0:00 [Music] who are you and where are you going what do you want [Music] for the next 24 minutes we're going to design and attain your ideal life on the way to wow show together we'll find the ideal path to get you back on the track to success and happiness
0:36 on the way to wow show with your host kevin bemel remember those times in your life when you wish you had been able to tell the future or at least you had the tools to deal with the changes i'm not talking about something simple like oh you know my wife wants to have thai food after we've been going out having you know chinese food for the last seven months
1:12 something big like you're done with college and you're going on to real life or you've been in the military your whole life and now you're going to become a civilian so on the show today we're going to talk to a couple of different people who i think will help you with some tools or at least some thoughts that can make that change easier so stay tuned so our guest bartender today is rich
1:47 williams he's originally from the the east coast uh new york and philadelphia but we stole him out here to los angeles been a bartender for over 20 years right yep and he opened up the spare room at the hollywood roosevelt hotel the famous hollywood roosevelt hotel so rich what are you going to make for us today um today i'm gonna make an old fashion okay that sounds good to me start off with a little anger store bitters and then to that we're gonna add a little simple syrup and simple syrup is basically just sugar
2:23 and water right yeah you can't can't argue with how good that is and sometimes old fashions are made with sugar cubes so you have to like kind of model it okay uh simple syrup just kind of removes some of that uh granular texture of the sugar then we're going to add a little four roses okay this is the the single barrel which uh yes all my friends love and i'm making three of these so right i don't think this is just one big cocktail that's okay you know if even if it was one
2:59 nice nice add a nice thing okay this is actually pretty this is a pretty classic cocktail right very classic in fact uh the term old-fashioned comes from after prohibition when people are allowed to drink again they would go back to the bars that they used to go to before and they said can you make me a cocktail the old-fashioned way that way the bartender knew they were from the old days wow that's great okay ah nice and simple
3:37 we'll finish that off with a little orange essence oh okay get that oil on there and there you go perfect well we're going to serve these up i know the gentlemen are going to love them and cheers cheers thank you [Music] so rich made these up for us once you gentlemen take one tell me what you think thank
4:14 you cheers cheers hmm they smell great sweet and perfect the way i like them really great thank you yeah well done thank you it's a two-sipper you'll know what that means gentlemen thanks for joining me i'm gonna i'm gonna read your short bios just so i i get all the details in so um this is how you embarrass people who are good friends and and getting to be better friends
4:49 so my two guests today are don schwartz and david tannenbaum don is senior portfolio manager at rbc wealth management in beverly hills where his team taylor portfolio management has almost a billion dollars of private client money under their stewardship don is also the founder of mvat the military and veterans appreciation trust and its program heroes linked don's been providing assistance and life transitioning guidance to military people for almost 14 years don is an army veteran
5:25 and he belongs to the ronald reagan pacific palisades post 283 of the american legion he's married to kat and he has two sons seven grandchildren okay pay attention folks and he also has an eight-year-old i'm gonna make sure i say this right because it's a dog and my wife will kill me bouvier deflandra is that right correct and and according to my wife who knows all things dogs they're beautiful beautiful dogs and then after the military david has been in a number of service roles with respect to his fellow
6:00 veterans the american legion veterans in media and entertainment and he was also a va secretary appointee to a federal advisory committee on veterans affairs i can tell you because i was i was in the field for a number of years myself don and david are really at the forefront of helping veterans uh transition to civilian life so first of all let's start with maybe it's an obvious question okay you both served in the military but you know most veterans don't turn around and and serve their fellow veterans especially for so long
6:36 at times with donkeys so what inspired you to help veterans in their transition to civilian life we formed the mvat foundation a group of us that belonged to a golf club in west los angeles mountain gate country club we formed it because we had served during the vietnam era and we remembered what it was like to come out of the service in the 60s and 70s and the way veterans were treated by the community at large then we wanted to do what little bit we could do to make a
7:11 difference and see that that didn't happen again that was the genesis of it and it's grown into an organization where the primary focus is uh as you mentioned kevin it's on transition it's on the transition from military life to civilian life and that's where heroes link comes in and why it was created and um david tell us what is what is heroes linked hey you bet oh i like i want to piggyback on what don said sure and your question which was you know we're in the military it's a very intense environment of both training
7:46 and mission and and operations and there's an extraordinary amount of camaraderie and leadership and whether we enter as a private or as a second lieutenant or as nenson as an enlisted member or as an officer and there's always a path to success and when we separate or retire that isn't always present it's not like we get a someone as a mentor or advisor to handhold us or direct us or to coach us on the next steps afterwards the dod does provide a a transition program an official one it has been um known to be somewhat short in length
8:21 it is being revised and and god bless the dod for recognizing that of a that service members need more than just five days to go from five 10 15 years of service to a new lifetime as a civilian um heroes linked as dawn so eloquently mentioned was was birthed was was was was given existence to recognize that difficulty in hanging up the uniform and putting on a new one as a civilian and now my focus as as the program director of only a year now uh is to really ensure the overall well-being of anyone whether they just hung up their uniform whether
8:56 they're five years out or 15 years out so and and this is one of the things i noticed when i was working with veterans who were transitioning is that that that you know very clear career path in the military and then you get out into civilian life it's very chaotic so um what other key issues do you see with with veterans who are working to transition one of the focuses that we have that i'm that i'm very passionate about kevin is to try to change the narrative today that hiring veterans
9:33 is a charitable thing to do hiring a veteran is a smart thing to do veterans come out of the service with training in many cases far greater than a four-year college degree they develop a set as you know they develop a sense of accountability responsibility and most importantly teamwork you don't get that in college you know kids come out maybe they have more learned skills but they don't have more life skills that you get when you serve in the military okay don earlier you mentioned how some corporations kind of treat hiring veterans as a charity
10:09 what why do you think that's that's come about i think that the tone of the country because of the length of the war and the length of well it's technically not a war i guess but the length of the engagement of of the war on terror uh has taken the country to a point where they're awfully tired of hearing the the uh blood and treasure that's been lost and so i think that the government has made a push to the corporate world to hire and and incented them to hire
10:44 uh with the jobs act and other methods and so you'll see companies large walmart's home depots starbucks offering people jobs almost in a philanthropic way because they think it's the right thing to do as opposed to is it the right path for that veteran to be on it's just the mood of the country that's changed so much so one of the things i noticed when i was working with veterans
11:19 and and i think again this this happens with other groups in transition whether it's recent college grads or it's a mid-career professional who has to you know make some kind of job change is they they have an identity of themself a picture of themselves in a certain way and making that transition involves seeing themselves in a different way have you seen that at heroes linked and have how have you dealt with that if you have rabbi great question about identity both
11:55 during service and afterwards um look we're three jews here you're you're a rabbi and it made me think when i was more observant uh when i was practicing in new york and one of the questions i was supposed to ask in yeshiva was during shabbat who are we we're not a banker we're not a lawyer we're not construction we're not in construction because those are prohibited forms of labor on on sabbath or shabbat and so i think the exact same thing happens to a military member when they take off that uniform who are they they are no longer what they did the majority of their time and for many veterans that's a very difficult identity transition where they say everything i've been lauded for
12:30 literally ribbons and metals on my chest the rank of my slaver on my shoulder the salutes i either rendered or received everything i did in uniform is no longer applicable or relevant or visible in the civilian space and so there's a there is a dramatic um shedding of one identity and the seeking and adoption of another and to don's point some folks will rapidly launch or latch on to what they can and as don also insightfully said some of those are just temporary jobs they're stepping stones to a better career and so i think one of the things we try and do with heroes link is to get those conversations between advisees and
13:06 advisors to say hey look let's take this time now whenever it might be to find out maybe where your heart and soul are maybe where you want to make the greatest impact did you serve because you're a patriot and you want to ensure the well-being of this country and you're considering politics are similar like so many of our presidents and leadership have or did you serve for a very technical job and you want to become an i.t specialist or nuclear engineer and so i think our platform facilitates those very candid dialogues where people can explore that in an open environment with someone who's more experienced than them and that's a great note to end this on because you asked
13:42 one of the key questions for the way to wow which is who are you that's something that we're seeking to help people figure out so david don thanks so much for coming and visiting us here on the way to wow show and uh we look forward to hearing ever greater things with mvat and with heroes linked [Music] so i could spend an entire segment just talking about my next guest's accomplishments let's see tv show host podcast host he's a former
14:19 top 100 cmos in the country he's also the author of numerous best-selling books but most people i find know him as just plain jeffrey hayslit right you can you can talk to anybody in the business community it seems like and they know jeffrey they know uh c-suite networks and they know the work that he's done as as basically a genius in helping people figure out how to get their businesses from here to here or even you know
14:54 i'll go out of frame right even up to here and and that's what i wanted to talk with jeffrey about today and and and have him share some of his wisdom how are you doing jeffrey hey thank you so much for that introduction i'm just a guy from south dakota trying to make a living well you're you're doing well you're doing a i know when you google someone's name and among the options you get is the person's name and net worth they must be doing well i'm gonna have to google my own name and see if it's right you know but i really don't measure wealth by money i measure it by the friends that i have the
15:29 relationships i have and certainly what i can do for my family and i think that hopefully you know people realize especially over the last several months what it really means to be successful because we can pursue financial success all we want but then in the end we end up you know cooped up in our homes with the people we hope we love and we get to put that to the test right well sometimes when it comes to relationships you find out the ones you don't want to be in and the ones you do you know i thought stephen covey was a friend of mine and we shared many stages together said it best you know really a balance between your
16:05 spirituality your your family your friends and then your business kind of like you know that teeter-totter we used to have when we were a kid that four-way teeter-totter you have to have a balance between all those in order to be successful and that's how i try to measure those relationships is in those four key areas and i thank stephen covey for that absolutely and that's that's one of the reasons why i developed by the way the three pillars of attainment is to help us keep in mind there's those various aspects of our lives and sometimes someone has to one side one part has to take precedence over another but hopefully over time we're keeping these
16:40 in balance so let me ask you this jeffrey you know when i started in business back in 1986 you know things changed but you you had time to absorb the change but over the succeeding decades it seems like now change comes out as comes at us in a pace that it's it seems like it's almost impossible to keep up and yet somehow you seem to not only keep up with the change but to in some way stay ahead of it so talk to me about talk to us how do you do that how do you seem to
17:16 you know stay ahead of the game in in a world that's constantly trying to not just hop skip over us but you know jet plane over us why he changed for breakfast you know i always said in all my books and it's been a constant theme change adapt or die in fact right now with covet and all that we're seeing in the way in which we're seeing it you know really we find that right now days or weeks weeks or months months or years and it's important for us to be able to adapt to that change and drive you know i like to say that we all all like to have things being perfect but that's not the case
17:51 what we have to do is get it done and then strive for perfect and then once it's part of perfect the things that we have to do in driving that change i've led a lot of manufacturing jobs i've been a you know a fortune 100 officer at eastman kodak and then of course a podcaster broadcaster so it's always about reinvention and being able to drive that and so that's got to be at the core of who you are and your spirit and you've got to take that forward and understand that that's just the way it is moving forward even for old dogs like me so and i want to make sure i'm
18:26 understanding what you're saying should we be looking to always be changing things even though we may not necessarily know well you know this change is going to work um we should be trying out new things sort of you know okay absolutely should always be striving for change and mixing it up even our relationships with our spouses do we want it to be the same always it gets boring so you want to change that and the same thing applies to business you know i used to be a printer and as a printer we always had certain rules that you had to follow in order to make the blacks blacks the stripes stripier
19:01 you know all those kinds of things had to follow but it's always truly about being innovative and driving that continual change you want to mix it up and make it happen it's never perfect you don't have the perfect burger you want the best burger and another burger over top of that so you you keep trying to improve the recipe and you see great chefs that do that all the time we should be like great chefs and create great meals so so then that leads us to inevitably some of those changes are not going to work right they're they're going to fail right so then so then how do we how do we deal with that aspect of it
19:38 hey with most things in business kevin no one's going to die i mean we're not operating heavy machineries we're not operating on people we want to keep that in mind when it comes to failure we're going to make mistakes and trust me when i was a cmo of eastman kodak or buying and selling hundreds of companies i always made mistakes but by and large no one was going to die in those mistakes and that's what we have to keep in mind you know we got some great inventors some great innovators out there of our time let's think about ford let's think about let's think about edison they made many mistakes in the in making their products and being able to create
20:14 all of those jobs that they were able to create with all their inventions but you know like for instance there's this famous saying around thomas edison that he once was asked of you failed uh ten thousand times to make the light bulb because i didn't fail ten thousand times i just found ten thousand times or ways to make it better and that's what we wanna focus on right now we're all going to fail in fact many people come to me and talk about oh my gosh jeff what's your biggest failure and i say i don't know i haven't done it yet meaning there i'm going to have some big ones and i will have some lulu's and there's no doubt that all of us will the focus that we should have right now is not about
20:50 failure because you're going to fail let's be real clear everybody's going to fail we do it every day but are you winning are you having success we should focus on getting to success faster because that's really truly what most innovators want to do it's not about fail fail is part of its table stakes it's what we are always going to do what we want to do is have you focus on on [Music] winning fast you could take the organization to a lot better place we're both parents right and so we look at our kids and and and we want them to be you know the better image of ourselves
21:25 and and the the temptation is when when they do something wrong to you know come down on them or or whatever and it seems to me that that's that's counterproductive in terms of developing them into the people they're going to need to be to be successful however that's how are they defined that what would you say to to parents who you know need to find the right way or a better way shall we say forget the right way a better way to instill in their children the ability to deal with the
22:01 world as it operates today you know to be a maestro you're going to learn to play a lot of bad notes and our kids are going to do that too if we were to yell at them every time they'd never want to pick up an instrument so really comes down to what we're going to say conditions of satisfaction to be able to find a way that we can work with our kids to measure expectations and measure what we want from them in terms of promises what are their promises what do they want to do what are their conditions of satisfaction and then how do those meet our own conditions of satisfaction as being parents or being a leader if you want to apply that to your business and by doing those
22:36 things we can be transparent about where we set what we do and i think transparency is a big part of that and it's important for us to be able to lay those out with our children our co-workers our spouses and everyone else because if we're clear in what we want and how we want be performed then it makes those levels of expectations even easier to be able to meet and being transparent about how we're doing with those so unfortunately i just got the high sign but but i think that's actually a good note uh to end this interview on um we i know
23:12 we could talk for hours and hours and hours but uh thank you for taking the time to sit with us here on the on the way to wow show and uh i i have a feeling we'll be talking to you again in the future and thanks kevin for letting me be a little wow you're welcome have a great day that's our show for this week stay tuned next week when we have michael bruce the sleep doctor and the go-to guy in america for those people suffering from insomnia and all the other things that keep us awake at night thanks for watching courage at all times
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