Antonio, is there a program that you recommend where I can meet some like-minded professionals who are hungry, that want to expand, that are curious, that want to grow, etc., where they're going to be stretched? Because it's not happening internally.

Last thing I'll say on this point is one thing I saw happening, again, as a guy that speaks normally 50 plus times a year, now I'm speaking actually more because I've accessed a beam in anywhere multiple times a day, one of the first things I saw get cut with the pandemic was leadership and development budgets. A lot of the trainings, a lot of the guest speakers. They got cut, but from top organizations, those ones that are ahead of the curve, they kept doing it. They didn't stop doing these things. Yeah, they had to shift from in-person events to virtual events, but if you're an organization that has stopped investing in people during this time, it’s the wrong move. They're going to bounce. They're going to leave where they're going to be poured into. We have to pour into our people.

Andy:

Last question, Antonio. For those listening who are looking for ways to get out of autopilot and really accelerate their career success, what's one more piece of advice you would give?

Antonio:

Yeah. Of course I got to do it, sorry, ‘cause I don't have it on my wall. I’ve got to put up the book Stop Living on Autopilot. I mentioned earlier, I want you to finish something. Never underestimate the power of finishing something. It will build up your confidence. It will help you create momentum. You decide what you want to finish, but finish something. I invite you to start learning again, just to reiterate the point we just made. Right now, so much that atrophy has set in from an educational perspective. You have the opportunity to learn again, and this doesn't mean you have to even spend money. You can listen to an amazing podcast like this or podcasts like mine, The Best Thing Podcast, or the scores of amazing podcasts that are out there that have learnings and expertise in whatever you're interested in.

There are amazing online courses that are available to you. The library is still is a wealth of information. You can get access to amazing books at absolutely no cost--even audiobooks from your public library. Join a virtual event. You name it. Don't stop learning.

Last thing I'll say, and we mentioned it earlier, find your allies. Connect with others. Don't isolate. Even prior to the pandemic, something we really were worried about, the CDC called it an epidemic, was loneliness, and people have isolated more and more over the course of this pandemic. And I invite you not to isolate. I invite you to reach out and to connect with others. You will thank me for doing so.

So finish something, start learning again, and connect with others.

Andy:

And surround yourself with the right people with those allies. Love it, Antonio. For those that want to follow and learn from you, maybe reach out where's the best place for them to go?

Antonio:

Yeah. Go to theantonioneves.com is the central hub for everything, theantonioneves.com. Everywhere on social media, it's also theantonioneves. One day, that dude, that amazing artist in Brazil who owns antonioneves.com, I'm going to get it from him when he forgets to renew the URL, but for now, and for the past my whole professional life, it's theantonioneves.com. I'm the.

Andy:

That’s right, you are theAntonioNeves. I enjoy following you on social media since we connected, and, of course, you and I have been running some Clubhouse rooms together, so look out for us to do more of that in the future. Antonio, this has been awesome. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing all your wisdom and advice. The book again, of course, is Stop Living on Autopilot. Go out and get it today, read it, get off autopilot, and go out and live your best life. Antonio, thank you again for coming on. This has been awesome. I'll talk to you soon.

Thanks again for listening to the talent development, hot seat. If you haven't already, we'd love for you to leave us a rating and review on iTunes to help other people find the show. And as always, you can find all of our episodes and tons of free resources on our website, talent development, hot seat.com. Thank you again and take care.

Connect with Andy Storch here:

https://andystorch.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/andystorch/

https://tdtt.us/

Connect with Antonio Neves:

https://theantonioneves.com/