Greg Voisen
Well, to all my audience out there, welcome back to Inside Personal Growth again. And thank you, we are closing in on 1000 podcasts, which is a big milestone for me, Todd. And joining me from Connecticut is Todd Cherches. Good day to you, Todd, how you doing?

Todd Cherches
Thank you, Greg. I was just saying, I have to head into New York shortly to teach my NYU class. But I'm doing good today and well, psyched for our conversation looking forward to it.

Greg Voisen
Well, I am as well. And it for all of you who haven't seen the book we're gonna talk about, if you're on video, you can see right behind Todd, there's a whole shelf of them and a big one right in the corner there. And I'm gonna hold the book up Visual leadership, leveraging the power of visual thinking and leadership and in life, Todd Cherches, and if you want to, there's two places, you can go to toddcherches.com. That's t-o-d-d-c-h-e-r-c-h-e-s.com. And the other one is www.bigbluegumball.com. We'll put links to both of those in our blog, and in the podcast. And Todd, I just want to make a big go out to you that anybody who buys his book off Amazon, which we'll have a link too. It is a super high quality book, it's very well done visually, and the way that the text is written and the learning experiences that you'll get out of it, based on the questions that are outlined at the end of each of the chapters, and visual leadership. You know, David Winckelmann, was the one that introduced me to Todd and I want to make a shout out about that, because I always appreciate the people that make all these connections for me to get all these interviews done. And this is a very interesting topic. You know, I've done all things on podcasts about graphic facilitation, and creating visual elements associated with either creating new ideas and businesses. And Todd's book has an a degree of that, but it goes one step further. And I want to tell our listeners a little bit about you. He's the CEO and co-founder of Big Blue Gumball, an innovative New York City based management, and leadership consulting, training, and executive coaching firm. He's also a TEDx speaker. And we'll put a link in our blog to the TEDx talk called The Power of visual thinking. And a two time award winning adjunct professor of leadership at NYU School of Professional Studies, Division of programs in business, as well as lecture on leadership at Columbia University. So Todd has the credibility. He's done this, again, I'll put a shout out a wonderful book. So Todd, let's kind of just kick this off. Because I know, this book has so much in it. I mean, the chapters, some of them are short, some of them are a little longer. But the reality is, there is so much in this book for somebody to kind of take in, and you tell an interesting story about growing up and wanting to be Batman or Superman, you say or working in television. And, you know, it was like, Well, I'm gonna be Batman, or I'm gonna be Superman. I can't be there. But I could work in television. You said you were obsessed with television? It sounded like as a kid, you watched a lot of TV. Can you speak about the beginnings and your trip to China that led to this power of visual to communicate?

Todd Cherches
Sure. Well, the introduction chapter. My book is basically very similar to the script of my TED Talk. So if people want to hear it, they watched my TED talk on the power of visual thinking. But yeah, people would say to you say to me, Ty, what do you want to be when you grow up as a kid? I would say I want to be Superman. I was obsessed with Superman. In fact, this is one of my mugs. I keep on my desk for those watching the video. So he's always close, close at hand. And they will say, Well, if you can't be Superman, what would your backup plan be? And I said, All right, Batman. So like as a kid, those are my two visions of possibilities. So but then I realized that if I couldn't be Superman, or Batman I, the next best thing would be to work in the TV industry in some capacity. In fact, I keep I keep this on my desk as a constant reminder of my Superman Batman heritage. But in a way it sounds once said to me, you don't have X ray vision, but you have visual thinking as a superpower. As Batman, you don't have the bat utility belt, but you have your coaching toolkit, so I rescue people I help to make people have better lives. So in some way is I get to channel Superman and Batman in my everyday work. So I'm working in the TV industry. I worked in advertising in New York for a year. And then I moved out to LA. Having grown up in New York. It was a big move to go out to Hollywood, and I got a series of part time jobs in the entertainment industry. I work from Michael Nesmith of the Monkees. That was my first job and most my baby my millennials, students have no idea and Gen Xers have no idea what Michael Nesmith told them.

Greg Voisen
That's true. I think he's deceased now isn't enough.

Todd Cherches
He just recently passed away. Yeah, baby boomers appreciate that. And I worked for Aaron Spelling on dynasty, I worked in casting at Columbia Pictures comedy at Disney and drama at CBS. So during all those years working in the TV industry, the big thing was storytelling and character development. And there's a lot of parallels to that and to coaching. We could talk about lay there. But then I got to the theme park business as a project manager. So I was sent by my company we made robotic figures for theme parks, so they sent me I've never been outside the United States before I didn't have a passport, but they shifted ship shipped me off to China Shenzhen, China, just over the boy from Hong Kong to oversee this installation of these seven life size robotic figures, elephants, sheep and cows for this call. And

Greg Voisen
I remember you saying that you decided to wear a suit the first day and it was like 109 outside. That suit didn't last very long.

Todd Cherches
So with my briefcase, meeting in Manhattan, it was middle of like, this jungle was 110 degrees. I literally took a shower and I went outside human does almost like I took a shower in my suit. Like that's literally next day, I learned that I could dress a little more casually.

Greg Voisen
Yeah, yeah. So what did you learn by doing that installation in China and this whole concept around visuals to communicate,

Todd Cherches
I showed up with two of my colleagues, a mechanical guy, engineering electrical guy. And then all the Chinese counterparts showed up and none of them spoke English, including the translator who spoke almost no English. And we spoke no Chinese. But we had to get this done. So what I started doing is picking up a pad or pen and pen and start sketching things out different tools and different and we use a lot of body language and facial expressions to communicate. So I realized that's not just through our words that we communicate, but through body language, facial expression and visual images. So that was my first lightbulb moment. And at the time, you don't realize it. But looking back, I realized that was a key point where I was using visual communication. And I said sometimes felt like I was playing Pictionary and charades. You know, two words sounds like tape measure, you know, to try and communicate. But it's like how you would communicate with a tape measure is with your hands or with a drawing. And even though I couldn't draw that, well, I suffer from ICD, which is I can't draw syndrome, I was able to draw well enough I say if you can pay Pictionary with your friends and family and your kids, you could draw well enough to do a stick figure, or just sketch something out. And that was the like the origin story of when I first started realizing you

Greg Voisen
didn't, you didn't have Google translate back then. So you can basically take you know, play it as a, okay, now translate this to Chinese. But I do believe that that element of connecting with a piece of paper and a pen, whether it's a pencil or a pen, or a yellow marker, or whatever it is, there's really something to be said about that. And I remember you talking about drawing on the back of a napkin as well, right, you know, developing that. Um, and so, obviously, you use these visuals to communicate with these gentlemen. And that's where this power kind of came from. Plus all the exposure you had in Hollywood about developing storylines, right, coming up with storylines, and, and doing that. And you have a formula in the book for success and visual leadership. You call it? And I think it's so true, because it's always been said, my listeners will say, Well, I've heard this, a lot picture's worth 1000 words, but it really is probably worth more than that today. Um, can you speak with our listeners about the formula and how the formula can help us create results in our personal and in our business lives, because I know that I've been caught sometimes not as much lately, but I used to be. And I used to be a yellow pad kind of salesman, you know, I would always pull out the yellow pad and I would draw it now we have all these electronic devices and it takes longer to pull out the pen and turn it on and get it you know, get it going. And by that time you've lost the idea.

Todd Cherches
That's why I tell my students to leave your laptops at home and just bring like a sketch pad or just a D pad and pens. I do a lot of drawing exercises. In my I teach leadership at NYU and Columbia. As you mentioned, I incorporate a lot of drawing exercises. So instead of just my sketching out a model, I have my students if it's a four box matrix, if it's a five level staircase I actually have them draw it out. And the research has shown that when we draw, we activate a different part of our brain. It's kinesthetic activity, and it's a visual activity. And if you reconstruct it yourself, as opposed to just be shown it, or even more, or than just being told it, you actually remember I was talking about attention, comprehension and retention, I mentioned that my book and Ted talk to that when use visual imagery or visual language, it gets people's two people to focus it captures their attention increases their understanding, it helps them to remember so

Greg Voisen
why are people in my estimation, this is just a personal observation. They seem to be afraid or uptight about drawing in front of people. You know, I have behind me here, this, this wall is basically a big 55 inch white screen that you it's, it's a vision whiteboard, is what it is. And even me, after all the stuff I've been through, there are times when I get up on that thing, and I start drawing and I think to myself, oh, boy, I don't want anyone else to see this. And I want my listeners to know that it's okay. And I wonder what you would tell people today about that? Yeah, well, I recently

Todd Cherches
did a visual leadership workshop for a group of 20 CEOs, and the guy who brought me and said, You're not gonna actually make them draw, are you? And I'm like, Yes, that's a part of the experience. feel to them, like little kindergarten, they? And I said maybe at first, but next thing you know, is they're asking for more time and more colors, you know, it's just like, because what I always say is, if you ask a group of kids, how many of you could draw how many raise their hand? All of them? Right? But you asked me a group of businesspeople, and none of them raise their hand, self-conscious about looking stupid or looking bad. So I actually take people through a very simple exercise, if you could draw a line, a square, a circle and a triangle, you could sketch out an idea, right? So it's not, it's not an assessment of your drawing abilities. It's an assessment of your ability to communicate something visually. And I actually wrote an article for Ink Magazine called Can you draw what your company does? So I could send you the link or people could just Google can you draw what your company does Ink Magazine to read the article, but it tells a story of an exercise I did with a group of clients, salespeople? And how do that 115 minute exercise, it completely changed the way they went about their sales process. So just had they not gone through the drawing exercise, they may never have reached that point. So it was a real life case study and how drawing helps us to access your right brain left brain logical, right brain rhythm. That's why I always remember left brain, right brain, but we incorporate both sides of the brain, the logical and the creative, were more powerful than either on their own.

Greg Voisen
It was interesting, because I was recently watching a documentary that was done on Netflix about a psychologist actually, he's in think he's in New York, actually, I can't remember his name Stubbs, and he draws, but he draw even has Parkinson's. So when he draws these images out, and they used him in the video, right, they showed them, they look like scratches on paper, you know, they were kind of tough, but Phil Stutz. That's it, Phil Stutz. But

Todd Cherches
he's Jonah Hill's therapist, and I was, but I actually wrote a blog post about how he uses those note cards and has his patients and he, yeah, to communicate ideas.

Greg Voisen
He was fantastic. I actually am going to write him to be on the show. But he is wonderful. But go back to my second question, I wanted to make sure you got the formula and because I interrupted you, but tell the formula, and then we'll move forward with some other really great stuff. Sure.

Todd Cherches
I'm not a mathematical guy. But for the mathematical people out there, you know, the formula is VL equals Vt plus V c, times n plus L. And that stands for visual leadership is visual thinking, plus visual communication times or apply to management and leadership. So that's like in a mathematical formula, that's the foundation of everything really do.

Greg Voisen
Yeah. And it really makes sense. And when you get the book, look at the formula, you don't need to memorize it. What you need to do is just look at it, you will figure out what he's talking about. Speak with the listeners about visual leadership. You know, I've heard about visual thinking I've heard about all these other elements that are visual in nature. And the grandfather of kind of this art form that started is in San Francisco, right. And you and I talked about, talked about him and his name is blanking out on me right now what David civets and David's been on the show, like three times and there couldn't be you know, look, when all of you kind of start out in this graphic facilitation arena. Not everybody's perfect. Right. But you start and you keep practicing, you get better and better. Speaking of listeners about visual leadership and how our mindset can make something good or bad, but that the bottom line of the perception of what is good or bad is the bottom line. And then, and then how we have purpose and passion about working at what we're doing. Because in our own minds, we create something good or bad. Right?

Todd Cherches
Shakespeare said, and Hamlet, nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes itself, right. Yeah. Visual Thinking makes it makes it. So that's my own spin on Shakespeare. But yeah, day seven is the grandfather of this industry, his company called Grove in Northern California. What he does is teaches people to use drawing and graphic recording and things like that. I'm like the anti-Dave Sibbett, because I represent the people who can draw. Or we could use visual imagery and props and metaphors and stories and mental models to help people think visually, because so many executives say, oh, I can't draw. So this doesn't apply to me, or I'm not in the creative field. So this doesn't apply to me. I was doing that workshop with the CEOs I mentioned before two guys were sitting next to each other to CEOs who had known each other for 15 years. And I actually had them do that exercise, can you draw what your company does, so they actually either explained to a drawing either a metaphor or sketching out their supply chain, however, they wanted to do it. And one guy said to the other, I've known you for 15 years, I never really understand your business or your business issues, until you sketched it out for me. And now it's like the light bulb went off. It was my light bulb that went off, I was keep my light bulb pansy. That's a great example of how to these two guys that were friends knew each other business associates for years. But until the guy sketched it out, the other one didn't really realize that he understood these issues, and there's challenges and I was able to help him. So that's the main point. So Visual leadership, and just see that some people don't realize that I spell it as one word with a shared capital L. And the idea behind the word visual leadership, when I got the patents on it, the first two times the US Patent Office rejected it, the third time was a charm, and they approved it. But visual leadership represents the fact that who you are, and how you lead is inseparable from the lens through which you see the world, right? Our background, our culture, our education, our life experiences, our values, all shape, what we see, but also what we miss what we don't see. One of the concepts of visual leadership is to open up your eyes and open up your mind to seeing the world through a new lens through a different lens and also through the lens of other people. And the other aspect of this is when you mentioned the word leadership, and I've done this poll hundreds of times one of the first three words that comes to mind, and the number one is vision. Right. So I mean, to talk about having a leadership vision, what does it mean to call someone, a visionary leader? When you think of visionary leaders who comes to mind Martin Luther King, Steve Jobs, right, Jeff Bezos, they're all people who had a picture of the future. And the key word is picture in their mind's eye, which is a term also coined by Shakespeare and how much they have a picture in their mind of a future that's different from and better than the current reality. So their challenge as a leader is how do I turn that picture in my head into a real life transformation? And how do I get other people to see what I'm saying? So that's kind of my mantra, my catchphrase, if I was gonna put them on a t shirt, that bumper sticker, it would be asking the question, how do you get other people to see what you're saying? So I'll stop right there. But that's the foundation of what visual leadership is all about?

Greg Voisen
Yeah, no, it's important for listeners to understand and I and I remember, being in the audience wants a National Geographic photographer, his last name was de Wit. I don't know if you ever heard him speak or not. But, you know, when you talk about visual, there couldn't be anything more than trying to capture you taking 1000s of pictures for National Geographic to actually pick one right out of the scene. And he used to say that intuitively now here's where I want to bring in this whole intuitive element. Even though you didn't write about it extensively. His he would get an intuitive hit, they would say turn around a wet, turn around, lay down to wit lay down take the camera and shoot from a different angle shoot from a different perspective. And it were it was those pictures where he got that kit that literally made it into the magazine because they weren't standard, hey, I'm standing here and I shoot an elephant or I shoot a giraffe or a tiger whatever. He would literally take a whole new perspective and angle at the way in which he shot a picture and I thought that was really significant. When you're want to get something like that turn around audience and look at it a different way. Right.

Todd Cherches
Because I have my TED talk with as the from Marcel Proust who said, the real voyage of discovery consists not in see Can new lands but then seeing with new eyes, so the example you just gave is a great example of just change your point of view, right. And so what would be the leadership equivalent of that I was thinking about, remember the show Undercover Boss with a boss in disguise, and pose, you know, get out of your ivory tower, get out of your office, go down to the shop floor, go out into the field and see the world through the lens of your people and to your customers. And you're gonna get a whole different vantage point than you would get from just looking at spreadsheets and looking at your cash flow statements.

Greg Voisen
And ask questions. I mean, you know, what you want to do is you want to find out how people feel about what's going on whether you're on the assembly line, or you're out in a construction site, right? You want to know what they feel, which is why Undercover Boss was so good, because they were asking those questions of the people. Now you speak about four ways that one can manage and lead visually. What are they? And why are they so important to manifesting our ideas into reality?

Todd Cherches
Show I break it down into four categories. And they're not mutually exclusive silos. But when using combination, they're even more effective. But just for the sake of our conversation, this is kind of how my book is structured. Category One is using visual imagery. So using pictures using props, using photographs, anything that you any information you could take into your to your physical eye, right, so using imagery, or you can use visual language, right, you could describe something almost painting a movie with words, those are all use of imagery, right? You like to get someone to have a picture in their head. So that's category one, visual images, Category Two. In fact, if you think about the word images is closely related to imagination, right, they share the same route, right, so in order to imagine the future, you need to have a picture of it in your head. Category Two is using mental models and frameworks. So this could be like Maslow's hierarchy of needs. It could be a four box matrix, like the time management matrix or SWOT analysis, it's basically about creating, we don't want to put people in boxes, and the saying, thinking outside the box is become a cliche. But if we put things in a box, or a framework or a structure, we can take the complexity and messiness of life and work and put them into categories. So we could see things more clearly. And then find solutions and opportunities that we might not otherwise see. So that's category two, mental models and frameworks. Category three is using metaphor and analogy. And this is where I get to bring in my, even though I have a formula for visual leadership, I was actually an English literature major with a concentration in Shakespeare and poetry thing I like, well did Shakespeare a couple of times here. So using metaphors, analogies, a lot of times, we just think of metaphors as the, you know, a tool of songwriters and poets, but we use metaphorical language in our everyday life. So we'll talk more about some real life examples of that. But metaphors are using visual language to explain something and bring it to live. And quality. category four, which is one of the hottest topics out there is using visual storytelling or leadership storytelling, to convey an idea and to motivate and inspire people. So those are my four buckets, basically,

Greg Voisen
well, those buckets are so important, Todd, I mean, really, when you think about it, you know, pictures, and then metaphors, and the diagrams, they all are so visual, and helping us understand something, you know, and I would tell people, you know, if you're going to be doing presentations, you know, start to develop an asset library, pull over piece pieces that you like, that you're going to use frequently, and you're going to put together into a PowerPoint or something, but I use visual and they've proven and I think you'll agree with this, that when you do these PowerPoints, don't fill them with words, because people don't remember a bullet pointed thing that goes down the page. They don't even want to see it. And number one, and number two, they won't remember it. So the bigger the words, the more visuals. If it was like a big word, think outside the box, with a box underneath, it would be better than taking a list of what it would be like to think out of the box Correct.

Todd Cherches
Slide filled with words is basically called your teleprompter. Right? It's basically if you're gonna read something while you're speaking, if you're reading, as soon as you put up a slide with 10 bullet points, what is your audience doing? They're reading the slides and not even listening to you at this point. So you said to them and say read it on your own, if you can say, all right, well, point number two. So yeah, just as you said, capture, yeah, Steve Jobs was a master of that if you watch any of his presentations for the announcement of any of the iPod, or iBook, and it'll be the iPhone, any of those product announcements, you can see how I use visuals with almost no or very few words on the screen. So they

Greg Voisen
were mad Apple was masters at it, just to say the least. And thus, I think for much of their success, and I'll attribute it to that. Now, I want to switch gears a little bit. You used to go on these long rides with your parents, your mom and dad in the car, and that your father loved to make everyone laugh. He was a big jokester. Can you tell the story and why this is a good example of visual thinking and visual communications, because there's actually a picture of, I think it is really your dad and the dashboard in the book. And I remember taking long rides with my dad, but I remember my dad being so funny. Although he would point things out along the way, you know,

Todd Cherches
my father used to think to Sinatra and Tony Bennett in the car and entertain us. And but yeah, it said the same corny dad jokes all the time in the same spot. So yeah, we'd be driving to my grandmother's house from Long Island and to Brooklyn. And we inevitably pass a certain point in the trip, my father say, hurry, I've taught Steve due to my mother, you know. So give me a piece of paper and a pen. And my mother would say, why are we Why do you need a piece of paper in the pen? He said, well look at the sign and the sign would say, punch line. drawbridge. So we got about to go for a drawbridge. And but if you think about that, and that's, that's a visual storytelling example, right? And I hope that for our listeners, anytime you go see a drawbridge side for the rest of your life, you'll think of my father and maybe give a little chuckle or even a groan, and maybe I'll even start saying it, as my wife does. Now. But if you think about the words drawbridge, right, the idea is the dried bridge goes up. And that's why you need to be aware of it. But just the two words draw drawing, which we just talked about, and bridge, well, there's a bridge to it's about connection, right? A bridge connects two sides of land to go across the water, like a bridge over troubled water, right. So when you see a sign, they call draw bridge that says draw a bridge that always makes me think of visual thinking of visual communication and making connections between people. Almost as if you draw, you know, creating a bridge between you and the other person, right? Whether it's our customer, or our employees, or whomever,

Greg Voisen
it was a good symbolism, you have a picture of a drawbridge. Unfortunately, out here in California, we don't see many drop bridges. But I think in the East Coast, you definitely see more, I have a funny little story, a friend of mine, where he's now deceased, he used to, we would push the button to go across the street. And as you know, in some of the lamps, or the ISA posts, there's a voice that comes out that says, wait, wait, wait, wait in it, you know, you don't have the ability to walk across any would always yell out to me, why don't they want to know my weight? And I know, it was stupid. It sounded so stupid, but actually was so corny. It was funny, you know, he would say that almost every time we were at one of those crosswalks?

Greg Voisen
Well, you know, this napkin sketching thing that I mentioned a few seconds ago, tell us a story about Southwest Airlines was founded, and the use of this napkin sketching. Now again, I don't I have plenty on napkins. I don't always have a white pad. Can you speak about the visual thinking tool and others that our listeners might use to develop an idea? I mean, I'd probably go back to the I mean, you can probably realize this, that the Native American Indians used to use a stick and draw on the sand, right? And a lot of

Todd Cherches
play football as a kid like touch football and draw the play out with a stick number on the grass, or in the palm of your hand, right? I remember that you run here, you do a post pattern, you do a hook pattern or whatever. Right. So yeah,

Greg Voisen
yeah. So talk about that story about Southwest Airlines. I think that the listeners get a kick out of it.

Todd Cherches
Sure. Well, napkin sketching is just as it says, like you're sitting in a bar, you grab a napkin, sketch something out, it can also be a back of the envelope. It could be any scrap of paper, right? That's the idea behind it is it's always there. But the classic story, the classic napkin sketching story is about Southwest Airline about South Southwest Airlines. How was born guy was sitting on the bar. I'm drawing a blank and there's a rollin King was sitting at a bar and he said to Herb Kelleher, what if we created a small commuter airline that just connected the three cities and who were trying all of San Antonio, Dallas and Houston and Herb Kelleher said love the idea, let's do it, and that became Southwest Airlines. So just by drawing that triangle with those three cities, he painted a mental map and herb Keller has a mind's eye where he can actually visualize it right. So he pictured the map of Texas he pictured this triangle and said yes, and now south, southwest airlines are having other problems right now these days, but they are one of the top national airlines now. And they were all the idea that was born on the triangle and napkin sketch. That's just one example of how you can take ship something down to its basic bare bones to communicate it so someone can understand it. And then from there, you can add meat to the bones and add those other layers on Until but that's a one of the classic napkin sketching stories.

Greg Voisen
Well, I remember working in companies and playing the video about Herb Kelleher and the whole story around love Luv, right and the heart on the back of the wing of the plane. or I shouldn't say the wing but the on the back of the plane. But at the same time, you know, he was big on culture, right? Like, let's pass out m&ms. He'd walk around and give m&ms to the people. He tried to give some autonomy to a certain degree. So people could make their own decisions about what's going on if there was a canceled flight or whatever. But he was one of the first to kind of really get into like, developing the culture around Bob, there was like love and people were like, love. Are you kidding me? And he's like, we're not gonna do love. But for all of those you don't know much about Herb Kelleher. It's a great story. And there's some great videos out there that you could learn inside your companies about how you shift the culture.

Todd Cherches
One of the top CEOs he just passed away a few years ago, but he's one of the top CEOs in the 20th century. So definitely worth studying how he built culture, as you just said, Yeah,

Greg Voisen
phenomenal. Unfortunately, like you said, they've had a few hiccups here lately. I'm sure they'll come back because they're a strong company. But, you know, you tell another cute story about your dog, Coco. And there's a picture in the book is that Coco?

Todd Cherches
That's not actually her because her name wasn't Coco, because I wanted to preserve her anonymity. Plus, with password, a lot of times they asked her what was your childhood stored? I wouldn't put that out into the world. That's why I changed her name to keep her anonymous.

Greg Voisen
Okay, well, that's good. Well, whoever this dogs real name was, you always retrieved the yellow ball. Now look, I have to mix mutt dogs myself. And we take them to the park like three times a week and throw balls, right? What you refer to, is when you would throw these balls, she'd always pick up the yellow ball, no matter what you could have a black one, you could have a blue one you could have whatever was yellow, you speak about visual thinking tools. And others, to our listeners might develop as an idea. I think this, the point of the story was doing the best at what we like to do. So in other words, is the dog like to go get the yellow ball, so it went and fetch the wallet.

Todd Cherches
I keep these on my desk to remind me of the for those watching the video version, I would throw a red ball, a yellow ball and an eye, blue ball, I throw them all the way across the backyard, I impress people, I'd say Koko, go get the yellow ball. And people would be amazed she would bring back the yellow ball. But even if I say get the red ball or the blue ball, she always brought back the yellow one. So what I did was tell her that bring back the yellow ball. So there's the same by Frederick Taylor, the original management consultant back in 1911. He said that people do best what they like best to do. So if we can just like my dog, what bringing back that yellow ball for whatever reason, and we find out about our people what they love to do, we could set them up for success. Now, we can always do that. But if we find out what they what their passions are, what their sense of purpose is what they're good at, then we could set them up for success by giving them whatever that yellow ball is to do, and they will shine bright, they will always succeed. So that's the yellow ball leadership principle.

Greg Voisen
I like that. And you know, I know dogs are pretty colorblind, right, they don't see all the spectrums that we do. And I noticed the manufacturers of these balls. And this is a side note, everybody, they're either orange or blue. Because I think those must be the colors that they can see and what they'll go after. But it is interesting, this whole concept that you're telling that, you know, they'll go fetch something they like to fetch, right. And your point here is do something you'd like to do, because you're always going to keep getting better at it right?

Todd Cherches
You want to find out if you don't know what people like to do, what their passions are, what they're good at what they'd like to learn, then you may be giving them you know, Jim Collins said, get them get the right people on the bus and the wrong people off and get the people in the right seat on the bus. Similarly with the yellow ball, you wouldn't know what the yellow ball is or what the right seat on the bus is for each person on your team and then together you can take it somewhere great. So a lot of times people underperform because they're in the wrong seat on the bus or you're asking them to do something that they're not equipped to do or they don't have a passion for. So the whole idea of the metaphor here is find out learn from your people what it is that they like to do and what they want to be better at and then helped to develop those skills help to nurture them towards their Yeah.

Greg Voisen
And you know, you still travel a lot but used to travel a lot more. It seems like doing speaking and You were talking about going in your sock drawer, and you would have these different colored socks, right? And then you told the story about shit. This is just too complicated. I'm just gonna go down and one day you went down to New York and you bought 16 pairs of black socks? Would you comment on making a conscious decision not to have to stop and think. And I think that's really the point here is, you know, we have a lot of choices in life today. Right? There's just tons of choices out there for us more than I think we've ever had in our life. If you work into a in a developing country, like we do, you might not have all those choices, if you're in a different part of the world. But we have tons of choices about what we eat, what we put on the kind of car we drive, all of that kind of stuff. How do we make it simple? Because it does seem complicated at times?

Todd Cherches
Yeah, one way to simplify is what I call again, I use a lot of colors as metaphor. So this is called Black sock decision making. And the idea was just that, instead of spending a half hour picking out which socks Should I wear, if you had nothing but black to choose from, there's no choice involved, right? So the metaphor there is to simplify complexity by eliminating as many decisions as you can, and Systemizing and commoditizing certain things to free your time and your mental bandwidth up for making the decisions of things that really matter. Barry Schwartz has a great TED Talk and book called The Paradox of Choice. And he talks about when you give people too many choices, and you know, this is a salesperson, they get paralyzed by indecision and don't choose anything, right? That's why the small, medium or large, that's why with a bottle of wine, they have the cheap one, the middle one and the expensive one, most people buy the middle one, right. So how do you frame pricing how you frame you choose between vendors, you choose between iPhones, whatever products you're buying or services you're offering, you want to simplify that for your customers and for your team so that they can sell better or make better decisions. So that's the idea behind BLINDSIGHT decision making is simplifying the things that you can. And you know, who does this as Marshall Goldsmith, the number one executive coach in the world, if you look at pictures of him, he wears a green golf shirt and khakis all the time. And the story behind it just like my black sock decision making is when he's packing, when he's traveling. He doesn't have to say what am I gonna wear today who bring if I'm gone for 10 days, I bring 10 Green golf shirts, and I'm packed right and hopefully, whereas black socks too, and just back to the black socks, right? But that's the idea behind that was just to simplify and you know, does anyone really care what you wear? what color socks you wear? No. Right? So those are the types of things that leave those things? Are what kind of to what if you have five toothpaste to choose from in the morning? You know, take your half out and brush your teeth. Right, as opposed to just reaching for that.

Greg Voisen
Oh, yeah, it's so true. You know, I just had Marshall on not that long ago, new book. And when he says to regret to fulfilment, and he works with a lot of high achievers, right. And he was, I remember this distinctly what he was saying, because I've never in all the years that I've been reading his books, Todd, heard him outwardly speak about the his theories around Buddhist teachings. But I did this time in this in this last book, and it was almost like, Hey, I'm 72 years old, now I can talk what I want to talk about. So I'm gonna do it. And I think he made an important point about non attachment to the outcome. He said, you know, all these people have these attachments to an outcome. You know, they, especially if you're a high achiever, it's got to be done a particular way. And he said, No, you've got to let go of that. Right. And that's pretty simple. When you're talking about this sock decision to it's like, I'm not attached to which pair of socks, it's a green shirt, and a khaki pair of pants, and black socks, and black shoes, or brown shoes, or whatever they all go or you're gonna put on, but it was it

Todd Cherches
was a black turtleneck in the blue jeans, right? It's kind of like Zuckerberg in his hoodie, right? But it becomes it's part of your brand. It's also just about simplifying your life. And

Greg Voisen
it is and my wife, even kids, me, she said, You know, when you do these podcasts, usually always have just a black shirt on and I do. And today it's a little cooler. So I'm wearing a little vest, but my point is, is like it's my uniform. And she says, Well, you have like five black shirts. And I go like, yeah, because it's easy. I just went on black shirts, a pair of jeans and pants. And, you know, I don't want to complicate things, right? So I like that.

Todd Cherches
We're doing martial The book is called The urban life and it's amazing and it's great. It's actually a member of Marshall Goldsmith mg 100 coaches, which is so I guess, I'm so honored that I've been Monday, every other Monday morning, we have like an hour with Marshall just where he talks about his philosophies and everything. It's such an amazing honor and privilege to be in that group because his book like guy, I have that on the shelf. But also what got you here won't get you there, right behind me on my, my coaching Bible, I teach you that my classes, and I really follow it in my practice. And he's well,

Greg Voisen
he's been a good friend of mine, he used to live like three and a half miles from me here I used to take, I used to take walks with him from his house that we would do a walk every Saturday, not every Saturday morning, but one Saturday morning a month, and we would all gather in his house, and we'd walk and just talk and it was a great it. And then we'd have tea or coffee when he came back. So it was a lot of fun. But he definitely has a lot of wisdom, as you're saying,

Todd Cherches
sharing, and he's giving back. And that's the whole point of 100 coaches is to give away everything he's learned and everything. He knows what the promise that those of us in the 100 coaches that we do the same when we reached that point of our lives. So

Greg Voisen
you are a living example of that as well, you know, and I think one of the comments he made when we were interviewing because I was watching the video again, was hey, don't you wish you were 32? Again? It goes well, no, not really. So speak with our listeners about the little pink spoon, the concept that Baskin Robbins uses and what suggestions would you give our listeners about giving their prospects? This free taste? And what are their you know, what are the three show ones that you talk about in the book? And by the way, John Robbins has been on the show before. And ocean Robbins has not been on the show. But if you look at who's carrying on the legacy, it's ocean Robbins right now.

Todd Cherches
That's great. Yeah. So yeah, for those of us who know and love Baskin Robbins, right, you go in, I always get rocky road anyway, so But meanwhile, you want to taste a few other flavors. So they have those little things, spoons, although I think they've switched over to one ones because the more environmentally sound, so they'll may not use the plastic that they used to. But the whole idea is that the little pink spoon, you get to taste a few different flavors to make a decision before you decide what kind of cone you want to buy. Similarly, in your business, what is the equivalent of the little pink spoon? How can you give your customers or employees a, quote, free sample of what you are offering so that they will want to buy the whole cone or a gallon or come back for more? Right? So that's the idea is like, how do you give people a taste of what you do. And that's the metaphor, it's that simple. So if you're a job seeker and you're going on an interview, you may tell the story about, you know, this is where I worked on my resume. But what you also want to do is give your employer or prospective employer a, quote, free sample of your wisdom of your skills of your passions, right? So you want to illustrate to a story, tell them, here's something I once did, that will reflect on that we'll create a vision in their mind's eye, they can actually picture you in that job doing that job, right. So that's the whole idea. If you want a customer to buy your product or service, it might be offering a free sample of your workshop or giving them a 10 minute sampler or something. So that's the key idea there. So how can you give people a taste of what it is that you do?

Greg Voisen
Well, I've often heard this next one. And I like that we're getting out all these little examples, Todd, because they're great. They're little chapters in your book, they might only be three pages long, some of them but they're shortened to the point. And it's something everybody here listening today can use. And I just want to remind you that the book is filled with this kind of wisdom. So it's great. And you had this recent visit with your cardiologist and amaz, like you say, gave you a heart attack. Can you tell me the story and the important element of how people in this case your doctor, relate numbers can either shock you or be pleasantly surprising and encouraging. And I think this is an important one because it's how you frame the picture. Yeah, yeah, we

Todd Cherches
all know businesses or businesses. Numbers are essential in the business world, right? We're always communicating numbers, stock prices, whatever, right? So the story is I went to my cardiologist for a checkup as those of us over 50 have to do. And I went through the EKG and this test and that test and my cardiologist, not my regular one who had gone to a couple times before, but the new guy filling in, came in, takes out my numbers and my results. And he says, based on your test results, you have a 5% chance of having a heart attack within the next 10 years and I started getting weak in the knees and shaky. I thought I was gonna pass out. I was like, a depth. I said, Wait, wait a minute. Does that mean that there's a 95% chance that I won't have a heart attack? Yeah, yes. He said, Yeah, these results are amazing. Great. You're imperfect. shape and you have nothing to worry about. And your results are exactly normal forgot a mountain no age now your age, and this whole thing like, that would have been like the way to start off the conversation. Right? So what he did and this was the highlight what the light bulb moment for me the numbers he gave were not inaccurate. They were correct. But was that the message he intended to convey? Not at all right. So often in the business world, whether you're presenting quarterly results, or speaking to the media or stock report, whatever, we give numbers, but without context, and without the story, the digits are basically meaningless, right? Like if I said you ever to 50 average, is that good or bad? Well, it depends. If it's bowling, it's great. If it's baseball, or softball, it's not that great, right? So the number 250. Without the context in the story doesn't tell you anything. But so often, we bore just like before we turn a boring people to death with PowerPoint slides that are filled with bullet points and texts, we bore people to death with numbers, right? It doesn't matter if it was 20.1234 or five, it's about 20%. Right. So round things off, use the graph, use a visual image, you start with what's the message I want to convey and the story I want to tell to bring. And then you can always provide the numbers as a backup later on. If you present Excel spreadsheets to people for a living, it'd be I think, you've just boring people. And I'd be like example of this as a former client, who was a CFO, he was always known as being the most boring part of the company, town hall. And then he went through presentation, skills training, got rid of the numbers and started being a better storyteller, the people were captivated by a story and they got the message, he got the message across in a meaningful and memorable way that the numbers just didn't convey. But as a numbers guy, he didn't see that before until people brought that to life. So he needed to see the numbers through the lens of his audience, and then tell a story that would resonate. So that's the that's my cardiologist story.

Greg Voisen
Well, it's cardiology, doesn't matter any doctor, I have a good friend, Dr. Steve Berman, here locally, who's hypnotherapist, but also was an emergency room doctor for 20 some odd years. And, and he wrote a book called Healing beyond pills and potions. And he, when I would come in to see him, he would always say, you know, the bedside manner of most doctors has not been about giving you the positive news first. But the reality is, is that just in your case, if that doctor had learned how to reframe how he put that across to you, you would have received the positive, you know, you have a 95% chance of not having a heart attack versus a 5% chance of having a heart attack. And you know, it is because that also affects your body's kind of went on a call response mechanism as well. Right? You can go into shock, you said you were shaky at the knees, because he told you, you had a chance. And the other way you could walk out encouraged and enthusiastic about what you can do. And Steve was really good at that. I mean, he's really good at doing that. And he says, he's trying to teach other doctors how to convey messages to their patients, so that they understand and get it better. Now, like we've talked about a lot of things we've done your dad's story, we've done the drawbridge, your formula, the pink spoons, we've had a lot of content here, speak with their listeners, if you would about the journey. And your reference to what you look, calling in the rearview mirror versus the dashboard versus the windshield. And what advice would you give our listeners about pulling over two reflect on what they need to do to realize their leadership vision? You know, it's like this is this is kind of our final question. But the reality is, hopefully you can pull all this together.

Todd Cherches
Yeah, yeah, the metaphor, the leadership journey is central to my classes, my coaching and my workshop. So picture, you're in a car, right? There are three things to look at. There's more than that. But let's say three, you have the windshield, the rearview mirror and your dashboard, right? The windshield represents the future. It's about the road ahead. It's about you may see blue skies, up to the horizon, but you don't know what's over the hill, right. So just as a leader, you have a vision of the future, you have a destination in mind, but you don't know what's beyond what the eye can see. But part of being a leader is to prepare for that and have a vision that's inspiring and compelling. So that's the windshield metaphor. The rearview mirror is about the past. It's about who we are, where we came from how we got here, but also reminds us metaphorically that we need to look in the mirror and reflect on who we are and how we are as leaders, right? So often, we're so busy, that we don't get feedback, we will look at ourselves in the mirror and say how did I do in that meeting in that presentation? How am I being seen by my employees, etc. So that mirror represents both where we came from and who we are today. And the dashboard is about metrics, right? How do you measure success? Right, and it's not so having a balanced scorecard kind of approach is not just about having your fun Annual numbers, but it's about employee engagement and retention. It's about whatever metrics you use in your business and in your life to gauge how well you're doing. That is your dashboard. So here's the key, we want to be focused on the road ahead and the windshield and the future. Because we know if you drive looking in the rearview mirror, you're going to do what, drive off the road or had an oncoming car, right. So if you're dwelling on the past, while you're heading into the future, it's not going to get you there safely. And similarly, you want the numbers to help you reflect Peter Drucker said, if you can't measure it, you can't manage it, right. So you need to have some metrics by which to gauge your success and your performance. But again, if you're driving, while just looking at the numbers, you're gonna go off the road. So you want to focus on the road ahead and your vision, but you want to also glance at your metrics and pull over some times and take some time for reflection. So that's the short version, then you can talk about, do you have air in your tires? And are you on the right road at all, and that's the whole expanded version. But in a nutshell, which is another four, by the way, that is the past, present, future version of the leadership journey,

Greg Voisen
that's a metaphor is fantastic for everything in life, right. I used to have a friend that would say, stay in the now right, and I have it here on my desk, because rom Das was on the show, before he passed away, and you know, I think that's an important element you're talking about. Because yesterday is a canceled check. Tomorrow is a promissory note, right? We don't know whether we're going to have either of those, right. So when you're driving your car, it's good to look at the measurements in the gauge and look forward into the mirror and see what was behind you as well. But you've got to do it and pull it over. And the most important point I think, is kind of pulling over to kind of realize where you are, right. And like you said, there could be a whole other story here about having the right GPS or the map or where we're going to direct

Todd Cherches
you in the driver's seat or you're in the passenger seat. Sometimes as a leader, the best thing you could do is let someone else drive right, move on, obligate and let them step on the gas. And that's how you develop the next generation of leaders, right. And anyone who's ever taught anyone else to drive can knows that metaphor firsthand how scary that could be, and how you have to give up some of your own power to empower someone else. But that driving metaphor is a good one. And sometimes you let someone else navigate and drive and you sit in the backseat, right? So where you are just within that car is situational. Right? So that's another aspect of the leadership journey metaphor,

Greg Voisen
driver training one on one. Thank you for taking us on a driver training here about visual leadership for all my listeners. Here's the book, Todd Cherches, you can just go to Todd Cherches that’s c-h-e-r-c-h-e-s.com, or the big blue gumball we'll put that in the link as well. We've also put a link to the book on Amazon. Todd, it's been a pleasure having you on inside personal growth and you sharing some of your wisdom today with my listeners about visual leadership, and so much more. It was really informative and thank you for your time. I really appreciate it. Namaste to you.

Todd Cherches
Thank you.