Beyond Networking with Brian Miller

Kay Reeve speaks and writes about emotional awareness. She is the author of Brain Unchained, a book created to help teenagers, young adults, and parents understand the four core emotions and build a strategy for positive emotional change. (

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MENTAL HEALTH DISCLAIMER: None of the participants in this video are doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, or medical practitioners of any kind. The content of this video is presented solely for the purpose of creating awareness and conversation. The content is not intended to be a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your mental health professional or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding your condition.

⚠️ If you are in crisis or you think you may have an emergency, call your doctor or 911 immediately. 

⚠️ If you're having suicidal thoughts, call 1-800-273-TALK (8255) to talk to a skilled, trained counselor at a crisis center in your area at any time (National Suicide Prevention Lifeline). 

⚠️ If you are located outside the United States, call your local emergency line immediately.

Kay and I met years ago when she included a reference to my TEDx talk in her TEDx talk. We were connected via social media and have stayed in touch ever since. But this was the first time we ever spoke face-to-face, albeit via video conference.

In this conversation, Kay helps us understand what she believes are the four core emotions, and a clear system for navigating them.

We also spoke at length about her own Pivots - in her career and personal life. Kay was thrown one devastating curveball after another these past few years, and this episode is really a testament to resilience and creative adaptation.

In particular, pay attention how Kay actively and intentionally learned from each setback, and used those lessons to inform her next move. What may have seemed like failures at the time laid the path for achieving her lifelong dream of becoming an author and a voice for positive change.

Connect with Kay:

• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kayreevepublicspeaker/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kay-reeve/
• Website: https://www.kayreeve.co.uk 
• Brain Unchained Book: https://bit.ly/US-BrainUnchained

Watch instead of listen: https://beyondnetworkingpodcast.com/key-reeve/

🎙 Visit our sponsor https://Riverside.fm for the highest quality remote recordings.

🔥 Join the Pivot Power newsletter & community: https://beyondnetworkingpodcast.com/year-of-the-pivot

Xabier Marshall is a personal trainer and the owner of Multiply Performance in the UK.

I discovered Xabier while reading a BBC article about gyms in a COVID and post-COVID world. I’ve never been to a gym in my life, so I couldn’t tell you why I was reading that article. But Xabier was quoted about successfully Pivoting his personal training to an app-based plan.

I had to know more. So I sent him a cold message on LinkedIn and 3 days later we recorded this episode.

In this conversation we discussed people’s perceptions of personal trainers, Xabier’s initial emotional response to the 2020 lockdowns, how being marketing-minded allowed him to see what was next and what was needed, his new app-based training program, and his predictions about the future of the gym and fitness industry.

It’s a deeply insightful conversation, and a lot of fun.

Connect with Xabier:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/multiplyperformance/
• Website: http://www.multiplyperformance.com/

Watch instead of listen: https://beyondnetworkingpodcast.com/xabier-marshall/

🎙 Visit our sponsor https://Riverside.fm for the highest quality remote recordings.

🔥 Join the Pivot Power newsletter & community: https://beyondnetworkingpodcast.com/year-of-the-pivot

Ken Davenport is a two-time Tony award-winning Broadway producer. He is best known for Spring Awakening, Kinky Boots, and the revival of Godspell.

Ken is renowned in the theater community as an innovative marketer. In 2008 he started a blog called The Producer’s Perspective, dedicated to making the business of Broadway accessible and understandable.

He also created Be a Broadway Star, the only Broadway-themed board game.

Ken and I met when we were both panelists on the same livestream. He spoke so passionately about theater’s resilience, I knew I had to invite him to our little corner of the Internet.

In this conversation, Ken helps us understand where Broadway is and where it’s likely going. In particular, he answered the burning question: Did Hamilton’s streaming success open the doors to an entirely new revenue stream for theater?

My wife Lindsey and I are Broadway fanatics, as you know, so this was a huge treat. 

Also, a last-minute update. Ken and I recorded this conversation in January of 2021, but as I’m releasing it in May, after months of successful vaccine rollouts, it has just been announced that Broadway will be allowed to reopen at 100% capacity in September. Great news!

Connect with Ken:

• Blog:  https://www.theproducersperspective.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/KenDavenportBway
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KenDavenport/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/kendavenport

https://twitter.com/kendavenport

Watch instead of listen: https://beyondnetworkingpodcast.com/ken-davenport/

🎙 Visit our sponsor https://Riverside.fm for the highest quality remote recordings.

🔥 Join the Pivot Power newsletter & community: https://beyondnetworkingpodcast.com/year-of-the-pivot

Dr. Caitlin O'Connell is a scientist, author, and storyteller. She holds a PhD in ecology, holds positions at both Harvard and Stanford, is an award-winning author of non-fiction, children’s books, and graphic novels, AND is a renowned expert on elephants.

What’s that got to do with Pivoting, resilience, adaptability, human connection, or even just networking, for that matter?

I had no idea. We were connected through a mutual acquaintance and, if I’m being honest, I only agreed out of politeness. I’m so glad that I did. This was the most unexpected, dare I say wild, conversation of the season, and quite possibly my favorite.

Dr. O’Connell was just gearing up for a huge fundraising effort for her nonprofit organization, Utopia Scientific when the pandemic wiped out all possible fundraising events for the foreseeable future.

In her words, she was forced with a decision: Implode, or explode?

And boy did she explode, in the most creative way possible.

In this conversation, Caitlin and I discuss everything from the bone conduction properties of elephants, to how hard it is to take our own advice, to the value of pressing pause, and how critical travel is in developing empathy, perspective, and understanding of both ourselves and our place in the world.

And of course, we talked about Dr. O’Connell’s new book “Wild Rituals: 10 Lessons Animals Can Teach Us About Connection, Community, and Ourselves.” I’ve just started it, and it’s wonderful.

Now an asterisk.

Upon listening back to our conversation, I noticed that Caitlin and I both advocated passionately for some things that are only afforded to people of privilege. Pausing during a pandemic, to think critically about the future, was not an option for people who didn’t have savings or financial security. Travel has always been prohibitively expensive - particularly the kind of air travel we discussed, to far off lands and foreign cultures.

So, I wanted to underscore once again the critical role of luck, in this case the luck of privilege, in the ability to Pivot success during a pandemic. 

With that said, this conversation is truly magical and I know you’re going to love it.

Connect with Caitlin: 

• Website: https://www.caitlinoconnell.com/
• Non-profit Website: https://www.utopiascientific.org/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elephant_skinny/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ElephantSkinny
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/caitlineoconnell

Watch instead of listening: https://beyondnetworkingpodcast.com/caitlin-oconnell

🎙 Visit our sponsor https://Riverside.fm for the highest quality remote recordings. 

🔥 Join the Pivot Power newsletter & community: https://beyondnetworkingpodcast.com/year-of-the-pivot

Allen Williams is an audio professional in the TV and film industry. He’s worked on projects like The Vampire Diaries, Spider-Man Homecoming, Creed, The Founder, Stranger Things, Cobra Kai, Avengers Infinity War… and some big name projects, too.

Like everyone else in the entertainment industry, when COVID hit Allen found himself suddenly without income, prospects, or even hope that work would come back. But that was only the beginning of his 2020 nightmare.

Two months before the pandemic, in January 2020, a contractor discovered an outdated part of their house that was no longer up to code. It was exorbitantly expensive to fix, but Allen and his wife decided to empty their savings rather than take out a loan, because he had plenty of work lined up.

Then the TV and film industry collapsed, leaving him without an income for what would become 9 months.

To make matters worse, his wife got COVID almost immediately, putting her on bedrest for nearly 2 months while fighting alternating fever and near-hypothermia episodes.

During which Allen had to spend even more money getting his older daughters set up for remote learning.

When his wife finally recovered, they discovered many friends and family had also been hit hard by the virus, some in critical condition.

In this conversation Allen walks us through everything.

For the nerds like me, he also teaches us exactly what a boom operator is, and how the TV and film industry economy works and why its shutdown was so destructive to local businesses across America, not just the actors and immediate crew, and how the industry changed in order to safely return to work.

Plus, we learn about Allen’s personal pivot, driven by generosity and charity, which is something we’ve hardly heard at all this season on the podcast.

Connect with Allen: 

• Website: http://SoundSpeeds.us
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/SoundSpeeds
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/SoundSpeedsYT

Watch instead of listen: https://beyondnetworkingpodcast.com/allen-williams/

🎙 Visit our sponsor https://Riverside.fm for the highest quality remote recordings. 

🔥 Join the Pivot Power newsletter & community: https://beyondnetworkingpodcast.com/year-of-the-pivot

Elisse Glennon is the Executive Director of the New Jersey Sharing Network Foundation. The NJ Sharing Network is a non-profit organization for the recovery and placement of donated organs and tissues. 

The foundation, where Elisse presides, is dedicated to increasing the numbers of lives saved through research, family support, public awareness, and education.

4000 New Jersey residents alone are waiting on the transplant list. So when COVID threatened the entire national healthcare system, Elisse and her team of 180 committed professionals plus volunteers had to navigate incredibly shaky seas.

The big question was, would donations plummet, devastating the chances of everyone on that list, desperately in need of a transplant?

Not on Elisse’s watch. Instead, the NJ Sharing Network had a record year. And in this conversation, Elisse teaches us precisely how they did it.

Now, you might be tired of hearing about “mindset shifts” from the self-help community. But Elisse and her team are proof that it’s often mindset, not tactics, that carry the day.

In particular, pay close attention to how she describes the process of asking grieving families for a donation, and the shift from viewing it as a burden to recognizing it as a gift.

Connect with Elisse: 

• Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/NJSharingNetwork
• Website: http://www.njsharingnetwork.org/

Watch instead of listen: https://beyondnetworkingpodcast.com/elisse-glennon/

🎙 Visit our sponsor https://Riverside.fm for the highest quality remote recordings. 

🔥 Join the Pivot Power newsletter & community: https://beyondnetworkingpodcast.com/year-of-the-pivot

Dan Cockerell started his Disney career directing cars in the parking lot. But when he left 26 years later to pursue an entrepreneurial journey of his own, he was in charge of the entire daily operations of the happiest place on earth.

I invited Dan on the podcast to help us understand how the hospitality industry has responded to Covid overall. 

You’re going to learn about the power of staying on message, the secret to hiring and training a world class team, when attitude trumps skills, the No. 1 mistake most companies make that lead to their downfall, how to handle an increasingly competitive marketplace, and the value of trust.

Plus, stick around to the very end, when I asked Dan to tell me ONE thing that even Disney superfans wouldn’t know about the Magic Kingdom. And boy did he deliver.

This was a huge honor. As you know, my wife Lindsey and I are Disney superfans. Getting to spend an hour chatting with one of the most senior people at our favorite place on earth was truly surreal. Dan was super gracious and very generous, which made it even better.

Connect with Dan: 

• Website: https://dancockerell.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dancockerell
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/danielpaynecockerell
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dancockerell/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/DanCockerell

Watch instead of listen: https://beyondnetworkingpodcast.com/dan-cockerell/

🎙 Visit our sponsor https://Riverside.fm for the highest quality remote recordings. 

🔥 Join the Pivot Power newsletter & community: https://beyondnetworkingpodcast.com/year-of-the-pivot

Jesse Cole is the owner of the Savannah Bananas, a collegiate summer league baseball team based in Georgia.

Here’s a few facts about the Bananas:

• They only sell one ticket and it’s all inclusive.
• Their players perform choreographed dances every game.
• They are the only baseball team to play in kilts.
• Their coaching staff includes a 9-year-old and a grandma.
• They have a senior citizen dance team called the Banana Nanas.
• Their stadium is the first ever ad-free ballpack.
• They have sold out every game since their first season.

And Jesse is known as the “man in the yellow tux,” because, well, he wears a yellow tux. Not just sometimes, but always.

I’ve been following Jesse’s journey for years. We were originally connected through Ron Holt, the founder and CEO of national franchise Two Maids & a Mop, who appeared on the podcast back in Season 2.

Jesse speaks and writes about leadership and service. He hosts the Business Done Differently podcast. And he wrote the book “Find Your Yellow Tux.”

In this conversation, Jesse takes me through the absolute devastation of taking a 7-figure loss in response to COVID, back in March of 2020. Not only did the Bananas’ survive the hit… not only did they keep every single staff member employed... but they literally reinvented the sport of baseball in the process.

This interview is hilarious, enlightening, moving, and inspiring. 

You’ll learn how Jesse’s “fans first” philosophy inspired the most innovative period of his entrepreneurial journey, how he and his wife Emily’s history of crushing setbacks prepared him for this historic moment, and how you can lead your business, community, or family with selflessness and generosity.

Connect with Jesse: 

• Website: https://thesavannahbananas.com/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/YellowTuxJesse/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yellowtuxjesse/

Watch instead of listen: https://beyondnetworkingpodcast.com/jesse-cole/

🎙 Visit our sponsor https://Riverside.fm for the highest quality remote recordings. 

🔥 Join the Pivot Power newsletter & community: https://beyondnetworkingpodcast.com/year-of-the-pivot

I've had the pleasure of being a guest on some wonderful podcasts lately. 

Here's a "best of" compilation from the first quarter of 2021. Featuring: Donato G Poet, The Art of Relationships, The Storypowers Podcast, Bulletproof Cashflow, and Marketing as a Foreign Language. 

Topics include: 

• My 2020 pivot 
• Loneliness in the pandemic 
• Story telling tips for life and business 
• How to connect with sales prospects 
• The most difficult speech I ever gave 

Watch this episode instead of listening: https://youtu.be/ZD8qKlnbOQ8

Catch the full episodes of each featured clip: https://brianmillerspeaks.com/podcast-guest/

🔥 Join the Pivot Power newsletter & community: https://beyondnetworkingpodcast.com/year-of-the-pivot

Tyler Anderson is a chef and owner of multiple high-end restaurants. He’s also a James Beard award-nominee and appeared on both The Food Network and Top Chef on Bravo.

If you’re thinking, didn’t you recently interview a restaurant owner? I did. This is a companion episode to my conversation with Pam Paydos. In fact, Pam connected me with Tyler in the first place many years ago.

Pam’s restaurant Popover and Tyler’s flagship restaurant Millwrights are in the same small Connecticut town. And, like Pam, Tyler has not only stayed in business, but remained a pillar of the community through all the insanity of the last year.

But that’s where the similarities stop.

See, while Pam’s restaurant is a tiny breakfast and lunch bakery nestled in a quaint shopping plaza, Tyler’s Millwrights is a massive fine dining dinner establishment overlooking a waterfall.

While Pam’s Pivot was to remodel, nurture the relationship with loyal customers,  and make the most of her petite square footage… Tyler built dine-in greenhouses. 

Honestly, this episode is wild. And I don’t want to spoil it. 

CONNECT WITH TYLER

▸ Websites:

• https://millwrightsrestaurant.com
• https://cheftyleranderson.com
• https://tylerandersoncatering.com
• https://roomserviceatthegoodwin.com
• https://ta-que.com

🖥 Watch this episode instead of listening: https://beyondnetworkingpodcast.com/tyler-anderson

🔥 Join the Pivot Power newsletter & community: https://beyondnetworkingpodcast.com/year-of-the-pivot