Cruise Convos | Dan Cockerell

Claudine Pohl: 00:00:02

What is currently happening in our cruise industry today? Join me for Cruise Convos as we discover and learn from cruise industry leaders across the globe all within 28 minutes. Hello cruise community this is Claudine and you are listening to Cruise Convos. And today we have an very, very epic person. Mr. Dan Cockerell with us today, Dan. Hello, how are you Dan?

Dan Cockerell: 00:00:34

It's been a while I've been seeing you on social media. And you guys are all over the place. It's impressive.

Claudine Pohl: 00:00:39

Thanks so much, Dan. It's amazing to have you here. And Dan, tell everybody who you are. Who are you?

Dan Cockerell: 00:00:47

My name is Dan. So hello. I have spent 26 years with the Walt Disney Company. That's sort of the first big thing I went to Boston University studying political science and love the service industry. So worked in hospitality in college grown up and ended up going to Disney after right after I graduated and took the one job I was qualified for which was parking cars, and the Epcot parking lot. And I did that for about six months, and then had an opportunity to go to Disneyland Paris. This was 1992. And they were opening the park over there on April of 92. So I went back to casting and said, Hey, I'd really like to work there. And they said, Well, you need to have a work visa. I said, Well, I already applied for one. So they let me go over to France and parked cars. So I did domestic parking, I did international parking. And that led to 26 year career with the company. I spent five years in France. My wife Valerie is from France. And so we got married in 93. Our son was born over there, I worked in lots of operations roles. We moved back to the United States in 1997. And I spent a few more years and theme parks, I went to resort hotels for six years. And my first executive role was at the Wilderness Lodge and the fort wilderness campground as a GM, and then made my way back to theme parks. And then in 2009, I got promoted to be the vice president of Epcot. And then I went to Disney's Hollywood Studios for four years and ran that park and I finished my career at Disney as the vice president of Magic Kingdom, and left in 2018. Valerie was in retail, she worked for the Disney Institute, we're a Disney family. And then we spent the past five and a half years running our own consulting company. We speak together, we do leadership workshops, we do a little bit of consulting, and we've been traveling the world, South America has been a big destination for the past five and a half years. And we've taken all our Disney Experience, our framework, our

Dan Cockerell: 00:02:41

leadership, our customer service, and sharing that with companies and industries from from all over the world. That has been our path.

Claudine Pohl: 00:02:50

That's amazing, Dan, you, you so much experienced all different areas of the service industry. And it's beautiful that now you get to do this with Valerie, like you got to experience that time together doing that. And you have a book, and Valerie has a book. Tell us a little bit about that, because I've read your book, and I absolutely love it. It's one of those books that I have highlighted. Yeah, it was my highlighter all over it. So tell us a little bit about your book. And Valerie's book.

Dan Cockerell: 00:03:23

Yeah, well, the book, it's sort of started out as a practical matter. First of all, when you work in the same company for 26 years, you really don't know what you know, you just know how to do things a certain way, and you don't really see it as being special. It's just the way you learned it. It was a great exercise for me when I left Disney to really document okay, what is it I know how to do what is it that Disney does that taught me about how to structure the business, how to think about systems and processes, how to create a leadership environment that people can thrive in. And so it started out with me just listing all the stuff I knew. And I sorted it into topics. And then eventually a friend of mine who's a professor at Rollins that the chromic graduate score, I got my MBA, I sent it to him and I said, Kenan, I got all these topics, but I don't know how to sort them out. And within 24 hours, he sent back to me said, Look, you got three themes here. Lead self lead team lead organization, I put them on the right columns, and I was just amazed. I couldn't see it. I was so close to it. So that was the beginning of the book. It's called how's the culture in your kingdom? And that's where the, you know, the key word, there's culture. And I think that's something I learned working at Disney is how do you build a culture where everyone understands the common purpose, everyone understands they're working together towards a common goal, and how do you convert those beliefs of culture into behaviors? And how do you measure that? And so the book was a big part of it started out as leading yourself. I think that's such an important piece. And the publisher wasn't too keen on that. They said, You know, this sounds was like a self help book, it says it's not like a leadership book with this host lead yourself first. But I realized in my life, whether it was, you know, being an athlete or working, if you don't take care of yourself, you can't do

Dan Cockerell: 00:05:11

anything else, well, you can't be a good parent, a good spouse, a good boss, a good employee. And it starts with that physically, mentally, spiritually, being organized, doing everything, you can just put yourself in the best position to be successful. And then leading a team, and then leading an organization. And the last section of the book is leading change. And so I just, I told lots of stories, you know, I'm not the first one to write a book about leadership and management. And so I include a lot of stories and try to make it very practical, not this philosophical, but here's like, here are the steps, here's what you need to do. Here's what you can do on Monday to start executing upon these things. So that was my book and vowed I like to call it a I guess, a really fancy business card, because we don't have a book people, they all right, good job, you know, you know, your thing, you write a book all sudden, you become an expert. So I don't know if that's warranted. But it seems like people are really impressed with books. So that was it. And then, yeah, Valerie, she's been thinking for a while. And she's got probably five concepts, different books she wants to write, but she chose the path of a mother being a mother, and how mothers are such great leaders, how they just naturally have to figure things out as they raise their children. And so she's not implying that employees are children. But she's saying a lot of what you do as a mother to raise your children can apply to a leadership role. And so her book, managed like a mother, leadership lessons drawn from the wisdom of mom just came out in October of 2024. And she draws a parallel between what mothers do and what managers can learn from mothers to be great leaders. And it's not just for mothers. And it's not just for women, something we all have in common. We either have a mother or we have a maternal figure in our life, who has been a role model example for us. And sometimes

Dan Cockerell: 00:06:55

that's good. And sometimes that's bad, but it's an example. And so she took a lot of those lessons that she learned over time, and how mothers are great leaders and men and women alike can learn from their lessons that are approached to life to be better leaders and create better results in the workplace.

Claudine Pohl: 00:07:11

Wow. I want to get that book. So if I want to buy that book, where do I go?

Dan Cockerell: 00:07:16

Anywhere books are sold. Amazon Barnes and Noble. Just go online and manage like a mother and it'll pop up Valerie cockerel. And it's, it's, it's it's really a great book. And we haven't seen you know, you have to wait a couple months before you see the sales. The publishing industry is not kind of a lag on that. But I have a feeling she's gonna blow my book out of the water, which I'm very happy about. We're competitive, but I'm cheering for.

Claudine Pohl: 00:07:42

You guys are like best example of epic. Good couple. I love it. I love how you guys really like team. You guys work together. Really your guys are a real good example of what teamwork is. It's beautiful.

Dan Cockerell: 00:07:57

Well,we've learned a lot to do that. But I'll tell you, we've had our moments, I didn't realize how hard it would be to work with a spouse in a business because we we've been married for 30 years. But we never, you know, worked closely together. And that has been quite a journey for us. To figure that out. We have very different ways we think of it. And it's been a, it was hard. And it continues to be hard at times. But we really learn to respect each other professionally now. And it was a surprising moment. For me. I didn't expect that. But it's been a it's been great. And it's really made us understand each other better and kind of different points of view.

Claudine Pohl: 00:08:29

I love it. Thanks for sharing that, Dan. Let's it I hear that there's some epic announcements, you want to tell us a little bit of something we might not know.

Dan Cockerell: 00:08:39

I'll tell you. I'll share this because it's it is exciting. You know, as you get older, you start to see your life and chapters. Right. There's these chapters, there's a chapter of before I met my spouse, and then when I'm asked my spouse, we were married without kids. And then we had kids and then we had this Disney adventure together. And then we had this cockerel consulting adventure together past five and a half years. And you know, Valerie and I have been chatting, we're always thinking about what's next. What's the next thing even if we're not ready to go do something we like to step back and have these conversations and there's they're, they're scary conversations to have. Because when you say things out loud, they become real and they become intimidating. But we were saying what's the next step? And she said, Well, look, this travel is great, but it's wearing me out. And I want a more routine. And you know, stepping into and giving speeches, and you know this showing up and doing your thing. It is very fulfilling. But having worked at Disney for so long. It's fun to put a plan together and see the plan through. And so she was like, I'd like to slow down on the travel a little bit and get more of a routine and some friends to socialize with. And I said well, you know what, after 26 years at Disney and five and a half years consulting and meeting these incredible companies, incredible leaders from all over the world. I've learned a ton about business. You know, Disney doesn't train you to work anyplace else but Disney and so getting that real world experience has been very helpful. And so This is one of the lessons I want to teach everybody. Because if you have an idea or you want to make a change in your life, you can think about it all day long. But if you don't share it, and you don't do something about it, nothing ever happens, you just turn. And so I wrote a note down i It's funny, I just, I was going through my notes today in my

Dan Cockerell: 00:10:18

Notability. It said, Call and it said, there's four names on there to call and check in with, let them know that I was considering maybe going back to work. And if they heard about anything, I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I wanted to lead a team. Well, the third call I made was to a gentleman whose name is Carl McDonnell. He's the CEO of strategic education, which is a for profit company university in the United States. They own Strayer University and Capella learning in Minneapolis. And so we had a conversation I said, Hey, Carl, you know, I'm thinking about doing something differently. And if you hear about anything, let me know. And he said, well, then it's funny you call, so I might have a job for you. And so we chat a little bit more. And so next, in two weeks, I'll be headed down to Sydney, Australia to run Torrens University. It's to university that's in four cities in Australia, Brisbane, Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne. They have nursing programs, they have a fashion design school. They have a hotel and hospitality school, and they have a Media Design School in Auckland, New Zealand. And so I will be the CEO and President of Torrens University, and somehow start this next chapter of my life with Valerie.

Claudine Pohl: 00:11:36

Oh, that's incredible. Dan. Wow, congratulations. Wow, that thank you.

Dan Cockerell: 00:11:43

That is epic. Yeah, it's exciting. We're excited to move to a really great city in a really cool country. 50% of students are international from mostly all over Southeast Asia. And it's very mission driven, you know, you're helping these students who are saving their money to try to get to a new country and get an education to improve their station in life. And so it's got a lot of parallels for me to Disney or doing something really great for people. And we're excited about that. And I just have a ton to learn. And so I've been spending the holiday period, just reading and taking notes and really thinking about where do I spend my time? And how do I approach this? You know, a lot of people say, Well, what's that have to do with Disney? What's that have to do with consulting, and it's just totally different. But I really learned is, it's not that different. It's a different environment. There's regulatory pieces in the education world, there's things that are certainly different. But in the day, you're dealing with people, you're delivering value, you're trying to differentiate what you do, and be chosen as a place that people want to be. And you have to create a culture for your faculty and your staff, that they are motivated to deliver a great experience. And for me, that's, you know, you talk about Disney, you talk about health care, you talk about university education, those are all the same. And so I'm excited to be very curious and ask lots of questions and make my way through this new this new chapter.

Claudine Pohl: 00:13:04

Congratulations, Dan. And you know what, from knowing you and from just doing a little bit of work with you, I know the type of leader that you are, and all those students are gonna be learning so much from just watching you. If I can say anything about your leadership style is, you'll always make time for everyone. And you will make everyone heard. And I think those are qualities that are going to help you, you know, just shine even brighter in your new role. Congratulations.

Dan Cockerell: 00:13:32

Thank you so much. Very. Thanks.

Claudine Pohl: 00:13:35

Very, very epic. Now, tell us your When are you moving? When's the big move?

Dan Cockerell: 00:13:40

Well, I started December 1, so I'm actually working there. I'll get down January 12. And I'll be there for a couple weeks, a couple weeks in February, and then we'll move down there in earnest in early March, and get relocated and settled in.

Claudine Pohl: 00:13:55

Wow. That's incredible. Incredible. Incredible.

Unknown: 00:13:59

There's a lot of cruise lines coming in and out of Sydney Harbour when I was down there a few weeks ago. Every morning was a new cruise line. So this kind of connects really well.

Claudine Pohl: 00:14:07

Listen, Virgin voyages is down there. You're gonna see Richard Branson.

Dan Cockerell: 00:14:11

I saw their ship come into port one day, I saw a Disney ship come into port. I saw a Royal Caribbean come in. So there's, there's their death in that business. And the funny thing is, I talked to someone about it. I said, the irony is all their ships have great cruises there. And it's a cruise to nowhere, because nothing's near Australia. So you can go to other places in Australia. And I don't know if they make it to New Zealand or not, but it's a really beautiful place to to cruise out of

Claudine Pohl: 00:14:39

Awesome. Then you're gonna have to see maybe you can get some cruise tourism courses in your university. That would be epic!

Dan Cockerell: 00:14:48

This is a great idea. We'll talk some more.

Claudine Pohl: 00:14:53

I love it. I love it. Well, congrats on all that. Dan, tell me a story about leadership you've exceeded You're in so much and all the years. And I imagine like, you were just in Brazil doing a project for like over four years, right. And that's a different culture. I don't know, like, you must have stories from your entire life, tell us a really good leadership story, something that you witnessed or where you lead as a good leader, you have stories, and you're a great storyteller?

Dan Cockerell: 00:15:22

Well, I'll tell you the thing that this move now to a CEO role, I've been doing a lot of thinking, and I realized as you move on in life, and you move up, and more responsibility, it's not about what you do. It's about how you think about things. That's so important. And so I'm really trying to place myself there. And I don't say this comes back to what I was doing at the Magic Kingdom, this comes back to what I was doing, as a consultant, Valerie and I are now in this new role. Leadership. For me, it's not about me, it's not about the leader, it's about everything the leader enables to happen. And I remember having a conversation with someone when I was at the all star hotel, and you know, all star that was my second executive job, I was a general manager there. And the all star hotels got almost 6000 rooms. So it's a big hotel. And what you realize quickly is, even if you're the GM in charge the hotel, you are just a piece of the machine there, because what you do is important, but what the housekeepers do is 50 times more important. And we had situations where you know, a housekeeper cleans the room, maybe they don't vacuum the room, exactly as they should have the 18 rooms, they have to clean, they miss a pill under a bed, which you know, that's unacceptable, but it's not out of the it's not possible to happen. And then next family checks in and the little kid is crawling the baby's on the floor and sees this pill, and what do babies do, they eat things. And now we're calling 911. Because we don't know what they ate, we're pumping their stomach and everything was fine. But it made me really realize real quickly, as a leader, every single person on your team is just as important as everybody else. And I think people lose track of that. Because they have different titles, they make more money, maybe they have a nicer car, they have a bigger house, they have an office, they get to wear professional attire, versus maybe a

Dan Cockerell: 00:17:16

uniform. But the more and more I've gone through my life, it's really come to a point where I see that everyone has a different role to play. But everyone is exactly as important as everyone else. So when I was the Magic Kingdom, you know, when you have 12,000 employees, no guests know who I am. They don't care. I was the vice president there. All's I know is when I pulled up to the auto Plaza. Was that person nice to me, they welcomed me they give me directions. When I ate in the restaurant, did I get my food quickly? Was the food safe? If I had an allergy to the handle that the right way. So as the leader, just the big picture here, and I reminded the team at Torrens university when they announced the change. And no, everyone gets nervous, well, who's the new guy? And oh, my gosh, what's going to happen? I said, Look, I just want to be clear with you. I know, there's gonna be lots of questions when there's a new leadership coming in. There's all kinds of distractions. But you all have to remember the students don't care about this, they don't care we're moving and having a new leader come in. All they know is they saved a lot of money to come to this to try to get an education to improve their station in life. And we have to keep focusing on that. And so that's been over and over and over again, I'm seeing this example that leadership is not about you. It's about the environment you create and the results that you create, because of your environment, the way you treat people, the way you set expectations. And if more leaders can focus outwardly, I think the world would be a much better place and they get much better results.

Claudine Pohl: 00:18:39

Amazing. Dan. Incredible. I love learning from you. You're so good, congrats, epic stuff happening in your life right now. Right, new changes. And it's wonderful to see. Dan, I'm gonna ask your very last question. This is just a question we ask every single guest that we have on Cruise Convos. If you look back at your younger self, what piece of advice would you give yourself?

Dan Cockerell: 00:19:05

Yeah, so something else I'm getting better at as I'm getting older. And here's the irony of that. I've done lots of really fun jobs, less responsibilities. But I've been through this in my life. And I've seen people do this is Don't compare yourself to others. Don't use others, whether it's on social media or friends or family. Do not let others be your benchmark of what your success in life is going to be. And we all do it at one point or another. And I've done it before I go online and I'm looking even when I was a consultant Hey, we're speaking we're doing but oh man, this person got this speech. I wish we could do that. Why can't we do that better and it's it's very unhealthy. I don't think it's unhealthy to have goals. And as long as you know what you want to do and what your successes define your own success and Don't let others define your success. And don't, don't be caught in that trap. Because you'll never be happy and you'll never get there. And it's a it's a big problem today, I think, especially with social media, we tried to look online and look at everyone else. And we only see their little curated perfect moments. And we don't see everything outside that envelope. And I don't care who you are, no matter how great you look online, everyone's got problems. Everyone's got worries, and money doesn't fix that, and nothing fixes that. So I think we have unreasonable expectations of what we're supposed to be in life. And I think you need to give yourself a break and just realize, okay, what what is it that makes me happy? What is my success going to look like? And if you can use that benchmark, I think you'll have a lot more peace in your life, and be a lot happier.

Claudine Pohl: 00:20:46

Excellent advice, Dan. I appreciate it. And I think you're spot on on the social media, we just see those little clips of this is a moment, you know what I mean? I can even tell you, I don't know how many times I've had taken a picture just to say, Okay, I need this picture for social media. You know what I mean? Like taking it to that level, where in reality, people don't see what's going on, you know, behind the scenes, how tired you may be, or you're just going from plane to plane and going through the motions. And Oh, snap a good moment here right. Now. I think you gave great advice. Thank you.

Dan Cockerell: 00:21:25

Yeah. And it's human nature. We always want to put our best self out there. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. But we have to know that that's not the full picture and don't hold ourselves accountable to that level that will never attend. Hmm.

Claudine Pohl: 00:21:37

Excellent. Excellent. Then you have a podcast, right? Tell us a little bit about the podcast. And you know, if anybody wants to reach out, I know you're going to be busy now with a full time CEO role. But if anybody wants to maybe some of your content or some of your great books and so forth, where can we go?

Dan Cockerell: 00:21:59

Yeah, so Valerie is going to be on point for Cockrellconsulting.com. She's going to continue to speak, she's going to continue to do leadership training. She's connecting with other friends of hers, and she'll continue to do some work in Brazil. She'll do some work in Southeast Asia, and continue to be on that. And you can go to cockrellconsulting.com. To find us. Ironically, today, I just wrapped up my last episode of Come Rain or Shine. So if anyone out there listened to it today, they found out without warning, this is the last show which wraps up the year. And we did you know Jody Mayberry, and I did, I want to say 285 episodes, I think so we had a good run. And it's going to still be posted as there's not many new episodes for a while. But it'll all be there. And it's called Come Rain or Shine. And if you're interested in listening to that you can go back from the past five years. We did it every single week. And I had some incredible guests on Jodi and I had some great conversations about what I was learning along the way as I learned to be an entrepreneur, and so my experiences from My Disney Experience. And so you can go check that out. Valerie has managed like a mother, which is a podcast she started and she has 10 episodes so far. And she's still trying to determine what the frequency will be. But I think she's gonna stay on top of that and share, interview some leaders and share some clips from her book. And so you can find that on wherever you listen to your podcasts manage like a mother and come rain or shine.

Claudine Pohl: 00:23:27

Epic. Great. Thanks so much, Dan. Thanks for being part of Cruise Convos today. And congratulations and what an honor for you to share your great news with us.

Dan Cockerell: 00:23:38

You were the first to hear it. So thanks for being here. And everyone out there. Thanks for what you're doing. Claudine. I think you bring a lot of energy and pep and enthusiasm, which is you know, that's such an important piece and life today is get people excited about things and that's what you're really good at doing that. So best of luck to everyone out there.

Claudine Pohl: 00:23:57

Thanks so much, Dan. Take care. Bye!