The LA Kings holiday pack is back. The perfect gift for the hockey fan in your life. A three-game pack starts at just $159 and includes a holiday blanket. Buy today and you'll receive an additional game for free. Don't miss out. Visit lakings.com/holiday today. From time to time on Radical Personal Finance, I get accused of turning my finance show into an entrepreneurship show.

I don't intend to do that, although I make no apologies for why I believe that entrepreneurship is in many ways a simpler, more direct path to financial independence and financial freedom. But I don't intend to do that because there are some tremendous advantages that can be achieved from working at a job.

I've been wanting to bring you some interviews with people who have built incredible careers at jobs. Today, I do just that. My guest today is a man named Lee Cockrell who worked for many, many years with Walt Disney Corporation and served as the executive vice president of operations for the Walt Disney World Resort, had tens of thousands of people underneath him, and built a really amazing career starting from a very disadvantaged place.

Today, you're going to get some insight into what he did well and what made the difference in his career success and also how that impacted his personal financial life a bit. Welcome to the Radical Personal Finance Podcast. My name is Joshua Sheets and I'm your host. Thank you so much for being with me today.

This is the show where we work to help you clarify your path to financial independence. Today, I hope to do that and give you some ideas and inspiration that will help you, especially if you find yourself working in a large corporation. Hey, large corporations were designed to make money.

You might as well get some for yourself. The cool thing about working in a large corporation is that, yes, not only can you get a little bit of money, but you can really have some impact because, like it or not, most people are not entrepreneurs. In fact, most of the population is not.

I don't think it really has the skills or the desire or the inclination or the personal, I guess, just the personal character, the personal qualities that are going to be necessary for entrepreneurship. Working in a job and working in a corporation can be an excellent way for you to achieve and accomplish all of your goals and plans and dreams.

Most of us start there. Very few of us start as entrepreneurs and finish that way. And so today, I'm thrilled to bring you a discussion with Lee Cockrell. I met Lee at Podcast Movement. This was one of the interviews that I did there. And when I was preparing for the conference, I was looking through the attendees and the speakers, and I saw that Lee was speaking, and I instantly knew that I wanted to connect with him.

So I reached out to him before the conference and made sure to arrange this time. And we had a really, really great chat. I think you're really going to enjoy this insight from a man who's been there, done it, and I won't finish the cliche. You can finish it if you want.

But as you listen to this interview, I do want you to pay attention and notice some of the themes that unprompted, I didn't promptly, I didn't tell him, "Here's what I want you to talk about," but just notice how in his own life, some of the themes that he pursued are themes that countless people have come on this show and shared already.

And think about if you're integrating those themes of success, those success habits, fully into your own life. Here we go. Lee, welcome to Radical Personal Finance. Hey, great to be here. Thank you. So I've invited you on today to share a little bit of insight and history from your career.

You've come from the corporate background. And what I'd love for you to do as a beginning place is share with us the immodest version of your resume. I know generally you would like to be very modest. Generally, you would like to say, "Yes, I've had a little bit of success." But so that the audience can understand why I've invited you on, give us the immodest version of your experience and your resume.

Well, I was probably the most unlikely to succeed. I grew up on a little farm in Oklahoma and we were poor as we could be. And I finally got to go to college. My mother was married five times. I got adopted twice. I got in cock when I was 16 and went off to college and I was such a bad student, I quit after two years, went in the army.

That was good for me. I learned a lot about discipline, being on time, doing what you're supposed to do. And when I got out of the army, I joined Hilton Hotels as a banquet waiter up at the Washington Hilton. That hotel opened 50 years ago. That's the hotel where Reagan got shot that afternoon.

Wow. So I got a job there. And about a year and a half, I got into a management training program. And I can tell you, the only reasons I've been successful is I'm really organized and I look for people who are disciplined, can get things done, keep their promises, really are reliable and credible.

That's one of the successes I had. And I think it's really important for people to get ahead. And the other thing, I have a really positive attitude. So when my boss says, be here at six and come back at midnight, I say, no problem. You have an opportunity clock.

You don't have an alarm clock. I don't get that look on my face. My mother taught me, get that look off your face, boy. And so I think those two things are really vital in being successful. I was very insecure when I started my management career. You can imagine being a mother, being married five times and all this stuff.

And I had to work my way out of it. And what happened was I just did whatever they told me to do. And next thing I got into management. And then I had a great, successful career with Hilton where I even worked at Chicago and then the Waldorf Astoria in New York where, God, that was so unbelievable.

I was working at the Waldorf Astoria. And then I stayed with Hilton for eight years. And then I went to Marriott. And I had a boss. I didn't like it, Hilton. So I quit. Went to another hotel, doubled my salary. My wife told me not to go. I said, hey, I know what I'm doing.

I got fired after 90 days. Had no job, a two-year-old, no money. Took me two months to get a job at Marriott, back at the same level I was at when I left, quit Hilton. And I had a 17-year career there. And I became an expert. That's another thing.

I was an expert in food and beverage. I really studied the food business, how to make money in it, how to serve, how to give customer service. And so now I got three things. I'm an expert in food and beverage. I have a good attitude. And I'm organized. And I'm reliable.

Right. Your boss likes that a lot. Absolutely. They can count on you. And I call it a can-do attitude versus a can't-do attitude. And so I did that for 17 years. And then I got passed over for a big promotion at Marriott. And I got mad. So I got recruited by Disney.

And I quit, went to Disney, went to France, opened Disneyland Paris. That's another experience. If you can work internationally, it makes you a whole different person. Oh, yeah. A lot of people don't get ahead because they're afraid to leave their hometown. You got to move. You got to go get the action and be it.

I think take risk and maybe some insecurity along the way. So I did that. And then they invited me to come back to Orlando. And I ended up in 1997 running all the operations at Walt Disney World because they wanted an expert in the business. They wanted somebody really reliable, could get things done, follow up, set strategy, set direction.

And at Disney, if you don't have a good attitude, you don't last too long. Right. You know, be nice. You're in the fun business. It's the happiest place in the world, right? So, yeah, those are the things that are really critical. And there's a lot of people, I wrote a book about time management and how to get more done every day because most people are struggling with doing that.

When you're not reliable, you're not going to get promoted. Right. And your boss is not going to give you the good work. We all know who we can pick and who we can't pick. We know who we can count on, who we can't count on. And so that was a big one for me.

And I never was the best person. I was always had great people around me. I'm really good at hiring great people and leaving them alone, hire experts, let them do their job. And I focused on two or three things at Disney, making sure we were hiring the right people, promoting the right people, training, testing and enforcement of the training.

And that I set a good example for leadership, being a good role model. And that's what I tried to do every day and ended up, started on the farm and ended up running the Walt Disney World. So that's pretty big miracle in my life. My high school teachers would not believe it.

That's amazing. It sounds so simple, though. You know, we talk about success and it sounds simple. It's not easy, but it just it's, you know, do do things well, be consistent, have a good attitude. It sounds simple. It's almost. But in general, we're looking for a secret. Is there any magic secret that any pixie dust that you scattered over your career?

One of the secrets was like podcasting. Now, people really don't have an excuse for not learning. Back when I was started out working in 1965, there were no podcasts. Right. But I listened to tapes. Right. And I read books and I made all my managers listen to tapes. We listened to other people.

And I love that because I didn't know very much. And I was able to learn from those and then get stories and storytelling how you want it done. So I think that's a key. But I would say everybody ought to go back and reflect on their own attitude. Right.

They ought to go take a good time management course. So they're 100 percent reliable, credible and keep their promises and do what they say they're going to do. So their boss just loves them. That's how you get promoted. And you do those kind of simple things. It's not so much what you know.

You can learn what you don't know. Skill is learned. You can learn it. And just because you got a degree from Harvard doesn't mean you're going to be successful. And I look for people with attitude now. And a lot of companies are now telling us they don't care if you have a degree.

They care about what you could do. Right. And a lot of young people today are if they can do something, IT, podcast, communications, whatever, you can go back and learn on your own. And that's what I did. And today, I there are a lot of kids that shouldn't go to college.

I was one of them. I just spent my mother's money for two years. But I had a good time those two years and drank a few beers. But I yeah. So I would say don't underestimate what you can do. Number one, no matter how insecure you are, pick yourself up, get into a situation, do something you love, get better at it and become better than everybody else.

Make sure if 10 people are doing what you do, you're the best and you find a new ways. Kind of plus it up. Do more than is expected from your boss and from your customers and have that good can do attitude. And you'll be shocked at how your career can turn out because most people are not trying too hard.

Right. And it's never too late to get better. That's one thing I know. I got in the podcasting business seven months ago. A year ago, I didn't even know what a podcast was. Right. And when the guy said, you want to have your own? I said, sure. I didn't even know what I was getting into.

But I said, well, we'll figure it out as we go along. And that's what you have to do. Step into the stuff and you'll come out. OK, but you got to have experience, hardship, tough, hard jobs. That's what you get developed in the fire. Right. Right. You come out stronger.

And that's what I tell people. One of the things that I hear from people, the way that you describe success in the corporate world, it sounds simple. I've talked with a lot of people, though, that believe, well, if I do those things, it won't work here. My boss doesn't recognize that if I just work harder, my boss isn't the kind of person who's going to send me more money.

What thoughts would you have for somebody who feels like they're in that situation? That happens all the time. It happened to me three times in my career. And if I wasn't being appreciated and I didn't feel like my boss had my best interest at heart, I quit. So I went and found another job.

I'm not going to hang around somebody that doesn't appreciate me and is not treating me right, not looking out for my future. And I tell kids all the time when you got that situation, keep doing a good job, but every day spend time looking for another opportunity. Get out of that environment because if you stay in it, next thing you know, you'll be 40 years old and you'll wonder what happened.

Don't hang around for security. When you're young, really take those chances because you're going to run into bosses that could care less about you. They don't care if you're successful. It's all about them. And so don't be afraid to move on, especially when you're young. Are you pleased with the financial results of your career?

You made a little bit of money in your day. I'm shocked. I'm shocked. What were some of the most important, and I'm not going to ask you to, you don't need to share any details, but from your side of a career, what were some of the things that happened on a positive financial perspective that you look back on and say, wow, that made a huge difference for me?

Well, the things that did make a big, my wife and I were married, living in New York City, very expensive. We had not enough money. I worked at the Waldorf, but we could barely get through the day with our salary. It was so expensive. I left my wife $6 every morning.

That was the budget for nine jars of baby food. Get my shirts done, which were 32 cents because I had to look good. And then I told her, you know, do whatever you want with what's left. And we never had a credit card. We spent the cash only. The biggest purchase we ever made was the $35 fan at Alexander's in New York, because it was so hot.

And we sweated over that purchase. And then as we went along, I always saved money. I eventually got it into a mutual fund. And then I got a good broker one day that used to take care of my mother. And I happened to work for some good companies, which I kept growing.

And we've never been in credit card debt. That's one thing I'd tell people, don't spend only what you can afford, what you got. And we drive our cars. I bought my wife a Lexus back in 1990. She drove it for 15 years. The current one, she's been driving for seven years.

I've been driving my Toyota for 10 years. And that money goes into the stock market or into investments. And people underestimate the value of time and interest. It's amazing how you can get rich by just putting it away a little bit at a time. And that's what we do.

And when after I retired, the stock market went down to 6,000. I about had a heart attack. And I got it back to where I needed it. And then people said, how'd you do that? I said, I started a business and I earned it back. I went and started a speaking business, seminar business, podcasting, selling.

I've written three books for Disney. I have my own podcast, "Creating Disney Magic." It spreads my word around the world. So I just went and started my own business. So while people were getting their house foreclosed on, I was making more money after I left Disney and I made at Disney.

Are you planning to retire again? I don't know what that is exactly. I have a lot of time off, but I have a lot to do. I come here. This is not a work for me. I love it. It's my golf game. When I play golf, people don't clap.

When I give a speech, they do. So I'll just do things where they clap. When I play golf, they say, move along, get off the course, get out of the woods. And so this is really fun. And I hear people do this. A lot of people do it just because it turns them on.

This turns me on because it helps people. I give advice to people and they call me back and say, wow, that helped me a lot. That podcast you did on leadership or management or customer service. So yeah, I don't know what retirement really is. I get a lot of time off and I get a lot of time to work and my wife travels with me and we have a lot of fun.

How old are you now? I'm 71. That's fantastic. I have a 19 year old grandson at junior in college. So my son's 46. Where'd he come from? Work another 30 years and then maybe you can slow down for the last 20 or 30 after that. Right. If my wife doesn't kill me, I'll probably get to 100.

I'm in great physical shape. You can do it. My grandmother is almost 101. Ah, God bless her. She's fantastic. When you look back at your career, did you ever think about leaving the corporate world for an entrepreneurial business before this other business that you started? I didn't. I think the reason I didn't, I was too insecure.

I just didn't believe in myself. And that took me a long time to get over that insecurity and build self-confidence. Corporate world was almost like therapy because I kept getting promoted. I got promoted 22 times in 42 years. So eventually my self-confidence got to the level that I could go out and start a business and retire.

Some people ask me, "Lee, why'd you retire? You talk about finances." I said, "Well, the main reason is I could." Wanting to and being able to, that was two different things. And so once I did that, then what are you going to do? Somebody said, "You can't lay on the couch every day when you're retired." I was 62 when I retired.

So I worked for 42 years. So now I've been working nine years. I've written three books. I just finished the fourth one. I've got a podcast. I got an app. It's just like, "Hey, what else are we going to do?" There's probably things I'm going to do that I don't know about yet.

I do a lot of work for the military. I went to Iraq in 2011 and did 13 seminars for the army during the war in Baghdad. It was incredible. And you talk about the opportunities because I met a general and he invited me. And I've been doing work for the military for 14 years.

And now I'm doing a lot of work with this whole thing with depression and trying to get them back in the workforce. So there's a lot of work you can do with your experience. And a lot of these guys need it. What do you teach somebody who is a former military person?

They're coming back. They're facing depression, PTSD. Where do you start? Well, the good thing is I went through depression in '08, '09. My wife got sick and almost died and I had to take care of her for two years. She got better and I got worse. So I got treated by a psychiatrist and we talked and he put me on some drugs.

And 80% of people can be cured with drugs. But the problem is most men won't go and especially soldiers. Women go in for help. Men don't. And I try to make them understand that. I tell them my story. I was depressed, guys. You think I'm a hot shot and I was a big Disney guy and all that?

I ended up with depression and anxiety. I was hooked on Ativan and sleeping pills and drinking. And I had to work my way out of that. Don't underestimate. You can do it. Take a deep breath. Go in and see a psychiatrist. Get treated. Get on the medication. Don't underestimate what you can do in your life.

You're coming out of the military. You've got all kinds of talent that you may not believe you do. You do. I'll help you. Other people will help you. Every company in America now is trying to help the veterans. So there's a lot of people out there who want to help you.

But you can't suffer from depression. You've got to pick yourself up and go get some help. And so we're trying to encourage them. And a lot of them say, when they hear that I say that, I went through it. And I was like, Mr. Perfect, you never know. It can be anybody.

And so that's the lesson I go out there and give to veterans and any, by the way, just plain citizens. 15, 20% of Americans are antidepressants now, including college students that are really suffering. It's a stressful world we're living in and people are really stretched out. And so don't underestimate that a lot of people around you are suffering that you might not even know about.

Everybody's got a problem you don't know about. I assure you. When you look back in your corporate career, you spent a lot of time managing and leading leaders. When you look back at the people that were placed underneath you, what was probably the biggest negative mark that somebody could have when you saw this person doing this?

You said, that's it. I'm not working with this person. Oh, it's definitely lack of humility and not showing respect for everybody. As I say, and you've heard many times, I can tell what a person's like by the way he treats the waiter in the restaurant or the guy cleaning the bathroom.

That's for me, that's everything. Trust. I don't trust anybody that suffers from feeling better about themselves by humiliating other people or not showing respect to others or ignoring other people, making everybody feel special. And that's what I look for. I look for people who are honest, have high integrity, and I can trust them because if I can't trust them, I'm already insecure enough.

I don't need people that I can't trust around me. And that's what I look for. Did you have a way that you preferred to test people? I've heard of some people that always take someone golfing or always meet somebody for lunch or always look at somebody's car. Did you have some tools that you developed that would help you to see past just the formal interview and sitting in your office?

Yeah, we developed a set of questions that have obstacles in them. So I'd ask you six or seven questions and each one of them would have an obstacle in it. Like, tell me about a specific time you had to deal with an irate customer in your last job. Well, what you want to hear is how people overcome obstacles.

And the people who are great, they always overcome them. They'll work on it for three weeks. The people who have a, this can't do attitude, they don't know how to overcome obstacles. They give up too early. They can't talk to you about it. And I'm looking, because we found out that people who are very comfortable overcoming obstacles, I don't care if it's traffic, your finances, your marriage, these are the most successful people.

They're your best performers. So I would encourage people to, I actually, I work with a lady, Carol Quinn. She's written a book on don't hire anybody without me. And it's about how to write the right questions and what to listen for when you're interviewing somebody, because people lead you down the path in an interview.

Let me tell you, they tell you everything, about half of it's a lie. So you got to ask questions that are really deep and where they got to give you a thoughtful answer. And if you haven't never done it, you don't know how to give the answer. Like if you tell me, tell me, Lee, what would happen if you were on a, had an airline flight and you had to be in South Africa next, tomorrow, two days from now, and you're in a snowstorm in Toronto.

And I can tell you what I did. I've been there. I overcome obstacles. I got a car and I drove to Atlanta. It took me 20 hours. I got there three hours before my flight and got on the plane. Other people would call to the client, I'm sorry, it snowed.

I can't miss my flight. Let me tell you, if there's a car, I'll walk there. I know how to overcome obstacles because I've done it my whole life. And that's why I tell people, have your kids work, make them go to work, be to work at six in the morning, pull weeds, clean the pool, feed the dog, make them do things, because they've got to learn to overcome obstacles.

Life's tough and your mother's not going to be there when you get your first job. So yeah, that's some of the things I think about. I want people to live the tough life and they've been there and they know how to do it. Nothing's going to bother them when we have a lot of stuff happens in corporate life.

People misbehave, misperform, guests are tough, 9/11, hurricanes. I need people that are going to get up and take care of business. And that's what I look for. Positive, can do people that know how to overcome obstacles. Did your parents do that you know of? Did they have any parenting practices that were intentional that helped them to instill those character traits in you?

I don't think they were intentional so much as it was just the culture. I grew up in the 40s and 50s on a farm and you work, everybody works. And I had a grandmother who was really the one that had empathy. She's the one that helped me be, know that I could do anything.

But my mother was a disciplinarian. You do what you're told to do, you do what you're, you make your bed. Right. My mother was a terrorist. I mean, if you didn't make your bed. She put the terror right in you. It wasn't about making the bed, it's about discipline.

You do what you say you're going to do. You milk the cows at six and you milk them at five, not at 830 and when you show up. And so I had a lot of discipline growing up. And then I had my grandmother next door who always told me how great I was.

So a little combination of that. But I think it was because my mother grew up in a discipline, you know, you kind of what you teach your children, they teach their children. And I'm lucky I got that from her. There's some things I didn't get from her because of all her marriages and her own problems in life about growing up in her own dysfunctional family.

So you got to make sure that, yeah, we're all, you know, like my mother was married five times. I've been married once for 47 years. So I'm getting the family average down. Good. I decided to break that. And my son's been married for 23 years. So we've broken that thing that was going on in our family.

And whether it's alcohol or drugs or divorce or abuse, or if you're a good leader, you'll step up and say, OK, that's it. We're going to change this. And my wife and I, well, marriage is not always easy. There's been some close calls. She recently told me she's going to stay.

So I know I'm doing good. I threatened my wife. I said, girl, if you ever leave me, I guarantee I'm going with you. So you see that sign that says about shopping. My husband tells me he's going to quit shopping or if I don't quit shopping, he's going to get rid of me.

And I said, I'm going to miss that man. I'm going to miss him. So I've given up on that. I used to track our visa charges, but that didn't work out too well either. Do you have some advice for a younger husband like me of some of the things that have really helped you to be able to maintain your marriage over almost half a half a century?

Yeah, I think the things bad things are going to happen upset. You're going to upset each other. You're going to be unreasonable. You're going to be stressed out. Your wife is. And I would say the best advice I can give you now is from Frozen, that new Disney movie.

Let it go. Let it go. Let it go. That's what I've learned to do. Let it go. And instead of engage or get into an argument for no reason, I just bite my lip and let it go. Even I want to say something nasty to her. I don't. Another day, my wife said, Lee, I want to tell you something.

You're a good husband. I said, what? Why are you saying that? She says, because you put up with me. And I thought at that moment, I can either say you're right about that. Right. Or thank you, darling. And I said, thank you. I do put up with you and you put up with me.

And I think you just got to. The bad days are going to be there. You get over them. And when you have family and let me tell you, when you get older, you'll see families, everything. If you don't have your family, I don't care how rich you are. And look at all these rich people, divorced.

Their kids are screwed up. Drug overdoses, kids dying. And our family is everything. And we we we cherish it. And the little things become the big things. And that's what in your life you'll see. The upper level executive positions of any company are, at least as my observation, extremely demanding on your time.

Did you struggle with how to balance your career and your family? And did you develop some techniques that were useful to you? Oh, yeah. Early in my career, I worked six days a week and it was tough. I'm lucky I married a saint. She put up with it. And then I got to marry it.

You got two days off and they expected only 10 hours a day. So that worked well. And I'm very organized. So I really plan what I'm going to do. I never missed my son's football games. I was at every event. I always before I interview or a job, I always tell the boss I've got to leave at certain times, some days because I'm going to be with my family.

And by the way, I had a boss at Disney. I said I come in at 615 in the morning. I leave at five because I go to the gym for 90 minutes before I go home because my health I got to take care of my health. And he and I got agreement before I accepted the job because I'm not going to get into a situation where I'm working six days a week and 20 hours a day and not getting any exercise, not being home for dinner.

And so you got to work those things out. And you don't have to be home every night, but at least a couple of nights a week. And so you got to figure out what's important. You know, they've done research that families that have dinner together just one or two or three nights a week, those kids get less trouble.

They do better in school. They're more self-secure. They believe in themselves. They have more security, like more self-confidence. And some of these things you got to think about because when you're young, you might not think about that, but it's important. And your kids want to see you and they want you around.

And your wife does, too. And you got to get in. That's why I wrote that book about time management, how to get it all done, because it's all coming at you. And you can be successful in your business. If you're not successful in your personal life, you'll end up in big trouble.

And I tell you, I know a lot of executives, a lot of big shots that are not happy. And they're miserable and they drink too much and they get divorces and they're on their fifth marriage and health problems. Biggest regret you'll have in your life is if you don't take care of your health.

Let me tell you, my wife said, "Lee, take care of your health so you can take care of us." And that's what I do. I exercise every day. I have a strength trainer. I get my annual physicals. I'm getting my colonoscopy on September 2nd, one of my least favorite things to do in the world.

But hey, you got to do it. Somebody said, "Colonoscopy is bad." I said, "I know, but colon cancer is really bad." So this is the things I think about. Make sure you're doing all the things you're supposed to be doing on purpose, not by accident. You don't go to exercise by accident.

You do it because you're scheduled. And if you want to be home for dinner, you schedule it. If you want to beat your son's first play, you make sure you're there because you only get that one chance. If you miss it, you'll be sorry. It may seem like a little thing to you.

It's a big thing to your son to look out there and see you sitting in that audience. And you're developing him. You're making the difference. I'd like to talk with you a little bit about Walt Disney, the corporation. One of the most impressive US-American business success stories over the decades of its existence.

And today, a powerhouse, a financial powerhouse, a global branding powerhouse. And just, I don't see it, unless you know something I don't. It just seems like it's getting bigger and taking over more of the world. Having spent many years within the Disney culture, have you been able to elucidate some of the ideas and things that were different that contributed to the success of the Walt Disney Corporation?

There's no question. I do seminars on this all the time. People say, "Can you tell me the magic of Disney? How do they do it?" I said, "Yeah, it's not magic. It's how we work." Number one, Disney hires better. We're more careful. We hire better people. We hire people better.

Second thing we do is we train people better. We enforce the training and we test people after we train them. And third thing is we have a culture where people wake up in the morning excited to come to work because the way we treat them. And they have opportunity.

And our managers treat people well. They don't treat you like the bottom of your shoe, like, I don't know if you've ever had one of those bosses. I did. And so it's really three things, the people, the training, and the culture. And when you do that, people get excited.

And we try to create a culture where everybody matters and they know they matter. And the best way you let people know they matter is tell them. Like you go home tonight, you tell your wife you love her, you're going to have a better evening. You tell your kids, "I love you." And these are the things we teach people who they don't, a lot of them don't know that when they come to us.

These basic things that turn people on and inspire people and make people better than they ever believe they can be. Great people, great training, great culture. And that's pretty simple. But what? It's hard. It takes time. - Is that part of the executive training program at Disney where you say, "This is what we do and this is how you do it"?

- Yeah, I wrote a Disney... It's called Disney Great Leader Strategies when I worked at Disney and distributed. It became the basis for my first book. It's called Creating Magic, 10 Common Sense Leadership Strategies for My Life at Disney. And it's 10 strategies in that book that I guarantee you anybody can implement.

And the first one is remember everyone's important. Second one's on how to hire better. The second, how to train, what professionalism looks like, how to remove the hassles from the business when your customers come in so you have good procedures, policies, guidelines. Right through that. Disney has a very...

There's only one way to do things, Disney way. Like Southwest Airlines. I love them. You know why? Years ago, they said there's a best way to land a plane. Let's just do it that way. - I like it. - Once you learn the best way, do it there until you get a better way and then implement it.

But always do it the best way. And that's what Disney does. Everybody, 72,000 cast members in Orlando now. We all do it the same way. - Did you in your career notice any cast members who began at the most entry-level position in one of the parks that gradually worked their way up into executive leadership?

- Well, one guy who's the president now, he was started as a busboy in the restaurant, the Contemporary in 1971. And he's now the president of Walt Disney World. - I didn't know that. - Absolutely. - What's his name? - George Caligridis. - Wow. - Linda Warren, who started driving one of the boats when she was 17 on the water, became the head of marketing for all the Disney resorts around the world.

Meg Crofton, who started there as an hourly employee from a telephone company, became president of Disney worldwide. I mean, this is very common. You know, my son started in the parking garage, parking cars. And he's now the vice president of the Magic Kingdom. - Wow. - So this is pretty common because at Disney, if you do good, we're more interested in what you can do and not particularly what were your degrees from.

We had a lot of Harvard guys that failed. They didn't have that tenacity. They didn't push hard. They didn't... Ego, attitude problem. And so we're looking for performance. That's the one thing we focus on at Disney. Performance, not where you're from, what color you are, what background, what sexual orientation.

We don't care anything about any of that. Perform. I don't care if you speak English. I will teach you. We'll work with you. Performance. And if more companies will start working on performance only, not worrying about what religion somebody is and what sexual orientation, where they went to school, that's when you start to treat everybody right.

Focus on their performance. And that's a good lesson for people. - Do you set goals personally? - Well, I do, unfortunately, because I'm compulsive and I have this huge fear of failure. You know, so those are the two things that drive me out of bed in the morning, fear of failure and compulsiveness.

So I have lots of goals. I was going to write one book, then I just said, "Well, I'll write another, and then I'll write another one." So I've written four. I'm going, like, I almost flunked out of English in high school. So I don't even know where the commas go, but I hired a professional writer to put them in for me.

So I always get experts around me. And I, yeah, I have financial goals. I wanted to make so much money, and I figured out how to do that. And I have an amount I'd like to leave my son, so I'm not spending too much of his money right now.

And yeah, we set goals. And yeah, I think if you write it down and set a goal, your odds improve dramatically of achieving it. My goal is to have strength training twice a week, so I stay strong and don't break a hip one day. I try to exercise at least four miles a day on a machine, on a treadmill.

And so I do that. So I don't have a goal doing it every day, but my goal is five days a week. And the next thing you know, I get upset with myself when I'm not reaching my goals. So I think setting goals, at least it's a measurement. It tells you where you are.

Do you now, or did you have in the past, a plan for your own personal development, some kind of program that you created? You mentioned listening to tapes in the car. Was that a coordinated plan? Yeah, not so much coordinated. It probably should have been, but I really was already wired to listen to tapes, read books.

And the other thing is experience. Get a lot of good experiences. I moved 11 times with Hilton, Marion and Disney. My wife and I moved all over the world and living in France. You talk about ways you learn, travel, went to India, China, Cambodia, Vietnam, you know, and you learn.

Those are big ways to learn. I always tell parents, if you can travel, let your kids travel. My grandkids are in Japan right now. They climbed Mount Fuji two days ago to see the sunset. That's awesome. They'll come back totally. We took them to South Africa and we spent two nights in Soweto.

They never will be the same. It changed their life. So travel, experience. And by the way, with Google, we have no excuse. You can know anything you want to know. And then podcasts, pick a subject and listen to them every day. If you listen to a 15 minute podcast or 30 minutes or an hour, you'll be like a genius in like a year.

And people don't have it. It's just lack of self-discipline or people underestimate what they can do. And that's what worries me. Just pick yourself up and go do it. And it's never too late to get better. That's what I know for sure. I'm curious. And this question might require a little bit of thinking, which is fine.

If you were going to go back and guess, and let's begin, just kind of ballpark over the decades of your careers. Let's say you started at 20 and think about how much money you earned at 20 and then at 30 and then at 40 and at 50 and at 60 when you retired at 62.

If you were going to guess, do you have any sense of maybe how much your income was increasing each decade? Yeah, my increases weren't bad. My wife and I got married, we had $500 to our name. And I was thinking just the other day, by 1989, I had $35,000.

That's all. And today, I won't tell you how much, but it's pretty shocking. Because it just keeps building. And I left it in the market. I've never taken a dime out of the market. When it fell 500 points back in '87, I left it in. When it went down to 6,000, I left it in.

And I just kept, and we're frugal, we save our money and put it in investments. And so, yeah, I was shocked at '89 only having $35,000 because we'd moved around a lot, bought houses. We lost money on almost every house. The market was down when we sold, but we stuck in there and bought stocks and bonds and invested.

And then I started my business. And I will tell you today, in this podcasting and writing books and speaking seminars, I make twice as much money as I made at Disney. And that's crazy. I thought I would make less. That's fantastic. I love it. The reason I ask is because I have this theory and I learned it from Brian Tracy and I've shared it on the show.

I'll repeat it so that you know, and you can see if you see it as being feasible or not. But the reason I like to ask people who know, do you have any idea, and I'll tell you this theory from the Disney annual report. Do you have any idea what the president of Disney, his annual compensation was last year?

Do you remember it all? I think it was $42 million, wasn't it? Right. That would be my guess, somewhere in the half a hundred million. That seems to be the normal compensation. $25 to $40 million. Right. So the theory comes from Brian Tracy, actually. And he taught that if you just get one half of 1% better every single day, that compounds over time, becomes 2% better a month.

It becomes about 25% better per year. And then over the course of 10 years, it becomes about a thousand percent better. And so what he teaches is that if you apply yourself to a systematic discipline, personal development process, that you can build your skill set to such a degree that your compensation will follow that skill set because you learn to be more effective, more productive, more disciplined.

You're worth more. You're worth more. And so at a thousand percent per decade, you start averaging that out. And you're like, "Wow, that's a huge difference." But if I were to go back and let's say, the president of Disney today, and if I were to say, "What did he earn as an initial cast member at a park?

And then what did he make as a VP of this? And then what did he make as that? And what does he make today as a president?" It's actually similar to that. And what's interesting is most people don't have that as a formal plan. It doesn't sound like you said, "I'm going to read one book every single week.

I'm going to listen to training sessions in the car every time." But you did it even if you didn't say specifically have a plan and your income over time has increased substantially because of that personal development. And to me, this is the magic of the world that we live in is the magic of personal development that you can set out a plan and you can identify, "What do I need to learn?

Okay, I'm a cast member. So I need to focus on customer service. So let me go ahead and read the books that all the Disney executives have written. And now be a really remarkable person. I need to focus on discipline to be at work on time. I need to focus on a cheerful attitude.

So let me read some books on positive mental attitude." And then I need to seek out the podcast with Lee Cockerell, the former executive at Disney and all the people that have written about it and study, study. And so you can either do it accidentally, you can do it somewhat purposely, or you can do it very purposely.

And any of those will increase your results, especially as regards your income. Yeah. One thing I teach in my seminars now is there's kind of four or five areas you need to make sure you're getting better on every day. One, technical knowledge, whatever you do for a living. Are you going to be a better podcaster a year from now than you are this year?

And you're going to learn how to use the new microphone and have a better clarity? And are you going to use... Whatever it is. And you're going to listen to all the best podcasts, see what they're doing. What's their music like? How do they close them? How do they open them?

Second, management. Are you going to get more organized by this time next year? Are you going to be more disciplined? Take a time management course. Third, technology. Are you going to learn more about technology? And fourth, leadership. Are you going to be a better leader next year? And when you start focusing, I got to do all four of these things and I got to get better in all of them every year.

That's when you start to have a plan, I think, a general plan of I got to go to this class. I'm here at this podcast. Why am I here? I don't even know. I want it because, you know, when I leave, I can go around talking like an expert.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, I love to go to... Curiosity is one of the most important things in life. If you're curious, you can, you know. I had a breakfast this morning with a guy who has a horse podcast. Horses! He invited me on it. He's got over 100,000 listeners.

I'm going to be on it and I'm going to talk about my podcast. That's awesome. Because I met him. Right. Because I'm here. Right. If I was in Orlando laying on the couch, well, you got to get up and go do it on purpose. Get out there and meet people and I'll meet anybody who'll meet with me.

Yeah. And that's what you got to do. Quit laying around hoping things get better. They're not going to get better if you hope, wish, or pray. You got to get up and do it. And this is what people are not doing. Too many people underestimate themselves. They don't know what they can do.

They don't know what's inside them because they've had some disappointment. Things didn't work out. Their mother didn't treat them right. Yeah. Count on yourself. Get yourself up. Be better than everybody else that does what you do. And you'll get... My wife, when I started my business, she said, "Lee, don't underprice yourself.

You know a lot." And I put a price out there for my speeches and I about fainted the first person that paid it. My wife yells at me for that. I struggle with that. It's very challenging for me. It's hard. Pricing is tough. And she's constantly saying, you know, it's tough because it goes to that core root of believing in yourself.

And it's so easy to give in to the sense of insecurity and inadequacy. I wrote my own podcast, right? I wrote the content and I wrote it in third person so I could tell everybody how great I was. Lee, this has been awesome. I thank you for making the time.

Tell everyone about your website, your podcast, your books, your speaking availability. Go ahead and share where they can go to consume more of your ideas. I've learned now everything's on my website. Right. And leecockerell.com. C-O-C-K-E-R-E-L-L.com. Lee Cockerell. It's all there. You can buy my books. You can have all my podcasts are on there.

My blog is on there. My app is on there. My speeches, if you want to hire me, you can call me. My phone number, if you want to call me or email me, they're all on there. I've written three books, Creating Magic, which is around leadership. The Customer Rules, which is around customer service.

And Time Management Magic, which is all about how to get more organized. I just finished my fourth. It's not published yet. It's called Creating Career Magic. How to deal with all those hardships when you get a bad boss, get fired, get passed over, things are not working out. And I'm involved with a group called Thrive15.com.

And we have a thousand videos on how leadership, management, customer service. Wow. And we give a veteran. If people sign up for it, we give a veteran. They can, if you use the mat, it's Thrive15, T-H-R-I-V-E, the number 15.com. If you use the promotion code magic, you can use it free for a month and see if you like it.

And it's on the bottom of that bookmark I gave you there. And a thousand. We work with David Robinson that used to play with San Antonio. He does the ones on leadership. I've done 40 on time management, Disney interviewing. And so I just keep getting involved in all this stuff and it's great resources.

Ton of it's free. And yeah, it's, I love being a teacher instead of a boss. Yeah. That's my great, I love being a teacher because everybody hates their boss and they love their teacher. So yeah, thanks a lot for doing this for me. Lee, thank you very much. When you start looking for success, you find the lessons and the clues and just about everywhere.

And I loved having the chance to sit down with, with Lee and pick his brains. I want to encourage you, if you haven't done what I did in that interview, if you haven't done it lately, at least, why don't you do it yourself? Now? Yeah. If you want to do it in a podcast form, cool, go for it.

I encourage that. But even if you don't do it in a podcast form, do it personally. Take a retired executive out to lunch and pick his brains for an hour and see what lessons you can learn. I know for me, I found that extremely beneficial and I'd encourage you to do it yourself.

In fact, if you don't have a podcast, I think you'll, you'll find it easier than I find it because I actually have many people who I ask to be on the show and a lot of times they just don't want to do it. The people who generally accept podcast invitations to be interviewed are generally people with something to promote, something to sell.

They're the ones who know that they're looking for publicity. But some of the most interesting conversations are the ones that happen completely off the record because many times the leading business people in your town have no desire to be known publicly, but they're willing to share their wisdom and experience with you privately.

So consider doing what I did in that interview and go out and pick the brains of some people that you admire. Make sure to check out all of Lee's information. You can find his website at LeeCockrell.com. You can find links to his blog. You can find links to his podcast that he has and some of the information and the content he's creating.

You'll find information on all of his books, link in the show notes. So make sure to check out his blog, find some of his other resources. Disney is a special place. They've done a really amazing job of building just so many, doing things so well. And it's certainly something that all of us can learn from.

So LeeCockrell.com, you can find all that information there. Thank you all so much for listening. Thank you to those of you who are patrons of the show. Your patronage is what allowed me to go out to Texas and get that interview for you. So if this has been useful, if this show content has been useful, I'd appreciate it if you consider supporting the show as a patron.

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Check that out or there's options for three bucks, five bucks, 10 bucks, or you can choose any amount that you think. So radical personal finance.com/patron. Thank you to the 219 of you as of today who are currently supporting the show. 219. I would love to get that number to 250.

So if you're not yet supporting the show, please consider doing so. Radicalpersonalfinance.com/patron. Peace out, Joe. Don't just dream about paradise. Live it with Fiji Airways. Escape the ordinary with Fiji Airways Global Beat the Rush Sale. Immerse yourself in white sandy beaches or dive deep into coral reefs. Fiji Airways has flights to Nadi starting at just $748 for light and just $798 for value.

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