Miracles and Leadership with Dave Sanderson

On The Franklin Planner Podcast, George Wright III interviews Dave Sanderson, the last passenger off US Airways Flight 1549, who recounts the Hudson River landing, the 36-degree water evacuation, and how preparation, mindset, and teamwork mattered as much as landing the plane. Sanderson explains how the experience reshaped his priorities, exposed feeling undervalued at Oracle, and led him to pursue the “four freedoms” (time, money, mission, relationships) and ultimately leave corporate life with Tony Robbins’ coaching and encouragement. He shares key lessons from mentorship and “proximity is power,” the role of meaning and reframing, and frameworks he teaches including VCR (vision, capabilities, reach), focusing on outcomes, and “best next step.” The conversation emphasizes values-based leadership, building trust over competence, developing resilience from past reference points, and fulfilling a promise to pass mentorship forward.

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Episode Timeline

00:00 Hudson Crash Replay
00:27 Podcast Welcome
02:14 Dave’s Flight Story
03:48 Aisle Up Out Mindset
06:28 Resilience Built Over Time
08:06 Aftermath And Oracle Wakeup
09:43 Four Freedoms Escape Plan
12:18 Mentorship With Tony
13:26 Proximity And Meaning
17:08 VCR Resilience Framework
20:57 Vision Values Leadership
23:10 Trust Over Competence
25:40 Focus With Next Steps
28:27 Building Team Resilience
32:07 Leading Your Life
34:37 Mentor Promise Story
38:26 Mentorship Call To Action

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Episode Transcript

Episode preview

Dave Sanderson: The plane was incapacitated at that point. He had no power, and all of a sudden he’s circling back, trying to get back to LaGuardia, but he couldn’t get back to LaGuardia, but you know, he crosses the George Washington Bridge, and you think you’re going to the River, you’re probably not gonna come back. The water starts coming in immediately. It’s 36-degree water in the middle of the winter. So now, but you have another shot. I tell people there’s really two parts to this story. Getting it down, he gets all the credit. Getting out’s another story, it’s a team effort.

Welcome, Dave Sanderson

George Wright III: Okay, welcome back to the Franklin Planner Podcast. My name’s George Wright III. My co-host John Harding’s not with us today, but we have a very special guest, Dave Sanderson in the house, and we’re looking forward to a great conversation. Dave, thanks for joining us here on the podcast.

Dave: George, thank you for having me today.

George: I’m really glad that you took some time, and for those of you first-time listening, make sure that you do us a favor and follow the podcast, because we have some really good stuff that we’re gonna be launching over the next few weeks and months. We have the membership, some great events, we’ve got a great event coming up with Stephen M. R. Covey this next Tuesday.

Author, speaker, survivor

But today I wanna talk a little bit about resilience and vision and planning. And so I wanna give, Dave, I wanna give everybody a little bit of your background so they understand where you come from. Because, guys, we’re really fortunate today, because Dave’s an internationally recognized leadership speaker. He’s a best-selling author, a resilience expert. But he’s known as the last passenger off US Airways Flight 1549, the Miracle on the Hudson. So he’s got a lot of background, but he’s also been a top Oracle sales executive before coming and working with Tony Robbins as his security director. It’s given him firsthand exposure to really high-level leadership and thinking.

He’s spoken to more than 1,700 audiences worldwide, helping entrepreneurs and executives make better decisions. So today we’re gonna be talking about what you can do from a leadership level and in your life. So Dave, can you do me a favor? We got a lot of things to dig into today, but can you give us a little bit of your background related to the Miracle on the Hudson and just sort of why you decided to go from Oracle and build a career around leadership and resilience, for people to understand kind of your mindset around that?

Surviving the Miracle on the Hudson

Dave: Well, thank you very much, and uh, the CliffsNotes version was I wasn’t supposed to be on the plane. I was in a three-day business trip in Brooklyn, New York, working with my client. Got done early, called the travel agent, and she put me on Flight 1549. So I wasn’t even supposed to be on that plane. But it was a normal day in New York. Cold, of course, in the winter, right? Flights were delayed. No big deal. That’s New York in the winter.

An engine lost

But as we know now, about sixty seconds after we took off is when the—we all heard an explosion. I never heard an explosion like that on a plane, so, and you’re over New York City, so your your mind starts wondering, but you know, you know… planes lose engines. That really didn’t startle me too much. I looked out the window, saw the fire coming underneath the left wing where I was at 15A, seat 15A. No big deal, because she has another engine. All this means to me, George, is we’re not getting home early. You know, we’re just going back to the airport.

Into the river

But as we know now, the plane was incapacitated at that point. He had no power, and all of a sudden we’re— he’s circling back, trying to get back to LaGuardia, but finds out, uh, makes the right— I think he makes the right call. He couldn’t get back to LaGuardia, and the movie Sully really proved that out and showed people how it really played out. But you know, he crosses the George Washington Bridge, and you think you’re going to the River, you’re probably not gonna come back. But he masterfully gets it down, right? It tears it up in the back a little bit. The water starts coming in immediately. It’s 36-degree water in the middle of the winter. So now, but you have another shot.

Coming up with a game plan

I tell people there’s really two parts to this story. Getting it down, he gets all the credit. Getting out’s another story, it’s a team effort. And so my game plan, George—you know, being part of the Tony Robbins world for so long and being part of playing sports, you always have a game plan. You have to have a, you know, have your mindset, right? So my mindset on the way down was “aisle up out.” I kept saying “aisle up out” ’cause what I’ve learned through my years and especially with Tony is, if you say it enough in your head, it gets into your body.

George: Yeah.

“Do the right thing”

Dave: So I didn’t have to think. I knew exactly what I was gonna do, so when we got down, it was my time to get to the aisle. I could go up and out, but something at that moment changed for me. I heard my mom start talking to me in my head, and my mom passed away in 1997, but there were some things she would tell me when I was a child that I just kept hearing in my head. It was “If you do the right thing, God will take care of you.” And I think one of the greatest gifts my mother gave me—and my father, but mostly my mother—is she made her kids make decisions when they were young. So, you know, when you had to make a decision, and back then you had consequences.

George: Yeah.

Dave: So my decision at that point was, I knew I was all right, didn’t know if the people in the back were all right, so I climbed over the seats to see if anybody needed help. And I got to the back of the plane, and the water was about chest-level deep in the back of the plane. It was already submerged under.

George: Wow.

Delayed exit to safety

Dave: And I just got behind the last person and started making my way out. And you know, and it was dark, ’cause you had— it was late afternoon in New York—winter—so it’s getting dark earlier. And based on that impact, the bins had broken open, so luggage is now floating in the water, and you’re just trying to get out, so you’re feeling your way out. And the first light that I saw was on the right side of the plane; it was at 10F. I got out of here.

So I started to get out like everybody else, but I looked out and found out there was no room on the wing or the boat for me, so that’s why I was inside the plane for seven minutes, waist-deep in 36-degree water, holding on to that lifeboat. And the reason why is this. I didn’t— you know, like most everybody, I’m sure you listen and read everything on a plane like I do now, but I didn’t then. That lifeboat’s actually tethered to the plane, but no one knew that, so they were yelling at me to hold on to the lifeboat ’cause the lifeboat was floating out into the river.

George: Hmm.

Dave: So I held on to this little lifeboat seven minutes, waist-deep in 36-degree water, until I felt the plane shift. And what I found out later is one of the boats was part of the rescue, which was a tugboat. As he was backing out, he hit the front of the plane, which shook the plane. And that’s the first time, George, I felt water going up my back.

George: Oh, wow.

Dave: I gotta go, this thing’s going down like Titanic. I gotta get outta here. So I jumped in and swam to the closest boat that I could find which happened to be at the end of that wing. And I always tell people I thank my mom and dad for making me learn how to swim, because if I hadn’t learned how to swim, I may have never been able to get off that plane. And that’s part of the resilience story, is because one of my definitions of resilience is— Most people think resilience is to bounce back, which I think is part of it. But you build resilience through your life. The reason I wrote my book Moments Matter is I wanted to show people through the moments of my life, these moments came back that day.

George: Yeah.

Right Back to Work

Dave: There were twelve moments in my life that happened that I could call back that gave me a reference to be able to act that day. So I think the moments of resilience are actually built as part of your life, so when that moment comes, you have reference points that you can call back on to be able to execute in that moment. But that’s the short version of what happened that day.

George: Yeah, I love it. I appreciate you sharing that with us because I think, you know, that’s a pretty extreme example of a situation in life that happened to you that you had no control over, that you couldn’t do anything about. But I do think a lot of people in their life— That’s why we talk about, at Franklin Planner, intentionally leading your life rather than just reacting to things that happen. But I’m sure that that probably helped to shape your priorities as well as your mindset around a lot of different things.

And with such an extreme example, I’m curious. Because people are dealing with all kinds of situations in their life right now, and they can either let that define them or let, you know—or they can define their life by those situations. What did you— what kind of shifted in your mind and in your life after that scenario? Because I know that you then, you know, you had a bunch of different things happen. You let that sort of career shape you into leadership and resilience, but what other things in your life changed because of that event?

“My life really radically did change”

Dave: I think my life really radically did change, and it was more of a mindset. And here’s the little bit of the backstory but a lot of people don’t know. The only person that called me in the hospital that night was Tony Robbins. And he actually did a little video. You can go out on YouTube and see the video that he did about that conversation. That night, January 15. My company didn’t call me, though, and my company didn’t call my wife. So I didn’t even know if my company knew that I’d been in a plane crash. I had nothing. My wife had nothing. So the next day, after I got through some things and they released me from the hospital of hypothermia and I got home, after I did all the interviews—you know, you do for TV and radio and all that stuff, right?

George: Right.

Undervalued and overworked

Dave: I went by the office to let the people know that I was alive. And when I walked in and I let them know that I was alive, the first thing my manager said: “You’re going to Michigan next week, right?” And that was the moment, George, that I knew that I had to get out. I knew that I wasn’t valued. Now, it’s not the company, it was my manager, you know? And I knew it was 2009, and yes, you know, we were in a recession, right? There was a lot of things going on in the world that year. But all he cared about at that point, in my mind—and in my clients’ mind, ’cause they found out about it—was the number.

George: Hmm.

Dave: So I knew I had to get out, but how do you get out?

George: Right.

Dave: You got golden handcuffs, I call it, and I do want— I actually now coach people on how to get out of golden handcuffs, because a lot of people have this. You have the benefits, you’re making a lot of money. I was a— George, I was the number-one sales guy at Oracle that year.

George: Wow.

The Four Freedoms

Dave: So it wasn’t money, right? You know? But I talk about—and you and I spoke about this, you know, before we started the conversation—was about I had to find what I call the four freedoms.

Freedom of time

I had to find the freedom of time. They’re basically monopolizing my time, and here I just went through a plane crash on company time, and all he’s worried about is me going to Michigan. So I didn’t have freedom of time.

Freedom of money

Freedom of money. I was making a lot of money, but George, one of the things that—this is on me, so this is my responsibility—in sales, especially in companies like Oracle, and every company I was with, I had the same thing.

George: Yeah.

Dave: You have a signed sales agreement, right?

George: Yep.

Dave: It’s up front, the commission rate and all this stuff, right? Well, the fine— there’s a line at the bottom which most people don’t read, and I never read it until later, is that if you hit a certain number, the company has a right to reserve, you know, paying you.

George: Yes.

Dave: And I hit, I exceeded that number massively. [Laughter] So they didn’t pay me for a lot of the sale because I maxed out. Freedom of money.

Freedom of mission

Freedom of mission. I was working for Larry Ellison’s mission, not my mission. Right?

George: Yeah.

Freedom of relationships

Dave: And freedom of relationships. I mean, you and I talked about this. You know, I was working with people who really didn’t care about me and/or my family or the bigger picture. So I had to get out. So that was the impetus to get out. But it takes time because you know what, George? You got those golden handcuffs.

George: Yeah.

Dave: Right? You’re making so much money, and you got benefits, and you got a family. You got college educations—and oh, by the way, I’ve got three daughters, which means, as you know, weddings, which we’re in the middle of right now.

George: Right. Right.

“It’s time for you to fly”

Dave: So that was the big thing, and it took me about two and a half years to figure this strategy out, but at the same time, I was— Tony was coaching me the same time. And finally, about two and a half years, Tony basically cut the cord. He said, “Listen, I’m gonna find another security director because it’s time for you to fly. Time to burn the boats, Dave. I’ve told you this, right? If I don’t do this, you would always have this to, you know, be your crutch.” So when he got—when he told me that, we were still close friends. But it was the greatest gift Tony Robbins ever gave me because he made me make a decision. And that decision was, “I have to cut the cord. I have to do it now.” And that was, you know, 2012. Took me two and a half years, but we did it.

George: Wow.

Dave: So January 1, February 1 of, uh, you know, 2013 is when we made that cut, and it was the greatest thing I ever did. But scary, as you know. But you have to have confidence in yourself, and I did.

George: Yeah, I love that concept of four freedoms. I really think that that’s something that’s, uh… something that a lot of people are probably thinking about—maybe not making changes with, but they’re kinda curious what to do and how to do it.

The Power of Mentorship

But it’s interesting ’cause you mentioned Tony Robbins, and you were the security director for Tony Robbins for a while. Maybe speak to that for a minute because I think you had now this proximity to a way of thinking and a way of dealing with your life. And I’m curious what some of your takeaways were from him because he’s well-known as a leader and an influencer and an individual that helps individuals to make, you know, impact and breakthrough. So, give me some of your thoughts on that, in context of our conversation.

Mentored by a master

Dave: Thank you. One of the things I speak about a lot—and actually, my second book From Turmoil to Triumph’s about this—is the power of mentorship. And, you know, my first mentor came into my life, George, in 1983. He was… Bill was seventy-seven years old, and for thirteen years he mentored me. And Bill had owned over eighty movie theaters and restaurants in the Carolinas, which I did not know back in 1983 till I found out. So I was being mentored by a master, right? A business success master.

George: Yeah. Yeah.

Proximity is power

Dave: He passes away in 1997, and that’s the year Tony asked me to be his assistant head of security, then later head of security. So one of the things that I, you know, one of the— probably the big, one of the biggest lessons Tony taught me—he teaches everybody a lot of things—but proximity is power. And I had, you know, I was around proximity of leaders earlier in my career and life. Now I’m in proximity of a master, and then, you know, being a head of security also offers that opportunity, ’cause he has other people he’s dealing with, right?

George: Yeah.

Dave: And he’s got— And part of being head of security is you got to take care of his people. So I had proximity to leaders like Schwarzkopf and Colin Powell and, you know, John Gray, and people who are leaders in their industries. So one of the, probably the biggest lesson that he taught me and I teach—and he’s… It’s not nothing that he doesn’t talk about—is proximity.

George: Yeah.

Dave: How do you get proximity to leadership? And it’s through mentorship.

Lessons from Tony Robbins

So that’s one of the things, probably one of the biggest things he taught, but of course, you know, one of the things about—and I talked about in my TED Talk—is the meaning you attach to something produces your emotions. So, you know, one of the things that I learned is— you know, I learned this through the Miracle on the Hudson. There are people who, the meaning of that experience that they took away was, it was devastation.

George: Yeah.

Dave: For me, it was a blessing. Same situation, two different meanings. So the second thing I would say is probably the most powerful thing is meanings. What meaning do you attach and how do you reframe a meaning? So that’s one of the other things that I think is one of the biggest lessons I took away from Tony. But, you know, just being in that state of mind, right? Being able to have that confidence in yourself. ’Cause he’d always tell me, “You can pull it off. You can pull it off,” right? And I didn’t believe in myself. And one of the biggest lessons he taught me, and I tell people this, is this: Sometimes other people have more confidence in you than you have in yourself.

George: Yes.

Dave: And Tony did have more confidence in me than I had in myself until that light switch went off.

George: Plus he was able to kind of push you—

Dave: That’s right.

George: —a bit as well, which is what a good mentor does, and so—

“Now you’re in the limelight”

Dave: Well, I tell ya, here’s the backstory that very few people know. At the end of that call that night in the, you know, January 15 when I was in the hospital and he called me, he said, “Call me when you get to LA.” And he lived in Palm Springs. So when I was doing all these TV shows—the Bonnie Hunt show and all, Ellen, all that shows—I called him, and we had about a two-and-a-half, three-hour masterclass he gave me.

George: Yeah.

Dave: On what to expect, how to go forward, what you need to do. So here I am on the phone with Tony before I go on with Bonnie Hunt—it was like three hours before I went on with Bonnie Hunt, and he’s giving me a masterclass on what to expect. Goes, “Now you’re in the limelight.”

George: Wow.

Dave: “Now you got things are going on. Now people are gonna come after you.” Right? He goes, “They’re gonna always— Someone’s out there, always gonna pick out something,” right?

George: Yeah.

Dave: So the second greatest gift Tony ever gave me, and taught me, is the masterclass that he gave me, and now I take some of those skill sets that he taught me that day, and I’ve applied them to my life, obviously, but now I show other people, and this also helped me break out of the golden handcuffs.

George: Yeah, it’s interesting ’cause you used the term “proximity is power,” because I really do believe that there’s so many things people don’t really understand about that. I know that mentorship people understand, but having that belief transference that happens by surrounding yourself with the right people, that sometimes it’s their belief in what they do that gives you that, but also it might be the belief in you. And so a lot of people are dealing with this. And then they might be high-end leaders, they might be just people in their everyday life, but when you can surround yourself with the right people, that when we say proximity is power, it means, you know, empowerment, it means belief, it means confidence, it means… you know, all kinds of different things.

The VCR Framework

So I love that you shared that with me, and I think it’s what led you to develop some of the… besides the international speaking, the frameworks that you use. And I was curious, um… Back to this topic of resilience, because I think a lot of people are dealing with situations, and it’s more than just bouncing back. But you have a framework, uh, I think it’s called the VCR framework, right, that you have for a framework? Walk us through that and how you think about resilience through your framework that you developed.

Dave: Well, thank you, and I’ll just sort of close out that last topic. As you know—’cause we had this discussion, you know—one of the greatest things I’ve learned, the last thing my first mentor Bill told me was, you know, “Do not let this die with you.” So one of the reasons I teach “proximity is power,” I do these mentor dinners, and you and I discussed this, where I take a group of people, leaders who, I’ll put them in front of somebody of high thought level, right, a thought leader in their area, and every quarter we visit somebody where they can now have proximity to a master—

George: Yes.

Breaking things into threes

Dave: —and I can teach how you get proximity and what to do when you get it. So to transfer that over, yes, I… There’s a framework, and my next book’s called When It Hits the Water. I’m really teaching this framework and the deeper frameworks underneath it, called VCR: vision, capabilities, and reach. ’Cause one of the things I’ve realized in business— George, I’m a pretty simple guy. I gotta break things down into threes.

George: Yeah. Same.

Dave: If I can chunk things into threes, I get it, right?

George: [Laughter] Same, same, yeah.

Dave: You take me to four? Uh… now we’re a little dicey, right? I gotta—

George: Right. A little scattered.

Dave: So what I’ve learned over the last several years—and, you know, a few conversations with a gentleman by the name of Chad Jenkins sorta gave me this thought—is companies come down to three things. These people.

Vision

Vision? Do you have a vision? What is your big vision? And based under that, what are your values based on that vision?

Capabilities

Second, companies need capabilities. You need capabilities, right? What capabilities do you bring or do you need? And most people, you know, ask the wrong question. The question that I ask—this is a number of years, so I’m not great at this, but I get better—is “How am I gonna get this done?” Instead of “Who can help me get this done?”

George: Mm-hmm.

Dave: And so, the capabilities: How do you approach capabilities?

Reach

And then reach: Do you have a reach? And companies are always looking for marketing and innovation for reach, right? “How am I gonna get to that client?” Say with me, “How are you gonna get proximity to these people?” So I’ve built frameworks under each one of these VCRs—VCR—to be able to show you exactly, “How do you get reach?” And my framework for that’s called “8i equals infinity.” And all I did is take my thirty-eight years of sales, reverse-engineered it, and step by step, how do you get access to somebody to build influence? Under capabilities.

Making decisions with the help of frameworks

You know, I built this thing called ASSESS. It’s a decision-making process, so you can now make decisions on what kind of capabilities you either have or need. And then underneath that, the “who, not how.” Who can help me to get my how? And under the V is, it’s called… We talked about a little bit about I’ve used Franklin Planner for years, and then turned that into my own system called RES, Resilience Execution System, on really focusing, changing the focus from actions to outcomes.

George: Yeah.

Dave: Once I did that, and I could teach people how to focus on outcomes than actions, all of a sudden, and then combine it with “who not how,” now you have… You’re building your, you know, lifestyle, not just a business and a life. You’re building your lifestyle and have— So that’s the overarching and then the underlying frameworks that I’ve built, and my next book, When It Hits the Water, will really reveal in detail.

Advice for Leaders

George: Yeah, it’s interesting because we have a lot of leaders that both listen to the podcast and that are, you know, users of the Franklin Planner and the system that we have. And I think a lot of times, especially with your experience, I like to kinda ask this question: What do you see in successful leaders that they tend to get wrong when it comes to trying to navigate uncertainty, and they’ve gotta deal with resilience? What are some of the mistakes that you feel you see happen a lot that maybe you could draw attention to and give us some perspective on?

Focus on the big mission and values

Dave: Yeah, thank you. I actually wrote a few blogs about what I’ve noticed in the world lately, of some leaders that, uh, have made some very poor choices on the way they go about it, because they, uh, they’re not focused on the big mission. They varied off their—either their vision or their values. And this is one of the things I really notice a lot about leaders. The leaders who are very effective have the vision; the vision never changes. Maybe the way they approach the vision changes, but it never changes. But what I’ve noticed lately: the people who are having challenges in leadership are the ones who are varying off their value sets.

I was working with a company down in Tampa, Florida, and I was talking to their CEO, and this conversation came up. They got their value sets based on their board, on their window, right there in front so everybody can see it. And we talked about it, and he said, “But the challenge is, is a lot of my leaders don’t follow the value sets that we have. And so we’ve made some poor choices on how we’re gonna invest and go about our business,” which has affected some of their operations. So I think what I’ve noticed a lot, when people vary off, maybe not their vision, but their values and what they really value and what they’re going after, and cannot either articulate it but don’t follow it, or don’t articulate it and people don’t know where they’re coming from, so there’s a lot of uncertainty.

George: Yeah.

Dave: That’s where I’m seeing a lot of the people who are having major challenges. And I just talked about the former prime minister of Great Britain. That— Think that was one of his biggest challenges, is he had a vision, which was great, but his value sets based on what he was trying to accomplish for the UK, or England, to be specific, and he didn’t have the right team around him, so they didn’t buy into the value set.

Decisions come easier when you have a line of sight

George: Yeah, it’s so interesting to see, and it’s one of the reasons why, you know, Franklin Planner heavily emphasizes this idea of values, roles, and goals, because when people lose clarity or line of sight to what their value system is, or what’s most important in their life, not only does it create uncertainty, but it also complicates your life, because when you continually try to prioritize and you have line of sight and clarity around your values, roles, and goals, then decisions become much easier to make. Wouldn’t you agree?

Dave: I agree, I agree. And I think you know that I swim with Navy SEALs and Special Ops, uh, and I’ve done that to raise money and awareness for them. But one of the things that’s allowed me to do is, I get to talk to these leaders, these heroes, right? I mean, these guys and gals are over in Iraq and putting their lives on the lines for us.

Competence and trust are a must

But one thing I’ve asked them, and I think this is in alignment with what Franklin Covey does, especially Stephen M. R. Covey, is I ask them, you know, “What does it take to be at that level?” I mean, you’re, you know… I mean, you gotta be elite to be at that SEAL level, ’cause I’m with them, I know their mindsets. And probably to the person, they said the same two things: you gotta have competence, and you gotta have trust.

George: Yeah.

Dave: So the next question I ask them is, “Okay, great. Ideal perspective,” you know. Person has got high, you know, competence and high trust. But they also tell me not many people have that.

George: Yeah.

Dave: So if you’re gonna be one, what do you value most? Back to values. Do you want people with high competence and some trust, or high trust and some competence? And almost to the person again, they want someone with high trust. They can teach competence. So if you’re building a high-performance team, and if you’re a leader, one thing that I really stress—and I talk about this story because it’s been important for me, that I’ve gotta be able to trust the people that I bring on board. So when I’m bringing people on board in my little company, we talk about trust first. And I think Stephen M. R. Covey does that really well.

George: Yes.

Dave: He articulates that, and I think it’s in alignment because the world-class companies build their companies based on trust first, and I think that’s why they’re world-class.

George: Yeah, I think that’s a great observation, and I think a lot of people—with the intangibles, you would think it would be intangible with trust—they don’t understand really the impact. But I do believe that that grows dramatically when you have clarity of your vision and your values.

Dave: Sure.

“What is the most important part right now?”

George: And then the other thing: I think there’s another perspective I meant to ask you about, which is, I think a lot of individuals—now, this is not just business leaders, but individuals in their personal life as well—a lot of them have so many priorities competing for their attention, and because of that, it causes some uncertainty and confusion. But how do you advise individuals—and you’ve spoken to thousands and thousands of people worldwide—how do you determine what actually determines your focus when you have competing priorities, especially ones that maybe all align with what your goals and values are?

Dave: Thank you. I learned this way back probably in the early nineties when I was in sales, and [Laughter] it actually came about from a meeting that I had where I really, really did bad, really did poorly, with the State Comptroller of South Carolina. I thought I was prepared; I was not prepared, George. Uh, I learned a hard lesson that day. And to answer that question, I think it really comes down to asking a couple questions. Number one is, we all got a ton of priorities. I mean, we have, you know— my little world, we have like four or five priorities. But what we do at the first of the quarter is “What’s the most important part right now?” What is most important, right?

Pick three “big rock” priorities

And second is “What has to happen for that to be able to happen?” So what we do is we actually, my little company, we take the top priorities. We have three, usually, priorities, but we really focus on that one big rock. And then, you know, the question I asked that day on the plane in my head is the same thing that we do in my little company. What’s our best next step? So it was our big priority, right? Our number one, what’s most important right now? Like, for this quarter is, we’re rebranding this quarter.

George: Yeah.

Dave: And my company, my little company, my little team knows everything’s focused on that. That’s the number one thing. And what’s our best next step? We don’t want— And one of the things I see a lot of leaders do, and I talked about this last week in Brooklyn with about four hundred engineering leaders, is they wanna boil the ocean, right?

George: Yeah.

Dave: “I have a big priority. I got—”

George: Right.

Perfection is futile

Dave: No. [Laughter] And that day on the plane, it was like, I couldn’t boil the— I couldn’t do a five-year plan on the plane. “Okay, how are we gonna get this done?” What’s my best next step? Because one of the things I’ve learned through my coaching experience, learned from coaches, is I’ve only gotta be about 80 percent right.

George: Right.

Dave: I don’t need to be perfect. And most people try to be perfect, and you’ll never get perfection. So if I’m 80 percent right, let’s go.

George: Yeah.

Dave: And let’s figure this thing out. So that’s how I advise people and coach people, and how we go about my little business here and what we’re trying to accomplish.

George: Yeah, I think it’s super important for people to remember that when you have— And it’s a catch-22, but you, you know, you wanna set big goals, you wanna have a great vision, you wanna have clarity and alignment, but it always comes back to what matters most, and then that additional “What one step, what next step can you take right now to move it forward?” ’Cause I think a lot of people get paralyzed with all the thoughts and things they need to do, when it really always comes down to just “what’s your next step,” and I think that next step is the thing that everyone needs to really be focused on.

Hard-Earned Resilience

One last question on resilience, because I think this happens in teams a lot as well, but how can leaders or individuals build resilience in their teams or their families instead of just simply expecting people to be resilient when something goes wrong? How do you help to instill that in your families, your teams, your relationships?

Built over forty years

Dave: And that’s a great… Thank you, that’s a great question. And one of the things you and I spoke about is about, my mindset about resilience is that your resilience is built. It’s a skill set that’s built. It’s not just happens right after. See, a lot of people after the Miracle on the Hudson say, “Dave, you got a lot of resilience,” right? “You bounced back.” Well, yes, I did, but that resilience was actually built for forty some years previously in my life because of those moments. So when we go, when I’m working, especially with sales teams, is when I’m working with— I build sales resiliency by “Let’s look back through your life. Let’s document some things in your life. Let’s find references in your life that you had resilience, whether it’s in athletics, academics, whatever it may be, and let’s document that.” That’s one of the first steps that we do.

Correlating life experiences with career strengths

The first step that I do with everybody is, we built this AI tool called the Human Optimization Program. Basically with thirty questions, I can find out thirty questions from you and put it through our AI tool, where you’re really strong at and where you’re really weak at. So we can actually really target that very quickly, and then let’s find references on how you’ve done this in the past, so when that time comes, you’re not saying, “Okay, how do I do this?” Say, “Okay, I did this in 1979 when I was in high school—”

George: [Laughter] Right.

Dave: “—and then I had to do this,” right? And all of a sudden you can pull that back out to apply it to be able to do it. So that’s how we do it.

Big unbelievable goals

And really, take another step, you just said something that really just is very important, George, if you give me a second, is— You know, one of the things that I think great companies do and one of the things that I’m really focused on is what we call in my little world our “big unbelievable goal.” See, I grew up in the era of John F. Kennedy and, you know, in Kennedy’s era, right, was, you know, the space was everything. Space, you know—get the man to the moon and return him safely. That was it. That was the big unbelievable goal, right? But no one’s ever done it.

George: Right.

Dave: But he gave a certain date. He timestamped that thing, right? By the end of the decade. So I think what a lot of great companies do and great leaders do, and especially with resilience, is they make those big unbelievable goals, they put that timestamp on it, so now forces you to focus things differently,

George: Right. Expands everyone’s thinkings, right?

Dave: All the things you got, you set what’s important, which Elon Musk is a master at. He puts things to the side ’cause he’s, like he said, I think it’s, you know, he’s right. Most people work on optimizing, they’re optimizing the wrong things. When are we optimizing to get the big unbelievable goal, right?

George: Right.

Finding the right people

Dave: So every company’s got that, right? They wanna be a three-billion-dollar company by X date. All right? So the things we’re doing now, is it gonna get us there? Probably not. We gotta probably start thinking differently, which means I may have to have different people and different capabilities on the team, right?

George: Sure.

Dave: And I need to find my right “who”s to be able to get it done. So it’s got— makes you focus differently, which brings that resilience back in. It’s like, you know, “Yeah, you know, sometimes we get knocked back, and yeah, we may take two steps back, but to be able to get to our big unbelievable goal, we gotta start thinking differently and focusing on what we call the floor,” right?

George: Right.

Dave: The floor. What’s our standard? And Tony Robbins teaches this, right?

George: Yes.

Raise your standard to build your resilience

Dave: We all live to our standards. So you raise your standard, raise the floor, and that’s how you get your big unbelievable goal, and that’s how you build resilience, I believe.

George: Yeah, I love that because as a leader—or a, you know, a parent, a relationship driver, whatever it is—as you expand the vision of what’s around you and the people around you, it will help to stretch them out of their comfort zone, increase their standard and their floor. And like as the example of going to the moon, you know, the amount of goals and innovations and technology and things that were achieved that weren’t really even the primary goal—

Dave: Right.

George: —but because they had a big, big goal, those things came about. Well, let’s do this. In the last couple of minutes, I wanted to kind of bring it back to kind of a personal level for individuals.

Dave: Sure.

Leading Your Life, According to Dave

George: In your mind, what does leading your life mean to you? Because that’s kind of a core message we talk about with our listeners. “Lead your life,” and of course, it means, you know, for most, what matters most and things like that. But from your perspective on a personal level, what does leading your life mean for you today?

Working through existing mindsets

Dave: Well, that actually changed during and after the Miracle on the Hudson for me, ’cause, you know, one of the first interviews that I did for CBS, I talked about— back in 2009, George, my mission was making money. See, my model of my world was my dad. My dad grew up in the thirties in the Depression. His model of the world was “Dad makes the money, Mom stays home, raise the kids,” right?

George: Yeah.

Dave: And that’s how we did. So that was my mindset of the world, so dads have to make money. And once you go— when you go through something of a traumatic experience, or what I call—and everybody’s got one—a personal plane crash moment—

George: Mmm. Yeah.

Hard times prompt us to reframe

Dave: A cancer, a car wreck, maybe, it can be anything. You realize that—and this is hopefully to answer your question—is what we focus on, what we really think is important is not important. It’s those relationships that are important, those— the family that’s important, that you’re there with. And I think a lot of people personally are challenged because they go on TikTok and go on Instagram, see all these people making money doing this and that and this, and that’s all of a sudden what’s most important. But all of a sudden you realize what’s really most important is those personal relationships that you have.

George: Yeah.

“My mission was to make money”

Dave: And whether you’re there for your kids. So, the reframing for me happened during and right after the Miracle on the Hudson, when I realized and I did that interview, and I show this to my audiences every time I get on stage, so they can see me saying this in public: my mission was to make money in 2009. That’s what I was focused on. But that day shifted everything, because all of a sudden, the last moments I realized I hadn’t spent enough time with my family, and that was my biggest regret as we were going down in that river, I thought for the last time.

George: Yeah, it’s interesting; you know, Wayne Dyer talked about “when you look back on the tapestry of your life, things take on new meaning.” And, you know, looking forward, someone might say, “What a catastrophic event,” and yet not only was it a defining moment for you, but it’s also something that really shifted your priorities.

Final Thoughts From a Mentor

I wanted to ask you also, you’ve spoken to me before this interview about the idea that you’re— you know, you’re fulfilling a promise to your first mentor.

Dave: Right.

George: I thought that was a great message, and I would love for you to share with our audience what you meant when you said that to me.

Dave: Thank you. My first mentor, like I mentioned, his name’s Bill. He was seventy-seven in 1983. For thirteen years he mentored me. But in 1997, April of 1997, I get a phone call, and Bill said, “I need you over in my office. Come over and see me.” And like I mentioned, when your master calls, you listen, you go.

George: Right.

Receiving the recipe for success

Dave: You just drop everything. So I was sitting where I’m at right now. I took the phone call right over here. I got up, drove over to meet him, and he said, “I wanna share a couple things with you.” He said, “First I want to let you know I’ve got lung cancer.” And for a gentleman who’s at that age of ninety-something years old, he smokes unfiltered Camels since the twenties, not surprising, but still, he knows his days are limited. But the second thing he did, George, is he went over to his desk and pulled out these crumpled pieces of paper, and he walked over to me and sat right over here on this side and put them on my lap. I said, “What is this?” He said, “These are the handwritten notes I wrote in 1929 on how to be successful.”

George: Wow.

“Do not let this die with you”

Dave: “I’m gonna give this to you, but you have to promise me one thing.” I said, “What?” He goes, “Do not let this die with you.”

George: Hmm.

Dave: And that became very important for me because the biggest lesson my dad taught me in life was you gotta be a man of your word. I mean, his number one thing in his life: If you say something, you gotta back it up.

George: Yes.

Dave: So I made this promise in 1997, but for twenty-some years I really wasn’t living it. I was working for Oracle and KPMG, and I was working for other companies, right? So I was living their mission until the Miracle on the Hudson happens, and then another thing happens. So the Miracle on the Hudson happens, and I knew I had to reframe my life. That’s like I mentioned, that little story with my manager. But it wasn’t until a few years later when I was asked to write a book. This is the book, Moments Matter, you see it behind me. I was trying to figure out, and you’ve written books; it’s hard. It’s like, especially your first one. What am I, what am I gonna do, right?

George: Right. Right.

A reminder of his promise

Dave: But I was sitting exactly where I’m sitting today. This seat here, right here, has got a lot of meaning to me, ’cause I got another phone call from my wife, and she called me and said, “Listen, our neighbors down the street need some help. Their TV’s broken. Can you get on out and help ’em?” And these were two older ladies down the street. And of course, I grew up in a place where you always helped your neighbors. Especially elderly people, right? You just do it, right?

George: Yes. Yeah.

Dave: I went down there, fixed their TV, and they asked me to stay for milk and cookies. Now, I don’t know about you, I love milk and cookies.

George: Yeah, who doesn’t? [Laughter]

Dave: Especially from a couple older ladies who can probably bake, right? So I’m all in, man. So I sit down in their parlor, and they’re getting milk and cookies, and they had these books of World War II around the front. History. I’m like, “I love World War II history.” So I’m looking at these books while they’re getting milk and cookies. So they come back with milk and cookies. I said, “Where can I buy a copy of this?” ’Cause I wanted to see more of it. And they said, “We’re in that book.” I said, “What?” And they rolled up their sleeves to show the numbers and letters down their arms.

George: Oh, man.

Dave: They survived the concentration camp, and they were in that book. So George, for two hours, they told me the story how they survived a concentration camp.

George: Wow.

Dave: I was blown away. I come back here, I’m into my desk. My credenza’s right behind me here. I’m like, “I got it. I got it. These women made all the moments in their life matter. I got it. I now know—” So I get this, pull out my journal, started writing massively. I flip the pages, and what do I find? These handwritten notes from Bill.

George: Wow.

Dave: And I am ashamed of myself. I’m like, number one, I’ve had gold in my hands for over fifteen, sixteen years, but more importantly, I haven’t fulfilled that promise. And that’s why I do what I do today. This is exactly the reason why. This is me fulfilling a promise I made in 1997 to pass everything that I’ve got to the next level, and why— when I wrote my book From Turmoil to Triumph, and this is why I wrote the book, to share this story.

Take what you learn and share it

But when Tony Robbins said, “Let me put something in the book,” and he wrote on the cover of the book and I put it on there. He wouldn’t be Tony Robbins without Jim Rohn. So the last thing I’d like to share with you is, everybody, it’s not a should, it’s a must. You must find a mentor, and you must mentor down somebody. You must.

George: Right. Pay it forward.

Dave: This is how I end every one of my talks, because if you don’t do this, you’re letting it die with you, and it’s not fair to you, it’s not fair to the next generation—

George: Yes.

Dave: —’cause next generations need help, and that’s why we’re having this conversation today. This is gonna be evergreen, lasting throughout eternity now.

George: Yeah.

Dave: What we’re talking about, someone will take one of these points that you’re talking about and I’m talking about to help them fulfill their destiny and to fulfill their mission.

George: I love that. I appreciate you sharing that with me, and I love the book title as well, Moments Matter. I think when it really comes down to it, with all of the priorities and focus and resilience and topics and things we talk about, it does come back down to “moments matter.” Well, Dave, Dave Sanderson, I appreciate you being with us here on the podcast, brother. I appreciate everything that you do and contribute, and we’ll look forward to having you more, also with our members as well. So…

Dave: Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.

George: All right, guys. Listen, I appreciate you being with us. As always, we put these episodes out there for our audience because we wanna help to inspire and motivate you, but also to give you some clarity and focus in your life, and we hope that you will continue to lead your life and focus on what matters most, because I do believe it’s never too late to start creating the life you’re meant to live, but you’ve got to be the leader in your life. And so thank you for joining us. Make sure that you follow and keep tabs on the podcast, and we’ll look forward to talking with you again soon. Once again, this is George Wright III. This has been the Franklin Planner Podcast.

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