Dave Roberts teaches a master class on personal and professional development. He's an astoundingly productive human being, and yet he's still one of the most genuinely kind and personable people on the planet. Dave is currently a professor at Virginia Tech, having recently completed a 20-year career with Marriott in a senior management position overseeing multiple departments. He began his professional career as a rocket scientist, and before that, he was a D1 wrestler at Cornell.
Time Stamps
0:00:00 – Intro to the intro with specific timestamps 0:02:00 – Introduction to Dave Roberts through the eyes of a 6-year-old 0:08:00 – The human, the dog, and the computer 0:09:56 – How not to compete against the computer 0:11:00 – Dangers of taking jobs that look good on a resume 0:11:14 – "Pursue the path that you find interesting. That's really all you have to bring to the table—because no matter what you're going to do, you're going to be in competition with other people. And there are a lot of smart people out there, there are a lot of very motivated, dedicated, hard-working people out there. The only way to bring your A-game is if you're bringing it to something that you find inherently interesting. And that takes some work and some conscious effort—especially early on in your career—to figure out what it is that I like and don't like. And a lot of times, it's not necessarily about an industry. It's about a type of work that you like to do." 0:12:38 – Framework for when to make a change 0:14:10 – Connection to Episode 005 with Katina Mountanos and Dupi Singh 0:15:54 – Breadth of experience (road to senior management and exposure to different roles) 0:20:58 – Public speaking 0:21:45 – "To get better at something, you just have to keep doing it. So I also made a point of inviting myself to do presentations and talks to anybody who would listen. Forcing myself out there. I've been to a ton of college campuses: teaching classes, guest speaking on whatever topic they want to talk about. And I was fortunate at Marriott—there were a lot of opportunities to talk at different departments, different town halls. And I made myself a pledge—almost 20 years ago now—to do a group presentation at least once a month from now until my career is over. And I've stuck to that for almost 20 years. Even now, I've been to several different colleges around the area. I was down at University of Arkansas giving a career talk just last month because basically … I invited myself. And I do this a lot. I'm arranging a couple more this spring, so I still do it. And now I'm pretty comfortable presenting in front of groups. I was an emcee at a conference last summer with 800 attendees. And I was on stage all day. I was a little anxious, but I loved it so much that I'm going back this coming summer. It's a huge event, and it's me. I'm the emcee, and I love it. I look back to when I finished graduate school, and if would tell my future self that I would be standing in front of 800 people all day … and I'd like it so much that I'd ask to do it again, I would have said absolutely no way." 0:24:40 – The shift from developing the skill to enjoying the skill 0:26:00 – When the thought of becoming a professor occurred to him 10 years ago 0:26:44 – "I've done a thousand of these, but every time, you learn something either about the material itself or about a better way to frame the message. And then you tweak that and get better next time." 0:27:25 – "If you're standing up in front of a group, it's not about you. It's about the message. If the message is a good message (well-presented and well-delivered) and you conveyed information in a good way, that's a great presentation. When you start to think it becomes about you—and I was guilty of this—the reason is because you're nervous. It's self-reinforcing because you're standing up there and you're nervous. And your biggest fear is that you look nervous. It reinforces itself. And when I was in that phase, for me, the once a month presentation was like "I will get through this." I'm a grinder, I'm going to keep doing this until it gets better. I feel like I'm a pretty disciplined guy. And I set a goal to do this. Like I said, I've been doing at least one presentation per month for my adult life. And then at some point, it kind of clicked. This is actually fun. I love going to college campuses. I've probably gone to 15 universities over the years. Either teaching a class or giving a career talk or whatever. And it's just fun. I look for opportunities to do that. In fact, I probably send a couple emails every week to different colleges and professors. 0:29:23 – Selecting a speaking topic 0:30:49 – Remember your circle of competence 0:32:08 – Top areas for development 0:33:22 – Dave's approach to personal development 0:34:49 – The 2-week window concept 0:37:54 – "When you're in the corporate world and you're insanely busy, the most common mistake in terms of personal development is to delay it. By far the most common. It happens all the time. … If you wait until you're not busy to do these things, you'll never start." 0:38:47 – Great personal development story 0:41:02 – What other companies should learn from Marriott 0:42:00 – Korn Ferry: "Managers are worse at developing their employees than they are at anything else they do." "Do it yourself career development." Harvard Business Review 0:43:24 – Connection to Seth Godin on "projects" vs "jobs" 0:44:18 – The alternative to personal development: commoditization and a "race to the bottom" 0:46:36 – Dr. Kristin Neff's insight on self-compassion 0:50:42 – How to distinguish between beating yourself up and trying to be disciplined 0:52:05 – How self-compassion influenced his management practices 0:57:50 – The concept of practicing "practice" 0:58:56 – Taking courses on your own 0:60:22 – Learning makes you a better teacher and vice versa 1:01:23 – Upcoming book on hotel revenue management 1:02:00 – Writing the book highlighted what he needed to study further 1:02:48 – Richard Bach "We teach best what we most need to learn." 1:03:39 – How to choose what not to do 1:04:18 – On meetings: "You have to have a reason to go, and the reason to go needs to be something other than 'I was invited.'" 1:05:57 – "You have to be aggressive on your calendar, and aggressively own your own time and what you're going to commit time to." 1:07:00 – How Dave approaches his calendar 1:11:25 – How Dave uses Evernote 1:15:24 – How Dave takes notes while reading 1:16:08 – "I read every book like it's a textbook—like I'm studying. Because I believe I am." 1:17:50 – Connection to Shane Parrish's "How to Read a Book" https://fs.blog/how-to-read-a-book/ 1:27:00 – Book recommendations 1:27:15 – Process: always reading 1; usually have 2-3 "on deck" 1:27:25 – Always has the current and "on deck" books available (e.g. when traveling) 1:28:00 – Pick topics genuinely of interest; make it something you look forward to reading 1:29:38 – The Effortless Experience & Amazon 1:31:45 – 7 Powers by Hamilton Helmer 1:32:28 – Sapiens and Homo Deus by Yuval Harari 1:38:27 – Everybody Lies by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz 1:44:25 – Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert 1:45:35 – The Future of Humanity by Michio Kaku 1:45:50 – Valuable questions 1:45:50 – "There's an expression in business: 'budgets reflect priorities.' And how an organization spends its money is a direct insight into what they think is important. I think the same thing applies to your own personal life. Budgets reflect priorities, but what you're budgeting is your time." 1:48:08 – Meditation and reflection 1:48:08 – "Reading some of these books is my meditation." 1:50:00 – Reading physical books, pen in hand, either in the office or in bed 1:51:12 – Practice variables from Resilience by Eric Greitens 1:54:31 – Work-life balance and being "busy" 1:55:51 – The trigger for happiness: "margin" 1:57:06 – Warren Buffett's calendar 1:58:00 – Scheduling "margin" and things that you like to do 2:02:45 – Getting two cell phones to make working a choice 2:04:01 – "Define a work-life balance that works for you, or else that balance is going to be defined for you by default." 2:06:56 – "Do not live by default. That is a key to unhappiness, in my opinion." 2:09:42 – What Dave would whisper in his ear earlier in life: self-compassion and wisdom all around you 2:12:38 – "A common mindset is that I am constantly being judged, and I constantly need to prove myself; I think some of that is healthy. But instead of that, try this perspective: I want to improve and develop myself. And I'm surrounded by talented people who have this ability and inclination to help me do exactly that. And all I have to do is ask them. Wow. It's a totally different mindset." 2:15:00 – Support & Closing Gratitude
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