Nigel Risner — Speaker, Author, Zookeeper

It is what's involved in my special guest joining me on the line now. All the way from, are we allowed to say the sunny United Kingdom yet? I don't know what you guys call sunny, you know, because you can today because we have bright sunshine. So yes, from sunny UK from the sunny UK. It's a Nigel Risner, Nigel, you actually we got into contact to a very well-known ex-conference speaker here in South Africa, Michael Jackson. And he said to me, listen, you've got it, you've got a chat to Nigel. He is absolutely brilliant at what he does. So let's start off with telling me a little bit about who Nigel is. Well, it doesn't really matter who I am. I'm a motivational speaker, but more well-known to being an irritational speaker. I'm also the first UK zookeeper. So I manage animals in people's offices. So I'm a chief zookeeper and I manage people's people in their office by an analogy that every person in your office, in your family, in your life is a different animal and your job is to manage them in the way they want to be managed and laid by the way they want to be laid. So I am on my LinkedIn profile, a chief zookeeper. It sounds absolutely fascinating. And I mean, you've had many, many write-ups and stories about you and you kind of, I don't know, you're a motivational person of note.

You give people direction when formerly they've had no direction. But this zookeeper thing is new for me. Talk to me a bit about, where did you come up with this and what does it mean being a zookeeper? Okay, so I was working for a, I was working for a large bank and they happened to be doing it at Whipsnade Zoo. So it's a large zoo and I saw a man with, in a brown overall, I couldn't quite see the letters on his back, but he had about eight buckets of food which were labeled differently for the different animals. And as he then turned round, it said on the back, the zookeeper, and I then visualized that a great zookeeper knows the food the animals need. And if you feed the animals the food they need, they perform well. Having spent 20 years in leadership and having been awarded Speaker of the Year for most organizations in the chief exec world, I realized that if you could lead your people and feed them the right food, you'd get the best performance out of them. And I've done this speech in places like Velcom, in Pretoria, in Cape Town, in Iran, in Israel, in America, and all over the world, it's exactly the same thing. It doesn't matter who your people are, they are animals, and if you treat them well, they will perform well.

And if you treat them badly, they will riot badly too. It's fantastic now that you speak about it because, I mean, how many times do you hear, you know, when people talk about going into the office, it's like, oh, it's a zoo around here. Well, that's a great title because that's the title of my book. It's a zoo around here. Yeah. Yeah. So we have a book called It's a Zoo Around Here, and the job is to be a zookeeper and manage and lead your people the way they want to be led. Now, obviously, if you're going to be a zookeeper, you need to know what kind of animals you have in your zoo, surely. Yeah. And the best way to find out what animals you have is to listen very, very carefully and give your staff a good listening to, not a good talking to. And the more you listen, the more you will find out what animal they are. So for example, I'm a massive, massive monkey. I'm playful. I'm energetic. I'm extrovert. I even forgot last week that we were supposed to be doing this recording because I put it in the wrong part of my diary. That's a classic monkey behavior. You're much more... I thought it was just me. You're much more aligned in your single-minded, visionary, straightforward purposeful.

You said you could do something. You then emailed me this morning. You're on another show, but you're definitely doing it at 9.30 and at 9.31, you rag me. If you were an elephant, you would have had a production schedule sent to me in advance. You just sent me 24 questions that I needed to research because that's what elephants need. They're cautious, precise, deliberate, skeptical. If you were a dolphin, then you'd be much more caring, nurturing, supportive, patient and relaxed. I'm not saying you're not those, but your dominant style is a lion. This is absolutely fascinating because as you were saying, like the elephant traits thing, I'm like, ah, no, could not be bothered with that. I've said I'm going to talk to you. I'm going to talk to you and I trust that you and I are both professional enough to know what we're going to talk about. But that's lion behavior, so I knew from the way you emailed me that's what you were and I was kind of a bit sorry that I couldn't make it last week because I had a bit of a trauma and then I forgot that it was in the wrong part of my diary and I knew if I apologize really quickly and we rescheduled really quickly, you would probably forgive me. Which is absolutely true because I have been accused of having a fairly high and we're not allowed to use bad language on the radio.

You don't suffer forwards gladly. You've done nothing to say. It's been called my if you factor. So this makes sense. That's classic lion behavior, David. Lions don't have much tolerance and when someone lets them down, they feel very offended. If you're a dolphin, you didn't probably accept me chocolate in advance and say, I'm so sorry there was a bit of a trauma. Let me come over from South Africa to England. I know that we can't travel. I'll come by boat because that's what dolphins would do. Yeah. And you're not a dolphin either. How many different kinds of animals have you have you identified today? So we have four main characteristics who are your main dominant styles. We then have another four animals, which is what happens when people get disillusioned, they get let down, they feel really annoyed and they go into FU country. So monkeys turn into hyenas and if you know anything about the wildlife and the Serengeti that you know, the hyenas are just your worst nightmare and that laughter you hear is not out of fun. If they're about to pounce and there's going to be trouble. Lions turn into tigers. They go solitary and lions that tigers only meet sorry, tigers only meet up for two reasons to mate or to fight.

Your elephants turn into rhinoceroses and they go silent. They go quiet, they disappear and they charge you and the dolphins are a sweet nature. If you really, really upset them, they will turn into sharks and make them smell BS from two and a half miles away. This is absolutely and OK, so you say you've got a book, a book and you mentioned the book is called It's a Zoo around here. It's the new rules for better communication. Is the book available online? I mean, with with this living covid thing now, you know, everything has to be online. I mean, are you training online? Of course it's online. It's on Kindle. It's on iBooks. It's on all that stuff. Yeah. Fantastic. I don't know what they all are because I'm a monkey, but I just know it is there. OK, I don't I don't do detail, but I know it's there. You've had so many so many accolades given to you and what you do, you've got your own podcast as well. We're going to talk about that in just a little while. But one of the other things that caught my attention, Nigel, and I'd like to have a quick bit of a chat about that. We're going to be letting you go in a couple of minutes. I know you've got a coaching call that's coming up. But when we when we come back, can we can we talk a little bit about your your your other your other book that you've done, which I find absolutely fascinating as well.

I think it's the impact code, Live the Life You Deserve. And you know, for for me, you know, because I didn't have a good enough midlife crisis the first time around. So I'm going I'm going around for it again. And this book caught my attention. Live the Life You Deserve. I didn't have enough the first time. I didn't have enough misery time. So I'd like a little bit more. That is as classic line as ever. Can we talk about the impact code when we come back? Of course. Fantastic. It is what's involved. My special guest, Nigel Riser. I'm going to give out his his his contact details at the end of this. But an absolutely fascinating man, a monkey talking to a lion who would have thought when we come back, we're going to chat more about the impact code. And we're back. What's involved? My special guest all the way from the UK where it's still fairly early in the morning there, I believe, as we're doing this interview. But man, it's been fun so far. We're chatting to Nigel Riser. Your first your one book, there's a couple of books, but the one it's a zoo around here. The New Rules for Better Communication. That's available on Kindle. The other one that caught my attention, though, was was the impact code, Nigel.

When did this one come out and, you know, how do you why this one? Because it's just it caught my attention, you know, make an impact to begin your best future. OK, so every speaker's dream is to get a publisher interested in your work. So I published it to zero around here myself. And then while his caps don't ask me what I write my life's work, which is kind of interesting when you're only 50 at the time when someone says this is your best work. Can you write it? And I realized a long time ago that what people really need and what people want is for you to leave and create an impact where wherever you go with whoever you're with. So we're doing this interview and my worst nightmare will be that I give you my best stuff and I didn't leave my footprint or an impact on your life. So the best way to make an impact. The first thing to do is to be in the room, which is what I stand for. So I'm focused. I'm only with you. I'm not on my computer. I'm listening to you and I'm fully focused. I'm giving you my heart and I'm not giving you my mind. So you need to give people a little bit of your heart more than your mind. Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. You need to model off the very, very best.

So you find heroes in your life. So if you use someone like Nelson Mandela, forget his whole life story. The one thing you might like about Nelson Mandela was his his his phenomenal forgiveness. So if I model Nelson Mandela, I want to I want to model his forgiveness. Does that make sense? Yes. Yes. He is about passion and you'll tell from my voice, my tone that I'm passionate about what I do because I enjoy what I do and I spell the word enjoy I N J O Y not E N J O Y. So if I'm not enjoy doing an interview, I'm not passionate about it. Okay. So that's the first part of the impact code. That's it. But if you want to make an impact, you got to do something about it. And the letter A stands for action and there's a phrase that says when all is said, done, much more is said than done. So a lot will be said over this podcast. The difference is what are people going to do differently based on it. Then you have to let us see which is communication and a bit of comic relief. So you need to have a bit of fun with things like this. And I love having fun. And I'll leave you with one joke at the very, very end, because I just will. But the T key, which is all about trust. So I don't know you that well.

But I know Michael Jackson and if he said do an interview with David, then I trust him. I don't know where this is going to go. But I trust the process and I trust myself that I can deliver enough content in 20 minutes to make an impact. Does that make sense? All of that sounds absolutely brilliant. And it does make it does make sense because if you're not enjoying something and you can, you can hear it in your voice that that you're upbeat, you're uptempo, you know, you know, you're enjoying yourself, then what is the point? I mean, what what is the point? And I think this is what what fascinated me specifically when Michael and I were chatting about you is because you have a very, very unique style and the passion for making a difference comes across. How did you get onto this this this track in your life, Nigel? So I had a very successful finance company. I made a lot of money. I lost a lot of money. And when I remade my money, I realized making money wasn't difficult. Working with people was. And I went to the states, I did a lot of courses, did more stuff in England. And then I worked with a couple of my clients who all said, you need to go deeper with us. And so I've just gone deeper and deeper and deeper until I now speak literally all over the world.

And now I'm doing zoom calls all over the world that today I'm with you in South Africa. Tomorrow I'm in Sri Lanka, last week I was in Florida and on Friday, I think I'm in Spain and Valencia, which is the same place, by the way, I've just realized as a monkey. OK, so we know the books and I know I'm going to I'm telling you now because I'm just just chatting to you. I am going to definitely get both of those books. Do you do I mean, obviously, when we could travel, you did travel and you mentioned that you've done you've done some some training since I don't figure what happens if somebody's listening now and they go, I would really like to check tonight or I'd really like to get him to check to my stuff. Are you open for that? Yep. 100 percent. I said I went to Velcom to work in one of the Gulf in one of the mines. I've done Johannesburg, Cape Town for Georgia. I've done quite a lot in South Africa, but if they want to email me at Nigel Risner dot com, go to my website, my books are there. It's on Kindle. It's on Amazon. It's on whatever the I books are delighted to speak to people, delighted to do it by Zoom, delighted to support people because my mission is to inspire and empower people.

And if I can do that, then my life is complete. Well, I certainly feel inspired after having a tattoo. I know you have to go in a couple of minutes, Nigel, thank you so much for taking the time out and having a chat. I really, really appreciate it. We wish you all the best. I look forward to doing part two with you in a couple of weeks time. Fantastic stuff. There we go. That's my special guest, Nigel Risner. If you want to find out more, just go on to the website, it's a fantastic website. I've got to tell you, it's Nigel Risner dot com, N-I-G-E-L-R-I-S-N-E-R dot com. The payoff line there, turning limited people limitless. I absolutely love it. And I do look forward to chatting to him again in the not too distant future. It is what's involved once again. Thank you very much. Thanks to Nigel. And most importantly to you, thank you for listening.