For over 25 years, Wayne Turmel has been obsessed with how people communicate (or don't) at work. He's the author of 15 books and has spoken at conferences and clients around the world.

Link to website

https://kevineikenberry.com/team/about-wayne-turmel/

Linkedin:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/wayneturmel/

"The Misconceptions of Introverts: 'Because we often get told, you know, when you start, describe the traits of an introvert and you get, You know, quiet, keeps to themselves, never bothers anybody. Basically, the same descriptions they use for serial killers.'"

— Wayne Turmel [00:01:48 → 00:02:03]

Viral Topic: Scariest Moments in Early Career

Quote: "The probably true answer in terms of the scariest thing is very early on in my career. This is how early on it was. We had just rolled out email to the organization, like we were trend trending leaders. And our instructors wanted access to laptops so that we could do PowerPoint presentations and answer email when we were on the road. And You would have thought that we were storming the Bastille."

— Wayne Turmel [00:04:04 → 00:04:43]

Beard Discrimination: "And even though I wore a suit and tie, they felt that the beard was unprofessional and didn't exude the right image."

— Wayne Turmel [00:06:01 → 00:06:12]

Rising through Buyouts: "During these buyouts, I kept rising in the organization, and eventually, I had reached either the as much as I was going to be in that organization or the Peter principle Caught up with me."

— Wayne Turmel [00:09:12 → 00:09:31]

Managing Energy in the Entertainment Industry: "I work pretty much like a volcano. I'm dormant, and I build up all this kinetic energy, and then it bursts out of me like a crazy person, then I am spent and need to lie dormant for another 100 years."

— Wayne Turmel [00:10:53 → 00:11:08]

"The Power of Networking: I met somebody who said, you know, You should consider, given your skill set and who you are, you should consider going into the training business"

— Wayne Turmel [00:12:41 → 00:14:22]

Finding Opportunities in Unexpected Places: "And he said, oh, you're looking for a job? Come see me next week. And I went to see him next week, and he's offering me the instructor manager position for which I was wildly unqualified, But desperate times, desperate measures, the correct answer is, of course, I can do that, And that's how I got my 1st management position."

— Wayne Turmel [00:15:10 → 00:15:32]

The Future of Virtual Work: "you know, there's a a thing here with this virtual work, and maybe I could, get to the point where I step down from a full time position. I continue to teach as needed to pay the bills and start my business, and 20 minutes later, the phone rang and I was fired. So, you know, I'm not a huge believer in signs from the universe, but that was pretty much neon."

— Wayne Turmel [00:17:27 → 00:17:53]

The Introverted Trainer: "Well, the most obvious one is that, because I'm a trainer, Because I am out there, because I speak for a living, all that good stuff that I am this raging extrovert. And, you know, there is nothing more terrifying to me after a day of being on my feet training or doing a keynote, when they say, a few of us are going to dinner. Oh. Oh, heavens. No."

— Wayne Turmel [00:18:58 → 00:19:25]

Getting Started: "I send Kevin a quick Message in Slack. Hey. I'm here. How's it going? And my day starts. That is super important for me Because I was, at the beginning, very bad about when does your day start, when does your day end."

— Wayne Turmel [00:25:43 → 00:26:01]

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Traveling Introvert. But this is the, You know, careers conversation section, where we talk to people all around the world who happen to be introverts, but who happen to be rock stars and badasses, and, and some people that I've met along my travels. So there is some, like a little bit of a a thread Yeah. Going. So today, I I would love to welcome to the stage, Wayne Turlock.

Good heavens.

I know.

There's a lot going on in that introduction.

And, so those of you, because this is audio only, what you will not realize is that I am definitely in a onesie, And Wayne has a beautiful background behind him. Welcome to Las Vegas. So hi, Wayne. How are you doing, by the way?

I am absolutely fine. I am swell. It's a beautiful day, and I'm talking to you, and, You know, life is good or at least beats the known alternatives.

Right. Well, there you go. There there you have it. He has cracked the code that life is good, and it is. It is a happy bunny. Alright. So The

Buddha will tell you the secret to happiness is low expectations.

Oh, that's interesting. Okay. So my first question to you, as to everyone, is What does introversion mean to you?

It took me a long time to come up with an answer to this Because we often get told, you know, when you start, describe the traits of an introvert and you get, You know, quiet, keeps to themselves, never bothers anybody. Basically, the same descriptions they use for serial killers. And and I I realized that that is completely unfair. I also realized that I am a stealth introvert. In that, people who meet me immediately assume that I'm this extroverted, human because that's how I present to the world. They also don't see me Rushing home to avoid all human contact when the event is over. So I I technically, if you look at the, you know, the Myers Briggs Spectrum. I'm an extrovert, mostly, kinda, sorta, but huge Introvert battery I mean, the correct psychologist, how do you recharge your batteries? Well, I recharge my batteries by being alone and quiet by myself.

So there you have it.

Thank you for that. And, the serial killer mentioned just just yeah. Okay. So

I'm not saying it's true. I'm saying that the Venn diagram is tighter than we would like it to

Right? Yeah. Exactly. It's like, oh, those those were lone wolves and, yeah, kitchens. It was so quiet. Yeah. Okay. So, I would love 2 for you to share. Wait.

You know, I'm gonna I'm gonna skip all these questions. What's the scariest thing you've ever had to do at work?

Oh, good lord. I don't know. There's a smart aleck answer, and there's a true answer.

I'll take both.

The smart aleck answer is tell my boss I wasn't shaving my beard, and if that's a firing offense, then let me know. The probably true answer in terms of the scariest thing is very early on in my career. This is how early on it was. We had just rolled out email to the organization, like we were trend trending leaders. And our instructors wanted access to laptops so that we could do PowerPoint presentations and answer email when we were on the road. And You would have thought that we were storming the Bastille. And so while doing presentations is the least of My problems. This was probably in many ways the highest stakes presentation

Mhmm.

Emotionally because it was how do you value us as employees? Are we valuable enough that you are willing to invest in us, Or are we, you know, just supposed to constantly make the best of the situation?

Mhmm.

So I think that was probably the scariest.

And I wanna know about the beard thing. Why Was the beard an issue or not an issue?

There is the stated reason and the True reason. The stated reason was that we had been my company had been bought and purchased Bought and purchased and bought and purchased, like, 3 or 4 times in a very short space of time. And when the music stopped, I found myself In this training organization that was extremely Madison Avenue, old white male, suit and tie, And even though I wore a suit and tie, they felt that the beard was Unprofessional and didn't exude the right image. The real reason is I was the sign of everything that had gone wrong during the buyout, and I was being forced upon this group. Matter of fact, my boss Paid to move me from LA to Chicago, and there were about 5 people in Chicago who assumed that that job was theirs. So they were looking for a reason not to like Wayne, which, as you know, is not that hard. I can I can give you the reasons not to like me, chronologically and alphabetically, but That was the situation, and and it seemed like such a silly thing? And It it was a symbol of a lot of other things. Like, making me shave was not the most humiliating thing I was going to endure if we allowed this to continue.

What role was that?

I was a training director. Right. So I was in front of clients all the time, Teaching in the classroom and doing whatever and, you know, Only 3 hippies wore beards.

So from being a training director, however long ago that was, To now, can you tell me a little bit about the progress of your career? Wow. We have time.

You almost have to go back to the beginning of my career.

Okay.

I I got a very late start in being a grown up because straight out of high school, I Spent the better part of 18 years in show business being a stand up comedian, and then I had to Run away from the circus and become a big boy with a wife and a child and get a big boy job. And I lucked into after several false starts doing absolutely horrific soul sucking jobs, I lucked into the training and development industry because when you think about it, I had one Marketable skill, which was I knew how to stand there and talk. As you start going down the list of jobs That involved standing and talking.

Mhmm.

Teaching presentation skills seemed like An idea. And I network slash fell into a position I was completely unqualified for and just treaded water, as I say, through these buyouts. And every time the company was bought and sold and bought and sold, I was being promoted and finding a spot as everybody I knew was being kicked to the curb During these buyouts, I kept rising in the organization, and eventually, I had reached either the as much as I was going to be in that organization or the Peter principle Caught up with me. I'm not entirely sure, but it was time to go out on my own, and then I ran my own consultancy for the better part of 10 years. And then, thankfully, Kevin Eikenberry and Kevin Eikenberry group, he and I had been colleagues and friends for years. We realized there was areas where we should be cooperating, And we did for about a year. We just kind of worked together, and then we worked together so closely that he bought my company. And so now I am working inside the Kevin Eigenberry group.

As

That's a good question. On my business card, it says master trainer and facilitator. But the truth of the matter is I am essentially the Product manager for all things remote. That's kind of my, is remote and virtual. And As we become more hybrid, focusing on remote and hybrid work.

Okay. So How did you manage your energy as a stand up comic?

How did I manage my energy? Same way I do now, which is I work pretty much like a volcano. I'm dormant, and I build up all this kinetic energy, and then it bursts out of me like a crazy person, then I am spent and need to lie dormant for another 100 years. It's interesting, though, even as a stand up, which is a very social, super networky kind of life, I still maintained human being hours, and I was always up before everybody else and usually in bed before everybody else. And and, you know, saved my energy for The stage because that was the job. And then there are things beyond the stage when you're in show business. You have to be nice to club owners, and you have to make sure you're at the gig early, and you have to get along with your coworkers, and you need there's a lot of stuff involved, And and you you need to manage that energy because the problem with stand up comedy is if you're a headliner and you work For an hour a night, that still gives you 23 hours that you need to figure out how to navigate.

Mhmm.

And if you don't manage that, people find all sorts of destructive, nonpositive ways to fill that time.

Yeah. That's that's very true. And so you also mentioned stand up comedy being networky and in your next job that you somehow network your way even through all the buyouts to still be there. What kind of network you know, could you give an example of how you network at that time?

I'll give you the perfect because this is how I got the the 1st big boy job that I got. Through a series of events that I will not go into because they're not that important, I met somebody who said, you know, You should consider, given your skill set and who you are, you should consider going into the training business, and I said, Fair enough. How does one do that? I mean, you know, I was essentially a 34 year old man 35 year old man, with a 18 year old in my resume and no college degree. And so she said there's this organization, and at the time, it was called the American Society For Training and Development. It's now ATD, the Association For Talent Development. Same difference. Same organization, different logo, and they had local chapters, and I made myself go to, one of these meetings just to kind of investigate and see what was going on, and When I got there, I thought I spoke English, and I realized that I had no idea what half these people were talking about. But at the back of the room was this older gentleman who had kind of a smirk on his face, and I found myself sitting next to him and we were commiserating about the fact that these people weren't speaking English, and the short version is he actually owned a training company or at least the local franchise of a training company.

And he and I just kept meeting at these meetings, and I met his wife, and We were very friendly and and we were I was at the local conference Down to literally my last few $100, the wife and I were looking at each other like, what the heck are we gonna do? So I was networking around, and it turns out I ran into Floyd, and he said, oh, you're looking for a job? Come see me next week. And I went to see him next week, and he's in and I assumed it was for a contract trainer Day position kind of thing. And as I'm going through the interview, my foot starts to bounce Because I realized that he's offering me the instructor manager position for which I was wildly unqualified, But desperate times, desperate measures, the correct answer is, of course, I can do that, And that's how I got my 1st management position. That's how I got into the training business. And from there, I just had to do the job and not screw it

up. Alright. That is Good. And then follow-up question. You did that for a while, and then you branched out, you said, to start your own consultancy. Yeah. Two part question. Sorry.

What were the signs that made you think, I should go out on my own? And no. Let's start with that. What was the signs that you should go out on your own?

a lot

of the same skills, but you apply them differently. It's a different set of muscles, And nobody was teaching anybody how to do this. And I was really, really, really trying to get my company on board that this was a wave of the future and was getting the usual, oh, Wayne is on one of his rants again, response. And so I really the second thing was I can read a spreadsheet, and I knew that the company was, not doing exceptionally well, And I was probably doomed. Now funny story. So I'm thinking about this and I'm talking to my wife, And I remember I had just gotten back from a trip overseas, and I was standing in the living room talking to my wife, and I said, you know, there's a a thing here with this virtual work, and maybe I could, get to the point where I step down from a full time position. I continue to teach as needed to pay the bills and start my business, and 20 minutes later, the phone rang and I was fired. So, you know, I'm not a huge believer in signs from the universe, but that was pretty much neon.

Big flashing honking sign. Like, might as well go do this. But, I mean, even still then, you have the option of, Maybe I should do something part time to keep paying the bills and work on my business at the same time. So why didn't you do that?

Well, partly because their policy forbade doing that. If you had been a manager, you weren't allowed to work part time. I think the assumption was You would be a pain in the neck, because you would think you knew everything and people would be afraid to coach you and

Good.

Mhmm. Whatever. So, that was part of the reason. The other reason was I got a very fair, Severance.

Hitch. Yep.

And that allowed me to get set up.

That is. Alright. So now that you've us a little bit about what you've done and how you've grown. Is can you tell me about some, excuse me, misconceptions that people have about your job or industry.

Well, the most obvious one is that, because I'm a trainer, Because I am out there, because I speak for a living, all that good stuff that I am this raging extrovert. And, you know, there is nothing more terrifying to me after a day of being on my feet training or doing a keynote, when they say, a few of us are going to dinner. Oh. Oh, heavens. No. So, you know, that's that's kind of a basic one. I think When you think about the training and development industry, there is an assumption That we are a account The problem with the training business is that it is an accounting problem. I don't think I've ever given you this theory.

If if I install equipment in my factory and I have a conveyor belt and I put that conveyor belt on a maintenance plan

Mhmm.

Every few months, somebody comes in, oils it, checks the trends. I I can write that off. If I want to bring training into my organization, that is a cost. And so when people are figuring out their budgets and, oh, we're not meeting our sales numbers, training is often the very first thing that gets cut. Because we are an expense. We are not an investment. And so the biggest problem with the training and and Coaching business is this notion that people know they need to do it, But it's so easy not to do because it sounds and looks expensive.

Yeah. I I feel that one a lot. I have a lot of people, especially right now, that are very much like, I want to do coaching, but my organization is doing rounds of layoffs in September and January and December, and so I'm gonna wait it out. Or you could do the coaching now and be ahead of the curve so that if you do get Let go that you're already looking for but but yeah.

Well and and people listening to us right now are listening to us whine, about how hard it is to sell our product, which is not the intention but I know that's what it sounds like. It's not the intention of the conversation.

It's not the intention. Wait. So you're not whining. Just just a clarification. You were not

Oh, no.

No. Okay.

I've been in this business long enough. I understand the dynamics. I'm still here.

Right? We made it. So is there anything that you say no to?

Yeah. A bunch of us are going out for dinner after. I try to avoid that as best I can. Is there anything that I say yeah. I've gotten better. The worst thing to me is when people learn about my background, and they say we want a keynote, but we want it to be funny.

Right. And My eyes were pretty far back.

That's a hard stop, For numerous reasons. I mean, first of all, comedy is really hard. The second thing is While you may have figured out that there is plenty of humor and energy in what I do, that's Prime that's secondary to the primary function, which is the message and the information and delivering the skills.

Mhmm.

It's a byproduct. I mean, I happen to think it's a competitive advantage, if people have the choice between being bored or not Or, you know, as I tell people all the time, misery is optional. You can learn things without being Bored and miserable and stressed. Mhmm. But to make humor the primary thing that I do, no. No. No. I no.

Do you say no to doing that, or do you say no to the contract overall because that's the angle that they're coming at it from?

Usually, it's keynotes, and I have done enough bad failed keynotes That I would rather not take the work. I now I will have the conversation. I mean, Whenever I say I don't really think that's a good idea and here's why. Mhmm. Sometimes I can sway them. Sometimes I go, I get that. But sometimes it's just that's not The gig for me. You've got the wrong guy.

I can give you a bunch of peep I know a bunch of comics who specialize in corporate humor. You're welcome to look at them, But not for me.

Okay. Is there something that you do regularly That has improved your career slash business.

Yes. And it's really boring and humdrum and people don't wanna hear it.

Yes. We do.

And this is going to sound like criticism of you, my friend, which it is not.

Maybe we don't wanna hear it.

Exactly.

No. What is it?

I have found that for me, when I start and I've worked from home at least Part time or worked remote from my teams my entire career. I have found That I need to institute a regimen as if I was at work. And by this, I mean, I get up very early. Yes. As you pull the hoodie over your onesie and and disappear into the background, I cannot do that. Mhmm. I do not function well in that environment. I need to get up.

I checked my email for burning fires and emergencies, but then I have breakfast and I watch SportsCenter and then I Shower and put on big boy clothes and make my bed if my wife is not still in it and sit down at my desk, and my day has begun. I send Kevin a quick Message in Slack. Hey. I'm here. How's it going? And my day starts. That is super important for me Because I was, at the beginning, very bad about when does your day start, when does your day end. I was draining my energy unnecessarily. I was never really getting up and focusing As my day never really had a start, I just looked around and went, oh, it's 10 o'clock, and I'm still in my ACTCT shirt and my bunny slippers.

Mhmm.

So developing that routine was really important for me to manage my energy.

There's no way that sounds like a criticism. I totally am on board on having start up and shut down routines or systems because it helps your brain. Your brain's like, Well, you're drinking out of this particular cup of coffee like, cup. This is your I'm at work cup. Everyone works differently and has ways to to set that up. No, I did not take that person.

Okay.

Yeah. No. Fully on board with that. I could Talk to you forever because I really enjoy talking with you, but I can't. So, I have 1 final question before we tell people where to find you. And the question is, Wayne, do you think a hot dog is a sandwich?

Oh, the great philosophical question of our time. The answer is yes. Because. Here is why I say that. The purpose of a sandwich is something between 2 pieces of bread. Number 1 is I can never keep the hot dog bun in 1 piece, which means it ultimately winds up being 2 pieces of bread. The second thing is that because I buy cheap hot dog buns at the supermarket, and they always separate.

Right. Okay.

But the other thing is that as a child, whose family was less than well healed, we frequently had hot dogs on white bread, which same hot dog, same condiments. The guts of a hot dog bun are essentially cheap white bread. So, yes, a hot dog is a sandwich. A hamburger is a sandwich. A taco is not a sandwich.

Because?

Because it does not use bread. It uses a tortilla, and it is a A foldable thing as opposed to mushy it between the 2 thing. This is not something I'm prepared to go to the mattresses is over, but it is my personal take on it.

The last follow-up question on the bread theory thing there is, So what about an ice cream sandwich?

What about an ice cream sandwich? I think if you are eating an ice cream sandwich, the detail like, how much thought you're putting in Into your food, into your body is pretty much wasted. So I I I haven't really given that enough thought to have an opinion.

Wow. Oh, right.

The way, it's taken me 62 years To respond to questions with, I have not given that enough thought to offer an opinion. That is not my default position, just so you know.

It should be. Alright. Well, thank you for that.

Be, but it's as you well know, it has taken me a very long time because I will opine about anything.

Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate you giving your time for me, this well, for me, it's Afternoon. I think for you, it's morning. And please let my audience know where they can find you and your work.

Yeah. Absolutely. As far as our work at the Kevin Eikenberry Group Remote Leadership Institute, find me on LinkedIn, Wayne Turmel, t u r m e l. I am not hard to find. Kevinikenberrygroup.com has our blog, Our courses, the ways that we work, and you can look on Amazon and get not only our books like long distance leader and long distance teammate, but my fiction writing and nonbusiness stuff too. So, those are ways that you can find me.

Thank you so very much, and everyone have a great rest of your week.