If Disney Ran Your Life

Welcome to If Disney Ran Your Life with Jeff Noel. After a wonderful 30 year career at Walt Disney World, including 15 years teaching at the Disney Institute, Jeff Noel shares how Disney impacted his personal life.  Hear inside stories from a life at Disney and realize how you would think differently about everything if Disney ran your life. 

We end this 100-episode podcast exactly as we started: Episode one began with three simple questions: Who is Jeff, what does he do, why does it matter? Episode 100 concludes If Disney Ran Your Life with three simple questions: Who are you, what do you do, why does it matter?

Bonus episode from Glacier National Park: Trying things that might not work is standard operating procedure for personal vibrancy. This is a 9-minute warmup episode before recording Season 6, Episode 5. Recorded at Granite Park Campground, August 2020.

If Disney Ran Your Life is a podcast dedicated to destroying the pervasive and perverse societal belief that balance is a myth. This episode concludes the 100-episode arc. Two simple Disney stories illustrate how much opportunity lies in front of you. Now you know. Do something great.

Are your priorities crystal clear? Are your priorities prioritized. Magic happens when you get two yesses.

The concluding season If Disney Ran Your life podcast. Unplanned, massive change can consume your life. How you react provides wonderful opportunity to rethink everything.

Jody and jeff discuss how they've changed since Season 5, episode one - which is the same 72-hour challenge issued to listeners on the last episode (5.9). This recording is the backstage, behind-the-scenes conversation they normally have, but with one exception, they hit the record button so you could listen in.

Jody and jeff review the thought-provoking questions and nine 72-hour challenges from Season 5 (Body). Another excellent example of them only preaching what they practice.

If Disney Ran Your Life, motivation would consistently be expected at the highest level. Everyday Disney performs as if today is the most important day ever. Picture yourself on those days when you are at your most motivated. What do those days look and feel like? What are the contributing factors? How can you put consistent structure and processes in place to vibrantly scale motivation all day, everyday.

Ever have your boss call you into the office with a unique career opportunity you could never have imagined? And not only that, but give you carte blanche instead of a direct order? Jeff reveals an incredible opportunity his leader offered late in Jeff's 30-year Disney career. With the option to work anywhere at Walt Disney World for a few months, why did Jeff pick Theme Park Custodial? His decision is the essence of this episode's message.

In the same way that flexible workers, flexible processes, and flexible service-delivery enhances organizational vibrancy, flexibility benefits you and the busy, stress-filled life you lead. When you under-focus on or ignore what got you here, you realize that flexibility is key to sustaining and improving your ability to continue to live vibrantly with fewer injuries and greater confidence. 

Who's the healthiest person you know? In a perfect world, you should be the healthiest person you know. Sleep, rest, and moderation all contribute to our vibrancy. If Disney Ran Your Life, you would be expected to honor standard operating guidelines for bedtime because your daily start time is set and expected. You are expected to be intentional where you used to be less intentional.

At Disney, nothing is optional. Everything matters. Good and very good aren't good enough. Excellence is the only standard. If Disney Ran Your Life, you would think differently about nutrition because nutrition is the fuel that powers physical vibrancy. At Disney, there are many similarities to the fuel we (Disney) use to power our organizational vibrancy.

How much effort is too much? We traveled to Disneyland a week after being in Oregon at the 2020 USA Track & Field Olympic Trials stadium. Why? Excellence has Magical karma and we thrive on it. We discuss the 1st of 7 physical vibrancy blueprints, Cardio - also known as stamina and endurance; it's impact on our work and personal vibrancy is classic common sense, yet often uncommon.

Who's the healthiest person you know? Is your body the temple that houses everything keeping you alive? The healthiest person you know should be you. It's your temple. Introduction to the 7 blueprints for physical vibrancy. You know diet and exercise, but there are 5 more neglected keys. Knowing these other 5 gives you a competitive advantage over your old habits.

Jody and jeff discuss how they've changed since Season 4 episode one - the same 72-hour challenge issued to listeners on last episode(4.9). This recording is the normal backstage, or behind-the-scenes, conversation Jody and jeff have but with one exception, they recorded it for you, sitting next to the Grand Canyon Fireplace at Disney's Wilderness Lodge.

Jody and jeff review the thought-provoking questions and the 72-hour challenges from Season 4, mind. A perfect example of only preaching what we practice.

Are you all in? The way to know if you are all in is you must have a "burn the ships" mantra. Disney Cast Members are asked on Day One to be all in for their entire career. If you are not to all in, you are not all in. If you are not all in, you cannot create Magic - personal vibrancy for yourself. Aim for perfection, settle for excellence.

When you can live with a singular purpose and go through your days delivering on your purpose while you do what you do, Magic happens - you thrive. Discovering and embracing your purpose unlocks countless small ways to deliver (and receive) joy while you live each and every day. There's a big difference between focusing on your task versus focusing on your purpose.

Jeff reveals the most confident person he's ever known (since 1979) which leads us into a discussion about the power of hopes and dreams. Hope is a way you feel. Hopes are things you dream about. Jeff shares a 1980's Disney Resort rehab story and how a Disney leader allowed his team's hopes for a better future to become a reality - the power to shape the team's attitude was driven by the  hopes for a better future.

When you recall your best days, and deconstruct the common threads, you can begin to architect more days with those common threads. Building on the previous episodes's theme of lofty goals, when you understand your core get-to-do's and the power of consistency, you can start to put simple, daily structure and processes in place to replicate a confidence building framework.  

Knowing goals are important and having goals is not enough for personal vibrancy. Only in reaching for impossible goals will we truly raise our bar to a level that demands our very best efforts. All day. Every day. Walt Disney bought 160 acres (10x more than his original 16-acre Studio idea) for Disneyland but became landlocked. He bought 27,000 acres of alligator, snake, and mosquito-infested swampland in Orlando and proclaimed it would become the vacation capital of the world. Might as well had proclaimed he was building a city on the Moon - same impossibility, right?  

Jody & jeff unpack the grade you gave yourself for your attitude consumption, how your consumption drives your thoughts and how your thoughts drive your behaviors.  At Disney, everything matters. If Disney ran your life, you would be world-class intentional on everything you read, listen to, watch, as well as your friends, how you speak, and especially your goals.

We answer and explore the only logical answer for, "Who's the most positive person you know?" Expanding on last episode's value proposition for a positive attitude, Jody and jeff unpack questions about your daily habits that you've never been asked or haven't been asked in a long time.  

How important is our attitude? Why is attitude important? How do you rate your attitude? Who's the most positive person you know?  Season 4 unpacks what influences our attitude, how we can intentionally over-focus on maximizing all the elements of life that impact what we think.

Fireside chat with Jody & jeff. Informal backstage Season 3 review.  Debriefing events and activities is common. Jody and i do it all the time. We have never recorded a debrief, until now. Jody is a former 8-year Park Ranger and i have been a lifetime outdoors person. Chatting fireside is hard to beat. Reflecting, to improve, is hard to beat too.

Self reflection. Balance & Personal Vibrancy. Review of 12 Season 3 questions and 72-hour challenges. Disney Story about flipping the proverbial organizational pyramid upside down to put employees in charge. The Disney story illustrates the 1990's organizational self-reflection that led to us admitting we were asking the wrong questions. Better questions transformed our Company. Now imagine applying better questions to your personal life.

Going into the wilderness and off the grid to hike and camp facilitates being mindful and present. But what do you do the rest of the year while going full speed with a life full of conveniences and distractions?

Disney outdistances their competition by over-focusing on the same things their competitors under-focus on or ignore. Disney is massively intentional where others are unintentional. This over-focusing is transferable to personal life. Your biggest competitor is your current self. Who you are now competes with who you want to become.

If Disney ran your life, you'd be expected to take small risks all day, everyday. Risk taking is not a luxury. Not every risk pays off. You get credit for a win just for trying. Make risk taking a habit that becomes so comfortable you no longer realize you are always taking small daily risks. We also explore Jeff Bezos's Day One mentality. What if every day was your organization's very first day?

How much effort is too much? What about when you're tired? What about when you think no one will notice, is good enough good enough? Jeff learned from a wise Magic Kingdom leader during the busiest season that every customer interaction needs to be an A+, and most importantly, WHY it needs to be an A+. The same world-class devotion to business life should be mandatory in your personal life.  

1. What is your most inspiring, unfilled dream? 2. Why is it important? 3. How bad do you want it? Honest answers to simple yet direct questions can transform what you do next. What you do next can change everything.

If time dictates your balance, you are doing it wrong. Time does not determine if you have balance in your life. But if it isn't time, where does balance come from? In this episode, Jeff reveals the secret of how to achieve balance. And it may not be what you think. If Disney Ran Your Life, you would take a radical new approach to achieve balance in your life.

As a speaker at Disney Institute, I helped organizations discover organizational vibrancy. What if we applied the same principles to our own life to discover personal vibrancy? If Disney Ran Your Life, what would you do differently to change your culture and add more to your life? Organizations suffer from a lack of risk-taking, lack of perseverance, and the inability to dream big. Many individuals suffer from the same problems. 

In this episode, Jeff Noel examines personal vibrancy and discusses whether or not personal balance is a myth.  Jeff shares stories from his career at Disney and explains how you can apply Disney lessons to your life to add balance and personal vibrancy.  If you pursue excellence at work and lower the bar at home, you are cheating yourself and your family. 

Welcome to If Disney Ran Your Life with Jeff Noel. After a wonderful 30 year career at Walt Disney World, including 15 years teaching at the Disney Institute, Jeff Noel shares how Disney impacted his personal life.  Hear inside stories from a life at Disney and realize how you would think differently about everything if Disney ran your life.  Jeff Noel will share what he learned working at Disney to add personal vibrancy to your days and discover what it would be like If Disney Ran Your Life. 

Jeff Noel and Jody Maberry introduce you to If Disney Ran Your Life. Recorded in Fantasyland as a placeholder episode between Season 2 and 3. Seasons 1 & 2 were removed from iTunes and put in the IDRYL vault. New episodes, starting with Season 3, coming January 25, 2020.