Empowering Teams with Positivity: A Chat with Marcella Miciano | Ep 67

In this inspiring episode of "Paradigm Playbook," host Steve Cook broadcasts live from the Hyatt Regency in Orlando, Florida, during the US Swim School Association National Conference. He is joined by Marcelo Marciano, a dynamic professional specializing in positivity, training, and team development. Marcella shares her extensive background in children's programs at resorts and hotels, her experience running a mail and swim school, and her foray into sales and marketing in the corporate world.

The episode delves into Marcella's passion for working with industries and entrepreneurs focused on children and families, highlighting her expertise in swimming and child development. She emphasizes the transformative power of positivity in leadership and team dynamics, crediting her father as her inspiration and discussing her association with the Jon Gordon companies, known for their emphasis on positive leadership.

Marcella also touches on the importance of team building and communication, addressing how leaders can foster a positive culture within their organizations. The conversation covers the principles from Jon Gordon's influential books, such as "The Energy Bus," and how these concepts can be applied in both corporate and recreational settings to enhance team performance and morale.

The episode concludes with Marcella offering insights on customizing training programs for various organizations and providing contact information for those interested in learning more about her services. Listeners are left with valuable takeaways on leadership, team building, and maintaining a positive mindset in the face of business challenges.

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Transcript

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;32;23
Unknown
Hello and welcome back to Paradigm Playbook. This is Steve Cook. I'm coming from you live from the Hyatt Regency in Orlando, Florida. We're here at the US Swim School Association National Conference. It's exciting time, beautiful weather. And I'm joined today by Marcelo Marciano. And I do great, great Marcello and I work together with third level and we bring different phases to the clients we work with.

00;00;32;26 - 00;00;53;01
Unknown
And I've asked Marcelo to join us today and tell us a little bit about what she does and she's all about positivity, training and teamwork and team development. And so, Marcelo, why don't you start by just telling us how did you end up doing this? Why are you here? Well, it's a good thing we only have a few minutes, right?

00;00;53;04 - 00;01;15;17
Unknown
Keep it short. So, you know, I was blessed and privileged to actually be in the children's programs from resorts and hotels, designing kids programs all the way up to run email and swim school with camps and thousands of kids and doing great things and worked with a diverse group of team members and employees and had the opportunity to also work in sales and marketing for in the corporate world.

00;01;15;17 - 00;01;37;26
Unknown
So I feel like I bring a lot of fun things to the table. Okay. And and now I know your clients are pretty much the same as my clients, but tell me about the the profile of the average client that you're working with now. So mostly I'm, I'm working with something that's dear to my heart, which is industries and clients.

00;01;37;26 - 00;02;01;10
Unknown
An entrepreneur is at work with children and families and that that engagement and education from everything from course, my specialty of swimming and development and child engagement and just that magical world. It can be watching children achieve anything from a as a simple breath control under the water to exploring to actually being competitive enough to be on a team.

00;02;01;10 - 00;02;32;05
Unknown
So it's it's an A to Z experience and with the swim schools they have a a diverse group of staff that are that have to embrace this positivity. So where did this whole positivity idea where does that come from? Well, you know, I have to really give my dad a little credit on that. You know, he was my number one coach and, you know, always had a positive spin on that.

00;02;32;07 - 00;03;03;25
Unknown
And then I kind of got to take that into, you know, becoming an entrepreneur and working with other leaders, realizing, wow, it takes a lot of not just tenacity but a positive, optimistic and a belief type of outlook to make things happen and make change and impact in your community, which I kind of loop back around to my dad, who always kind of circled the purpose of what you're doing and I love the industry we're in, you know, swimming and gymnastics and ninja and anything to our children and their families.

00;03;03;25 - 00;03;30;21
Unknown
It just really makes a difference. Then I found my tribe, another tribe, not just swimming and people working with kids. It's actually the John Borden companies that really focus on positive mindset, positive being a positive leader and impact not just with the organization, but those all around you as well, as well as teamwork. You know, really how to communicate and be the best impact you can be as a team member.

00;03;30;21 - 00;04;00;21
Unknown
And being in this industry. There's a very diverse group from your youngest teenagers working in the sports and the programs to, you know, young retirees. You know, I am just very blessed. I had a lot of young retirees working in my my school and what a wealth of information and knowledge they were. But I realize everyone needs something and that is someone to believe in them, someone to kind of coach and pump them up and to say we can get across the finish line, we can we can build this new program.

00;04;00;24 - 00;04;19;06
Unknown
And that I always believe someone always has a little power in that little entrepreneur. Take the like, I'm just the front desk person or I'm just the one that takes them in the door. I'm just this. And I realize sometimes you just get to bring that that positive believe out in them so they can be that best version of themselves.

00;04;19;06 - 00;04;38;16
Unknown
And I just believe that I love working with the John Gordon group as well. Tell me tell me more about it. So who is John Gordon? So John Gordon is one of the, you know, million dollar bookseller for number one, and he is a motivator, motivational speaker. He's a bestselling author. And there's maybe some books you might know.

00;04;38;17 - 00;04;59;10
Unknown
Go ahead. Tell us tell us some of the books. So I know you're book person. Yeah, some of the books are, of course, the energy bus. And then, you know, he's written many books with that. That is a landmark book, I believe, that really focuses on you have the ability to get on your bus and to invite people onto your bus to get to your vision, your mission and your purpose.

00;04;59;12 - 00;05;22;19
Unknown
And then he developed another book, which is right in my realm, that, you know, I felt like I found another try, that believed in bringing positivity to the workplace. And I think that has not really been a focus on a lot of entrepreneurs, startups, small companies, big companies, and even in the recreation world, it hasn't been a, I think, a strong enough focus.

00;05;22;19 - 00;05;40;10
Unknown
And then the other one I love because I actually come from a little bit of Disney myself, I was I worked for Disney and I believe in the magic of teamwork and the ability to have a team really feel like they're a true family, like they can depend and be accountable. They can love each other, but they can still hold each other accountable.

00;05;40;10 - 00;05;59;00
Unknown
And that all ties in with the John Gordon trainings, which I am, you know, now a national trainer facilitator for. So I'm so excited to bring this, you know, to all of our third level team members and our members and our future teachers centers that would like to to come on board and, you know, really see transformation happen.

00;05;59;02 - 00;06;27;03
Unknown
I see it every day. So the John Gordon training, too, I was familiar with the energy bus through through my corporate career. And we use that large scale corporate setting that. And I think the same things apply. As I recall, it's been a while since I read the book, but as I recall, the book and the book is written in a kind of a fable format and it goes through is it ten?

00;06;27;05 - 00;06;52;17
Unknown
There are ten rules, ten rules on the bus. You know, it's a huge story where the bus driver is kind of the lead character and the bus driver is is kind of pontificating on these rules each day. So what what are some of those rules? Well, one is that you can choose to get on the bus. You you feel you can feel your own destiny, your own destination.

00;06;52;20 - 00;07;24;21
Unknown
Also, one of the other rules is that you can tell others, okay, which which which I love. And then there's a lot of other great roles that not just that we all can live by, just not in our business, but as people in our family and our and our network of our extended friends and family. Because sometimes we focus so much as entrepreneurs or, you know, the director or executive of a kid's facility that we forget about the most supporting people are those that we go home to and those that love and support us.

00;07;24;21 - 00;07;43;16
Unknown
And, you know, colleagues like yourself that, you know, believe in the purpose of working in sports, recreation and kids programs and that whole arena. Yeah, I think sometimes and I talk about this in my talks a lot, that not only do we have to know our why, but we have to make sure that we convey it on a regular and daily basis.

00;07;43;16 - 00;08;16;09
Unknown
If you're not telling your story, then it's easy for yourself to fall back into it. Well, I'm just teaching gymnastics or I'm just teaching swim. And it's not about that. It's about changing lives. So I think you and I are on the same page here. So in in terms of obtaining clients for this, how is, how, when would a person recognize that, you know, maybe I ought to dig a little bit deeper into this positive and engage you in a conversation at least.

00;08;16;11 - 00;08;36;15
Unknown
So, you know, as I call it, sometimes the obvious moments where you just, you know, directors or owners or entrepreneurs or are in that that we'll of we got to get this done. I think I'm developing my team. I think I'm a positive person. You don't realize all the pressures have kind of taken a little nick out of your positivity armor yourself.

00;08;36;15 - 00;09;01;26
Unknown
So I like to say I help you already recreate your positivity party. Already have. And then also to recognize some of the signs of your your team like, you know, how's their body language, what's the communication? Are you having a lot of challenges with retention, with your employees? Are you getting you know, when people leave your organization or you're getting bad reviews, you know, people leave organizations because we that that happens in our world.

00;09;01;26 - 00;09;22;07
Unknown
But are they saying good things about the culture you were in? You know, one of the things I really loved about positive leader, ship and team is that leaders drive the culture of your business. And I've had the privilege of working with different leaders and owners and they go, I don't know why my team's not, I don't like communicating.

00;09;22;07 - 00;09;40;12
Unknown
They seem sad or they're not motivated or engaged. And I kind of go, Well, maybe we should start with the mirror a little bit because I haven't seen you smile. What's coming in the door and the you one high five, Have you ever even just said thank you or send a text me one. They're like, well, they they know that they know that logo go How have you communicated that.

00;09;40;14 - 00;10;04;26
Unknown
Yeah it's I always like in the book. BASH You're familiar with the book Fish. I love fish. Yeah. Okay. So it's like they're not throwing enough fish in. You'll have to read that book for that. The the audience to this podcast knows that we reference books all the time. So we're big about reading. I believe, you know, leaders are readers and that's where you get a lot of this.

00;10;04;29 - 00;10;36;29
Unknown
The energy buzz by John Gordon is a it's a very simple book to read, very simple. If anything, you come out of it with thinking, well, duh, yeah, like I should have known all that, but I didn't. So it's, it's, it's a nice little wake up call. So if you were working with a organization, let's say an entrepreneur, let's say there's 20 employees, you work with 20 employees together, do you work one on one, How do you work?

00;10;37;02 - 00;11;05;04
Unknown
So what's great about the program, we can really decide what the owner or I can make recommendations based on some of the feedback know. Are they either a small team with three little mini departments or is it something we really do need to do to push the culture forward? We might do it all together or we might break it up into two different sessions where we have maybe some people on the front side of the organization and then some are very customer hands on base.

00;11;05;06 - 00;11;25;03
Unknown
Then we could divide that up. But it's it's kind of a made to everyone can be together because at the end of the day, all those people are together to build the purpose and the mission and the vision of the organization. I think sometimes somehow that got dropped off the bus or not left at the bus stop and someone forgot to bring it back on on a daily basis.

00;11;25;03 - 00;11;52;04
Unknown
And people bring a lot of negativity, not realizing they do. Sometimes they're like, I'm not a negative person. They sure don't shake your hand. They sure don't feel like you're approachable and they give short answers. So I don't know if that's the direction you're asking, but yeah, no, that's good. And if we're getting a whole team of employees, let's say 100% of the employees, everybody's together.

00;11;52;06 - 00;12;28;07
Unknown
Well, one question is, do you ever do live training where you you go in person and go through what used to be called team building? Do they call it team building anymore? I think we can still use that term. It's loud and it still it's not it hasn't been that antiquated. Yeah. Okay. Well and the the typical old school you know trust balls and things like that that they used to do in team building and everybody's got to get over a rope and crazy things but is much more of it now a verbal a conversational exercise?

00;12;28;10 - 00;12;58;09
Unknown
That's a that's a great question. It actually is like the training breaks down and we have different like modules and segments that talk about different things like communication, connection, ability to come over negativity and conflict, being able to actually love what you do and love the people around you and also hold them accountable. And we do different exercises and some team building and there's no ropes involved.

00;12;58;09 - 00;13;22;21
Unknown
A promise you don't have to, you know, sell across the top of the banquet room or anything. But it's it's more engaged in that way. And it's also where you have to start thinking about being accountable for what you're bringing to the table to your team. No one creates success alone. Okay. Well, I really appreciate your time. We're going to call it quits.

00;13;22;21 - 00;13;46;24
Unknown
But before we sign off, if someone wants to get a hold of you personally, can you share a contact or how can people reach you all? That's great. We can always reach us, you know, under third level consulting as well as I have my direct site at Vivid motivation dot com. We've got some exciting things up there. We just got our new release for our John Gordon National training in all three areas.

00;13;46;24 - 00;14;09;02
Unknown
So we're excited about that. I'm not just for vivid motivation but for all of our current and prospective clients for third level where we're excited to be able to offer that to them as well. So do you schedule regular training that people can sign up for under vivid trade? So we do have some new releases coming out, but for now, or I'm actually I am a live on site trainer.

00;14;09;03 - 00;14;36;09
Unknown
Okay. And we can do what we call like a little one hour intro to the program. I do that for our entrepreneurs and our clients as well, and we just kind of customize maybe just some specific areas they need. They might not need a two day training or a day training or even a half a day training. You might just want an hour of a little teambuilding or positivity infusion with an activity that they can take back and use as an action step in the organization.

00;14;36;12 - 00;14;56;17
Unknown
Okay. Well, we're going to we're going to add those to this show notes at the end of this so everybody can reach out to you. They can contact you directly and also through third level consulting. And I think you're doing some training for the third level membership members now as well. Yeah. Okay. Is hot off the presses coming?

00;14;56;18 - 00;15;20;20
Unknown
Yeah. Okay. Well I thank you very much. Is there anything else you want to say before we sign off here? Now, this has been great. I'm so excited. We're going to talk about books, books and audio books. So it was the energy buzz, the power of the power of leadership garden and the power of teams. Okay, so there's three good books and people are getting sick of my books, but that's okay.

00;15;20;20 - 00;15;31;04
Unknown
That's fine. Very good. Everybody. Thank you for listening. If you like what you're hearing, hit the subscribe button and will catch on the next podcast. Make it a great day.