High-Performance Communication (and Improv!)
with Dave Delaney

The 5 AM Miracle Podcast, hosted by Jeff Sanders

Episode #396: High-Performance Communication (and Improv!) with Dave Delaney

Jeff Sanders 0:03
Great communication is about more than just overcoming stage fright. Now, I grew up in the theater, performing in plays and musicals, while my guest grew up performing improv and connecting with his spontaneity and creativity in a whole new way. This is The 5 AM Miracle, episode #396: High-Performance Communication (and Improv!) with Dave Delaney. Good morning! I am Jeff Sanders, and this is THE podcast dedicated to dominating your day before breakfast.

My guest today is an author, corporate trainer, keynote speaker, and host of the "Nice Podcast." He helps fast growing companies reach their people through comprehensive communication workshops and presentations. His book, "New Business Networking," explores online and offline tools, tips, and techniques to grow and nurture your professional network for your business and career by communicating the nice way. And now here is my interview with Dave Delaney.

Dave Delaney 1:11
Hey, Jeff, thanks for having me.

Jeff Sanders 1:13
Let's just discuss first of all the elephant in the room, which is that you are Canadian.

Dave Delaney 1:18
No, it is true.

Jeff Sanders 1:21
I only bring that up because you have a brand about being nice. And everything I know about Canada (and I've been to Canada and I love it) is that there are nice people in Canada. So tell me what is it about your Canadian Heritage that makes you so nice?

Dave Delaney 1:36
Well, you know, there are jerks in Canada, too, to share that little nugget. But yeah, sadly, they're everywhere. There's a certain sort of humbleness in being Canadian, that's ingrained in your DNA. And I think it's something similar to like Kiwis from New Zealand, or, you know, Irish people, which I have a lot of experience with living in Ireland for a couple of years. And I think it is, of course, not geographically speaking. But as far as population goes, when you live in a when you're the smaller kid on the block, you know, and Canada is a relatively small country, population wise compared to the US. And you have kind of a louder, bigger brother next to you, who's really loud. You just become sort of more laid back a little bit more humble. And so I think there is something although I haven't seen any research on this, but I think there are similarities in in that in that, you know, like Ireland has Britain kind of over it. You know, New Zealand has Australia over it, and Canada has the US over it. So I think there is something to that. And to aside on that as well. There is obviously amazing American humor, American comedians, American comedy, sketch, comedy shows, and on and on. However, I read a book years ago, my dad bought me I used to study improv and perform improv. And my dad bought me this book comparing Canadian humor to American humor, and, or why Canadian humor was really good humor. And what it came down to the thesis of the book was that Canadians, they make fun of themselves a lot more than Americans do. And they get that sort of self deprecation thing, and they get that from the British influence. But then Canadian comedians are also very observational, like a lot of American comedians are and so Canadians get sort of the the best influences from American humor and, and British humor. And those two influences combined make Canadians pretty funny.

Jeff Sanders 3:45
Yeah, certainly, I think I think it's great. I know, one of the things that you are, I guess known for now is like is the improv background leading to communication, which leads to this whole like, I guess, an aura around the work that you're doing now. Because what I want to mostly focus on today, especially from this perspective, of kind of nice, it let's go with, first of all, what is the nice method, this is a thing that you are working with. And I want to know more about that, and then how that plays into kind of what you're doing today. Right? So

Dave Delaney 4:13
the nice method is a series of presentations that I do, and training that I do for different organizations. And what I realized over the years, kind of taking a step back and whiteboarding, all the content, I have the themes, the topics I talk about, I write about I podcasts about and they all come down to this idea of of being nice and being more effective in the way you communicate. And so my goal with my my presentations, my keynote, talks, my lunch and learns virtually and all these things that I do for organizations. My goal is always to, to bring people together. That's why I wrote a book about networking, new business networking, because what I want to do is try to find ways to improve relationships. To improve communication, and that's a big step in that and doing it in a nice sort of methodology, a nice sort of framework. And that's, that's what I use to either consulting with organizations and leadership teams, or whether it's through my podcast or through presentations as well.

Jeff Sanders 5:19
So what does that mean to be nice In this sense, because I know that the way that I kind of viewed communication and one thing that I have seen that plays out a lot, is that the people that you can get along with, well, are the ones you want to work with more often. I mean, I think it's a large degree. That's why you and I are friends. And why you're on the show today, is that, like, I want to talk to you, I want there to be that relationship, like how does that play into a guest, whether it's our personalities, or just like, our general demeanor? Is that a valuable aspect to what it means to effectively communicate or to get things done?

Dave Delaney 5:53
Absolutely, I think it's a matter of, you know, so I have a talk that I do right now, that's become quite popular, and it's called the ROI of nice. And the idea and the ROI of nice is to focus on yourself first, and improving the way you are personally. And then, and then helping stakeholders that so those in your organization, your your colleagues, your clients, and so forth, and then you're and then society as a whole, and how to give back in nice ways. And so to that first point about self, it's really recognizing your own strengths. You know, I'm a big proponent of personality assessments. You know, and in doing these over the years, I've learned so much about myself, and not so much learning about myself, but really recognizing and realizing, whoa, these are my strengths. And so part of that is, you know, one of the strengths that I think we all need to be aiming for is to come across, not just come across nice, and then stab someone in the back. But actually be nice. And part of that is just laying down framework like, like, you know, one thing that I've talked to my kids about through their whole lives is the golden rule, right? treat people the way you want to be treated. It's, it's such a simple thing. But when you think about it, like if you treat people with respect, if you treat people on a level playing field, if you're if you're cool to people, basically, then they're going to be cool back to you. So that's it sounds, again, it sounds like a simple thing. But it often gets overlooked or gets missed.

Jeff Sanders 7:31
So how do you build that into I guess, with the work that you're doing? I we both of us are podcasters, we're speakers? do you leverage this, this concept of being nice as a way to, not to say get more business, but as a way to, like relate to the people that you're working with? Or a way to, to find common ground? Or how does like your personality play into, like, I'm going to leverage my niceness to benefit others and to make things work.

Dave Delaney 7:57
Yeah, I mean, you know, at the end of the day, many of us letting you know, your listeners have businesses, right, so you're trying to make money, right, you're trying to retain clients, retain employees, and so forth. And so, you know, it's absolutely essential in the work that you do that, that that the way you treat people, the the the way that you come off to people, they're more likely to choose to do business with you the old line people do business with those they know, like, and trust. And, and so by creating content and sort of being out there, people get to know you. Right? And by being cool and treating people well. They like you and and from that they start to trust you and then ultimately they choose to do business with you, or that's what you hope, at least

Jeff Sanders 8:47
certainly, and how does that blend in with the workshops that you do? I know that there's a lot of like team work in terms of how people relate to like, in an organization, let's say like in a team environment? How does that play into how people interact day to day because I know that one thing that I I work for myself now, but I've been a part of their day jobs and teams in the past where I didn't necessarily like the people I was working with. And being nice was a challenge. And so right, how does that play into kind of that the office culture are oriented to build a team that where things are effective there?

Dave Delaney 9:20
Yeah, so I mean, it there's different things to it. So basically, when I speak to, you know, a prospect or potential client, I, you know, I want to determine, first of all, if I'm a good fit for their organization, and then if I am and what I have to, you know, this nice methodology, then I determine like, what their concerns are, what their issues are, and what they're trying to improve. And based on that I build out, a, you know, a plan, and then develop and deliver that plan and that engage in engages the employees, it gets everybody together. So an example of this is I had a client who was affected fast growing technology healthcare company. And they were running into what fast growing companies run into. And I've worked at two of them. So I've learned this firsthand, growing pains, right, where, you know, if you're an earlier employee, especially on suddenly there's all these new people showing up to the desks around you, and you start to you know, communication starts to falter. So, so this was a concern for a company that hired me. So what I did was I did a workshop, and in this workshop specifically actually brought in a lot of elements of improv in the things that I know from performing and studying improv with Second City in Toronto and performing improv on my own. And over the years here in Nashville, and you know, in Ireland and other places, what I did was I put together this, this really fun, you know, half day program where I gave everybody badges and I color coordinated the badges, so that are color coded the badges so that I would, I would know what department they were with. So green was marketing, blue was it, you know, and so forth. And because part of it was that these departments were becoming kind of islands, and nobody knew other people from other departments. And that was part of the objective of this was to bring them together. So I could see from the colors of their badges that I could, I could pair them up in different, different activities. And what came from something that was amazing was, I'm going to generalize here. Generally speaking, salespeople are quite outgoing, extroverted, and developers are more introverted and quieter, generally speaking. Now, what happened here was a salesperson, I partnered a salesperson with a with a developer. And the salesperson was shocked. And in fact, the whole company was shocked at how outgoing and charismatic this developer was, because they always thought I mean, he's just great at doing what he does. And so he had headphones on buried behind a monitor all day. And nobody realized how great he was in this way. So the salesperson started bringing him on calls on sales calls, when he was meeting with, you know, CIOs, and you know, information types. And in doing this, because the salesperson couldn't talk about, you know, how the how the sausage was made specifically. And so this this IT professional developer came with him on calls, and the developer could very eloquently speak about how that sausage is made. And as a result, they ended up closing many new clients because of this. So again, this gets into the way we communicate. But it also gets into tapping into our own strengths and recognizing those strengths, so that they can play a role, you know, in the organization.

Jeff Sanders 12:53
Yeah, that's really interesting. There's definitely a lot of people don't fit the mold for the typical kind of, you know, the ID person or the salesperson. to that degree. I mean, you mentioned that improv has been a big influence for you. And I spent many years doing theater, I have a degree in theater, I know that that really played a lot into I mean, to a certain degree, why I'm a podcaster. Why I'm a speaker, I think for the same degree for you as well. How do you think that performance plays into, I guess, your ability to communicate or to relate to people or to form that connection there?

Dave Delaney 13:22
Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, it's a crucial part. And whether that performance and I don't mean by, you know, faking something, right, but but by delivering information in a way that people can retain that information is essential in a sales call, but even you know, or if you're standing on a stage in front of an audience, or if you're a company who is trying to raise funding, and you need to pitch investors, we've all you know, seen Oh, gosh, here's the Canadian in me, I always mix up the shark tank with Dragon's Den. Dragon's Den is the Canadian Shark Tank. Oh, yeah, yeah. And I always go to Dragon's Den first. That's funny. Um, but you know, so you know, those kind of high stakes regressions where you've got to do a good job presenting. So performance is a very important part of that. And it's not just in communicating. It is about communicating points, like key points, and pulling out or extracting content that may be just too much for the for the audience or the person that you're training. I do a lot of training virtually. And, you know, I worked with an organization while before pandemic, who had a company retreat here in Nashville, and they were looking, they were 12 different trainers from across the country for an organization. So they hired me to do half day training for them on presentation skills. And I actually was able to review their their decks, their content, and teach them some really great ways to To deliver this content more creatively and more effectively, and that definitely tapped into using improv, in fact, we we ran through some improv workshop and improv exercises as we did that.

Jeff Sanders 15:14
Yeah, I mean, for me, I've noticed a huge difference between like viewing what you're doing as not performance, but viewing the work that you're doing as a way to present something in a way that someone else is really going to be engaged with what you're doing. That was really for me, what I took away from my background doing a lot of theater was that when I was, you know, doing a sales call when I was in front of an audience, like, I want them to care about what I'm saying, I think that takes a certain it's an art form, essentially, to get them to really buy into kind of what you're presenting.

Dave Delaney 15:45
Absolutely, yeah, yeah, they need to care. And, and that gets into defining what the problem is that you're trying to solve. Which is why when I mentioned before about the initial conversations that I have, with my, my potential clients, is finding out exactly what their problems are making sure that I'm the right fit and the right solution for them, or, you know, my team at future forth. And and then finding out from there, you know, how, how success would be in the eyes of the audience, or whoever it is that I'd be speaking to, whether it's a keynote presentation, or whether it's a you know, a training session for a team?

Jeff Sanders 16:20
Where do you think the most people struggle the most when it comes to communication? Like, are they lacking in confidence in communicating? Is that a skill set gap? Where are they? Are they really lacking in the most when it comes to wanting to communicate? Well?

Dave Delaney 16:33
Yeah, great question. And I think a big part of it is the, the inability or to listen effectively. And I find that that is one way that I notice. That comes up a lot. And one thing that I talked about with listening, and and it's part of some of the the training that I do, and it's definitely part of the the presentations that I do as well, is that when you're not listening to someone, it's pretty obvious. But so it's interesting to like, Listen, the word listen itself is an anagram for the word silent. So mix up those letters, and it works out as Listen, and or silent, depending on which way you're doing it. So it's amazing to me that it's right there in front of us. I'll be it mixed up. And I think that if you are when you're listening effectively, you are often quiet. I always use this this example of you know, going to a conference, remember conferences? Yeah. Oh, yeah. What are those good old conferences. But remember, like, you go to a conference, or a networking event or mixer or something like that. You meet somebody, and you're like, gosh, I really liked this person, she was really, really nice. And you get back and you're thinking about, you know, the conversation you had or whatever. And then you think like, What was her name? I can't remember her name. Well, she worked at, I don't know where she worked. But she did. I don't remember what you. You don't remember any of this information, but you really liked her a lot. And the reason why you liked her so much, is because she let you do the bulk of the talking. Because we all like to talk about ourselves. And so when you do the bulk, or when you allow the person to do the bulk of the talking, that makes them feel better about you, because they're able to share whatever is on their mind. So I do a lot of work around listening. And, and it's something by the way that nobody is perfect at. It's something that I'm often you know, working on myself, you know, but but being aware of this, of this really important thing. And being more mindful of it, it really does help.

Jeff Sanders 18:44
I mean, the first thing that I think of when I think of listening is how much I don't listen to I don't like my wife, for example, like I get called out frequently for not being fully present. I guess it's interesting because that that level of engagement when you're listening, like it's a full body experience where you really have to give yourself to a full conversation. I think that to that degree, like it requires a real like energy and willingness to be present, which I think for most of us is hard because we're distracted or just not fully engaged. It really takes like a willingness to give extra effort.

Dave Delaney 19:18
Absolutely. Yeah. And you know, to my point about me not being a perfect listener. Yeah, it is Heather, my wife who would be the first to let you know that. Yeah, he hasn't figured it out yet.

Jeff Sanders 19:30
That is very true. Yeah, I guess from that perspective, too. It's like we think about people who are trying to communicate effectively, we all have kind of our own weaknesses. How do you recommend people to like I guess, have more self awareness around where they can improve. It doesn't require going to a conference or workshop, or is there a way for us to identify on our own, you know, here's where I struggle and here's how I can improve.

Dave Delaney 19:57
Well, I think the first thing is, you know, and talking about the art I have nice, you know, part of that that framework as I mentioned itself, right? So it's recognizing and understanding yourself and I go through different exercises about this, but but one of them is taking a personality assessment, you know, whether it's anagram, or you know, Strengths Finder, disc assessment, whatever it is, take take one of these assessments, I highly recommend it, there's freebies, you can do online as well. But what you find out from these assessments is what your top strengths are. And again, as I said before, this is something that you, you really, you, you will not be shocked by the results, typically, but they confirm to you what you what you already knew. So, for example, my number one strength is communication. And my number two is consistency. Number three is Whoo. Number four is activator. And number five is harmony. Now, I won't go into the whole 30, or 50, or however many there are. But those are my top five, and I have them, I know them off the top of my head, but I also have them pinned above my desk, on the wall. And I have them there. So I can refer back to them throughout the day. So that when I'm writing a blog post, or I'm, you know, editing a podcast, or delivering putting together a podcast or talking to a client, if what I'm doing doesn't fit into the strengths, like I'm terrible with numbers, and I'm really bad at accounting and, and all that stuff, it doesn't mean that I can't, you know, get better at that. But I have to recognize that that's not one of my strengths. And so by recognizing what your strengths actually are, you can then get assistance, get help with the stuff that is, you know, lower down on the list. And that goes down to the weaknesses, even to tap into people who who are successful are excellent at these weaker points. And then that really does balance things out. And so this is why this is so important and done so often. And I do this as well, with my clients is to try to drill down and figure out exactly what their strengths are, and then tap into those strengths in the work that you do. Because that's, that's what's going to ultimately Yeah, you know, you're going to do best.

Jeff Sanders 22:17
Yeah, certainly, I know, I took an assessment and years ago that told me that I was like a goal achieving person. And that was like an aspect of me. And as soon as I was able to label that as like, you know, this test told me, I'm this, like, I really identified with that and really has stuck with me ever since. Like to the degree that I that's really how I view myself. It's in a large way, how I view the listeners of this podcast, it's how I like the people I want to connect with tend to align to what these tests Tell me about myself, I think it's really interesting that those they really do confirm your suspicions about what you're great at what you care about how you operate, and that knowledge is really powerful, you can then put into a lot of different areas of your life.

Dave Delaney 22:57
Oh, yeah, absolutely. And that's the thing, like, you know, part of my goal, with with everything I do is I want to make people nicer. You know, and as I said to themselves, obviously in their organizations who you know, I work with, and the keynotes and things that I do, but I want you to take it and put it to use, you know, outside of the conference or outside of the organization back at home, or when you're hanging out with friends or making new friends. This, you know, there's so many, you know, key things here, I tell my kids, my kids are 14 and 15. And I tell them like when they start dating, which they can't date for the next 20 to 30 years. But I tell them, like when they start dating, and they go out on a date with somebody, always note how your date treats the server at the restaurant you're at. And you can that's a red flag right there. If if the person that you are with treats the server, you know, rudely or doesn't look at them or anything like that, you know, that's a red flag right there for you to say, Okay, this person's kind of a jerk, even though they may be acting, you know, all lovely to you. You can tell like, wait a minute, they're treating this server, like a jerk. So. So that's just like one of those little, you know, little ways that that can help.

Jeff Sanders 24:15
Yeah, very true. Very true. I want to shift gears here just slightly because I know that you have a new podcast out and I want to be sure we talk about back. So this is one thing that I love podcasts. Obviously we're on one now. But I also want to hear like more about like, what what what kind of work are you doing? Are you your show?

Dave Delaney 24:31
Yeah, thanks for asking. So the nice podcast is that nice podcast co nice podcast.co. And the podcast is about it's a leadership podcast for leaders who want to improve how they are nice to themselves, how effective they are, you know, the work that they do. And so it's geared around collaboration and communication, but also community and kindness. And, and it's it revolves All around that stuff. But I've, yeah, you know, for years for the last few years, I've considered myself a recovering podcaster. So, you know, I started podcasting with my wife and oh five, and we had the second parenting podcast ever, from 2005 to 2008. And I've had a handful of other podcasts over the years, some I've done for for others, and some of them for myself. And so yeah, I'm a I'm a big fan of the medium. And, and so the goal of this podcast is really yeah, just to spread the word and to get folks to be more effective in the work they do, and the way they lead and being nicer to to themselves and to the other people in their lives. Like part of this too, by the way. I sometimes tell people that, that my podcast is like a self help podcast disguised as a business podcast. Right? Because the whole thing with leadership is is also one of those kind of gray words, it says gray areas, because it's like, well, I'm not a leader, I just work, you know, in a department do my thing. But or I'm a self employed person, I just work by myself, you know, I'm not really a leader. But the truth is that everybody is a leader in one way or another. And and so so this is part of the the talk that I do with the ROI of nice of realizing myself, like how I was a leader, when I was much younger without actually realizing it until a friend like 30 years later told me Wait, what? So it's important to understand that we're all sort of leaders and we can all lead, you know, by treating people the way they want to be treated, and so on. So, so the podcast has been, you know, I'm on episode 11. Right now, Episode 12 will drop on Monday. So it's definitely got that fresh, new podcast smell to it. But I'm, yeah, the feedbacks been great so far. And yeah, I'm excited to share it with more folks.

Jeff Sanders 27:01
Are we're gonna shift gears again, this one a little more intensely. I want to ask us on that I saw on social media, which is that you had posted recently that you had gone 10 months without alcohol. And I'm curious to hear the story behind that as far as what actually caused you to make that change? What what kind of impact Have you seen from that to tell us a story behind your shift to to let go of alcohol?

Dave Delaney 27:23
Yeah, so what happened was, it was during during Earth Well, okay, so I quit drinking June 8 of last year. And I didn't intentionally quit drinking, nor do I know for sure if I have forever, I don't know. Apparently, Guinness is working on a 0%, non alcoholic Guinness, oh my gosh. And if they master that, then the next trip I go to Ireland, will, will keep me sober. But you know, Failing that, if I'm going to Ireland, I'm having a pint of Guinness, I'm sorry. Last summer, we had a lot of things going on. Right, we had the pandemic, we had a lot of unrest, civil unrest in the US. And around the world. A lot of tensions were high. And then in addition to this, my family and I were displaced for three months. Because our house are backing up three months left, as you know, in Nashville, last March, march 3 2020, a tornado roar, roar through and and did a lot of damage, my kids school was destroyed. And that was pretty emotional. Fast forward may 3 of last year. And that's when we had another storm and 10 holes in our roof. And so we were unable to live at our home. And I don't wish this on anyone dealing with insurance companies and contractors becomes a full time job. So it became this incredibly stressful time. And that is when I had been I was drinking a little too much. I wouldn't say I was I wasn't getting drunk or anything. But I was certainly having, you know, drinks every night kind of thing to unwind. And I was like, I gotta cool off. So I decided I'm going to take 30 days off drinking. And then 30 became 60 and 60 became 90. And here we are almost, you know, a little over 10 months. I should add By the way, no product placement here but but if it wasn't for well being brewing, I don't know if I would have been able to pull it off. I have to say for those of you who are listening who are thinking about you know who loved beer, and you're thinking about you know, taking a break for a bit. Um, there are amazing zero or very, very close to 0% alcohol beers now and like well being as a brewery I found again, I'm not I have no relation with this brewery. But they brew non alcoholic beers. And and they have IPAs, they have stouts they have blah, blah blah They have and they have really good beer. So, you know, in the things that I normally would do, you know, if I go to the beach with friends, you know, drink a lot of beer sitting on the beach all day I we did that and I brought all this non alcoholic beer with. It was perfect. It was great. So yeah, 10 months, 10 months.

Jeff Sanders 30:19
Yeah, that's amazing. I mean, recently on the podcast, I was talking with my wife, actually, we had just recently and we were talking about different, like dietary habit changes we've made mostly during the pandemic, and one of those that I shifted to was drinking, basically, I know alcohol for about two months. And now on a very low amount. It's like maybe like one drink a week. whereas previously, it was every night, it was multiple drinks a night. And like, I saw myself like this, if this habit continues, like, I don't like where it's going, like, this is not the me I want to be. So I'm always curious, when I see someone else who makes a similar shift, whether it's due to you know, there was stress, and you had to make a change, or whether you just saw bad habits. It's interesting to see like how those kind of personal habit choices play out and how they affect our day to day. Like, it's really amazing that you have made that work for you for such a long time.

Dave Delaney 31:06
Thanks. Yeah, I mean, you know, I'm no expert in addiction. But they're, you know, I mean, I do know, alcoholics and former alcoholics and, and, you know, and that's just, that's just booze. I've had friends od over the years, I've had friends, you know, I used to smoke like a chimney, what, over 20 years ago, wow. And I tried quitting many times, many, many times, and many failed attempts. And I tried all sorts of different ways. But ultimately, it came down to me going, leaving Ireland and going home for Christmas one year, and decided, and I decided during that time, I would be with family, and that a number of them smoked. So I wouldn't be around anyone smoking. So I thought, Okay, this is my chance, since I'm not around anyone smoking to just give it give it my best shot again. And yeah, I haven't had a drag of a cigarette in over 20 years. So um, yeah, I mean, yeah, addiction is one of those those tricky things. I mean, you know, I drank like, I used to drink a lot back in the 90s. And, you know, early 2000s, for sure. And it really wasn't until it wasn't really until I got married, but also that I, you know, had kids that I was like, you know, I need to I need to, you know, chill out here a bit. So, but yeah, so 1010 plus months, it's, yeah, it's been good. It's been good.

Jeff Sanders 32:33
What do you think is the impact for you in terms of that, in terms of like, how you view your health? Or how it affects your productivity? Like, what is the impact for you, in terms of that is, I know that the biggest issue that I've seen with myself, is that if I choose to drink more often, it just tends to lead to that downward spiral of I'm getting a little less done and quite have my energy I used to I just, I'm not up to 100%. Like, how does it affect you?

Dave Delaney 32:57
Yeah, well, you know, as you get older, and I just had a birthday, so I'm getting very much mindful of this. But as you as you get older, you alcohol does, you know, it just the hangovers lasts way longer. And they then they come from less consumption, you drink two beers and feel like crap for two days. So, so there's that I found that I sleep better. And snore less. I'm still working on that. And so there's that I also tend to do things in a kind of combined effort. Not always intentionally. But I've also started working with a trainer, my wife and I both started working with a trainer who's actually a family member, and she's virtually training us and so we bought some equipment. And so we've been we've been working out pretty steadily. Since last July, you typically five days a week is what we're going for. And so in doing that, combined with not drinking, I'm like, yeah, I'm feeling great. Um, years ago, my wife and I decided we're going to quit drinking for 30 days, start jogging, which we didn't do before, and go vegan for 30 days. And that that was like another one of those experiments that, you know, after 30 days, we're like, Hell no, we're like pizza and beer. And we felt like we were gonna die after that pizza and beer, I tell you, but, but that was also like a really, that was a great experience, because we actually tracked our are our stats and actually found that the results of that were pretty, pretty impressive. So,

Jeff Sanders 34:37
I mean, I've been I've been a vegan over 10 years.

Dave Delaney 34:39
That's right. That's right. I forgot about that. Yes, yes. So there's definitely a big a big plus and being vegan for sure. Yeah, I

Jeff Sanders 34:47
mean, it's always I love the idea of doing some of those 30 day experiments to see what happens I think it's there's so much you can learn in just a single month of trying something new and that can teach you like either a this is a good fit for me long term or I'm sick of So I'm going back to my old habits. But I think right either way, you learn a lot about yourself and like the way that you want to live.

Dave Delaney 35:07
Absolutely, yeah. And just, you know, realizing that okay, maybe a pitcher of beer and a pizza, right after being vegan for 30 days is probably a poor choice. Because it certainly was for us. But it's interesting. Yeah. I mean, when I used to smoke when I was in Ireland, there was this PACA, there's this brand of cigarettes in Ireland called, I think they're called majors. And they're majorly disgusting. Like, they're super, super strong. And so in order to try to convince myself to quit, I would buy majors and try to smoke those just to make myself feel worse. Which was the stupidest thing. By the way, that doesn't work. In case anyone's thinking. No, don't do that.

Jeff Sanders 35:50
Well, that's one strategy. Yeah, there's another kind of topic, I tend to ask my guests, I really want to hear your thoughts on this too, which is, you know, this being The 5 AM Miracle, I want to hear more about kind of daily habits that you have today, especially those around, you know, the way you begin your day with your morning routine, do you have anything that you'd like to do every day, that kind of sets you off to say, today will be productive today will be successful? What do you do to kind of establish the foundation there?

Dave Delaney 36:17
Yeah, so you know, atomic habits is a good book worth reading, of course, your your book, as well as a wonderful book on on, you know, establishing these morning habits and just establishing habits. And I just, I've been trying to do different things. So while I already mentioned working out, so I'm trying to work out much, you know, five days a week, some days, it's three days, but I don't usually go less than three most weeks, it's four or five days. So working out is important. I think having small successes earlier in the day can help you know, you know, help you have a more successful productive day. So reading more for me, because I've got the podcast now I'm having guests on more frequently. So I'm trying to read their books before they come on, which helps me you know, obviously reading as you know, I don't have to tell you guys why reading is. So reading more, writing more. Another thing I've been doing, again, is journaling. And I just had a birthday, as I mentioned. So I'm I've set a goal of writing a journal entry every day for the year. It can be short, it can be long or not a goal sorry, a journal entry. But I just had Jeffrey Shaw, Jeff Shaw, on my podcast, who wrote the self employed life, which is a book coming out soon, he was great. But definitely someone you should, you should talk to on your show. And he, he in his book recommends. And we talked about this on the podcast, a what's going right, as a journal entry, and the idea here, so I kind of took it and kind of changed it a little bit for me, but what I'm doing is writing what's going right, in my journal every day, that's what I'm leading with. And that little move has really helped me focus more on the positive things that are that are going on. I've struggled especially during the pandemic, I think we all have to some extent but you know, I talked to a therapist a little bit online, found like I had a touch of depression, and then I had some anxiety, go figure with everything going on in my life at the time. But, um, and and and with addressing this and realizing, you know, just kind of over and not necessarily 100% overcoming it. But certainly working towards that. Writing what's going right in a journal entry every day is just a wonderful way of looking at flipping things around and looking at things more positively. So yeah, so the what's going right journal, you know, working out obviously, and meditating too. I've been doing a lot of meditation and mindfulness using Sam Harris's app called the waking up.

Jeff Sanders 39:14
Excellent. Yeah, I like that, that philosophy of what's going right. I think that's a really powerful one. And it sounds similar to the idea of gratitude, or at least the idea of just reflecting on your life with the positive and that's that's a really powerful tactic.

Dave Delaney 39:26
Yeah. And we actually spoke about that, because what Jeff was saying in that conversation was he and he had tried and kind of failed at gratitude, journal entries or thankfulness, gratitude, or thankfulness journals, and I've, I've found this to where I've done this and it's failed as well. Because you when you try to do this, I mean, it's great to try to do this. Absolutely. But you start to realize like you're like, I'm Brad. I'm grateful for my dog. I'm grateful for the food I'm grateful for the my you know, electricity and you're kind of Making like a laundry list and it's like, Okay, and then you do the next I'm grateful for this. And you're you start to realize like, this is getting old, and then you stop. Ultimately, at least this is what I, what I have found for myself. And it was just interesting that he brought that up. But what's going right? makes you really think more not so much. I mean, you are obviously grateful for what's going right. But it gets you into into a little deeper into what's going right in your life. And so I find that that really does

Jeff Sanders 40:28
help. Well, even to that degree of just kind of reframing something, I know that with journaling, like as a practice, I've been an adaptation to, I tend to start and then quit and start and then quit, I just never tends to stick button on the habits that I have found that do stick are the ones where I have a perspective that I really can resonate with, I think even the idea of reframing gratitude to what's going right, like a simple like shift like that, when that can really like make something work for you long term.

Dave Delaney 40:55
Yeah, absolutely. And I think like with journaling, or like with meditation that Sam Harris's the waking up app has, it's a 10 minute daily meditation. Now, there were big deep conversations within his app, and a lot of other meditations on different topics and things like that. But at the very least, you know, he hopes that users or you know, his customers, or whomever, will take 10 minutes. And when you think about it, like 10 minutes, like you, if you can't do something for 10 minutes in a day, that's actually a good thing. You know, what something is wrong with the way you're managing your time. And I find that, like, you know, we often procrastinate, and you know, we all do it, but but when you think like 10 minutes, 10 minutes, what I have found, I've done some and I'm gonna, like just people are going to hate me when I say this. But my wife and I, for many years have wanted to get a hot tub. And we finally, you know, in all the crap going on in our lives and things. And the stress is in January of this year, we got a hot tub nice. And we have a screened in porch. So it kind of sit out, we hear like wind chimes, and we have, like, the woods are there and trees and stuff. And like, again, your listeners are like, What a jerk, I can't believe. But honestly, I, every day I get in that hot tub, I've got a smile on my face, I feel so great. And the reason why I bring this up too. And part of like, you know, the idea of developing habits is associating things with pleasures. And so what I do now is I journal I read, I meditate all in the hot tub. So now so I mean, I'm I like you know, you're not supposed to be in a hot tub for more than like 20 minutes or whatever. But I'm usually in there for like an hour at least. So, so I sit in the hot tub in the morning after I've worked out, I write, read, meditate for 10 minutes. And so it's like this ultimate pleasure of sitting in the hot tub, but I'm knocking out stuff as well. Which, which, you know, help so associating these things that are challenging that maybe these habits you find that are difficult to easy to pick up the difficult to continue, I think when you associate them with something, you know, so if it's on the treadmill, and you've got the TV in front of your treadmill, and you can watch whenever you want to Netflix, as long as you're walking or running at that time, you know, that's one way to do it. Or, you know, if you want to listen to a podcast, like this awesome one, you know, do it when you're going for a walk instead or walking the dog instead of you know, in the car, on, you know, or on the treadmill, as I said, so, you know, reward yourself with with things. And I think that helps to establish these habits.

Jeff Sanders 43:47
Well, yeah, I think that's a great, great suggestion to figure out how to make these things work and associate them with things you're already doing or things that you enjoy doing, I guess awesome. I'm definitely jealous of the hot tub. My wife will hear this conversation later. She's gonna also be jealous. On that same topic. My parents who are retired now bought a hot tub. And so that's all they talk about. So all I hear is is messaging like, Jeff, the hot tub if you don't.

Dave Delaney 44:12
Well, it's fascinating, too, because when I have a neighbor who's an electrician, and you need an electrician to wire it, yeah, safely and correctly. And when he so he came over to help me with this, and he's like, now make sure you do this and this and you know, with our hot tub, blah blah blah and I'm like wait, you have a hot tub. He's like Yeah, yeah, we've got one in the back. It's awesome. And it was really and then like another friend reached out she was like, yo, yeah, we've got a hot tub too. But honestly, I posted like one photo on social of me like of the hot tub. But I honestly I waited months to post anything about it because and I still am not doing it frequently because I'm like, I recognize the fact that not everybody has a hot tub. Not everybody has To space or can afford one or whatever. And it's definitely a luxury. I absolutely agree to that. But, yeah, it's honestly I've absolutely zero regrets, although it's incredibly frustrating at first trying to balance the chemicals that can drive you a little crazy at first but so if you if you pull the trigger, let me know and I'll give you some tips.

Jeff Sanders 45:22
Okay, yeah, but I for the same place my parents as well that the chemicals is apparently a real big deal.

Dave Delaney 45:27
It takes a while. Honestly, there's a lot of trial and error and and honestly, yeah, there's a little bit of trial and error at the very beginning. But once you get it right, yeah, it's it's great. So yeah, no zero regrets.

Jeff Sanders 45:44
And that's awesome to hear. Well, David has been awesome today. There's a lot that I drew from this conversation on the our listeners will as well and I want them to learn more from you and obviously, listen to your podcast, so we're gonna go to dig into your content.

Dave Delaney 45:56
Yeah, so my business is futurefourth.com so you can visit futurefourth.com. My speaking page is DaveDelaneySpeaks.com and that goes to my personal blog where you can also find the podcast. The podcast is called Nice Podcast when it's in all the regular places. So just do a search for Nice Podcast. Or go to nicepodcast.co. and reach out to me by the way, if you do any of the above, reach out because honestly, I love hearing from people and and so if anyone you know, reads blog posts and likes it, or you know, subscribe to my newsletter or whatever, reach out to me because honestly, I always I always love hearing from folks.

Jeff Sanders 46:40
That's great to hear. Yeah, I'll post links for listeners this week in the show notes page. And Dave, this has been awesome. I'm so glad I got you on the podcast. Finally. It's been a long time coming. So yeah, it's been great.

Dave Delaney 46:49
Thanks, man. Yeah, it was a pleasure.

Jeff Sanders 46:57
And for that action step this week, connect with your best self on stage. There are many ways to communicate effectively, but one of the best ways is to break out of your shell through performance improv and games. You can learn so much more about being a super nice communicator by listening and following Dave's 'Nice Podcast." JeffSanders.com/396 is the place to go to get the episode notes, including links, transcriptions, and more. That's all I've got for you here on The 5 AM Miracle podcast this week. Until next time, you have the power to change your life and the fun begins bright and early.

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