Future-Proof Your Career with John Bernatovicz

John Bernatovicz is a husband, father, brother, entrepreneur, author, and lifelong Northeast Ohioan. Over the last 15 years, he has started or been an owner of six business ventures and is the president and founder of Willory, a staffing and consulting firm solely focused on HR and payroll.

As the president and founder of Willory, John focuses on transforming organizations to meet their full potential. Through Willory, John ensures his clients have the best talent in their HR and payroll department and optimize the technology supporting companies’ number one asset: people. With over 20 years of experience within the payroll and HR niche, John is uniquely qualified to drive Willory into a leadership position within the HR and payroll staffing and consulting space.

John has focused his working career on understanding the needs of his clients, candidates, and partners. He is not satisfied until he finds what his clients and candidates are looking for. Plus, he thrives on instilling enthusiasm, growth mindsets, and accountability in the Willory team. John strives to win and build successful businesses that go above and beyond the expectations of his clients, candidates, staff members, and competitors. This sets a standard for the firm to provide a high quality of service and build exceptional relationships. Willory has achieved great results, including NorthCoast 99, Weatherhead 100, Crain’s 52, and Inc. 5000.

A Couple of Quotes From This Episode

• “You’re not going to lose your job because of AI. You’re going to lose your job to someone who uses AI better than you.” 
• “Every single person in the world is a leader. People are paying attention to what you’re doing.”

Resources Mentioned in This Episode 

• Book: HR Like a Boss by Bernatovicz
• Events: Disrupt HR

About The International Leadership Association (ILA)

• The ILA was created in 1999 to bring together professionals interested in studying, practicing, and teaching leadership. 

About  Scott J. Allen

• Website
• Weekly Newsletter: Practical Wisdom for Leaders

My Approach to Hosting

• The views of my guests do not constitute "truth." Nor do they reflect my personal views in some instances. However, they are views to consider, and I hope they help you clarify your perspective. Nothing can replace your reflection, research, and exploration of the topic.

♻️ Please share with others and follow/subscribe to the podcast!
⭐️ Please leave a review on Apple, Spotify, or your platform of choice.
➡️ Follow me on LinkedIn for more on leadership, communication, and tech.
📜 Subscribe to my weekly newsletter featuring four hand-picked articles.
🌎 You can learn more about my work on my Website.

Transcript

Scott Allen: [00:00:00] Okay, everybody, thank you so much for showing up wherever you are in the world. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you very much for being here today. I have John Bernatovicz, and he is a person who's been in my sphere for a number of years, but we've never really had a time to connect and really get to know each other a little bit.

And so I was on his podcast and asked him to be on my podcast. He is, my eyes in the field, ears on the ground, and that's really where we're gonna take this conversation today. He is a convener. He's an individual who hosts a number of really wonderful conferences. John, tell listeners a little bit about you and then we're gonna jump into our conversation.

Really where we're gonna focus our time today, listeners, is. What are some themes he's seeing out in the field as he is working with others? What are some themes that he's coming across? But first, tell folks about you, John. 

John Bernatovicz: All right. Can I start off with the new way that I'm asking to be introduced when I do keynote presentations?

Because I [00:01:00] thought the long form talk about John was so boring, and I can see the crowd being lost. It's called three Truths and a Lie, and you can tell me which one of these. Is the three truths in one lie. 

Scott Allen: Okay. 

John Bernatovicz: Ready? 

Scott Allen: Yeah. 

John Bernatovicz: Fair enough. I name my firm after my kids. My firm's name is Willy. 

Scott Allen: Okay. 

John Bernatovicz: I once beat Tiger Woods in a round of golf.

Scott Allen: Okay. 

John Bernatovicz: I would rather be named Brett, not John. And I've run six marathons. 

Scott Allen: I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go with the marathons because I think Brett Bernatovicz would be really cool. That's a cool name. Tiger Woods is too random to not have happened. Willy, I can get it. I believe it. And it doesn't have an intuitive kind of name that I can attach to it.

I'm gonna go with the marathons. Jim. John, 

John Bernatovicz: you mean Brett? Brett, yes. You are exactly correct. When I was 18 years old. I beat Tiger Woods in a golf tournament called the Western Junior in Chicago, which is pretty cool. 

Scott Allen: Bam. [00:02:00]

John Bernatovicz: At a family reunion when I was younger, maybe about 25 years old, my poor parents asked the questions, everybody happy with their name, and I was the only one to tell 'em I wasn't.

And then I became Uncle Brett from there because they asked me what I wanted to be called. And the coolest kid I knew was a young person was this. A kid on my soccer team named Brett. He like was good looking and all the girls liked him, and I had glasses and I was a big nerd. I have a son Will and a daughter, Mallory.

I merged their names together to make the firm Willory. And I've run six marathon relays. 

Scott Allen: Ah, 

John Bernatovicz: but not a full marathon. I don't, I think I could do a half marathon maybe. I think I could have done one, but doing a full marathon to me was way too intimidating. I'm more of a golfer than a runner, but. In short order.

That is who I am. I, I'm podcasting from Bath, Ohio. I've been married for 28 years. I'm a graduate of Kent State University, go Flashes, and I'm on this mission to transform how people feel at work and I'm so thankful to have our friendship, Scott. 

Scott Allen: [00:03:00] Oh, awesome. Awesome. Thank you very much. Okay, sir, you are convening hundreds of people, thousands of people a year.

What are you seeing out there? What are some of the conversations that are happening? I know my listeners are gonna be interested. 

John Bernatovicz: I'm gonna, I'm gonna cut this into four areas just to try to keep my frame of reference in mind in that category. Cataloging things first off, about how work is changing, the workplace is changing, and there's a number of variables inside of that.

One of the primary reasons why the workplace is changing is technology and the adoption of that by individual contributors, leaders, managers, executives. The other is about the intentionality of creating community within your own network, your own social, professional, and personal network. And the last thing is this never ending battle.

I'll use the word battle that exists between employers and employees, and I think it is becoming worse. I think it got better in COVID. I think it's progressively getting worse, where [00:04:00] there's this you versus me mindset. And I am advocating through the human resource professional. That's the mainstay of the client base that I work on.

How can they change that dichotomy at their work? But yeah, to start off as how work the workplace is changing is, to me, it's an interesting thing to study. It's an interesting to see the changes in the workforce and the impact it's having on organizations and people. 

Scott Allen: Okay, so let's jump in. 

John Bernatovicz: All right.

Here's the thing. Number one, as we all know, for those of us that experienced COVID and from a workplace perspective, there was a bit of a employer, employee fraction that was taking place prior to that. It's always been this push pull. Again, my line of work, my professional experience has been primarily in, in supporting the human resource profession.

I was blessed to write a book called hr, like a boss that put me on the map. Probably undeservingly, but. So be it. I get asked these questions at time, and as a result of writing that book, we build a community called the hr, like a Boss Community. We [00:05:00] also organize a number of events, one of them being a Disrupt HR event, which is about five minutes for you explaining a disruptive topic inside of all things business, hr, et cetera.

That being said, as far as the workplace changing pre COVID and. Prior to that, there's always been this tension between employer and employee and hrs sandwich in between it. That's been the primary perspective I've had for a long time. Then in COVID, we galvanized together 'cause we all could, at least for the only time in my life, Scott, I don't know if you feel the same way.

Scott Allen: Yeah. 

John Bernatovicz: We all could be empathetic to each other. We were all going through COVID in our own varying stage. Some way worse, having loved ones. They were maybe stuck in nursing homes, some that got the disease and passed away, those that were concerned for their work and everything in between. As a result, where we work changed, a lot of us had to go home and work from home, and the disruption that took place and what that meant, and all of a sudden, [00:06:00] several years later, we had people getting multiple jobs at the same time because they could.

Organizations couldn't figure out where exactly you were working and you could then, in essence, have two particular jobs. So the location of where you worked changed, and I think as a result, and it wasn't great, but engagement levels. In 2021 were the highest. They were for Gallup 12 for about a 15 year stretch running now.

They were really bad still. They were in the thirties. 

Scott Allen: Yeah. 

John Bernatovicz: But they started to trend up because I feel like employees felt like their employer cared about them. Key part. Then there was this big push on, and it came from SHRM and other organizations about all the way we've looked at hiring. We're throwing it out the window and we're going to skills.

We're not putting such a emphasis on educational levels. Maybe we'll look at experiences as an important part, but do you have the necessary skills to do the job? At my most recent SHM conference that I went to, nobody [00:07:00] talked about skills. Matter of fact, they were doubling down the other way. Relevant experiences that you had in the practicality of you being able to do your job.

Then the last part that I think is radically changing the workforce is the anticipation and the reality of how artificial intelligence will disrupt certain positions. I am a writer. I've written two books. I'm on the verge of writing My third, our second book is at our editor, our publisher right now.

And when I hired the publisher, I asked them, is a human being gonna read the book or is artificial intelligence gonna read the book? He looked at me and said, John, as of right now, a human will, but in about six months, that will radically change and we will not be using humans to read our content. We will use AI platforms to inform our readers on where to focus.

I said, what's the impact you? He says, I think we can do about 10 x book edits versus having a human being read that. All kinds [00:08:00] of other places where that's been disrupted. I see it a lot in marketing. I get. Bombarded every day with how sales automation can be improved as a CEO of my business. Why does all that matter?

Because work, we're roughly gonna spend 77,000 hours of our lives working if you work full-time and work a full career and. As it relates to the location part, here's the thing that I see happening. There is a significant push in corporate America to return to office five days a week. 

Scott Allen: Oh yeah.

John Bernatovicz: Employers right in our backyard.

Scott Sherm Williams is the one that I think of right now. First energy. I just saw an announcement that PNC is making that same edict. They obviously know something about the fact that work from home doesn't work for corporate America. 

Scott Allen: Hmm. 

John Bernatovicz: And if I can't see you doing your job, or we don't provide a forum for you to be able to collaborate with your employees, or we're losing our shirt on all this office space throughout the United States and globally, we need to be [00:09:00] able to find a way to get a return on that investment.

To me, I feel like organizations need to be flexible. Where they work to accommodate and provide a chance for great employees to wanna work at your business doesn't mean you can be remote and fully in the office. There's gotta be some sort of marriage. I feel like that's what works best and because we do a lot of of search work in that perspective, Scott, it's a chance for us to realize what does the marketplace want?

Employers want you to work in an office, employees want to work from home. That's a big change. I believed in this idea of skills. I like the concept of it, but I thought it was so unique, the pivot that it's happened in roughly three years, that it became like the hotbed topic and now all of a sudden we're moving off of it and I just can't quite figure out why.

I'm not an expert on that. I do like the idea of skills-based hiring, behavioral-based interviewing. I like the idea of, tell me an example of when, show me that you can do the actual job, but I also feel like it's as important, [00:10:00] if not more, to hire based upon character and culture fit. As it is in skills you hire for skill, you fire for fit.

And then the last item on why I think work is changing so much and all of us have heard that those two words too often of a are those two letters of AI are artificial intelligence. And I think it's. Position dependent about how much artificial intelligence will disrupt and change each job. And I think it's critical for you as an employee if you're listening to this or an executive trying to figure out what to do, is to figure out where AI can make you more efficient, more effective, and lean into it.

Because ultimately it's gonna be less expensive than hiring a full-time employee. I know that corporations, their primary objective, especially if you're publicly traded, is to meet and increase shareholder value. And if we can find ways to reduce the number one expense, indirect expense we have inside of our business, I know that entrepreneurs and executives and shareholders are gonna run [00:11:00] toward that.

Scott Allen: I just had a friend of mine who runs a digital marketing agency here in Northeast Ohio, say. We were thinking about hiring a couple people, but we just bought some AI tools, the equivalent of what would have been the salary of two employees. They invested in subscriptions and it was just an interesting comment.

What jobs within the HR function do you think are most at risk of shifting more rapidly than others? 

John Bernatovicz: Two, I'll give you specifically, and I'm closest to them in my business, one is recruiting. I think the idea of. Increasing the chances of letting technology help us source high quality candidates, because that is the number one thing that HR and recruiting professionals don't want to do.

As an aggregate, one of the most unique things about when I wrote my book, I would survey and study and interview HR professionals. I'd ask them what they loved about their job, and I asked them what they hated. [00:12:00] And 80% of the people. Answered them. Again, these are HR professionals responsible for attracting and recruiting and interviewing and onboarding employees.

They would say, I hate recruiting. I heard it once. I heard it twice. I heard it 10 times. I heard it 40 times. About the 35th time. I'm like. That's the same answer I've gotten all, all before. How do we change that? Wow. 'cause hiring and people, HR is your number one indicator for non-HR professionals on how good of a job you do or do not do as an HR professional.

And if you hate the thing, that is the number one indicator what everybody else thinks HR does, that is a significant issue. The second area, Scott and I just finished and have our payroll, like a boss manuscript at our editor. I wrote a chapter in the book about the talent shortage that's going to happen in payroll.

It's already happening. There are 93% of all payroll professionals are over the age of 35, meaning 7% are from the age of 21 to [00:13:00] 35. We are having significantly higher, more baby boomers and later generation Gen Xers retiring than those that want to get into payroll. The problem with the new entrance into payroll is that no one that I've ever met, except for one individual out of probably 5,000 payroll professionals told me when I was a little kid or in high school, I wanted to get into payroll.

And the reason why that gentleman said it's because his mom was an icon in payroll and he idolized his mother. True story. 

Scott Allen: Yeah. 

John Bernatovicz: I have asked. 4,999 other payroll professionals. What did you wanna do when you dreamt about your employ employment? None of them said payroll. Every single one of them was voluntold to get into payroll.

Oh, you're good with numbers or, oh, Sally just left. I don't know. Who else do payroll? Scott, can you do payroll? Sure. The most interesting thing about that is that [00:14:00] once they get into it, they're into it. They don't leave. There's something about the control, the power, the juice, like I just talked to an executive that runs about a 27,000 employee payroll.

Scott Allen: Wow. 

John Bernatovicz: She oversees a large aggregate company. She has a large team, and she says every other week when she gets a notification. From her payroll supervisor that we're ready to approve payroll. She gets butterflies in her stomach every single time she has to commit to that payroll because she knows if I screw this up, all hell's gonna break loose.

Scott Allen: Wow. 

John Bernatovicz: And here's why I think this is so important. The spoken, the documented, the true belief in what we do and why we go to work is to get paid. 

Scott Allen: Yeah. 

John Bernatovicz: If not, you are a volunteer at a nonprofit and all of us do that, and we know what that deal is, but the reason why we go to work, why you work at John Carroll for as long as you did, was to get payment.

The reason why I started my career, I worked at a [00:15:00] DP was to get paid. If I didn't get paid once, like that's a major problem. I didn't get paid twice. Oh my gosh. 

Scott Allen: Yeah. 

John Bernatovicz: Here's the challenge. If we don't have competent and skilled payroll professionals to do the job, that's the most critical part of a deal between an employee and employer.

All of a sudden we're going to have a challenge. As a result, there's going to be a significant influx of automation and AI and robotics around payroll. 

Scott Allen: Yep. 

John Bernatovicz: Although organizations are still gonna have to manage that, and that's where I see the skill changing. We're in essence, Scott, if you and I were payroll professionals.

We were responsible for a payroll function. We probably wouldn't have as many people in it, but we would have more robots, we would have more automation. We would have more AI that we then have to oversee to make sure they're not being biased, that they're not making a mistake. Although they have an increased chance of getting it right, some may prove that to be the case.

In a human being, they're still going to make a [00:16:00] mistake, and in order for that skill development to change, in order for workplaces to change, I think jobs as an aggregate are gonna change exponentially. 

Scott Allen: How about the learning and development space? Are you seeing anything there? From an automation standpoint?

John Bernatovicz: To me, what's happening with learning and development AI will do for that is that Scott, however you learn best. Whatever that is. Maybe it be asynchronous, maybe synchronous, maybe it be you read better. Maybe you're an audible audio learner. Whatever the case might be. These learning and development technologies are going to make your experience very personalized versus trying to make you learn like everybody else is going to learn.

That's my perspective and I think that's gonna be great. Ultimately, we end up getting the most out of those kind of training and development opportunities where it fits our learning styles versus being forced to do it the way the organization or the company wants us to. 

Scott Allen: Awesome. Awesome. Okay, so that's theme one.[00:17:00]

What are you seeing in some other elements out there that you want on people's radar? 

John Bernatovicz: I'll quickly pivot and keep on the AI platform is technology and the adoption of it and the use of it as individuals, as managers, as executives and organizations. The companies that I have seen that has been the most successful have been incredibly intentional about being technology, being, having technology, being a critical differentiator in their business.

The ones that I feel like do the best. They combine that technology flare that they also are sales organizations. I hear Mark Cuban say this all the time, you're not really a widget company. You're a marketing company that just so happens to make a widget from that. What do you take away from it? There has to be a way that we as organizations can be very intentional and specific about improving the skills.[00:18:00]

Our individuals that work for us, whether they're an intern, whether they're entry level, whether they're a manager or a supervisor, an executive or director. How can you improve your technical skillset? Yeah, I was blessed to have probably the best, most well-known thought leader, modern day thought leader, be quoted in my book, hr, like a boss in my technology section, and he said the number one lacking competency of HR leadership is not even close and it's a lack.

Of technical advancement. They have such an ability to improve their technical skillset, but they haven't for a wide variety of reasons. If you have any way to improve your technology use, whether it's you have a CRM you're responsible for, there's an a TS you have that you're responsible for. You have UKG or a DP, or PeopleSoft or Oracle as your payroll or HR system.

Immerse yourselves in figuring out how to use that system at its most optimal level because you'll be able to do more and less time. [00:19:00] You'll be seen as, you'll be seen differently by your colleagues because you have leveraged technology in a way that others are not. I use simple examples or more current based.

The other one is using and leveraging ai. If you haven't figured out how to use AI in your job, you are behind. I don't think people are gonna lose jobs because of ai. They're gonna lose jobs of people. Are using AI better than you as an employee, may not be because you're afraid or concerned about what AI is all about.

The immersion into technology, how can you become better at it as a business professional? To slice that piece of bread at work a little bit faster, a little bit cleaner, a little bit more consistently, to me, is a significant great use of your time in developing that skill. 

Scott Allen: I'm thinking of that scene and Hidden Figures, the NASA film where you had the human computers, these were literally humans who were computing and then [00:20:00] an actual computer was delivered to nasa.

And the individuals who stayed relevant and learned that tool, they were of great value to the organization had they not. The organization would've moved forward. So I think incredibly wise advice there. Are you learning that and are you putting yourself in that position? You could call it upskilling, you can call it what you want.

Are you relevant? Your skillset is dos. I don't know. Maybe there's an airline that's still using the DO matrix printer and dos, but probably 

John Bernatovicz: Avis Car Rental does. 

Scott Allen: Yeah, exactly. So maybe you are relevant and go 

John Bernatovicz: to Avis. The cool part about that, Scott, 'cause I know you and I talked a lot about this on my podcast here.

Here's the lethal combination if you want to become a badass. 

Scott Allen: Yeah. 

John Bernatovicz: Okay. You can't be great at something if you're gonna cut corners. We're not talking about average, we're talking about great. And when I talk about being great, is the listener being the greatest [00:21:00] version of yourself you're capable of being.

If you wanna be a golfer, I know I dropped this about beating Tiger Woods once. I never compared myself against Tiger Woods ever. 'cause I knew he was a different human being with different. Physical skills that I had, how could I become better as a golfer now in my business life? How can I become better as a business leader?

A CEO, A writer, a keynote speaker, and a leader. And here's the thing, this is the lethal combination. We talked about it a lot when I had you on my show. The H hr like A Boss podcast. If you can combine technical skill development. With the soft and power skills that go into leadership, communication, problem solving, emotional intelligence, you can even go into discipline a long list of them, which I know you're super passionate about.

If you can do those two things and you spend your time focus there, I'm going to guarantee you, you're going to start elevating yourself [00:22:00] from the others that are within your organization, and you will be a different version of yourself in two years. Then you are currently at this time, and my main suggestion to you is this, 10 minutes a day.

Scott Allen: Yeah. 

John Bernatovicz: Focus just little increments every single day. You're not going to turn into the greatest leadership resource in your company just by saying, I want to do it, or reading one book. You're not gonna learn technology by taking one course, 10 minutes, incremental atomic habits when you stack those days consistently.

And here's my recommendation on that too. You can take one day break, but don't take a second day break because if you do, all of a sudden you have a new habit, which means you're not investing in yourself. Yeah, 

Scott Allen: love it. Yes. And that compounding 1% every day, 1% better every day, so to speak. It's just, and I love your framing of, look 10 minutes, hop on LinkedIn, follow some thought leaders on LinkedIn in the space that you're interested in.

And I love [00:23:00] that, that kind of, that double threat. You've got the social, and as Amy Edmondson says, the soft skills are the hard skills. So you've got that locked in, right? The social emotional intelligence and the people part, and then that tech part. That's a powerful combination. 

John Bernatovicz: And I would tell you, and I said this before, and I really truly feel like this, and I coach high school golfers and middle school golfers in our community and try to get them to be the best version of themselves while having fun, playing a very difficult sport.

I cannot encourage you enough to never compare yourself against anyone else inside of your organization. If you end up following a thought leader, be like, oh, I wanna be like him. Why can't I quite be like him? My guess is. They've been working at the craft that they're speaking on through social media for decades.

Scott Allen: Yeah, 

John Bernatovicz: while you're just starting to try to get a little bit better, just see yourself incrementally getting better over time. Just small little snippets every single day. And don't break the chain. [00:24:00] Don't break that habit. 

Scott Allen: I know networking is a passion of yours and building that network, and investing in that network.

So in the spirit of are we engaging in some things consistently? Talk a little bit about that space as we begin to wind down our time. I'll 

John Bernatovicz: be quick and brief. The first job I had at a college was a sales job, and in order for me to be successful, I had to network with CPAs and bankers that were all of age, or most of them to be my parent or significantly older brother or sister.

And I had to find a way as a 23-year-old college kid, wet behind my ears, who probably wanted to be golfing and playing professional golf, but I realized I had to get a real job. How do I relate to these people? And I just. What ended up happening was at some point, probably two or three months into it, I just realized don't go there to get a referral, go there.

To get to know the person. 

Scott Allen: Yeah. 

John Bernatovicz: And I was fascinated [00:25:00] by how my mind changed on that. Just how can I be curious, how can I be inquisitive? How can I get to know you, Scott, or get to know you, whoever I was getting, making a connection with. And as a result of me doing that, Scott, I was different. Because most the other sales reps that were going there, what were they going for?

Hey Scott, you got a referral for me today? Oh, you don't piece some out versus, Hey Scott, how's your son doing? I know the last time I was here you were about to do a recital with a guitar recital and they were all excited about it, and all of a sudden you remember that? 

Scott Allen: Yep. 

John Bernatovicz: Creating that personal relationship is one of the most important things we can do as human beings, not only at work.

In our personal lives. The next thing I would share with you when it comes to building community is don't do it when you have to do it consistently all the time. I run into people because of the line of work I'm in doing recruiting and consulting advisory support. I get a lot of candidates come to me and say, I gotta dust off my LinkedIn profile.

I gotta start networking with people. [00:26:00] And they're like, Ugh, I don't really like networking. My recommendation of doing that on a consistent basis. Is for a couple things. One, we get energy from other people. In the spirit of that energy, you might find your new best friend. I know that's hard for us as adults to think middle two middle aged men thinking about, can I make a new best friend?

You actually can when you're intentional about that and you might meet someone that just lines up with who you are, I think that could be really cool. And as you go through that community building, you all of a sudden start to build out your Rolodex. And I know I might be aging myself when using that term.

We as business professionals are responsible for making our organizations better, solving problems, leveraging opportunities that we have, but there might be a domain level of expertise that comes into your world that you need to know a lot about, but you don't. 

Scott Allen: Yep. 

John Bernatovicz: I know Scott Allen's great when it comes to developing the four keys.

Leadership development, and when it comes time for me to do that, I'm not gonna try to reinvent the wheel myself. [00:27:00] I'm gonna call Scott and say, Hey Scott, gimme the 25 years of wisdom you've learned over X period of time to help me compress. My ability to deliver great content and insight to my organization to help us with that.

So intentionality around it, consistency about it, and knowing that you're building your own ecosystem of experts that are gonna make you look incredibly competent, even though you don't have all that intrinsic knowledge in between your ears. 

Scott Allen: Yeah, I think we are so aligned on all of this conversation, but.

I probably have two or three networking conversations a week, and that might just be an individual that I haven't talked with in a while. A, a lunch, a zoom, a phone call, and it's an incredibly important investment. It's an incredibly important investment and if you start that have, and really have that mindset in your twenties and over the course of your career.

It's [00:28:00] just, it's an investment that will pay off, over and over. And I see it as well. It might be a former student who has been laid off and all of a sudden they're rushing and they haven't built, and you can, I always think of it as making your net work like there's a net because you have an interwoven connecting system of relationships that if I fall, I can make my network and it's just.

I think there's gonna be a lot of disruption in the coming years, four or five years as some of these shifts occur, you've given a great idea of look, skate, where the puck is going. What are you doing to build those social emotional intelligence, the soft skills, what are you doing to build the hard skills?

And some of the be an expert in these technologies, but then along with that, I think comes. Having that web of relationships and putting yourself, you [00:29:00] might be the hub, you might have the some centrality because you're the convener, but investing that time and engaging in those communities, and that's why I have so much respect with what you do because you are a center of gravity for that community, and you are a convener.

And God boy, who wins the most there. You build so many relationships, have so many connections, and that is available to everyone. It just is to go and participate and be a part of that. 

John Bernatovicz: Gotta kiss a lot of frogs to find along the way. The people you connect quick and that's okay. You're gonna meet someone that you don't have that personal connection with.

And here's the reason why it became so important to me, Scott is. Having spoken to a number of people in that are working and then being blessed to occasionally go to a retirement party. The number one thing I heard people that were working complaint about was another employee, whether it was their direct manager, whether it was Joe and accounting who was super annoying, or if I sat with this person at lunch, [00:30:00] they were allowed chew chewer.

Oh my God, the bane of my existence. How am I going to do this? They complain about the people that they're working with. Then for those that retire every single person that I've asked, what do you miss the most about working? It's people. 

Scott Allen: Yeah. 

John Bernatovicz: And in my mind I thought to myself, wait a second, if I'm gonna fast forward the tape to me retiring, and I told I was 52 when I'm 62 years old, and if I'm anywhere near eligibility for all the free benefits I've earned over time, is that gonna be the case?

Why don't I be intentional about building those solid relationships now? So that when I know I'm gonna miss them, I'm gonna miss some really cool people. Yeah. And I'm gonna be intentional in my retirement about how I can support them. 

Scott Allen: Yep. Love it. Okay. Brett.

Brett Bevi, that sounds it just, that's who you go to prom with. That is like the prom king. Brett Bernardo. [00:31:00] That is the key player in an eighties. Kind of romcom type film starring Matthew McConaughey. Brett Long hair. 

John Bernatovicz: It's a 

Scott Allen: little 

John Bernatovicz: like I got a guitar. I can play some, some rocking heavy metal. So thank you for calling me Brett Scott.

Scott Allen: Okay, tale Landis Plane. As you reflect on the conversation we've had, what's the practical wisdom here for listeners? What do you wanna underline or bold? 

John Bernatovicz: I'll go back to the key part of find a way to become better at your job by using technology and be incredibly intentional about the soft skill development.

You have to be a better communicator or a better relationship builder, a better problem solver, or a better leader. This is my belief that every single person in the world is a leader, everyone, and. People are paying attention to what you're doing. You may not be in a traditional leadership role inside of your organization, but people are paying [00:32:00] attention to you and.

Let's just make the most of this opportunity we have with our life and be the best version of yourself you can possibly be. 

Scott Allen: And what I loved most about our conversation is that you said that at 52 and 53 we're in midlife. So that means we got a lot of time to collect some new friends, build some relationships, hang out, do good things, make a difference.

Sir, thank you so much. I really appreciate you. I appreciate your time today, and until next time.