When I see a couple, and it's not always a young couple, sometimes it's people my age just staring at their phones. I just want to walk over and go, Put the phone down. There's an expression, you've probably heard it, you need to be where your feet are. Yeah. And if I'm here, I'm being incredibly rude to the two of

you. Yeah.

Because I'm saying this is more important, this is more entertaining than the two of you, and that's just not a good attitude to be projecting.

Welcome to the Up Your Average podcast, where Keith and Doug give no nonsense advice to level up your life. So buckle up and listen closely closely to Up Your Average. All right. We are here with Libby and Steve Haynes. Steve, thanks for coming back.

Doctor. My pleasure. Doctor. Yeah.

We had Steve on. I think my dad and Doug interviewed you sometime last year.

Doctor. Yeah. Maybe August, perhaps.

Doctor. Yeah. And just had a chance to talk about what you do and the Dale Carnegie course and everything about that. For those who haven't seen that, can you just do a quick two or three minute summary of what you do of course? A Dale Carnegie course?

Yeah.

No, I'd be happy to. That particular program is designed to help people just be a better version of themselves. And the five drivers of success that we focus in on are as follows. Number one, helping people develop a greater level of self confidence. Our graduating participants after the end of eight weeks tell us that on average, their confidence has gone up between 6070%, which allows them to be themselves in all situations, make better decisions more quickly.

It also helps them to understand people better, where they're coming from, why they say the things they say and do the things they do so that we can work with them more effectively. Thirdly, it helps us communicate our ideas more clearly, concisely, so we won't be misunderstood, and helps us to be better listeners. Fourthly, it helps develop greater leadership skills so we can get people to want to do the things we need them to do. And lastly, it improves attitude and reduces stress. And according to our graduating participants, their stress level during that eight weeks has gone down by 50 on average, which allows them to sleep better at night and be more proactive when the pressure's on versus being reactive.

And that's the Delconium course.

That's amazing. Yeah. Well, Olivia and I had the chance to take it last year, and we were in different classes. I think yours was sometime in the summer.

I think it was August or September.

I think it was July through September.

Okay. Yeah. It was right after you had come on the podcast here. Okay. And that day, I emailed Doug and Keith, and I said, Hey, what do you think about me signing up for the Dale Carnegie class?

And they were loving it. So I think I started the class within a couple of weeks.

Yeah, it was pretty quick. It was a pretty quick turnaround.

Yeah. So the things that you had to say during that first podcast just really spoke to me and made me think that that was something that I'd like to grow in. Yeah. Yeah.

And are you glad you did it?

I'm thrilled that I did it. It was hard, but it was a really good experience for me. I'm certainly glad, and I've recommended it to people ever since.

Okay. Good. Just for clarification purpose, may I ask you something about that? Sure. You said it was hard.

Was it hard or was it just challenging you to push yourself outside your comfort zone?

It was challenging for me. Okay. Because for me, public speaking is the last thing Raun Hur, Thibodelp, or choose to do. So when you told us that people gain confidence and it's something that you can actually it's a skill you can actually learn Yeah. And your anxiety can be reduced, I thought, why not?

You know, why not give it a try? Alright. Yeah.

Yeah.

That's why I chose to do it. How about you, Caleb?

I don't know if I I did wanna take it, but I think I was somewhat told I'm doing it. Gonna be honest. Like, how can we sign up for this? Like, and then I was all on board. Like, I I I wanted to do wanted to do it because, like, growing up, I'm very reserved.

I'm the youngest of youngest of five. I have four older sisters, so I don't do much talking. Don't have to. I think that's where that started. And just throughout high school and college, I think I became more confident in myself, but still wasn't great at either holding a conversation or just communicating effectively.

And definitely in this business that I'm in, you're gonna have to be able to communicate with clients, be able to effectively do that. And I think in any business or any workforce, like your coworkers or even at home, your family, your wife, your kids. Right. Any aspect of life, you're gonna have to be able to communicate effectively. And I knew that I needed to improve that, and I wanted to.

So I was thrilled to have the opportunity. Yeah. And, yeah, it was eight weeks, and my dad and Doug were gracious enough to let us sleep work a little bit early and go take the course for a couple hours every Monday for me. Mhmm. And it was a great time.

Like, being able to start conversations or hold conversations, I think I've gotten better at that over the last year or two, but I think this definitely helped with that and at least my confidence with that process. Because like we one of the first couple courses or classes, you have the conversation starter. Yeah. Session one. Yeah.

So I was just even having that in the back of your head, if you don't really have anything to talk about, oh yeah, you can bring up different things and get to know people a little bit better and deeper.

Yeah. Conversations actually are very easy to have. Most people just don't know how to start them.

Yeah.

And so those conversational stirrers that we talked about in session one are just questions that we can ask of other people. You couple that along with Mr. Carnegie's fourth principle from How to Win Friends and Influence People, which is become genuinely interested in other people, and his principle of be a good listener, encourage others to talk about themselves. You put those three things together, conversations are so easy because most people just love to talk about themselves. And if we hit on the right things, it just carries it.

For sure. Yeah. I think a big part of that is being able to ask good questions,

which

ties into what you're saying, being genuinely interested. Yeah. Because you're not going to be able to ask good questions or think of good questions if you're just kind of in the conversation or, yeah.

Yeah. A recent example for me of that is also bringing in Mr. Koenig's eighth principle, which is talking in terms of the other person's interests. My mom is 98. She's in a nursing home in West Lafayette.

On Friday mornings, I'm teaching a class up there. When I leave there, I go and I visit my mom. And with mom, like anybody that age, she has good days and she has not such good days. And I can usually detect just based on her expressions as I'm walking in the room where she might be. But finding the right topic to get her engaged in the conversation sometimes can be challenging.

So I can remember if we go back maybe a month, six weeks ago, it took me forty minutes to finally land on a topic that she got engaged in. Wow. That's a lot of work. That's a lot of

work. Yeah.

Doctor. Last week, because I know she's a huge fan of Dean Martin, does that mean anything to you at all? Does that mean- Doctor.

Yeah, I'm Paul Smith.

Dean Martin used to be huge. I mean, he truly was. He's in 60 different movies. I don't know how many songs that he cut, but he was like number one Christmas album for years and years and years, and he had his own television show for years and years and years. I mean, this guy was big and he came from my mother's very small town of Steubenville, Ohio, which is Eastern Side of Ohio, which now has probably about 17,000 people.

In their heyday, they had about 60,000.

Okay.

Wow. It's a cool middle town, is what it Oh, okay. And he came out of that, so she's had this big passion for him. So I went in last week and I said, Mom, I just ordered you a book on Dean Martin, a biography on Dean Martin that's written by his daughter. She kind of perked up, right?

And I said, I downloaded one in my Kindle so I can read it along with you. I'm done with it. I'll give it to her on Friday. But by finding that topic, I got her engaged like that. And it's a matter of just finding the right topic that people are interested.

Yeah. Yeah, that's really cool.

Yeah. So I think I remember that your dad was involved with Dale Carnegie. Yes,

he was.

Right?

Thirty four years.

And that that's what led you?

Yeah, in a roundabout way. I wouldn't say it was a direct path, but yeah, in a roundabout way. I first took the Del Crankey course when I was 15 years old. And I didn't take it for the reasons that you two took it. I didn't take it for the reasons most people took it.

I took it to figure out what the heck my dad did for a living. Because like most dads growing up, and when I was growing up, things were a lot different. At that point, most mothers stayed home and raised the family, and most dads worked. But then they'd be home by 05:30, 06:00 in the afternoon. My dad would be gone all day like every other dad, and he would be gone most evenings until very late, and I couldn't figure it out.

And so at 15, I took the course just to figure out what the heck he did for a living.

Where to sleep down every night.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And I remember sitting there at the age of 15 thinking, Yeah, that looks like it'd be fun to be a trainer. So that was the seed that was planted. I pretty much just put that aside, started pursuing telecommunication.

And then after I graduated from school, my wife and I got married the next month, and a few months later, my father-in-law, who I love dearly, said, What's the plan? Because I was working for Channel four, I was working thirty five to forty hours a week, but it was minimum wage, because it was never intended as a full time job. I knew he was right. I didn't want to go into any major cities where I could explore telecommunications. I thought, Yeah, Kranghi seemed to be done pretty well for my father.

I'll see if I can do that. I did not want to work for him. He did not want me to work for him. So I started in Orlando, Florida.

Really? Wow. And was there a training course for becoming an instructor?

Oh yeah, yeah. But I didn't do that in Orlando. I started in sales, which I never wanted to be in sales, but I wanted to be a part of Carnegie.

Okay. And that was just your foot in?

That was my foot in. Okay. Yeah. And then eventually I worked my way back.

How long were you there?

About a year.

Just a little under a year.

Okay. And then you started training when you came back I up

still started in sales. I was 22 when I went to Orlando. I was 23 when I started here. And I was 24 when I first became a certified trainer.

Okay.

Wow. Doctor.

Which was pretty young.

Yeah. Yeah. I bet that's young for the average trainer.

It really is. Most of them had to be over 30, and I'm like, why do we have that? Somebody explained that to me, nobody thought. So they let me in.

Wow. That's awesome. I love it. Yeah. What have you noticed from all the people that have taken the course from back then versus now?

Do you notice any changes of people who Week one. Because I think a lot of My wife's a school teacher, and she might say, Yeah, these kids don't really know how to hold a conversation or talk because they have their phones on them or iPads, they're so distracted by the screens. Have you noticed a difference in just people in general between when you started and now?

Absolutely. I mean, there's all kinds of differences in terms of the training and all that kind of stuff. We continually to evolve. That's why after one hundred and thirteen years, one hundred and fourteen years, this was our one hundred and fourteenth year where we're still around, we're not doing the same thing and we're adapting with the times. But as far as the participants, you're absolutely right.

Back when I took it, there weren't the distractions in there.

Yeah. Yeah.

And back then in marketing, they'd say somebody needs to hear the message three times before it starts sinking in. If we go back to at least twenty five years ago, it was they need to hear it seven times before it starts sinking in. I have no idea what that is today. Right. Messages are coming at us from every direction, some of them true, some of them not true.

And then there's the distraction. Distraction. And my wife and I, we like to go out to dinner once or twice a week. And when I see a couple, and it's not always a young couple, sometimes it's people my age just staring at their phones. I just want to walk over and go, Put the phone There's an expression, you've probably heard it, You need to be where your feet are.

And if I'm here, I'm being incredibly rude to the two of you.

Because

I'm saying, This is more important, this is more entertaining than the two of you, and that's just not a good attitude to be projecting. Yeah.

It's very enticing, very distractive, but yeah, you need to put it down and be where you are and be present.

Yeah, absolutely. And to continue with your question in terms of the participants today versus then, they have that distraction, And as we all know, we went through the pandemic for a few years, terrible, terrible thing, in so many ways.

But

it shut people down. And as you had mentioned earlier, people don't know how to have conversations anymore. I mean, there was a period of years where that stopped.

Well, especially if you have a young kid that are busy, they don't have to interact with other people.

That's right.

Yeah. Yeah.

It really took a toll on certain age groups, I think.

Absolutely. And it's a sad, sad thing, but it's a reality.

Well, even like I was junior in high school when that happened, and if I didn't have friends that I'd talk to a decent amount, you're on Zoom for class. Once you're done with that, you're with your family. You don't need to have conversations or you don't need to practice that.

That's right.

Because you don't have people to practice it with.

Yeah.

So

Mr. Carnegie started the training organization back in 1912 in New York City, and my belief is today this training is needed more now than at any point in the history of dokarnum training. I can

see that.

I believe it.

Just because of those distractions and the stress level is way up.

Mean,

gosh, you look at what's going on across the country and people just doing this. Nobody can talk with one another anymore. I was going to say, I think

one of your five examples of what Dale Carnegie course was, was seeing where people are from, seeing where they-

Where they're coming from, why they say the things they say and do Yeah. Things they

Which would help with this.

Absolutely. And it's everybody, they want get their They want to project their message and they don't care about anybody else's. Yeah. And that's just never a good place to start. Doctor.

Yeah. I did really appreciate just the positive nature of the entire Dale Carnegie course. It's really positive, and it's encouraging you to think about those things in a different way and then project that in your work relationships and just your relationships with other people. Yeah. The don't criticize, condemn, or complain, that one really stuck with me.

Does most people. Yeah. Once they hear it.

Yeah. Yeah. That's good.

Yeah. If you start off on that note, everyone gets defensive and kind of shuts down the conversation.

It absolutely shuts down the conversation. And that's what some people want. For us to rebuild as a country, we've got to start listening to one another. It doesn't mean we have to agree with one another, but we need to at least start listening to one another. And one of Mr.

Cargu's principles, principle 13 is begin in a friendly way. That means let's start with those things that we agree on. And then from there, we can continue the conversation versus starting with those things that we disagree and just keep butting our heads together.

Yeah. Just putting our wedge between you.

Right. Build a foundation where you can agree.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think just over the eight weeks, what I was encouraged about was just how far you can go from when you walk in for the first time to when you leave. Yeah. Yeah.

Because I had a lot more confidence. I got to know people in the class and build relationships there, get to build a relationship with you. Even though some days you might be tired and going into the class, All right, you got three and a half hours I can do this. I think all eight classes I left encouraged and in a good mood.

It Yeah. More energy?

More energy. Uh-huh. At least for a little bit before I crashed into

the- Yeah. No, I get it.

Yeah. And I think, especially from starting week one, my class had 20, maybe 22 or 23 people.

It's probably about the same as what mine was. Yeah. They were. 55 or so.

And going up and talking in front of everyone the first time, you got your energy up, your adrenaline. And seeing from there to the last week when everyone can bring a boss, a family member, mentors. I think our class had probably about 100 people. I think-

There was a lot.

I remember it. Think I was probably most calm in that class talking to front of everyone. I know. Don't know if that's from building on the eight weeks or just not being around people brought in as much. Because week one, you're going to be with everyone for two months.

That's right. That's right.

Well,

let me respond to that, if I may. That is, hear that often, and many times it's from people that have missed a session and they go into a different program to make up the session, and they'll come back and go, I really wasn't sure how comfortable I'd be, and I was amazed that I was completely comfortable. Yeah. And so there were not many people that come into that program, you probably being one of them based on what you said, want to become a public speaker. That's really not our goal.

As you both may remember at the first session, talked about, We're not here, we're not going to give any speeches. There's no presentations. What we are going to do is swap stories. Yeah. In two minutes or less, ninety seconds to two minutes, we're going to swap stories.

It's like being in your friend's kitchen on a Saturday night swapping stories. Yeah. And it is much like that, and that's just the vehicle that we use to help people understand people better, start practicing better communication, all the other things that we've talked about. It's just a tool that we use, and it's in a very comfortable, positive environment to where people recognize they can't fail, we're not going to embarrass them. We're not going to ask one person to do something.

We won't ask everybody to do it in environment. People are willing to step outside that comfort zone and push themselves.

Yeah. And even like a lot of people open up about their lives and just stories and-

It's amazing, isn't it? Yeah. Some of the things that they tell.

Yes. I really loved that. Just getting to know real things about people that they were willing to share in a group setting like that.

Yeah, at the surface level. Right. Yeah. I think it was life changing, just the whole experience.

That's wonderful. That's wonderful. I would tell you, and my team members tell me that I'm understating this and I'm okay with understating. And that is about half the people that go through it absolutely transforms their lives in a very dramatic and positive way. And the other half, they're not looking to do that.

They just want to get to that next level of effectiveness. And my team member's like, I think it's a lot more than 50%. It's transforming. Yeah. Still rather understate than overstate.

Yeah. Well, I really appreciate you coming in, taking some time, and talking again after both Libby and I took the course. That's good to see you both.

It's good

to Yeah, see like it. Is there any last words of wisdom or a little plug on how they can get in contact with you?

Well, can do that. If you allow me, I'll also tell my dad's story. Yeah. What got him involved in. I don't remember if I shared this the last time I was here or not, but I think it's a good story.

Because if my dad hadn't gotten involved with Carnegie, I wouldn't have been involved. So there's that connection there. And I am also the youngest of five. I have three sisters and a brother. So we're close as far as I'm concerned.

And when my parents had two children, they had one on the way, they lived in a 600 square foot home. My dad had two jobs. He worked for Uniroyal as a buyer on a full time basis, and he had a part time job in the evenings at a nursery in order just to try to make Emmys meet. Wow. He'd been passed over for a promotion a second time at Uniroyal that he thought he deserved, and he was frustrated.

His life was not going in the direction he thought it would go. And one day when he was at the Dale Carnegie office, my mom called. I'm sorry, let me try that again. One day when he was at his uni room, my mom called the Dale Carnegie office, and she told him my dad's story, his goals, his ambitions, his current reality, the gap that was between there, and then invited a guy named Jay Abrams out to the house that night to talk to my dad about getting him enrolled in the Del Carmen.

Really? She

did this without ever speaking to my dad about this ahead of time. And the way dad would tell the story is five minutes before Mr. Abrams got there, she goes, You may want to put a shirt on. We're about ready to have something. And he goes, That's awesome.

She only gave me five minutes because she knew that any more time than that, I would have left. Yes. Yeah. And so Jay Abrams shows up at the door, he knocks on the door, dad won't let him in the house. Really?

He's talking to the guy through the screen door there.

Oh, okay.

Until my mom literally comes up and shoves him away and says, Let him in. Mr. Abrams comes in, he sits down on their couch, talks with my dad for about the next ninety minutes or so about my dad's goals, dreams, and his current reality, and he talks to him about the Dale Carnegie course. And dad said he had every legitimate reason in the book why he should not take the Dale Carnegie course. It's the wrong time of year.

If it was spring, fall would be better. If it was fall, spring would be better. It lasted too long. At that time it was fourteen weeks plus an orientation.

Oh, goodness.

And it went from seven to 10:30PM. And it cost two minutes. And at that time it was $125 Wow. And so dad said, God Jay Abrams hung in there with me. He goes, Before he left, I went and got my checkbook, and I wrote him a check for $25 to hold a seat in the class starting the very next week.

He goes, the next day he had to go to the bank to take out a one year loan to pay the balance.

Oh, wow.

And he said, Absolutely the best investment he ever made.

Life changing.

And it's one of those things you both may remember. Say at the beginning, you'll get out of this what you put into this. When you're putting your own money into this, you're committed, right? So my dad was committed So before the program was even over to get a promotion two levels higher than he wanted at UMR. Wow, I that added to where he came back as an assistant, became a trainer, went into sales, and Wow.

Their

That's a great story.

Doctor. And that's not that unusual, quite frankly, except for the 01/2025 It's not that unusual. So can people find us? Absolutely. Indy.

Dalekernigy.com is our local website. Love to have the conversation.

Yeah. Thanks so much for your time, Steve.

Thank you. It's good seeing you.