It's All or Nothing with Morgan Anderson, Multi-Passionate

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[00:00:09] Sara Kobilka: Mm.

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(sung) Connecting the Dots with The Renaissance People

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Back in episode one, I talked about a pivotal program that I was involved with when I was in high school. It was called Youth in Government. And today's guest was one of my best friends from that program. We haven't talked in quite a long time, so we had some catching up to do.

Morgan Anderson's career has taken him across the country and through multiple industries, which I will not tell you ahead of time, because personally, I think there's such great joy in being surprised and pulling back the layers of a story.

Here's what I'll tell you, though. In this episode, we talked, of course, about Youth in Government and why it was so impactful for us. We discussed the Renaissance all-or-nothing mentality and how Morgan has employed it repeatedly in his multifaceted career.

Morgan brought up the unifying feature of caring about people and supporting them that he thinks Renaissance People share. And we talked about selling confidence as compared to the many other things Morgan has sold.

And I'll share one little tidbit that we discussed after I stopped recording. I am a huge fan of "Top Chef," and Morgan was actually once in the running to be on the show. Now, shows like that have their archetypical characters that they cast for. However, they had unfortunately already filled the role of prodigal chef/kitchen villain for the season that Morgan was gonna be on. So, the opportunity passed by. And when it could have maybe come around again in the future, eh, he'd already moved on from cooking.

Intrigued yet? Here we go.

OK, we are set. And Morgan, I am thrilled to have you here and as I always do, no dancing around things, we're jumping right into it. Let's start with the very first question I ask everyone. And I'm particularly intrigued to hear your answer since you and I haven't chatted in a very, very long time.

So I'm just going off a hunch as to what your answer will be and I'll see if I'm right. So what term aligns best with your own identity? Renaissance Person, multi-passionate, generalist, versatilist, Jack, Jill, Jay-of-all-trades, boundary spanner or, or some other sort of term that encapsulates you in all of your complexity?

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[00:02:53] Sara Kobilka: That was the one that immediately came to mind, for me. But I love that you're also multi-passionate, and that doesn't completely surprise me given that I know you have had quite the fun and interesting life.

So let's kind of rewind things a little bit. I wanna explain a little bit just first of how you and I know each other. So we met through something that I've mentioned a couple of times on the podcast before. When we were in high school in Minnesota, we were both part of a program called Youth in Government. It was a statewide program and it was an opportunity for high school students to do a mock state government basically.

And we also had the additional part, which I was part of, the media, which we think of sometimes, at least in journalism school, we talked about that as being like the fourth branch of the government telling truth to power, which they are not always doing it all the time, but should be ideally.

And you and I were both involved with the state steering committee. And one thing that I really loved about what they did with that program is that. I work with a lot of people who work in these out of school settings and serving youth. And they talk about giving youth power and voice and choice and all these terms they throw about. But they don't always do it. The adults kind of still hold that stranglehold on, well, we're gonna make the final decisions about everything.

But I think they really did actually let this group of 15 to 18 run things and make really big decisions. And we were both involved with that leadership role for two years.

What I'm interested in knowing, I was part of a team actually not from my high school, it was from Camp Ihduhapi, a camp run by the YMCA. You were part of your high school's team in Brainerd, right?

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[00:04:34] Sara Kobilka: OK. How did you find out about Youth in Government and what got you interested in being involved with something like that?

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[00:04:43] Sara Kobilka: Just a few.

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[00:04:44] Sara Kobilka: Testing your memory!

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[00:05:02] Sara Kobilka: It was, OK.

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But yeah, it was a great program. And I think the other thing that connected you and I, especially later in the Youth in Government program is, I can't attest to this now, but when I graduated high school, I had the maximum amount of allowable television productions credits you could have. So my sophomore, junior and senior year, we did advanced television productions, television productions, independent studies and, you know, filming and broadcasting all the local high school games and all that stuff.

But I wanna jump back 'cause I think what you brought up, which I didn't even realize till now, is with Youth in Government, they really did let the kids steer the ship. And, being a 40 plus year old now, I, I wouldn't have been able to sleep for that week leading up to, and during that program.

But yeah, we lived and died by our own decisions and that was one of the reasons why it was so great and powerful.

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And so I was like, well, like, don't label me. I wanna just be who I am. And I got around all these people in Youth in Government and I could make myself who I wanted to be. And it was so cool to be passionate. And it was so cool to like dig into the details and have thoughtful, deep discussions on topics. And I just felt really embraced and that I could be more of my like multi-passionate self amongst those people in Youth in Government because they weren't all people who were just obsessed with government or just obsessed with like learning how a TV station worked.

They were really just like a lot of Renaissance kids pulled together in one space.

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[00:07:29] Sara Kobilka: Yeah.

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[00:08:07] Sara Kobilka: Yes.

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[00:08:40] Sara Kobilka: What always impressed me about you and your group of people, who, I don't know if I was the only one who called you all this, but I referred to you as the Brainerd boys. And what impressed me so much, for people who are not familiar with Minnesota, most of the planning happened in the Minneapolis area. And then the actual event happened, in Minneapolis and St. Paul. And so for me, as somebody who lived 20 minutes away from Minneapolis, to drive in for a meeting or maybe on the opposite side of Minneapolis, it was a 30 minute drive, but it's 30 minutes. OK, I can do that after school or on a Saturday for the state steering committee, which met over the course of the entire year leading up to it to plan that. You had to drive, was it three hours to get there each way?

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[00:09:26] Sara Kobilka: Little less than three.

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[00:09:28] Sara Kobilka: that's a lot of commitment for like a high school kid to like give up that much time. Was it surprising or are you used to it?

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The biggest problem in high school years for a lot of people is affording a car and gas money. You know, and that wasn't a problem for me. So there was a group of us, John and Karl, I think were the other two main gents, But yeah, we just piled into someone's car and filled it with gas and drove south. And it gave us an excuse to hang out. So, I mean, those are my friends too during those years, still are. So,

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[00:10:27] Morgan Anderson: But yeah, it definitely was a commitment. But I really wish there was a better way for me to express it and you're doing a heck of a job of that. But just that anything you can do to extend that, you know, one week timeframe, anything you can do to hang out with those people, be with those people, have an impact. Share thoughts and ideas, like anything you can do to extend that week, it was worth it.

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[00:11:10] Morgan Anderson: Yep!

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[00:11:28] Morgan Anderson: Oh, absolutely. I've always stuck up for the little guy, little gal, the quote unquote, you know, to use that clique term, not so cool people,

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[00:11:38] Morgan Anderson: Because, there's a heck of a lot more what I would consider normal people than affluent people out there.

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[00:11:45] Morgan Anderson: And I ran my governor campaign for Youth in Government the same way Jesse Ventura did.

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[00:11:52] Morgan Anderson: the way he did it is he ran as an independent and the Democratic candidate and the Republican candidate would squabble at debates and he would just poke fun at 'em.

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[00:12:07] Morgan Anderson: oh,

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[00:12:11] Morgan Anderson: He would just crack jokes and, in the middle of a debate, it would become like a one-minute comedy show.

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[00:12:18] Morgan Anderson: just be like, look at these two jokers arguing about something that doesn't matter. He probably did say something like that. And then, oh, and by the way, I'm gonna legalize fireworks so we can have fun on the 4th of July, you know, and

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[00:12:29] Morgan Anderson: He didn't get caught up in the political muck. And that was just kind of my thing is, is it's just like, why does everyone have to be so serious about this? Let's make sure, what was my slogan? Have fun, get things done. Man! I haven't said that in about 30 years.

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[00:13:05] Morgan Anderson: Oh, that describes me to a T. You nailed me there. Because if I get into something, it's all or nothing.

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[00:13:11] Morgan Anderson: I mean, it doesn't matter if it's a government program, my work now, my work in the past, my hobbies

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[00:13:18] Morgan Anderson: There's no other way to say it. I don't half ass anything. If I'm gonna be training my dog, it is intense. Books will show up from Amazon. And treats will be researched. And I will morph my own training program from, you know, reading 36 different books. And no, it just, it is, it's bearing down and getting it done, but then playing hard too.

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[00:13:43] Morgan Anderson: And that's just kind of how I do everything.

We talked about before we recorded surfing in San Diego. I went from never having surfed in my life to surfing five days a week overnight.

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[00:13:54] Morgan Anderson: it was just like, I was terrible, but I was gonna figure

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[00:13:58] Morgan Anderson: it out.

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[00:13:59] Morgan Anderson: I was gonna figure it out. So

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[00:14:02] Morgan Anderson: I dive into everything.

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[00:14:07] Morgan Anderson: Ah! So this is gonna go off on a tangent.

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[00:14:12] Morgan Anderson: I know you're a fan of tangents.

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[00:14:14] Morgan Anderson: it.

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[00:14:16] Morgan Anderson: No, so, so basically to be valedictorian at my high school, I don't know what the standards are now. But you had to have above a 4.0 GPA. And that comes from advanced placement classes. And rather than do the AP class route, I took one AP class my junior year of high school. And I slept through the class three to four days a week because it was spring semester and I was bartending. I'd get home from work at 1:00 AM 2:00 AM and AP Government was one of my first classes of the day or something. But

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[00:14:58] Morgan Anderson: Yeah. I didn't do the AP route. Actually my senior year I went post-secondary. So I went to high school first thing in the morning and did two or three credit hours of television productions. And then I drove down the road to the local community college and was getting credit stacked up for my associate in arts, my two year degree. And part of that was I got really fed up with the high school scene.

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[00:15:24] Morgan Anderson: And it was very cliquey.

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[00:15:26] Morgan Anderson: I have no clue who's gonna listen to this, but if anyone's ever seen the movie Varsity Blues, the football movie, that's kind of like my hometown back in the day.

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[00:15:38] Morgan Anderson: And the last year I played football, I was a captain my sophomore year. And I just got fed up with it. I quit. I went from being a captain to not playing. And coincidentally junior year, that summer before is when I started a punk band.

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[00:15:53] Morgan Anderson: So yeah, you know, that's what you do in high school and kind of got counterculture and all that. But one thing my mother recognizes, my mother's a retired teacher, and she finally said, listen, if you are not at least an honor, graduate with distinction, I'm done with you.

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[00:16:13] Morgan Anderson: And she said exactly what she needed to say.

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[00:16:16] Morgan Anderson: So, I can tell you to this day, I could have carried it a lot more.

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[00:16:20] Morgan Anderson: But no, I was nowhere near valedictorian. And to be perfectly honest, if my mother hadn't done that, I would've graduated. But I had bigger and better things on the horizons. I was not a valedictorian, but I did

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[00:16:35] Morgan Anderson: Yeah, I try. Well, that has yet to be determined.

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[00:16:53] Morgan Anderson: Oh, man. culinary. I did go to culinary school and actually the day I graduated from that school, I started teaching for them. It was a passion. And when all the other students were drinking beer and being students, I was, you know, nose deep in Escaffier's French literature on how to perfectly cook squab or something ridiculous like that. My biggest idol at that time, if anyone knows, was Alton Brown.

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[00:17:24] Morgan Anderson: He was actually the commencement speaker at my graduation. He graduated from the same culinary school I did.

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[00:17:35] Morgan Anderson: Oh!

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So he has one and there are sock puppets that are literally just socks with mouths. And what it's explaining is something that actually I did with my daughters on Easter. I decided that we'd make some rolls.

And so I bought a packet of yeast. And so it's explaining how yeast works. And what happens with yeast is that they release a gas. And when a kid thinks about releasing gas, there's two things they think of farting and burping.

And so these sock puppets are burping to show how the eating, and then the releasing of gas is how yeast works. Which is something that's involved in multiple food products. And something that I actually learned a lot about in a class that you would've loved. I don't know if you had any friends who went to UW Madison, but there was a class at UW Madison in the botany department called Plants and Man. And it was basically botany for non-science majors. And Tim Allen, not Tim, the tool man Taylor, but a different British large over the top man was our instructor.

He said screw you to anybody who was trying to tell him how to teach a class and did it his way. And oh my goodness. You would've been in heaven in his class. And he had us learning about yeast and its many uses because we learned about humans' relationship with plants over the course of human evolution. And how did farming start? How did fire start and what did fire give us in terms of making food.

And when we had our lab section for the class, there was just a room that was open up that had a kitchen in it. And so one week we had the option of baking something. And I went to labs three times that week ' cause it was open for like five hours every single day. And I was like, I'll make brownies today and then I'm gonna make cookies the next day. And it was such a fun and interesting way to learn about it.

And then our big final project, you could do whatever you wanted, including brewing beer, including baking, making a website, whatever. I did a website on the Hohokam tribe and how climate change caused them to collapse. But other people brewed beer, and that was their like, final project. And then there was a very interdisciplinary, class that appealed to me as a Renaissance Person. And he played hard and we learned so, so much in it.

So there's my tangent that we're going off on, but I think

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[00:20:09] Sara Kobilka: As a chef, you would've loved and, and just your personality, you would've loved him and what he does. And I'll throw more about him into the show notes. I've mentioned him before in previous episodes.

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[00:20:34] Sara Kobilka: Just like all the wild animals that take advantage. Drunk squirrels, that sort of thing.

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[00:20:42] Sara Kobilka: Uhhuh.

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But no, I did that for years. I bounced all over the country, Nashville, Tennessee, back to Vermont where I went to school. And then that's what took me out to San Diego and the short version is I went from back of house. I mean, you name it, I did it.

I got really into ice carving like chainsaw and thousand pound blocks of ice.

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[00:21:14] Morgan Anderson: It's funny ' cause you mentioned that I grew up deer hunting

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[00:21:19] Morgan Anderson: We had butcher shop that was one of our classes. It was a second year class and they brought in this, they call it a saddle of venison.

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[00:21:28] Morgan Anderson: and I watched this chef. Chef Jacques, that was Chef  Jacques!

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[00:21:33] Morgan Anderson: He told me

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[00:21:34] Morgan Anderson: Morgan, you need to put muffler on your mouth. It's the first thing, first thing he said to me first day of his class. Yeah, he knew me all too well.

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[00:21:43] Morgan Anderson: But I watched in horror, John the Flores, he broke down this thing of venison and he left to have lunch. And my whole block, the whole block students turned and looked at me and said, OK, how do we do this and not waste it? And I taught my block mates from having grown up in the North Woods,

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[00:22:00] Morgan Anderson: How to break down a side of venison. So you're absolutely right.

But fast forward a few years to chainsaw carving, you know, those fancy charcuterie boards and all that stuff. I was employed by a large casino in San Diego County for some years.

And then I kind of shifted. I really lost my passion for food.

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[00:22:23] Morgan Anderson: I mean, oh, we could have a separate podcast just on that. I mean, I, I'm an open book. I'm a type one insulin dependent diabetic,

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[00:22:33] Morgan Anderson: have been for over 40 years. And so I have a different relationship with food than a lot of people do. I'm on an insulin pump now and have a continuous glucose monitoring system so I know what my blood sugar is at the drop of a hat.

And that wasn't always the case. Through culinary school, through all that, I used to check my blood sometimes a dozen times a day. All my block mates, you know, they'd come around the corner and I'd be at my workstation with an insulin pen giving myself a shot through my chef whites. So I just had that different relationship.

But one of the worst things, for me growing up, up until I basically got on an insulin pump was having to eat when you aren't hungry,

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[00:23:16] Morgan Anderson: or not being able to eat when you are hungry. So if your blood sugar's high and your insulin hasn't kicked in yet, it's not a good idea to eat lunch or whatever. And to give you the super short version. I started feeling like that working in food again.

I got into it for the people, the connection with teams, the connection with the customer. Nourishing someone. Like in my mind at that time, what is more noble than giving someone the fuel they need to do whatever it is they want to do.

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[00:23:52] Morgan Anderson: Yep. That was the reason. And I tell everyone this. I had my passion for food beat out of me and it was my own fault.

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[00:24:02] Morgan Anderson: Not so much like it used to be there. But, I have an absolutely amazing time cooking and teaching my wife how to cook.

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[00:24:12] Morgan Anderson: Like when I was a culinary instructor, I loved being a culinary instructor, but I wanna teach the rock stars. I wanna teach the PhD students that want to be there. I lasted like three months as an instructor and I went to the campus executive chef and said, this isn't for me. There's one position open that isn't an in instructor position. Consider me your only candidate or consider this my two week notice.

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[00:24:42] Morgan Anderson: Because for every one student that gave a hoot, there were eight just didn't.

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[00:24:48] Morgan Anderson: There's nothing worse than pouring your passion and hopes and dreams and aspirations into someone that doesn't care. And I started seeing a lot of that. But I got out of the back of the house and started managing Chipotle Mexican Grill. I was a general manager and a new store opening manager. I helped open I think three or four locations in San Diego County.

And I learned a lot there. And that's where I really, we'll probably touch on this later, but this is where I learned to like, give a crap about people. Gordon Ramsey didn't have shit on me. Like that's my joke when I was a chef. I was a tyrant. And I didn't care about anyone but myself. I was the most selfish person. And I think that had a lot to do with me losing my passion for food. 'cause it's not about the food, it's about the people. Well, it just took me a couple decades to figure that out.

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[00:25:58] Morgan Anderson: Oh, it was superiority complex. I did not lack confidence. In fact, I was way overconfident. I was the head chef of a kitchen at like the rip old age of 23. And I mean, that's a career goal for a lot of people.

The first tinge that I can trace back to learning it's about the people, is a phone call came into my kitchen in Vermont. And five minutes later my whole wait staff was weeping. It was an all female wait staff and all of their husbands were members of the Vermont National Guard. And that was the phone call that went out that their husbands and boyfriends all got deployed to, I don't remember where, if it was Yemen or Afghanistan or wherever we were in the Middle East, in the military.

And looking back on it, I am like, this is bigger than just food, you know? And I talk about being a tyrant, like one of those servers I made cry the week before just from being an a-hole, calling her out and belittling her. And when I got into corporate America with Chipotle, cause they were publicly traded at that time, I was surrounded by Spanish first speakers. They were all English as a second language. And here I am, you know, a junior high high school in Minnesota. Why would I need to take a foreign language like this is just stupid. and in fact, I dropped my Spanish course my junior year.

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[00:27:34] Morgan Anderson: and here I am living in Southern California. And I made a rule to my team and I said, you only speak English to me and I only speak Spanish to you. And I got fluent and that was like seeing the other side of it because I wasn't just around highly motivated culinarians. These are mothers and fathers who are putting their kids through school.

So worked for Chipotle for a while and kind of got bored with it. And had an opportunity to work for a family-owned business. They own a chain of pizza restaurants. And I went from mothers and fathers to, I think I had 40 some people on staff and 90% of them were college students. Like that was our demographic. A lot of part-time employees, students, things like that. And I butted heads with one of the owners

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[00:28:25] Morgan Anderson: I was the hometown restaurant. So we opened the restaurant from the ground up. But that superiority came out and someone didn't like it. And I'll be the first one to own it. I was probably in the wrong.

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[00:28:38] Morgan Anderson: But yeah, I actually passed the law enforcement exam and was almost a cop in Southern California. And I stepped back. And the long, and the short of it is, is it's just like I, it's not that I don't like my career, it's that I don't like where I'm at. And Southern California has its own attitude. If any of you have seen Anchorman, the greatest city,

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[00:29:06] Morgan Anderson: Locals to San Diego. I mean, they're born and bred thinking that. And it's an interesting community.

But I noticed myself taking on some attitudes I didn't really like, so I packed up my Chevy truck and moved to Atlanta and started working still in food, but at an ice cream manufacturer. And it was a connection through one of my biggest mentors in food. He became the executive chef of the school. He's what brought me to San Diego. I worked for him at the casino, and then he moved outta California, started up this ice cream business outside of Atlanta, Georgia, and guess who ended up in Atlanta, Georgia.

But that's where I really started learning a lot about myself, coming from what I told my boss in one of our meetings this year. I am recovering from being micromanaged to the nth degree. At the culinary school a little bit, but really at Chipotle, at the pizza joint. I couldn't jump without asking, so

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[00:30:30] Morgan Anderson: Again, you just hit it right on the head is that's why I left those positions without even knowing it. And I didn't realize it till I was working in Atlanta. High Road Craft ice cream Alton Brown says it's the best ice cream in the country. And I ate a lot of ice cream as a diabetic and my

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We made sorbet.

Excellent!

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But no, there I went from highly structured having to ask how high to jump to, here's what you need to do, go do it. And I had no clue what I was doing.

And that's where the Renaissance Person in me was first realized. Because you'd be working on a project for weeks and on a Monday morning, the CEO looks at me and says, oh, we're not doing that anymore, and you have to do a 180 and start over.

And it's just like, oh my gosh! You know? So I went from leading a very structured, professional life in culinary and in management, and all of a sudden I'm in this nebulous area where you've gotta orchestrate amongst chaos.

And man, did I struggle. So I worked for the company for like six or seven months and I quit. And got wooed back in, and I went from operations to sales and I did learn a lot about sales.

You get really good at selling something when you're selling something people don't need like ice cream. And I wasn't for the startup gig. I appreciated the time. I learned a lot. But it was just like, I gotta get outta here.

So I started managing a retail bicycle shop. That's another huge passion of mine. I used to be a, what? 4, 5, 6 times State champion, BMX bicycle racer. When I was in San Diego in Vermont, I mountain biked. And then in San Diego I started velodrome racing, track racing and mountain biking and cycle cross.

That's what I did. I was single. I worked in restaurants and I either surfed or rode bikes. I needed to get out of food. Toward the end of my time at the ice cream plant, I would get home on Saturdays around 3:00 PM. I would do my laundry, take a shower, eat dinner. I was in bed by six and I wouldn't wake up until noon on Sunday. I was just so exhausted. I was working a hundred hours a week. Just grinding. I mean, that's your job as a startup is to be so disruptive. You make money or to be so disruptive to the industry, you get purchased. And it's hard being a small business. And I learned that firsthand.

lum got married the summer of: 2014

[00:33:34] Sara Kobilka: Yep.

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And on the plane ride home to Atlanta, I was struggling with getting along with Atlanta. And finally I admitted it's not me, it's Atlanta. I gotta get home. These are my people.

back to Minnesota in July of: 2015

He

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[00:34:15] Morgan Anderson: Lieutenant Governor. Guess whose cabin I just helped finish building out 20 miles up the road from where I live? My buddy Karl's. His wife and I are hunting buddies. His younger brother who I don't remember ' cause I kind of fell out. But two years after Karl and I were the governor ticket, his younger brother, Scott, and shout out to Scotty, he and his running mate were governor- lieutenant governor.

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[00:34:41] Morgan Anderson: And.

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[00:34:42] Morgan Anderson: Oh, it was great. But yeah, I got back to Minnesota

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[00:34:47] Morgan Anderson: Oh yeah, pest control! It really is. And my whole team, there's about 20 of us, not one of us ever planned on being in pest control. I mean, I've got former sailors, former Marines, a buddy of mine used to be the service manager at a car dealership, former food plant quality assurance people, former retail workers, bartenders.

What did it for me is I love the science behind it. I gotta step up on my soapbox really quick to anyone listening to this and let people know.

My wife was very concerned when she started dating me and I said I was in pest control. Most people think of the guy with the cigarette hanging out of his mouth on King of the Hill. One of the guys was an exterminator, and that's just a horrible name in and of itself. But the years of going into a building and lighting it up with chemical are long gone. We spend 90% of our time doing preventative work. We're investigators.

And where the STEM really leans into it is the greatest accomplishment of my career in terms of eliminating a pest issue was finding a tiny little quarter inch long maggot and tracing that back based on its lifecycle. The time it takes from egg to adult. Finding out that previously the tenant of this apartment had a dog and their dog food would disappear. So we had mice moving dog food and storing it. And this sat in the wall long enough to hatch what we call a stored product pest. And just being able to put one and two together with the life cycle and all that was it to this day. I mean, I could spend two hours explaining that whole procedure, but I love the science...

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OK. So have you heard of the science author, Mary Roach?

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[00:36:51] Sara Kobilka: OK. you're gonna love this, but it is totally something that you're gonna have to get all of her books basically. So, set aside a few hours of the next, uh, couple of weeks. She has a book called Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. And she is a person where she finds a topic and then she just gets interested in it and like goes down every rabbit hole possible. And one of the things that she did was she went to one of the farms where they put bodies out to see the decomposition process and that informs investigators who come across a body and they're trying to figure out how long ago it died or how it died.

And they're looking at those bugs that actually form and the life cycles of the bugs and everything like that. But that book is a very intriguing book. And it's also gonna be in the show notes, everyone, so don't worry. She also has Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, which was the first book of hers that I read, Gulp: Adventures of the Alimentary Canal, Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law and Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy.

So she goes all those places, but it's like that science, but then like how do we apply that to the real world and connect the dots between the science and other places where it could help us to solve some sort of a problem.

So I'm curious about you connecting the dots, because you've had all of these different jobs where you've been able to connect the dots.

Where do you think you really thrived the most as a Renaissance Person and a multi-passionate person in your career? Is there one particular place?

[: 00:38:26

I'm no longer in the field. I'm no longer chasing bugs for a living. I live in the house that cockroaches built. But now it's about our team and passing the torch on and training and helping them succeed. My only regret in what I do now is I didn't start it sooner.

But I think the other connection with Renaissance People and connecting the dots, is the quest to better oneself. And I still do that to this day. Like, if I wasn't getting older and my body's falling apart, I'm a former extreme athlete. I've had so many surgeries and this, that, and the other thing, I'd still be in the field. Because I love the science and I get to help people. And having a sales background in the field I'm in now, I never had to sell something to someone that didn't need it. The goal there isn't convincing them that, you know, you're just trying to sell 'em something is showing them how they need it and why.

[: 00:39:36

[00:39:40] Morgan Anderson: Yep.

[: 00:39:41

And one of the things that I've really come to after doing some analysis of feedback from people I've worked with who have said we love working with you, it's great, is that one of the things that I can work with people on and give them is confidence and feeling confident in themselves and their value as a Renaissance Person.

But it's still hard in my mind to say, how do you put a dollar sign on confidence? Or how do you sell something that's kind of more intangible to people that you know you want. People want to feel confident. They want to feel good. They want to feel fulfilled, and that they're like living their expansive lifestyle.

What advice would you give to me as a person with a sales background about how do you sell something intangible like confidence?

[: 00:40:47

[00:40:51] Sara Kobilka: And you're someone who I think is very confident. Like you have always come across that way to me.

[: 00:40:56

[00:41:04] Sara Kobilka: Hmm.

[: 00:41:04

[00:41:32] Sara Kobilka: Do you think that that message works for someone who is not a white male? Or do you think there's different standards for other people when it comes to, you know, there's confidence, but then women who come across as too confident get labeled as being a bitch. Or, you know, that sort of thing. Like there's that double standard that comes into play when you're talking about women?

[: 00:41:52

[00:41:53] Sara Kobilka: That's how you Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

[: 00:41:55

[00:42:15] Sara Kobilka: So know thy audience. 1 0 1 communications.

[: 00:42:18

[00:42:41] Sara Kobilka: Yep.

[: 00:42:41

[00:43:04] Sara Kobilka: Part of the reason I created this podcast is because I'm trying to talk to a wide range of Renaissance People. And it's so interesting for me to hear where their confidence comes from or where they are on their Renaissance Person journey and their building confidence. Because I don't wanna just have people who are like, I've made it on the episodes either.

I want people who are in that journey, but I think these are the case studies of confidence as a Renaissance Person. And it sounds like for you, it took a long time to really say, Hey, this multifaceted, well-rounded kid from high school who's traveled around the country and had all these careers and done all this stuff, there's value in me for that diversity of things that I know. Not just because I taught this one class, or I got this one degree, or I worked in this one position. It's the multitudes that makes you magical, not just the limit.

[: 00:43:58

[00:43:59] Sara Kobilka: Yeah.

[: 00:44:00

[00:44:09] Sara Kobilka: Mm.

[: 00:44:10

My sister's an assistant principal and I used to do a career day at her school. And I make the same joke, but it's so true. When I'm 90 years old and passing on, I wanna remember the smell of my wife's perfume or what red wine pairs with the perfectly grilled hanger steak. Or, I don't condone smoking, but what cigar pairs well with what port? No, you know what? I'm gonna remember the mating habits of the German cockroach or the reproductive cycle of a bat bug or, you know, something along those lines.

And one thing I completely forgot to mention in my career, I was a restaurant consultant for some years on the side. So in the pest control field, in the restaurant management field, in the culinary, the cooking field, in sales, everything comes down to time and efficiency. And as a service specialist in pest control, the one thing that taught me was the value of time.

We had a sales person that said, it's the only resource you can't get more of. You can't create more of it. All you can do is lose it, waste it or use it properly, basically. And I think from someone in your position, you talk about confidence and what you bring as a consultant or whatever someone labels themself it's getting your clients somewhere faster and more efficiently than they would on their own. And that's where that wisdom comes in. You've got some experiences. Anyone wants to know anything about me, look at my LinkedIn profile. I mean, that's pretty much

[: 00:46:00

[00:46:02] Morgan Anderson: yeah,

[: 00:46:03

[00:46:07] Morgan Anderson: but that is something, back to the sales side for you, there is no one that has less time than a small business owner.

[: 00:46:15

[00:46:17] Morgan Anderson: oh,

[: 00:46:17

[00:46:18] Morgan Anderson: There you go!

[: 00:46:19

[00:46:20] Morgan Anderson: I talk about super humans. I have a coworker, he's my old boss. He still works for Ecolab, but he's in a different role now. He's got three young children. So while in my position, I know for a fact his wife gave birth to one child, possibly two. So on top of being a dad and a very present dad. Doing the job I'm now doing. He also got his master's in business administration.

[: 00:46:46

[00:46:47] Morgan Anderson: But I'm just like, I know how busy I am on the day to day

[: 00:46:51

[00:46:52] Morgan Anderson: And I don't have children. I've got two dogs. And one of them's a senior citizen, so he's pretty easy.

I'm in the trades now. And there's that old joke there's a machine that's down and they call in this guy. And he taps on the machine a couple places, and he screws in one screw this multimillion dollar machine all of a sudden starts working. And he hands him a bill for a million dollars.

And they say, what is this? You turned one screw? And he's like, well, you're paying a dollar for me to turn one screw. You're paying everything else for me knowing what screw to adjust. You know?

T hat goes both ways in the trades. But there's something to be said about that. And that's what I think you need to extol is getting from point A to point B fast and efficient. Because that's what you bring, is you bring time. You bring experience. And you bring the time savings.

[: 00:47:46

[00:47:47] Morgan Anderson: So being able to put a value on that. And people that understand that value are gonna snatch that up pretty quick. 'cause if I could get to where I am today as a 20-something-year-old, I'd pay a lot...

[: 00:48:00

[00:48:02] Morgan Anderson: I'd pay a lot of money. A lot!

[: 00:48:05

[00:48:06] Improv Game

[: 00:48:06

So, you know you're a Renaissance Person if you have at least 25 tabs open on your computer at any given point in time. And I'll add to it. And when the blue screen of death comes on and your computer restarts, you are just like crossing your fingers, hoping and praying that the restore history button actually works. And that happened to be like last weekend.

[: 00:48:53

[00:49:01] Sara Kobilka: So much fun!

[: 00:49:02

[00:49:10] Sara Kobilka: Love it. OK. Ready for round two? Let's do it again.

[: 00:49:12

[00:49:12] Sara Kobilka: You got another one? OK. You know, you are a Renaissance Person if your goal in anything you're passionate about in life, is to get the metaphorical A plus, not the literal A plus. You don't have to be the 4.0 student. But you want the metaphorical A plus on any passion project you take on.

[: 00:49:32

[00:49:33] Sara Kobilka: Did that hit too close to home?

[: 00:49:35

[00:49:37] Sara Kobilka: Jab it in!

[: 00:49:38

[00:49:57] Sara Kobilka: Yeah. No, you can't be doing one thing.

[: 00:49:59

[00:50:05] Sara Kobilka: Yeah.

[: 00:50:06

[00:50:18] Sara Kobilka: Yeah. I realize I forgot to ask you a question. I wanna circle back because I wanna hear your answer to it. How do you answer the dreaded question, so what do you do when you meet people in a way that feels like you're not forgetting or putting down your multitudes side?

[: 00:50:36

[00:50:43] Sara Kobilka: You hate that question?

[: 00:50:44

When people ask, what do you do? I get quizzical looks ' cause like, what are people asking? What do you do for a living? I generally answer that with, I'm an outdoors man. Like, I don't live to work, you know? But how do I do that, not sound like a cocky egomaniac?

[: 00:51:12

[00:51:18] Morgan Anderson: Yeah! Like man, that's a great question. You've heard my take on teams and people. I think the best way to answer that would be is I bring people together. I lead teams. That's what I do personally and professionally. And you'd almost have to bring it up. What I do is very multifaceted, but I don't want to bore you.

[: 00:51:40

[00:51:41] Morgan Anderson: Um

[: 00:51:41

[00:51:44] Morgan Anderson: Exactly. You know,

[: 00:51:46

[00:52:00] Morgan Anderson: Yeah. Enjoy my history. It's quite varied.

[: 00:52:03

[00:52:10] Morgan Anderson: And I think, looking back on your question and what we were talking about earlier, you know, you're a Renaissance Person when... It just hit me like a ton of bricks, you know, you're a Renaissance Person when people don't believe you, when you tell them your age,

[: 00:52:24

[00:52:26] Morgan Anderson: I have been told that. They're like, there's no way you've done all this.

[: 00:52:31

[00:52:31] Morgan Anderson: And it's like, Hey, when you move coast to coast across the country, three times in 10 years, you learn a lot.

[: 00:52:39

[00:52:58] Morgan Anderson: Yeah!

[: 00:52:58

[00:53:02] Morgan Anderson: That hits home. I forgot you were in Iowa. I spent two weeks in Iowa this summer

[: 00:53:07

[00:53:08] Morgan Anderson: helping my counterparts setting up new business, and in July, and

[: 00:53:12

[00:53:13] Morgan Anderson: I really learned what corn humidity is.

[: 00:53:16

And that's of course when they do RAGBRAI, the great bike ride across Iowa and Nebraska has its bike ride as well. They do it in the middle of corn sweating season. How ironic.

[: 00:53:42

[00:53:53] Sara Kobilka: I love it. Well, one of the offerings that I have through my business actually, that I'm gonna be really kick-starting is called Find Your Golden Thread. And it's an opportunity to have me as a thought partner. And you send me a bunch of information about yourself. I scroll through all of your LinkedIn profile or read some bios that you've submitted or you're About section on LinkedIn . And I can reflect back to you here's what I am seeing as a golden thread that you can then use and put some of that language together to actually feel a little more confident in answering that question.

And the answer's gonna be maybe, like for me, I'm a Renaissance Person. I cross disciplinary boundaries. I help Renaissance People confidently live expansive lives. And if you wanna find out more, go to LinkedIn, read more, but I don't have to tell you the whole story. But I can give you that golden thread so that you have something to grab onto to get started going into that weaving web that my life is. So,

[: 00:54:55

[00:55:02] Sara Kobilka: Yeah. Yeah.

[: 00:55:03

And, we're on camera right now, and obviously that isn't part of the podcast, but in today's day and age, it's even more important to have that vocalization and to be able to hear that. Because I have meetings across the country and I have no clue what these people look like. If people aren't turning on their cameras during a teams call or Zoom or whatever, you might work with someone for y ears and not know it.

I used to do it as a restaurant consultant. I had partners I helped open restaurants before video calling that I knew their name and I knew their address and I knew their voice. And I maybe I saw a picture of 'em. But in today's day and age, that interpersonal, like that's what I thrive on, the people side of things. I don't think I'm going to age gracefully. Because I enjoy the handshakes and I enjoy learning about people and what makes them tick. But we're getting more and more digital

[: 00:56:16

[00:56:17] Morgan Anderson: And your teams just aren't who shows up at the office anymore. It's whoever's on the other end of that CAT5 cable.

[: 00:56:23

And I always try to do that within maybe like the first month, month and a half of school. And the difference between what our team is able to do prior to seeing each other in person versus after that, even though we've been meeting on Zoom, we have a requirement that as much as possible have your camera on.

We're talking back and forth, we're unmuting, all that sort of stuff. But the difference after we've actually met each other as real, full-size human beings, not just from the chest to the top of our heads. It's amazing. Is truly powerful.

[: 00:57:14

[00:57:14] Sara Kobilka: Well, we could go on, this could be like a three hour episode quite easily, but we can't. Cause theoretically I should do something and like work and so should you, so we're gonna do our rapid ish fire questions.

We'll see how rapid we could be. Ha ha ha. The first one is, what's one metaphor that you find yourself using frequently?

And right now my metaphor is very much gardening and planting seeds and things starting to sprout. It's spring right now and I'm literally gonna plant, some seeds this weekend. But metaphorically, I feel like the last year, year and a half I've spent planting seeds and it's really been exciting to see some of those seeds blossoming.

[: 00:57:52

[00:58:01] Sara Kobilka: Oh,

[: 00:58:02

[00:58:11] Sara Kobilka: I use fishking too. Yeah. But I use it a different way. The way that I use it is with regards to my teaching philosophy, whether I am teaching students how to make graphics for meteorologists, to explain hydrology issues,. Or whether I am working with afterschool educators who wanna bring STEM role models into their program.

My goal is to teach them how to fish, not to give them a meal. Because if I give them a meal, great, here's this curriculum. It's already done. Or here's this thing, it's almost completely done for you. Then next time comes around all that work that I put into teaching them, it doesn't matter because they can't do it on their own without me holding their hand and helping them through it.

But if I can teach them to fish, if I can teach them what questions should I ask or where are the resource bases that I can go to that when this STEM role model that I've had come to my class for 10 years retires or moves so that I can find a replacement, that's me having done something impactful.

And I bet with a teacher mom, we both have teacher moms. I think that teaching people to fish maybe came, in a way, from my teacher mom.

[: 00:59:13

[00:59:28] Sara Kobilka: Yes. Yep. That's kind of how librarians think. They don't teach you exactly all of the content in the library. When we were kids, they taught us how to use the Dewey decimal system and look through cards and stuff like that. And now how to like, use a catalog and enter the correct search information into a database to like find the answers.

And it's more important to know where to find answers when we have all these technologies that can store the information for us. We don't have to memorize everybody's phone number, but you do have to know how to open up contacts on your phone so you can find that phone number when you need it.

We used to know so many phone numbers for anybody who's younger is listening. And I bet you still know some of your like friends childhood phone numbers. Our brains were wired literally differently than brains are wired today because now it's where do we find the source of the information as opposed to how much information can we put into our heads?

OK. Onto the next one. What is one rabbit hole that you have gone down recently? I know you were talking about like you were really proud of the life cycles of a particular insect, but is there another rabbit hole that you've gone down?

[: 01:00:35

How much do I have to pay? What's the maintenance like?

[: 01:01:02

And I'm like, is this because you're not doing lab chemistry anymore and you need to like find a replacement for it in your life? And he admits, yeah, he missed being a chemist.

[: 01:01:30

[01:01:42] Sara Kobilka: Come on, let's go!

[: 01:01:43

[01:01:47] Sara Kobilka: Buddy. Remember, I'm Morgan. Let's be Morgan. Start now!

OK. Last question then you'll tell people more about how to continue to follow you and your adventures. Is there something more that you can come up with from your background that might surprise people? ' cause you've given us a lot, lot of good stuff. But I know there's more. There's gotta be something in there.

Did you take ballroom dancing lessons once?

[: 01:02:09

[01:02:50] Sara Kobilka: Oh my.

[: 01:02:51

[01:02:56] Sara Kobilka: Like, yeah,

[: 01:02:57

[01:03:01] Sara Kobilka: That's wonderful. I love it. What a great way to end.

OK, so you've talked about LinkedIn. We'll certainly link to that in the show notes. Take another drink, folks, if you haven't gotten, you know, hydrated enough or whatever state you're in from the alcohol or caffeine you're consuming, I'd love it if people would actually listen to my show with something stronger.

That'd be funny. But if other people want to follow you, are there any other social media platforms or other spaces where they can learn about Morgan?

[: 01:03:32

[01:03:55] Sara Kobilka: Perfect. Well, thank you for an absolutely a delightful time period. Wonderful to briefly reconnect. And we'll have to meet up again sometime and chat.

[: 01:04:05

[01:04:06] Sara Kobilka: Thank you so much Morgan. I'll say until next time.

(sung) Connecting the Dots with The Renaissance People