# The 'Ta-Da!' philosophy - **Episode:** [225](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/225.md) (2025-08-21) - **Type:** interview - **Tags:** ta-da, philosophy, positivity - **Time:** 28:56–32:43 (start 1736s) - **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/225?t=1736](https://truthliesandwork.com/225?t=1736) --- [28:56] Al Elliott: Let's talk, let's talk about ta-da. It seems that every, every video I've watched of you, you at some point use this phrase. So what does it mean? [29:06] Joel Zeff: Do you say ta-da in the UK? [29:08] Al Elliott: Yeah. I mean, it's, it's generally, it feels like a, like a magician, but more of an old school or old school magician going ta-da [29:19] Joel Zeff: Yeah [29:19] Al Elliott: Right [29:20] Joel Zeff: Yeah. So ta-da is a flourish, right? And, and, um, you know, you kind of see it every once in a while in commercials or, or, um, shows, I, you know, and, and someone inevitably always sends me a clip, uh, or a photo of somebody saying it. There's a product. Um, there's some products that say ta-da. People spell it different ways. When my kids were younger, Everything was a ta-da, right? My kid, you know, they eat a cheese sandwich and we're like, ta-da! [29:52] Al Elliott: You did it! [29:53] Joel Zeff: You ate the whole sandwich! You know, they stand up when they were learning to walk and you're like, ta-da! You did it! You stood up! Right? Everything's a ta-da when you're little. Your parents are ta-da-ing you multiple times a day. And the, the child builds confidence. You see it in their eyes, their body language. They get a big smile when you go, ta-da, you did it, right? You're, you're giving them appreciation. You're giving them positive support. It fuels whatever they're doing. They're going to do more of. And so we have these moments, even though we get older, we still have ta-da moments. We just don't celebrate them. We just think it's our regular day-to-day activity, whatever we're doing, we're marketing, we're accounting, we're doing HR, we're doing IT. Well, this is what I was hired to do. I don't need to celebrate this. And you should, because that fuels our passion, fuels our creativity. It fuels our ability to be great communicators and great teammates and great leaders. And so my philosophy is that we have to celebrate these moments. Being on this podcast, Huge ta-da moment, right? Uh, everything, we have these moments and we have to celebrate. You know, when I send emails, I end every email with a ta-da. If you go back and look at any email that I sent you, I bet it ends in a ta-da. It might even started with a ta-da, right? We're celebrating. And I think it's a philosophy. And in my keynotes, the first thing I do is have the whole audience stand up [31:31] Leanne Elliott: Yeah [31:32] Joel Zeff: And on the count of 3, we just all big ta-da, and people love it. And, and then people will come up to me randomly throughout. If they see me in the hall, they'll ta-da. In the bathroom, that's the only time I don't want a ta-da. I don't want a ta-da in the bathroom. I think we forget to celebrate. We forget to celebrate these moments. We forget to celebrate, uh, you know, that we're here, that we're working together, that we're hopefully doing something that brings us joy, that helps other people, that creates something that we believe in and that we're passionate about. And so we have to celebrate these moments because it fuels us. And ta-da is the way I explain that concept. Ta-da! [32:22] Al Elliott: Not everyone is quite as extroverted or as fun-loving on the outside as you and perhaps me. So If you are in a situation where you have encouraged the majority of people to have fun, but there's still some people who are perhaps a little shy, perhaps a little introverted, perhaps feel uncomfortable about it, should we be actually going out there and trying to pull them into the fun, or is that going to make things more complicated?