Mark Scharenbroich: Ice Fishing & A Nice Bike – Get Out Of Your Comfort Zone And Make Connections

Mark Scharenbroich is a bestselling and award-winning, author and speaker who is inducted in the National Speakers Assn Hall of Fame. He’s an Emmy Award(r) winning writer/producer and the recipient of several international film awards.

As a young speaker, Mark appeared in a Josten\’s award-winning film, “The Greatest Days of your Life…(so far)” which featured Mark speaking and has been viewed by millions of people worldwide. The film was awarded the Golden Apple and the Silver Screen Award.

Mark’s brand and his mantra is “Nice Bike”, and it’s more than just a compliment, or a metaphor, but a powerful engine fueled by the three actions of acknowledging, honoring and connecting with others, which he turned into his critically acclaimed, award-winning, bestselling book: “Nice Bike – Making Meaningful Connections On The Road Of Life”, winning the Gold Axiom Business Book Award, and the Silver IBPA Ben Franklin Award.

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Mark Scharenbroich: Ice Fishing & A Nice Bike – Get Out Of Your Comfort Zone And Make Connections

Joining us is Mark Scharenbroich, an award-winning author and speaker who was inducted into the National Speakers Association Hall of Fame. He\’s an Emmy Award-winning writer and producer for an ABC television special and a recipient of several international film awards. As a young speaker, Mark appeared in a Josten\’s award-winning film, The Greatest Days of Your Life…(so far), which featured Mark speaking, and has been viewed by millions of people worldwide. The film was awarded the Golden Apple and the Silver Screen Award. Mark\’s brand and his mantra is Nice Bike, and it\’s more than just a compliment, or a metaphor, but an engine fueled by three actions of acknowledging, honoring and connecting with others. He turned it into his critically acclaimed and award-winning book, Nice Bike: Making Meaningful Connections on the Road of Life, winning the Gold Axiom Business Book Award, and the Silver IBPA Ben Franklin Award. Please join me now with the incomparable Mark Scharenbroich.

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Mark Scharenbroich, thank you for joining me. How are you doing, sir?

Chris, welcome to Minnesota, the land of 10,000 lakes, all of it frozen right now.

All 10,000 lakes are frozen. Let me guess, you\’re sitting on one of them right now.

I am. I\’m on a place called Crosslake ice fishing. It\’s a beautiful day. It\’s about 29 degrees. The sun\’s muted. It\’s a good day for fishing.

If you catch a fish during this during this interview, what\’s going to happen? You\’re going to have to take it out of the water.

I\’ll FedEx it to you.

What kind of fish are you going to catch?

[bctt tweet=\”If you see something, say something to acknowledge others.\” via=\”no\”]

On this Lake you see the walleyes Northerns or some panfish. Walleyes is we\’re hoping for, it\’s Minnesota’s fish. I\’ll let you know if I get a bite.

We could have a little segment of reeling the fish in and whatever you need to do.

You can think it as a workout. We can go to a sports show. That\’d be fine.

There are fishing programs that I have been compelled to watch for at least a few minutes sometimes.

There\’s a ton of them out there.

Nice Bike is something that you have stuck with. It’s a brand that I love the name of. It\’s cool to meet somebody, who as a speaker, has a real area of expertise that they themselves own and have been focused on for the last several years. You\’re one of those guys, but yours is your brand, which is your message. One thing I know about you that I love, a lot of speakers are filled with great content and takeaways. There\’s a lot of tangible things for people to take home with them use, but not a lot of speakers focused on getting people to smile and that\’s where you start. With you, it\’s all about the audience smiling and even the message of nice bike is all about evoking a smile in everyone you meet, be it in business or on the streets. Tell us a little bit about where Nice Bike, the phrase, the brand and the motto came from.

Going back to your first point, we want an audience to have a memorable experience. We want them to walk out of the session, and an hour, a week, a month, a year later, still remember. It\’s nice to have a good speaker. What\’d they talk about? What did you do differently? What was the impact? The nice thing about Nice Bike is it\’s got a hook. People remember Nice Bike years later. Here\’s how it happened. I\’m from Minneapolis, I flew to Milwaukee for a presentation. I drop in Neenah, Wisconsin known for making manhole covers. I\’m in a rental car, a beige Ford Taurus from Mavis driving North. I realize that I have dropped in and stumbled into the Harley-Davidson 100th year anniversary. There were 500,000 hardcore, bandana-wearing, leather, big chain on the wallet, attitude-filled bikers. I\’ve never been on a Harley.

I\’ve never thought of myself as a Harley guy, but driving around Milwaukee, surrounded by all those Harleys in my beige Ford Taurus, I wanted a Harley. I want to be part of that Harley tribe. I pulled over to a venue, because I’m curious. I\’m walking around looking at all this and there\’s this big, huge guy like right out a Game of Thrones with big, huge beard, attitude-filled. He looked tough. He was standing by his bike. I was walking by and says, “Nice bike.” There\’s this instant connection between the two. The guy starts talking about his father and how they built bikes together. It was so cool. It\’s not about the bike. It\’s about the connection. I kept hearing it as I walked around on nice bike and see these people connecting and talking and starting to make this relationship built. That\’s where it all started. I\’ve built on Nice Bike in it\’s all about the relationship side of business. How we connect with other people? How we acknowledge them, honor them, and most of all, connect with them.

Nice Bike: The biggest difference between high schools is simply the high school principal.

Taking that phrase with you and remembering nice bike is something we can all do. I\’ve done it. Whenever I rethink about you or you come back on my radar, I\’m like, “Nice bike.” It\’s so important to relate to everybody. This is a great way to remember it. Not everybody has a bike, but everybody has something nice.

Everybody has something you can acknowledge. You can honor it by creating a great moment for them and connect by making it personal. TSA tells us, “If you see something, say something.” Nice Bike, “If you see something, say something to acknowledge others.” Two of our greatest needs as human beings, once your basic needs are met, staying warm, food, water, clothing, all of Maslow\’s stuff. Number one, we need to belong to a family, a tribe, race of people, a great company and amazing team. We need to belong because we don\’t run the outside looking in. Number two, we all need to hear, “Nice bike. I see you. I hear you. I value who you are. I value your contributions and what you have to offer.” When people belong to something special and they\’re acknowledged, and honoring connected with, performance goes up.

This is a central theme that so many great speakers talk about in the fields of communication and negotiation and sales. It\’s all about empathy, acknowledging and hearing the other person. It\’s about connecting.

I was at a large meeting in New York City at The Marriott in Times Square, I\’m sure you\’ve been there. A lot of meetings there. It\’s Marriott Marquis. Bill Marriott was speaking, his hotel. There was a session for about 75 of us after his main keynote in a smaller room. I have met around many celebrities. Judge Judy once in the airport, but that was brief. I\’m following him, getting close, not a creepy way, but looking back a creepy way. I was curious about it because I\’ve seen this picture and all these hotels, the Marriott\’s I\’ve stopped. I\’m a fan of Marriott.

We\’re on the second or third floor and we pass this guy who was polishing the marble floor. Marriott pass him and he turns around, so I turned around, he said, “Excuse me. My name is Bill Marriott. Can I get your name?” The gentleman polishing the floor said, “Juan, sir.” “How long you\’ve been with us Juan?” “Seven years, sir.” “I\’m curious. First impressions mean a lot at Marriott. This marble floor looks great, but the corners, that\’s a round buffer you\’re using. Those corners are looking even better than the main floor. How do you do that?” Juan explained it. He takes a cloth out of his pocket and does those by hand first then the rest of the floor there. Bill Marriott says, “You\’re doing a great job for us, Juan. I appreciate you being a part of our family. Here\’s my business card.” He wrote his cell phone number on the card said, “Is there anything that I can do to help you? Give me call.”

It took about 60 seconds. Bill Marriott knows how you polish those corners. His father made him do it. He had to work his way up. He knows that Juan will never call him on that cell phone number, but that business card is going to end up on Juan’s refrigerator with little magnetic bananas for the rest of his life. That\’s Nice Bike. That\’s a 60 second leader of a company recognizing, acknowledging Juan\’s efforts, honoring his contributions and connecting with them on a personal level. That\’s a perfect example of Nice Bike.

In the world that we\’re living with now, this is such great timing to have you on because we need to all be nice to each other. We\’re all human beings. We\’re divided and defensive in a lot of ways. We\’re worried about a lot of different things personally and professionally because of the pandemic. There\’s a lot of uncertainty, animosity and friction. This is a strong message for 2021. I love that in so many directions, it can go internally with our own people that we work with or work for us, or we work for even. It works in all those directions, but it also works with our customers. I know that you have some incredible stories. One of my favorite stories that you tell is the one about the box. It\’s such a funny story. Tell me that story again because it\’s been a while since I\’ve heard it.

I spoke for a company called PCA, Packaging Corporation of America. I love their product because I understand it fully. It\’s a box. They prefer to call it a container, but it\’s a box. The cool thing about the company, as I\’m researching them for my presentation and when I\’m meeting with their people at the event, during the Great Recession in 2008 and 2009, they grew market share from 7% market share to 9% market share. What’s that revenue per year in the box world? It was $2.8 billion in sales, which is a lot of boxes. The cool part is their boxes cost more than their competitors’ boxes.

[bctt tweet=\”Honor others by creating great experiences that are memorable and that they can make personal.\” via=\”no\”]

When I tell that to an audience, oftentimes they sit and look at me and I go, “Perhaps I was more enamored with this fact than you are right now.” Keep in mind, it\’s a box. It doesn\’t sing, it doesn\’t dance, it doesn\’t save lives, it doesn\’t make you look thinner or sexier. “Can you see their national sales manager in a Marriott Hotel ballroom?” “People, here\’s this year\’s model, it’s A36, she\’s been a great seller for us, but the Canadians have raised the price of pulp again, so we had to bump up the prices on you but go out there and sell a whole bunch and win the trip to Reno.”

It\’s a box. Why is it more expensive than the competitors?

You can have a lot of people out there and they\’re in sales, “Our job is so competitive and so tough.” Try selling a commodity at a higher price than your competitor with the very same product and let\’s see how good you are. It boiled down to when I talked to the national sales manager, I\’m not the brightest guy in the world, but I do not ask the simple question of, “How\’d you do that?” He said, “Mark, if everybody was doing it, if there was a silver bullet, all of our competitors would be doing it with three core values. The golden rule. Treat people like you want to be treated, with respect. Over deliver, jump through hoops whatever you can to impress and surpass your promise.”

We\’re connected from sales to manufacturing, to the people that owned the trucks. It doesn\’t make a difference what the product is, what the services is, it\’s us working together as a team to grow and to build as individuals and as a company. One of the things that amazed me more than anything else, Chris, is one of the greatest opportunities for speakers is to be able to sit in all these ballrooms and listen to some of the greatest business leaders, some of the greatest association leaders in industries across the board.

I\’m looking to sit in their front row and listen to these CEOs in all these different industries talking about where they\’re going. The biggest difference to me, going back to what the box company had, was core values. When core values are stated, understood, and lived, those companies, hands down, outperform those who make it up along the way. I\’ve seen this time and time again of people. More than just an employee handbook, but in the minds and hearts of the entire team every day. Those are the companies that are amazing to work for and to do business with it. It all boils down to leadership. The first twenty years of my career, I was a high school assembly speaker. I\’m in Ag groups and church groups with 2,000 kids in a gym. If you want to learn how to be a speaker, grab the microphone for 60 minutes with 2,000 kids in a gym throughout the country, you’ll learn quickly how to grab attention and keep them with you.

What were you talking about?

Engagement. My presentation was called The Greatest Days of Your Life…(so far), which means that high school is not the best time for everybody. You heard that from your parents, “These are the greatest days.” For a lot of the people, they\’re not, but as long as you\’re here, be a part of it. Be involved and engaged in some level. This is a time when you grow. This is a time from freshman year to senior year you develop as a human being so take advantage. The biggest difference between high schools, simply the high school principal. It did make a difference to demographics, social economic and what part of the country. Show me a great leader and I\’ll show you an amazing school.

I\’ve been to schools, there was a so-so school, they bought a new leader and three years later, top performing school. The same in any industry and business. Give me a great leadership. It\’s incredible. One book I\’m going to recommend for you, if you haven\’t read it yet is Team of Rivals, about Abraham Lincoln, how his cabinet were people that ran against him and opposed him. They didn’t care very much about him and how we battled with them to get the best ideas possible. He made the final decision. If you want to read a great book about leadership, Team of Rivals is incredible as far as how Lincoln led through the most difficult time in our country with people that were attacking him constantly. He found ways to pull them together to move in one direction. There are a million lessons. It’s by Doris Kearns Goodwin. It’s a great book. That\’s a perfect example of what Nice Bike leadership is.

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

I have to check that book out. That sounds amazing. You have a book which is called Nice Bike.

It is Nice Bike: Making Meaningful Connections on the Road of Life. It\’s a fun read, all story-driven just as my presentations are, and it\’s all stories and anecdotes about how we connect with others. If you break it down to the three points, acknowledge means to be fully present with others. How many times have you met somebody and 60 seconds later, you have no idea what their first name is? To acknowledge and be fully present in that moment. To honor others by creating great experiences for them that are memorable and then they connect it by making it personal. That\’s what the book breaks down, how to acknowledge honor and connect with others.

It\’s a great book and I highly recommended it. I know that a lot of the people who booked you love to give it as gifts to the audiences. You also sell quite a few when you speak. I\’m starting to think here a little bit about you. You\’re a guy who is charismatic, engaging and you\’re confident. In a lot of ways, you have this policy of Nice Bike, but it wasn\’t you who said nice bike, when you first heard that, and then you made it your own brand. You heard another guy say it to another guy, but you live that, and you teach that and preach that for a lot of people to use that way to say hello to each other and acknowledge each other. I feel like a lot of people are shy and scared to make the first hello or acknowledge somebody else because that\’s not their way of doing things. What do you say to those who are afraid to get out of their comfort zone? You\’re sitting out there on a frozen Lake. You\’re not in a comfortable position right now, but you seem to thrive in that kind of environment.

You’re from California, did you grow up there?

I was born in Dallas, but we moved out here when I was about 6.5.

In Minnesota, in the middle of here up North, people from the East Coast, New York, that area are hip and know things. People from California are hip and know things. Minnesota, we’re cold. I always thought you had to be interesting to other people. You had to have a great story. You had to climb Mount Everest. You had to accomplish one of the things in this world. All am I is an observer. Nice Bike is not me. I observe and tell stories.

I observe and simplify to make actions that people can take that\’ll change their lives and the lives of those around them in a positive way. One of the greatest quotes I\’ve ever heard that altered my life and that\’s not an overstatement. It was from Texas. There\’s an airport named after her. The first black woman from the great State of Texas elected to Congress. Barbara Jordan was on 60 Minutes years ago. She simply stated, “It\’s more important to be interested than interesting.” When you asked me the question of, “What do introverts do? What are people that are shy? What are people that aren\’t outgoing out there?”

Ask questions, be curious. You don\’t have to have the story. Everybody else has a story. Find out what their story is. I don\’t care if I\’m on an airplane on a cocktail party or a reception, when I meet people, I\’m curious. I don\’t have a story to tell. I want to find out what their story is. I can ask ten people questions, and 9 of the 10 will answer every question we have and it\’ll be a good conversation. One of the ten like you will say, “Tell me about you. What\’s your story?” One of the ten will come back with that. That\’s what amazes me. I met PFJ, Pilot Flying J, the travel centers and truck stops. Have you ever driven by one? They\’re all over the country.

[bctt tweet=\”It\’s more important to be interested than to be interesting.\” via=\”no\”]

I know them well. Flying J was another one.

They\’ve combined, Pilot Flying J, $20 billion in revenue a year. They are the largest seller of diesel fuel. Their customers are professional drivers. James Haslam II, well into his 80s, he started the company back in 1958. He came over in Korea where he fought in the war. He bought a gas station for $6,000, and now he\’s worth North of $3 billion himself. I was speaking to his meeting. He\’s in the front row. He\’s worth $3 billion, he\’s in his 80s, he\’s at the front row of the meeting. Talk about great leadership. I met him. The first thing out of his mouth was, because he\’s got that great Tennessee, “Mr. Mark, tell me something about yourself. Who are you?” I got to ask him questions back and I said, “Mr. Haslam, how did you do this? How\’d you build this amazing business?”

It gets back to Nice Bike as far as being interested in others. He said, “I\’ll tell you what, our business is based upon professional drivers. I asked them what would it take to bring it back? They said, nice, hot clean showers. We\’ve built nice, clean, hot showers. They came back. It isn’t rocket science son.” Ask your customers what they want and take an interest and follow through and they\’ll come back. The answer to your first question, how do you connect with others? Be curious, take an interest, find out what their story is and go deep on the questions.

When you were driving in your Ford beige Taurus Rent-A-Car, had you just landed, and you were taking your car?

I was going into an engagement.

Nice Bike wasn\’t yet your brand or something that you were thinking about.

No, I was speaking to a group of teachers, educators in Indiana, Wisconsin. K-12 about 1,000 educators kicking off their year. School started the next day. In my presentations, it\’s not cookie cutter. I want it to be an authentic conversation with the audience. I don\’t want it to be, “This is speech number 37.” I never want that. I want every speech like it’s my last one. I know that sounds like a cliche, but I remember my last speech before COVID hit, and I can\’t wait to get back. I\’m speaking to these educators and I talked to them about all the Harleys and everything else, and I did a Nice Bike rift on it.

I said, “Tomorrow when school starts, if you stand by your door and a student walks in,” instead of saying, “Good morning,” if you go, “Chris, it\’s so good to have you in my class this year. It\’s great to see you.” That\’s Nice Bike. They nodded. When an audience altogether nods, you\’ve got something. A simple ad lib turned into a short story, turned into a strong story, turned into a premise, turned into a brand. It turned into a great message of how we make meaningful connections with others.

Nice Bike: Making Meaningful Connections on the Road of Life

It is a great message. Do you think to yourself like I\’m thinking to myself that this might be the most important message that people need to hear going forward in this post pandemic world, this new administration coming in? Hopefully more unity will eventually come in the next few years. Where do you see your message, you and your positioning with what our nation and what humans need to hear? Are you thinking a lot about that right now?

Short answer is yes. COVID has taught us a lot. Hopefully, we\’ve learned and we\’ll all come out of this with greater insights and perspectives. One of them is we need to be connected as human beings. It\’s one thing to sit at home and watch an NFL game. It\’s one thing to watch it in a bar with a bunch of people on a big screen, but to be at the stadium, that\’s memorable. When we\’re together with a large audience, I can\’t wait for us all to get back together in a ballroom and laugh together and have emotions together and learn together. As people are walking out, “What\’d you think?” That interaction in the hallways like, “I like that part about it.” “I never thought about that.”

We need to be connected together to learn and to experience and to grow. Secondly, that\’s why I go back to Team of Rivals with Lincoln, after the Civil War, they wanted to hang Jefferson Davis. They wanted retribution, revenge. Lincoln said, “No. Is it malice towards none and charity for all?” I can\’t remember who said it, but we\’re not enemies. We have a different viewpoint. We’re one country. We\’ve got to, A, find common ground and B, more respectful to each other and be able to listen, “Where are you coming from?” Let me try to understand where you\’re coming from. Not debate you, let me find out where you\’re coming from so, we can get closer together on this issue. We\’ve got to drop this enemy and combative approach. It gets us nowhere.

The cool thing about people who are working with cool companies where the leaders are strong, it doesn\’t matter who their people are. The more diverse the company, the employees, the viewpoints and the backgrounds are, the better the company is going to be because the company is going to be able to make products and connect with their customers, because customers are not all the same. Customers are all different types and from all different places. Hopefully, the leadership that we have in our country and in our companies is one where we are forced. No matter where you\’re coming from on any issue, we\’re all forced to look at each other and say, “We\’re all humans. We\’re all getting through a pandemic. It\’s been a stressful time.” The pandemic made the political divisions and other things that have happened in 2020 more combative and more stressful because there was this pandemic also underneath everything.

Emotions were high. People were locked in their homes and forced to wear masks and not able to make money and closed down. Many things happen to so many people that anything that was going to be an issue was going to be combative and passionate. People were going to be angry because they already were angry about everything that was already happening. It\’s been a year where we come out of it hopefully, and we can all take a breath and we can say, “We\’re all human beings.” Nice Bike, I love your message. That\’s why I wanted this to be a January episode. It worked out great for you to be out there. You didn\’t catch anything though yet. I don\’t know.

No bites yet. It\’s a matter of time. You got to be patient.

I was hoping could say, “Nice fish.” The other thing I was thinking about is nice Peloton, because a lot of people probably have Pelotons now in their homes. My wife does and many people got it. They love it. Getting back out on the road and getting back out together is going to be so blissful and so wonderful. Hopefully, we can all look at each other in the eyes again and say, “We\’re all humans. We got through this thing and we\’re going to get through anything.”

Core values makes such a difference for companies, for schools and associations. We\’ve got to go back to the core values of this country. We the people, the United States of America, to work towards a common cause. We\’ve been through a difficult time with COVID, but I look at the days of the Civil War, I look at World War II, I look at what the greatest generation went through, the sacrifices that they made. My father, who was in the Pacific on a torpedo bomber plane, 97 times, they landed on the top of the Lexington in combat and training missions. I used to, as a kid, our Saturday morning after we buy groceries was to go to the VFW, the Veterans of Foreign Wars. It\’s where the World War II guys hung out on Saturdays.

[bctt tweet=\”You don\’t have to have the story. Everybody else has a story. Find out what their story is.\” via=\”no\”]

I remember sitting there with Ron Gruber and Bud Strait, Lenny Keller, Leo Setzer drinking an orange crush on a red barstool, listening to these guys as they chatted. They talked about the weather, the Vikings, the twins, their kids, but they never talked about the war. I never knew that these were American heroes. I never knew that these are the guys that landed on D-Day, my father that fought the Pacific, the guys that survived their brutal Bataan Death March. They gave all and never complained. They did their duty. They served their country honorably. For why? For freedom for others. It wasn\’t for conquest. It was to help others. That\’s what kind of country we are. To pull together and help others to grow as a country, as individuals and as states. Go back to the core values of why this country was founded and support them.

It was built on immigrants. It was built on all being included and inclusive and trying to divide us up as silly because it\’s never going to happen. We\’re all human beings. It\’s so important to remember that. I remember there\’s a cool story that you also tell about your dad the first time you saw some emotion. That was a solid group of warriors, those World War II veterans and didn\’t show a lot of emotion, a lot of them. Your dad was one of those, but there was one day he did show a lot of emotion. It was when you happen to be at a Vietnam Memorial.

My dad only heard me speak once. I had a presentation in Washington, DC. I shared a platform with the first lady, she spoke the day before me. It was the same platform.

Who was the first lady?

This is during the days of Ronald Reagan, so Mrs. Reagan. It was a drug-free conference. It was a large conference. I spoke at that my dad heard me. That night I flew my dad out there. I said, “Mom, come with us. Take your father. Do me a favor.” We were at the Lincoln Memorial standing where Martin Luther King stood, looking out and we went that direction, we stumbled upon the Vietnam Memorial. My age, I was in the draft, my number was 256. Eyes on TV and drew birth dates and numbers. If you had a low number, you\’re going home. If you had a high number you were home, which meant the guys served in our place and will forever remember and honor them. The rest of us were home.

My dad and I are walking the wall and there were two Vietnam veterans standing quietly by themselves. They had the army jackets on. My dad came up to them. He’s a tough guy and not emotional. He said, “Excuse me, fellows. Where were you over there at Vietnam?” The guys said, “Yes, we were.” “Thank you, fellows. Welcome home.” That guy looked at my dad and he said, “Sir, you\’re the first person who has ever said, thank you to me for serving the country I love.” They gave my dad a big bear hug. My dad was not a real hugger, but he hugged back. There was this connection. It was Nice Bike, Chris. My dad acknowledged them. He honored them by saying, “Thank you.” He connected with them by making it personal. Those are life-changing moments. It doesn\’t take a lot to change a person\’s life, but to acknowledge them, honor them and connect with them, that\’s what Nice Bike is.

There\’s a lot of opportunity for all of us all around the world to say nice bike and thank you to each other, the frontline workers, the medical workers, even the leaders that kept our companies afloat and for the leaders to say to their workers and the people that worked for their companies, “Thank you for working from home.” Thank you for focusing on the job and getting your tasks done. There are so many opportunities for us to say, “Thank you and nice bike.”

I know because our son and daughter live in Brooklyn, right across from a trauma center. At 7:00 every night they\’re out on their fire escape with pans banging. What did that do for these people? That kept them going. If you see something, say something. Let\’s go out there and support each other. We might have different viewpoints. We might be different from each other, how we grew up or where we came from, but for our one country when we worked together, we\’re amazing.

Nice Bike: Never let yourself fall into the trap of the enemy approach, as it will get you nowhere.

A vast majority of us Americans and human beings are of that mindset. It\’s a small percentage of people who don\’t think that way, unfortunately. We\’ve got to stomp them out. Your message is so prevalent and important and relevant now more than ever. I\’m excited we got to spend this time together. You agreed to do this. Thank you for doing this.

It’s my pleasure. This is the fastest interview I\’ve ever had. Thanks, Chris. You\’re great to have a talk with.

It’s my pleasure. This was a wonderful conversation. Thank you so much. Mark, nice bike, my friend.

Nice bike, Chris. Thanks.

Take care, sir.

Thanks.

Important Links

• Nice Bike
• Nice Bike: Making Meaningful Connections on the Road of Life
• Team of Rivals

About Mark Scharenbroich

Mark is known as a top performer in the speaking industry for his authentic delivery, his talent for delivering unique stories and his comedic timing. His audiences remember his “Nice Bike” presentation for years after it is delivered.

Mark’s core messages have always been about connecting. Sometimes it was in schools to help teachers connect to their students, or in organizations and businesses to help team members feel truly connected to their core values and their customers.

Mark’s biggest “Aha!” moment came while traveling through Milwaukee, Wisconsin to a speaking engagement. It was there that he stumbled upon the Harley-Davidson 100th-year anniversary celebration. He kept overhearing people as they passed bikers share two simple words, “Nice Bike”.A connection was made. It gave Mark an unforgettable metaphor that inspired him to write his award-winning book, Nice Bike: Making Meaningful Connections on the Road of Life.

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