Please tell us, what are you paying attention to now?

Thank you, Jessica.

Same here.

I'm really excited to be with you.

You know, what I'm noticing in this world, the world's moving so fast right now.

And I think a lot of the challenges I'm finding with executives is the opportunity to make decisions quickly.

And what's being revealed, I'm finding in the marketplace right now that I'm dealing with is, you know, pressure doesn't create your culture.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We took a quick drive up and down Woodlawn Road here in Charlotte.

I threw him the keys back.

He said, you need one of these.

I said, Bill, I'm making $13,000 a year.

I can barely afford rent.

He said, that's your problem.

Just kind of share with us what it would look like.

Tell us what happened.

Yeah, I was at the end of a three-day business trip.

We started for us on Tuesday in Sarasota, Florida.

And Wednesday, we were working in a manufacturing plant in Petersburg, Virginia.

That afternoon, Wednesday afternoon, we packed up to head to New York City because the next day, we're going to be working in a distribution center in Brooklyn, New York.

So that's how we got to New York that week, end of a three-day business trip.

That day started very early because I don't know if any of the folks who are listening have ever either been or worked inside of a distribution center, but they normally open up early in the morning because it's where the trucks run, logistics run, and that's why we were there.

And what was going through your head in that moment?

Can you tell us about your experience on US Airways Flight 1549?

Well, thank you, and you're correct.

My life changed that day.

I was on a business trip in New York City that day, and we got done early.

Uh, and so I called our travel agent and worked with her to put me on an earlier flight, and that flight just happened to be US Airways Flight 1549, now known as the Miracle on the Hudson.

So I was not supposed to be on the plane.

I got on, the plane departed late, uh, but that's nothing unusual out of LaGuardia, right? I mean, flights are delayed all the time.

And if there are people who are listening and they wanna start taking the reins more, or maybe something's going on in their organization where they're not the decision-maker, but they, they feel like there's a place where- a, a place for them to be a leader, what's your advice?

So Dave, can you do me a favor? We got a lot of things to dig into today, but can you give us a little bit of your background related to the Miracle on the Hudson, and just sort of why you decided to go from Oracle and build a career around leadership and resilience so people to understand kinda your mindset around that?

Well, thank you very much.

And, uh, the, the CliffsNotes version was I wasn't supposed to be on the plane.

I was in of a three-day business trip in Brooklyn, New York, working with my client.

Got done early, called the travel agent, and she put me on Flight 1549, so I wasn't even supposed to be on that plane.

But, uh, it was a normal day in New York.

Cold, of course, in the winter, right? Flights were delayed, no big deal.

But how do you advise individuals, and you've, you've spoken to thousands and thousands of people worldwide, how do you determine what actually determines your focus when you have competing priorities, especially ones that maybe all align with what your goals and, and, uh, and values are?

If we can think about it and give some advice to our audience and viewers from your perspective.

Well, thank you.

I recently unveiled and what we're going with now is because I knew the Miracle on the Hudson will always be with me.

And now I'm very honored to be a part of that.

But I knew that I was more than that.

I was a sales executive for several years, 38 years in sales.

I was in that world.

So how do you build relationships and networks to expand your brand? People get to know you better, you can connect, and then you create opportunities and movement.

Can we talk about that?

Yes.

And a lot of thanks to you because you gave me that impetus to make that move.

For all those years, I was a corporate speaker and I was corporate.

That's how I grew up.

Shirt, tie, right? You go on stage, that's how you deliver.

And that was very successful for me.

Yeah, we do initially.

And what happens? Take us through that.

Yeah, nothing out of the ordinary, right? And a lot of your people have probably been out of LaGuardia.

It's always delayed, snowing, 36 degrees, 11 degrees, no big deal, right? And takeoff, if you've been on LaGuardia, basically you take off over the water and you bank left, north until they make the turns, no big deal, until about 60 seconds into it and we heard the explosion.

And I wasn't paying attention.

I tell people I knew everything.

I flew all the time.

But you hear an explosion on a plane and you're in New York, you're like, okay.

Then what is that process like in your mind? What are you thinking?

Hey, just one more thing, Dave, can we talk about? Yep.

By the way, by the way.

Yeah.

And it's like, you know, I always schedule the last flight out.

So, you know, I was scheduled on the five o'clock flight.

So I got to get home early.

This is great.

and me both.

What was it like to actually be there?

Well, I never got on the wing because I was the last passenger out of the plane.

So I was hanging out of the door at 10F for about seven minutes waist deep in 36 degree water.

So the water was extremely cold, but you don't feel the water because you got so much adrenaline going on.

I think that's one of the things that after speaking with the Coast Guard and military people and first responders, they'll tell you the same thing.

You got adrenaline going, so you don't really feel it.

But I was holding on to the lifeboat for about seven minutes because they were afraid it was going to float out into the river.

Can you tell us about the rescue?

So what was the biggest lesson COVID taught you?

It's, it's a, it's a, it's a mindset shift that, you know, you gotta believe in yourself first.

You know, and one of the things I learned years ago is if you keep blaming events, you, you know, you never get a chance to Unless you're awful lucky or awful fortunate.

And some people have that.

And can we talk about the power of leverage a little bit and how you need to have that as a speaker?

Most definitely.

It's, you know, I go back to ear- early in my career is when I had to figure this thing out in sales primarily.

And it's called finding your who's for your house, and finding people that you, who are better than you to not associate, maybe not immediately associate with, but get in contact or proximity.